Editor's Note:
This letter was received in reference to Jeremy Smith's recent article on the Attraction of Global Warming. Jeremy's reply is also available
Dear Dr. Thomas,
I write to express my disappointment with Jeremy Smith's recent Reformation 21 column on the widespread acceptance of scientific evidence for global warming. His critique of the blogosphere's generative capacity for authority is interesting and provocative, but hypocritical. And his flawed argument on climate change (I will not give a full accounting of its deficiencies) exposes our usual desire to hide a substantive disagreement behind a technical/formal objection.
While Mr. Smith's column is clearly a cultural critique and a meaningful one—the proliferation of "authorities" and the changing nature of "authority" are important and timely matters—it must also be read as a critique of concern for climate change. Lest we talk past each other by focusing exclusively on different aspects of what is clearly a double-barreled argument, I will list some reasons that the column must be read as an argument on climate change:
1) The title;
2) The facetious introduction linking global warming to apparently unfounded concerns regarding oil depletion;
3) The careless reference to scientific meetings in European resort towns (Nairobi--hardly European and hardly a resort--was the site of the last Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change);
3) The attribution of widespread concern primarily to the "Afternoon Googler Effect," rather than to credibility; indeed, Mr. Smith notes that uncredentialed virtual authorities are the most important reason that global warming is taken seriously; can this be understood not to imply that scientific credibility, the growing scope, scale, and reliability of evidence, and the preponderance of concerned scientific authorities are relatively unimportant to widespread concern?
4) The implication that widespread concern for global warming runs contrary to validity;
5) The promise to return next month to the topic of global warming with a few more reasons why the issue is so widely concerning; note that this is not a promise to return to the topic of the "Afternoon Googler;" this is a promise to return to the matter introduced at the beginning of the article and poorly argued throughout.
The last (#5, above) is the clearest expression of the argument's concern for climate change, as much as for the critique of "Afternoon Googlers." Please note, as well, that Mr. Smith nowhere tempers his language with a comment on the possible credibility of climate science and that the only mention of climate science or climate scientists that is not accompanied by a suspicious tone is that of the “less recognized minority opinion among scientists that takes issue with the assumption that the earth is heating up, or that the increased temperature is attributable to human activity.”
I should say that others have also independently read the column in this way. I was recently contacted by a PCA pastor—a widely respected, extremely intelligent, well read man who is in almost every respect sympathetic to the publication—who also read the article as suspicious of environmental concern and as an attempt to debunk concern for climate change. He was embarrassed by the "tenor and content" of the column. Where the column is concerned with climate change, it is problematic in both substance and form.
Mr. Smith's critique is an ad hominem abusive that demonstrates neither sincerity nor clarity. It attributes the widespread acceptance of scientific evidence (while badly misconstruing the nature and extent of that evidence) for climate change to the relatively simple level of discourse (according to Mr. Smith, even Katie Couric and Matt Lauer could understand it) and the proliferation of virtual authorities, or “Afternoon Googlers.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Smith's argument is completely inconsistent and utterly hypocritical. On the matter of climate change, what separates Mr. Smith from the "Afternoon Googlers" he criticizes? Little, if anything. Unless he is credentialed with a terminal degree in atmospheric physics, oceanography, another climate-related science, politics, economics, or public policy, his argument can be turned back upon itself. Yet Mr. Smith intends to continue this argument next month with a column on a few more reasons why climate change has achieved its current level of visibility. I presume that those will not include the weight of scientific evidence, the steady increase in reliability of evidence, or the preponderance of natural and social scientific authorities who hold that climate change is an important issue.
This is a rather disillusioning and embarrassing problem for someone who is so often in tune with the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. In fact, some reservations about the witness of the Alliance are brought into focus by my objections to Mr. Smith’s column. It evoked a style too common, in my opinion, to some Alliance publications. An overly polemical style dependent, at least in part, upon insults deserved or undeserved, is not a winsome one. Mr. Smith’s approach, which, I fear, is characteristic of Reformation 21, demonstrates little regard for alienating brothers and sisters in Christ. In this one column, Mr. Smith has characterized concern for climate change as the domain of a liberal (and unintelligent) media and an incompetent blogosphere and has associated global warming with the very controversial issue of evolution. In little more than 2,000 words, he may have alienated scores of believers who find the prospect of anthropogenic climate change credible and concerning; and, yes, many of these are well-credentialed to judge credibility.
Mr. Smith’s unfortunate misconstrual of the discourse on climate change reminds me of a recent article in Books & Culture, in which Christian Smith questioned Evangelical use of statistics and concluded that we are, on the whole, either an incompetent lot or a disingenuous one. Unfortunately, it seems I must conclude the same regarding our use of rhetoric. We are either incompetent or, having absorbed the communication techniques of contemporary politicians, we are disingenuous. Both are shameful testimonies (though, admittedly, disingenuousness is more shameful than incompetence).
In conclusion, I fear we risk heaping shame upon shame, spoiling our testimony through incompetence or insincerity and alienating brothers and sisters in Christ in the course. How pitiful it would be if our wrongheaded suspicion of environmental concern and an “ends justify the means” approach to communication dishonored Christ and resulted in disgraceful church relations. Rhetoric that risks such consequences is unworthy of your publication.
Sincerely,
Noah J. Toly
Director of Urban Studies
Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations
Wheaton College
Wheaton, IL 60187
630-752-5730
noah.j.toly@wheaton.edu
