3 The Views of the Climate Deniers from within the Scientific
Community
Somewhat surprisingly, some prominent individuals from within the
scientific community who have been labeled as climate deniers have
actually conceded that increases in CO2 concentrations have consequences
for surface warming. For example, the CO2 Coalition
(2015), a sharp critic of the scientific consensus, whose members
include the well-known influencers Richard Lindzen, Patrick Michaels,
Roy Spence, and William Happer, has explicitly acknowledged the
greenhouse effect. It notes that predicting greenhouse-induced warming
is difficult because atmospheric processes are very complicated. It then
pivots back and reports that it believes that the data suggests that the
warming associated with a doubling of CO2 levels will be
very modest. In its words,
“Basic physics implies that more atmospheric CO2 will
increase greenhouse
warming. However, atmospheric processes are so complicated that the
amount of
warming cannot be reliably predicted from first principles. Recent
observations of
the atmosphere and oceans, together with geological history, point to
very modest
warming, about 1 C (1.8 F) if atmospheric CO2 levels are
doubled.”
CO2 Coalition, 2015
The CO2 Coalition’s assertion that the warming
associated with a doubling of CO2 will be modest appears
to be largely premised on a belief that the recent warming is about the
same as before the 1940s (Lindzen, 2020, pp. 12-13). As will be seen,
this belief is not supported by the data in northern Alaska.