HOORAY FOR GLOBAL WARMING?

Physics Forum, 2003
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=54723

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR GLOBAL WARMING SCEPTICS, AN ARMCHAIR ANALYSIS

After writing this essay I decided to stop fighting the global warmings.

by Andre

Apparently, one of the instincts for survival of a social species like Homo sapiens is social group building. Consequently the function of that group is survival against any threat, ultimately improving the quality of life. It appears that cause and effect are interchangeable. If there is a threat, the group bonds will strengthen to counter it. If there is no threat, the group tends to loose coherence and this is undesirable, as it opposes to the social instinct. But this problem can be countered by finding a new threat or create one if required.

Most often, threats emerge from the same species. This mechanism can be observed in primary schools already. Pestering individual children is more often the work of a group, the main culprits usually being those who desire the leadership of the gang, eager to show that they are well prepared for that job. The victim is the threat, the enemy that justifies the forming and reinforcing of the group. At adulthood the principle doesn’t change, only the scale. The threats are now the Huns, the Barbarians, the Capitalists, the Commies, the Heathens, the other religion, etc. Threats can also be non-human: hurricanes, meteorite impact, flooding, etc, or even abstract: dragons, devils, global warming, etc. It may even be possible to capture this effect in a numerical expression (soon to be known as Andre’s law of conservation of concern) 

Tr=Th + Tn + Ta=ln(N)/Cc

Tr= total threat required
Th =total human threat
Tn = total natural threat
Ta = total abstract threat
N = number of individuals in the group Cc = civilization coefficient

Studying past and present civilisations can be used to test this hypothesis. Assuming that Tn, Cc and N are constant, then the sum of Th and Ta should be constant as well. In other words, the safest, most unchallenged communities from human threats should have the most dangerous devils and dragons.

Now, as the relatively safe modem western civilization suffered a severe loss of human threat (Th) with the demise of Communism, it sought compensation in increasing abstract threat (Ta). For identifying that new emerging Ta-threat we only need to synchronize possible candidates with the weakening of the Th-threat. As the credibility of a possible devil and dragons threat has declined considerably, obviously Global Warming remains as possible candidate to take over the threat role of communism in the early 1990ies. And we see that the timing is exactly right. And with every former communist country joining western organizations, the threat of global warming increases proportionally. Before that period, it did lead a meager existence, fighting the new ice age that was coming. Now, the impact of global warming on society equals the burden of the previous communist threat.

As observed on the schoolyards, those who have the highest desire for the acceptance, approval, love, and ultimately the leadership of the group, show this by brave, heroic behavior against the threat. If the threat is human, the ultimate consequences of seeking dominance of the group this way, can be disastrous, and initial enemy image building, “Capitalists”, “Commies”, etc, accumulates into revolutions, wars and massacres. How about non-human threats and abstract threats? How about the global warming?

Obviously, those who seek a higher social status can do so by showing the determination to fight any threat of the group and become heroes. But it doesn’t work if the society is either not aware or not convinced of that particular threat. So the “enemy image” must be build first and an insistent information campaign is required with a deluge of alleged evidence of Global warming. This is easy since there are many shrewd prospective heroes, well capable of making a case. One cannot help comparing this tendency with similar information campaigns against threats in the past (a.k.a. propaganda), the human enemy image building, which ultimately ended in tragedies. But this actually explains also, how social group mechanisms ultimately lead to such tragedies. Well, in the case of global warming, an imaginary abstract threat (Ta) cannot suffer; only their fierce, heroic fighters and their followers could, albeit a lot less compared to the tragedies resulting from creating a human threat image (Th).

So what is the lesson of this little observation exercise from an armchair for the skeptics of global warming? Being right and being wise is not the same. Perhaps its better to leave the Global Warming alarmists alone and not to expose the non-existence of the threat. The ultimate outcome of falsifying Global Warming could be opposite the desired result.

First of all, as already experienced, deniers of threats must be traitors per definition, who will be banished from the group, marked with tar and feathers. Secondly, social groups required threats as a constant factor. It’s a human requirement; we do not like to lose our dearly beloved enemies. An abstract threat image like global warming is a lot less dangerous than creating or intensifying another human enemy image. So when the alleged global warming threat is taken away, the focus may shift again to assumed human threats, consequently risking the development of more conflict tragedies. The global warming dragon devil may even replace the enemy image that other civilizations have about the west and thus helping to prevent future human tragedies. This outweighs the importance of the truth. Global warmers are to be commended for their selection of a harmless enemy. Hurray for global warming