“I am not a scientist.”

Rock and Snow Chaos. Longs Peak, Colorado, 2015

“I am not a scientist.” This seems to be a refrain I am hearing a lot lately, from the top politicians to Citizens Joe and Jane.

You know what? I am not a scientist either. So, that is why I go with the world-wide scientific consensus: global warming is happening and it is being fueled (sic)  to some important degree by human, deceased plant and dead dinosaur-burning, activities.

There is no real serious debate in the scientific community about this. There is, of course, continued discussion about sub-issues…to what degree (sic) things will change, what specific weather patterns may emerge, at what rate the changes will take place, how ocean acidification is affected, what regions might be affected positively or negatively, relation with the extinction of species, etc.

I met a guy on the trail the other day who talked of the Earth’s natural cycles, sunspot cycles, etc. He wasn’t a scientist either, but he had his opinion.

My question is this: If we can now completely ignore scientific consensus about the way the world works…If we can simply choose what to believe or not to believe based on our personal feeling or ideology…If we start with an opinion, then search out evidence to “prove” our opinion (confirmation bias)…where does that put us? Well, it puts us in an anti-intellectual sorry state in which anything goes and anything can be promoted as believable. (Chemtrails, anyone?)

Remember that it was scientific consensus about the way things work that landed humans on the Moon and a satellite on an asteroid (Newtonian physics works well enough)…that designed disease-eliminating vaccines and antibiotics (evolutionary theory)…new bug and drought-resistant crops and different, hardier, breeds of farm animals (evolutionary theory, again)…

[NOTE: “Theory” in science is NOT the same as “theory” in layperson’s language. A very important point lost on many.]

No, science isn’t perfect. It certainly does get things wrong from time to time. But, the scientific process of testing and re-testing, and of data-driven, cold-hearted debate within the pages of peer-reviewed scientific journals tends to sort out truth from fiction over the long haul. Scientists just love to poke giant blowholes in the studies done by rival scientists! This is how science advances.

In the case of global warming, the evidence seems to be piling up ever higher and it is getting pretty hard to ignore. In fact, there is increasing evidence that the deniers have (ironically) caused scientists to soften some of their predictions. The changes that are already occurring and will occur over the next 50 years, some say, will likely be worse than currently predicted.

Rather than get into a debate with the guy on the trail, I said something like, “Well, if we want to know the truth about global warming, maybe we should all look at what the big insurance companies are thinking, and what plans the Pentagon might be making. They are certainly not ‘bastions of tree-hugging liberalism’ and, from what I understand, they are apparently on board with the scientific consensus.”

Actually, I didn’t quite get that whole phrase out, but I did suggest he check with the insurance companies to see which way they were gambling. After all, the money, in our current system, doesn’t lie.

[For the Pentagon and insurance company connections, see a previous blog post, “Climate Change and the Liberal Freaks Who Believe In It“.]