Or: “A Snowball’s Chance”
Several years ago, Republican U.S. Senator James Inhofe brought a snowball into the Senate as “proof” that climate change was a hoax. This exemplified a common misunderstanding about global warming: that the entire biosphere would heat up uniformly like a cup of tea, when in reality, the global weather system is much more complex. (And even that cup of tea probably contains subtle layers and currents.)
This error of overly simplistic framing of large scale phenomena is a common thread in other cases of bad scientific thinking: such as the Truther conviction that only controlled demolition could explain how the World Trade Center towers collapsed the way they did on 9/11 (mixing up how small structures collapse vs. enormous ones), or the kindergartener understanding, based on the limited sample size of their families and classrooms, of the fixity of binary genders.
Reality at scale is always more complex.
The truth about climate change is that the Earth is retaining more and more heat, which has the effect not only of increasing temperatures overall (though even that isn’t theoretically guaranteed, as there’s a difference between heat and temperature), but of pumping more energy (heat is energy) into existing weather systems, so that we’re likely to see more extreme weather conditions and more destructive hurricanes. This is why we now say “climate change” rather than “global warming.” Temperature rise is just part of the total effect.
And we are in fact seeing an increase in the total average temperature across the globe, as well as increasingly destructive weather events. So it makes no sense to point to any particular local cooling and claim that’s evidence against the overall increase of heat retained by the biosphere.
However, don’t we progressives often point to local weather phenomena (like those very hurricanes, or record high temperatures in various regions) as evidence that climate change is true? Aren’t we making the very same mistake?
Strictly speaking: Yes! But as with many “both sides do it” situations between Democrats and Republicans, our errors are far less egregious.
Imagine we’re watching a basketball game, and Stephen Curry hits six three-point shots in a row. “Wow!” we exclaim. “He is the greatest shooter of all time.” But the fact is that no small sample of shot attempts can prove the worth of a shooter. It’s what they do with all their shot attempts that shows how good or bad they really are. Any bad shooter can have streaks of successful shots; any great shooter can have streaks of unsuccessful ones. Curry once went 0-11 on three-point attempts in a game.
So if we’re citing those six consecutive makes as proof that Curry is a great shooter, we are indeed in the wrong. But I don’t really think that’s what we’re doing. What we’re really saying is, “Steph is a great shooter, and this is yet another case of him doing what great shooters can do.” In other words, we’re not citing his streak of made baskets as proof of a truth, but celebrating it as an example of that truth. Or perhaps as legitimate evidence of that truth along with every other shot he ever took. We’re just noting that new bit of evidence being added to all the rest.
So I think, on the whole, these kinds of statements are acceptable, when made with that awareness.
But what about the reverse? What if someone, for whatever reason (maybe because they profit from a trillion dollar industry that Curry somehow puts at risk by his mere existence?) decided to prove that he was a terrible shooter, and did so by showing us a video of him missing an easy layup or series of shots? Or by cherry-picking outlier statistical anomalies in which he fares less well than certain bad shooters when looked at through a narrow and isolated numerical lens? What would we think of their efforts? Would we even believe they were being sincere in their arguments?
Both sides use the language of proof inaccurately when citing local weather conditions in relation to climate change. One side is using language naturally, in understandably loose ways, and in support of a finding that has overwhelming scientific consensus. The other side is trying to convince us that Stephen Curry is a terrible shooter.
