Dr. Pinillos article highlights the main problem plaguing our public discourse on climate change, but not in the way he suggests.
Simply put, the public discourse on climate change needs to move beyond the "consensus building" phase and into the "actually doing something about it" phase. At this point there is little to be gained by convincing the unconvinced. Almost 80% of the American public already believes that climate change is occurring, that it is at least partially caused by human activities, and that mankind must take immediate action to address the issue. What is the utility in convincing the remaining 20%, and why would a new approach prove successful when decades of prior attempts have proven unsuccessful? (For example, every single IPCC report has used probability-based language when evaluating climate change : “climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely caused by human activities.”)
The fact of the matter is that we are NEVER going to have a 100% consensus on any issue. So long as we continue to frame the primary goal as convincing non-believers, we are destined to take no action on the issue.
We, as a society, need to stop debating the merits of climate change and move towards discussion of practical, immediate policy actions we can take to address the issue. We need to cut the skeptics loose and stop letting this small minority dictate the public discourse on the most pressing issue of our time.
99
@JRT, the problem is that the 20% includes the federal administration, half the states' governments, and right-wingers throughout the corporate, think-tank, and lobbyist ranks. It's the same power imbalance that gives a Wyoming voter several times the power of a California (or Texas, for that matter) voter, magnified by great sums of money from a few old, crackpot billionaires.
33
I had a discussion with a climate change denier. He went on and on about how they changed the name of global warming to climate change so the liberal professors could make more money and that the climate has always been changing.
When I said something about the fact that we are now over 400 pmm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere he asked what does that mean? When I tried to explain he started ranting about Al Gore.
Most of these people have no clue what they are talking about. All they know is that liberals like Al Gore believe in it so therefore it's all a big fat lie.
That's it. Case closed.
90
Thank you for your insight into our nation's inaction on climate change issues. As a professional climate scientist obsessed with establishing the facts, the physics governing our universe, I admit that understanding the human mind is beyond me. Saving our planet now requires a massive effort by philosophers and psychiatrists, as well as politicians and religious leaders, engineers and energy entrepeneurs.
I am uncomfortable with people using the word "belief" to describe how they feel about climate change. I can understand that a person may agree or disagree with a scientific conclusion, but disbelieving it is a puzzle. It feels insulting to me personally. The implication is that scientists are just making stuff up.
75
@D. R.
Many who say belief means we believe what is obviously pointed out by those like you.
I thank you for your efforts to make things better.
I hope more folk realize what is real and act while thanking you for your efforts.
9
Let's try this exercise. Your family doctor tells you he's diagnosed you may have cancer. To be sure, you consult 100 cancer specialists, and 97 of them tell you that you do in fact have cancer and that it is extremely likely that you won't have long to live unless you take drastic remedial action.
What would be your first reaction upon hearing their results? Wouldn't it be fear? Panic? Would it be relief enough to simply tell yourself that "well, it's not 100%, they don't know for sure", and then go on with your day as if nothing happened? No, you'd be frozen with panic. You'd realize the odds are heavily against you, and the first thing you'd do is rush off to seek treatment.
And yet here we are: 97% of specialized cliimate-scientists have spoken, and our lawmakers scarcely bat an eye, and most of us just yawn. We are incapable of a clear emotional reaction, because unlike the cancer that would bring us to our knees in a few months, we are unable to use our imaginations to project how terrifying life will likely be for our children and grandchildren.
If cancer-stricken, we'd react and seek treatment because of our sense of self-preservation. As humans, we're not prone to suicide, which is what non-action would amount to. But future generations, even those of our children and grandchildren, are nothing more than abstractions that we just can't get ourselves to process. We just can't muster empathy for a scenario so far away. We're only human.
83
The most ardent evidence of climate change and its' subsequent global warming can be clearly seen by the places in the world where the climate has become inhabitable. As a result, the beginning of great migrations of human beings is beginning. It is evident in Europe, the United States, the Asia sub continent and Southeast Asia. It will grow worse as these places are not able to sustain human population not to mention the movement of land animals and sea creatures in a warming ocean.
There is high probability that the geographical areas near the equator and elsewhere will not be able to produce the food needed to sustain the increased population that may well endeavor to live on a limited landscape. The earth will go on but the question is is there evidence that humans will survive the long term as those changes set in motion may not be reversible?
12
Trump doesn't know if climate change is man-made, he says. If you follow that up with a question about its probability, you'll simply get the same "I don't know." The convenient truth of willful ignorance.
7
Well, Dr. PInillos! That was a mouthful. Thank you.
Your piece--thoughtful and erudite as it is--leaves out my wants and my fears. Ever whispering in my ear--shaping (and perverting) my judgment. For example:
In August, 1939, Stalin signed his notorious "non-aggression pact" with Nazi Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler. Hitler was blessed with formidable military power. Stalin wasn't.
And their uneasy on-again off-again friendship lasted for not quite two years.
It was brought to Stalin's attention--more and more urgently as time went on--that his erstwhile ally was preparing to attack him.
He was unwilling to believe it. VERY unwilling.
So--guess what? He DIDN'T believe it.
Till the attack came. Devastating. Overwhelming. Stalin all but lost the war.
You touch upon "party ideology", Professor Pinillos. Very relevant to the GOP right now. Consider:
(1) Only LIBERALS talk about man-made climate change. It MUST be a fraud. "Cause otherwise--
(2)--massive changes would be required. That'd be bad for business. Especially--
(3)--businesses intimately involved with fossil fuels. Donors. Lavish donors. To the GOP. Of course.
You see where I'm going with all this.
Mitch McConnell--Paul Ryan--and (of course)--
--the head honcho in the White House.
I'm not sure they're much exercised about Socrates and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
They ARE exercised--
--about their "base."
Who hate the liberals as much as THEY do.
Or more.
10
This is a wonderful article, but I admit to skepticism that skeptical pressure accounts for Mr. T’s “not knowing” about climate change. The monied interests whose favor he is currying want him to stall on action to curtail fossil fuel use. Climate science threatens their power and income. They will help keep him in office if he does their bidding. But there is more.
The great powers that control the economy and the flow of capital know something we don’t talk about much. If fossil fuels were to be replaced, the effects worldwide would be catastrophic. The world runs on coal, oil and natural gas, and some uranium. Everything depends on the structure of this gigantic system. Even a little bending toward sustainable energy would mean unimaginable losses for billions of people at all levels of society. Countries would collapse, billions of people would be out of work permanently, and trillions of dollars would be lost. There would be worldwide depression lasting many years.
This is why we will never see a replacement of fossil fuels, and why absent a miracle, the world as we have it now is doomed.
8
Professor Pinillos generously regards refusal to acknowledge the high likelihood that climate change is human-caused as "skepticism". That may be true for some percentage of so-called doubters but for a significant number of the rest, that refusal is dictated simply by a stark fear of becoming economic has-beens.
That fear is likely valid, and faced with that possibility, most of us would feel skeptical pressure. The most straightforward way of reducing that pressure is to eliminate the right people's vested interest in remaining skeptical.
For me, "the right people" are those workers whose livelihoods are threatened by the drastic changes required to our industrial economies. They must be given a glide path to different occupations.
The wealthiest, most politically influential people who stand to lose a lot of their wealth and influence in the wake of the needed changes shouldn't need a glide path. Unfortunately they're also the most effective opponents of those changes. So they, too, must be offered inducements of some sort.
To confront honest skepticism is not enough. Deniers' vested interest in their denial must be eliminated.
4
Conservatives aren’t keen on philosophers, either, which half explains our inaction with climate. But the logic ought to be simple. To deny climate change is to rule out action, as Trump does, to fight it. There’s more here than skeptical pressure.
3
If the solution to climate change was doubling our energy consumption and mandating lifted 4WD pickups for all Americans to warm the planet, the GOP would be the most ardent proponents of addressing the problem. The issue is the solution flies in the face of their consumerist pleasures. Same as assault rifles.
8
I believe it probable President Trump will lose his bet on the climate hoax. His legacy for hugging coal and fossil fuels and doing nothing to mitigate the damage resulting from their use, will be harsh. In twenty years or so from now Trump will reap what he has sewn....well deserved criticism for willful ignorance.
2
Couple of things. Read James Alcock's excellent book "Belief." Basically an up-to-date tour of cognitive neuropsychology -- why we come to believe things about the world, and why dubious beliefs can become so irrationally durable.
Also, Sperber and Mercier's "The Enigma of Reason" (and their predecessor paper "Why Do Humans Reason?"
Why? Basically to WIN the argument, not necessarily to get at objective truth. They proffer that it ("reason") has evolutionary "adaptive utility." A Pen-Is-Mightier-Than-The-Sword riff.
Science, relegated to having to fight with one hand behind its back (by virtue of having to admit to the possibility of error), is at a disadvantage in the persuasion wars.
Trial Lawyering 101: "He/she with the best story WINS!"
One last mention: Tom Nichols' "The Death of Expertise."
3
Perhaps the good doctor will include concepts such as willful ignorance into his thought experiments to help model something that more closely mirrors reality.
8
Can someone please explain to me how carbon dioxide, a very simple molecule that can only absorb a few select frequencies of infrared radiation, can be responsible for global warming?
2
@The Skeptical Chymist CO2 is essentially transparent to solar radiation but absorbs radiation released by the earth. Solar radiation is centered around a wavelength of about 500 nm, while the earth's radiation is in the IR. The radiation released by the earth and transmitted to space is a primary cooling mechanism. If you absorb more IR in the atmosphere, as the increased CO2 will, you will increase the earths temperature.
13
This article, like most these days, asks us to make the assumption that the Reality Show Con Artist is a real person with "beliefs", "policies" or an "agenda" other than to get himself attention and money (which are one and the same thing).
To think he has a thought other than about himself is not to understand the depths of the fraud we have elected President.
As to why that happened, Isaac Asimov knew the answer -
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
9
Contrasted by the mounting face-plants of this administration and the eternal failures of Conservative "ideas", we see today that NASA has yet again achieved an amazing feat by landing yet another probe on the surface of Mars.
Science works. Science understands. Science achieves. Those who don't believe in science are fools and should not be in charge of anything.
6
As a physician, I don't rely on absolute confidence, but combine my best assessments of likelihood and severity, e.g. a high likelihood of a trivial outcome, a low likelihood of a very serious outcome, a low likelihood of a trivial outcome, a high likelihood of a very serious outcome, etc. Doesn't this approach apply in considering what to do about climate change?
When do we know enough? Consider gravity - Is everything known about it? No. But I do know enough not to let go of a very heavy object just over my foot! Do we know everything about climate change? No. But we know it is very likely and very serious and therefore warrants urgent action.
9
This philosopher has missed or ignored the most likely reason for climate change denial (at least by university educated leaders of any party) that is explained by the statement "No matter how bad things get the children of the rich will not starve." This was an answer given by India's Minister of Population in the 1980's when he was asked how major political parties in India led by persons educated at Oxford and Harvard could possibly object to making family planning education and contraceptives available to women - in a nation of over a billion where millions died from starvation and preventable disease every year. He then went into the details, that having many poor and desperate people in India insured India's elites of having a compliant and ultra cheap class of what were essentially slave workers. While of course these elites were protected by their wealth and power from the general condition of too many consumers for their nation's finite resources. Similarly our climate change denying leaders on the right are really denying that elites of the future will suffer much or die from the degradations of climate change. Just as our democratic party/Left and Conservatives do denial about the much more lethal problem of over population, and believe alternately that its miseries will lead to a revolution and a fantasy Utopia, and or that the most superior of beings, themselves and their descendants, will survive the collapse of the biosphere that this may cause as well.
7
Seems to be a problem with the definition of the term “skeptic.” A skeptic is someone that does not accept any premise without scientific evidence. In climate science, the evidence points to humans causing planet wide warming since the advent of heat engines on a large scale. If there was scientific evidence of that not being the case, a skeptic would adjust the associated position.
People that call themselves “climate change skeptics” never have not made any revisions to their associated dogma and continue to espouse logical fallacies and just reject all the scientific evidence. They are just cynics.
5
@Glennmr
Ok, baaaaad typo...delete "not" in the above...
2
Skeptics tend to doubt others more than they doubt themselves.
8
This is clear and thoughtful and, I believe, useful, but at the same time naive in the most important ways. "Conservative" voters who support climate-change denying candidates aren't responding to skeptical pressure. They're responding to an endless stream of assertions by those candidates and Facebook posts and InfoWars stories and Fox News stories saying that "climate change" is a liberal conspiracy intended to allow dangerously criminal immigrants to move into their town and steal all their social services.
This malicious propaganda is heavily funded by major fossil fuel investors.
It's not at bottom a philosophical problem. It's a rhetorical problem--how to counter these false narratives?--and a political one--how to stop a tiny minority of wealthy investors from doing massive damage to human civilization.
6
Skeptical pressure about climate change with the added fear of not having any solutions to weather instabilities creates a fear most Americans have not felt since WWII. Focusing on probabilities is good for stock brokers and engineers, but the masses barely can understand a graph that has been tweaked and loaded with bias to persuade the masses. For years, everyone who lives in California knows the "big one" will shake them up but also for years scientists have written about how the big one can be survivable. We can survive climate change, there is no doubt of this. But how many of us will be left to argue who was right, is questionable. The Pretend King Trump's administration and the GOP minions have no clue as to how to protect millions let alone billions of people. So they have decided to scam all of us and squeeze the dead cow from the last drop of milk before we perish. What we need to decide is do we want to live or allow the GOP to control who lives and who dies? This is not a far fetched question, after all we are the USA and globally whether we like it or not are the leaders for others to follow. So live the dictators of today with Trump and Putin as their examples. This is more than just surviving climate change, it is about surviving from the onslaught of manipulators willing to rape, pillage and plunder the land and us.
3
Choose 1
Trump and Kudlow are:
1) lying - they are smart enough to know climate change is real and man made
2) stupid - they don’t know and don’t care to know the facts about climate change
3) 1 and 2
4) 2 and 1
5) all the above
1
Most climate change deniers are simply people sticking their heads in the sand and refusing to hear all evidence about something that may force their lifestyle to change. Humans are generally very resistant to change. The vast majority are not thrill-seeking adventurers or adrenaline junkies. Most people are terrified by the idea of anything that might upset their lifetime habits.
When we are telling people that they have to give up on guns, pick-up trucks and energy waste, we're telling them that "the American way of life has to go". And in a way, it does. On a global scale, America's level of consumption and waste is staggering, and absolutely unsustainable.
People in Denmark, Germany, France, Italy and even China will not see their lifestyles change too dramatically, as their way of life is not based on wanton consumption and waste like in America; for a German, switching to electric cars and renewable energy is not significantly going to change the way he goes about his life, his family vacations, or anything else. But for middle America, I fully understand the massive upheaval that switching to an eco-sustainable way of life could bring.
Still, it is necessary for the planet. So, if it takes the "coastal elites" to enforce it on the rest of the country, so be it. Suck it up. The stakes are higher than anything else we've ever faced before.
4
The problem I have with "climate" deniers is that they profess to have no interest in the topic.
The "no interest" position is usually defended on grounds the weather has always/will always change.
In other words, there's no reason they could not pack their summer wardrobe on their next skiing trip because nobody knows what the weather will do. After all, it is always changing.
1
Honestly, it's already too late.
Even a total shutdown of human CO2 emissions would not affect the warming, which will accelerate as arctic and sub-arctic permafrosts melt and generate astounding volumes of the 3x more potent Methane gas.
Hothouse earth, soon.
(Not to mention the 10,000 other ways we are destroying the environment)
6
Not necessarily a matter of science, knowledge, philosophy, or caring.
Trump sees an essential part of his "political base" as in the coal mining States particularly and in the oil producing States, depending upon his denial of climate change science.
In other words its Trump's political cynicism and nihilism.
1
Climate deniers are operating a ruse. Whatever the cause they devise for climate change, it still requires emergency action. Denying a human cause doesn't change that fact. Whether the cause of climate change is too many kangaroos or too many sunspots, imminent disaster calls for imminent action. Climate deniers call for no such action because their cause is contrived and doesn't warrant an emergency response.
1
First, let me state that I am a believer in climate change. Yes, I find the scientific articles interesting but what really convinces me is the pictures of the extent of ice over the Arctic Ocean in late summer. Year after year, the ice is disappearing. This makes it possible for boats to sometimes now make it through the Northwest Passage. And shipping along the North Coast of Russia is picking up.
It is difficult for me to imagine these events occurring without climate change.
But I can understand why many conservatives don't believe in climate change. Many of these are religious people who believe that Christ is coming maybe in 10 years or so. If that's the case, rising of ocean levels is not really a concern.
I would like to respect diversity of opinion, including the option for people to believe in the return of Christ.
But what really bothers me is that liberals are also in denial. That denial concerns population growth.
The population of Guatemala was about 3 million in 1950. Now it is over 17 million. That is the real reason we have streams of refugees approaching the US in a migrant caravan. Indeed, the caravan is merely the tip of an iceberg.
The real tragedy is that Africa will double in population by 2050. This is the reason for destabilizing migration into Europe, just as immigrants from Guatemala test our immigration policies.
Why haven't Democrats put forward a policy of providing family planning to the third world?
1
@Jake Wagner,
Jake, what really bothers me is that it is hard to tell if you are serious or posting from some fossil-fuel troll farm.
Democrats promote policies, that are scientifically established as effective, to try to bend the population curve. It is Republicans who de-fund Planned Parenthood, restrict family planning efforts in both third-world countries and the USA, and oppose empowerment of women-- again, in other countries as well as the USA.
Why don't you tell us what actual *policies* you would like "Democrats" to run on that they haven't *already* been implementing whenever they have some degree of power in the government?
9
@Jake Wagner
What I find amazing is those who believe that that The Christ will arrive in the next 10 years have no idea just how arrogant they are.
I am an old white man and I am terrified of what will happen the day after I die. The judgment we all have to face is were truly trying to be what Christ taught us.
I expressed my terror over dying not the act of dying (the older I get the more I realize that is just a part of life) but can I even state that I tried to be a good person and what will my judgment be.
I expressed my fear to a friend (who is Muslim) and he told me he never heard anyone say that and he felt the same way. Those who are convinced they have the answer to what G-d wants scare me for who are we to say what G-d wants of us.
The only thing we can do is to try to take care of what we have been given and to take care of each other.
Maybe I am wrong but I think not....
1
I'm not a climate change skeptic but I think I am a realist on this subject. The poles suggest support for government action but most people will oppose anything that costs or even just inconveniences them. The U.S. generates about 15% of worldwide CO2 emissions and that is shrinking because we have reduced our emissions and the rest of the world, especially Asia, is rapidly increasing its emissions. I am skeptical that people will accept the pain of rapid and significant reductions in emissions. But, humans are adaptable and will find ways to adapt to any results of climate change. There will be winners and losers but it won't be the end of the world or the end of humanity. It may even be better in the long run to adapt rather than try to prevent climate change.
2
@Kenneth Ruane
I admire your optimism but I see something different.
The developing world will invade the developed world when the progress to improve their lives is halted or negated.
That is a human response from the so called have not's to what they see as the HAVES.
For those who live in a manner where the next meal is not taken for granted to inflict more difficulty on them would cause a migration to areas they see as richer. In order to prevent this those folk need to see their lives improved as change is effectively made to all our lives.
We have seen this repeatedly over our species history.
1
Now we can more easily gauge our ignorance, what we know compared to what we don't know. Just scan through Wikipedia, start on anything that interests you.
I was recently given a biography of Karl Marx, that described the dozen bookd he wrote before he was 35. He devoured knowledge, as some now know football teams, and learned a half dozen languages to avoid mistranslations.
So, knowledge approaches the infinite, and given those who are professors may know, say ten times what I do on a given subject, Infinity/ x (10) is still infinity. We all have a tiny slice of understanding, that wile far short of what there is to know, also happens to be a unique set of knowledge.
We should take comfort that no human being could know exactly the same as I, or anyone else who happens to be reading this. That's encouraging. As a true conversation, each sharing their own insights and experiences, can never be duplicated.
2
@Call Me Al
That's true.
\\According to NASA, at least 97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists think that “climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely caused by human activities.”//
No where in the link that he provides does that statistic, which has been widely characterized as bogus by a number of qualified statisticians, does NASA say that. If he's a philosopher, the author should get his facts right.
4
@Dougal E
None of this is Not published and is available on the internet. It's all there.
1
2 2 is always 4. Unless it doesn't fit the power narrative.
1
Much needed perspective. Thank you.
But what is an objective probability?
Maybe for lottry tickets and flipping coins, but not for the natural world.
We could use a follow up column for that case.
If our lifespan were closer to five hundred years we probably would be more concerned about polluting our environment.
5
Any examination of climate denial that doesn't include deliberate bad faith, tribalism, and the willful passing of costs to others, is missing its core tenets.
4
Given an Uzi sub machine gun fully loaded but holding one single blank round.
The choice climate change denialists are asking you to make is to point the gun at future generations (your children and grand children) and squeeze the trigger.
Their subsequent arguments are like quibbling about whether to do it at a school or a pop concert.
An offensive argument perhaps.
But sometimes America offends sensibility.
3
Some individuals receive substantial compensation to not understand. What they do know is that if they understand the problem, they’ll lose financially.
5
I'm standing at the rail of the ship named "Titanic" just after striking the iceberg. With me is a philosopher who is prudently naming the probabilities of the "unsinkable" nature of this ship just as it begins to list at the stern. Will it, or won't it?
To my mind philosophical discussions concerning deniability on the issue of climate change are as equally irrelevant as the scenario I've offered above.
We don't have time...nor do we have enough life boats.
@Cate
Why would you question after the fact
@William Smith: Thank you for your reply! Your comment is precisely the point I was attempting to make--you wouldn't question something after the fact--e.g., why quibble now about deniability concerning a topic that speaks for itself as being undeniable--climate change.
Climate change is a problem that technology and the free market will solve, almost certainly within 10-20 years. Due to improved technology, the cost of renewable power (hydroelectric, wind, solar/photovoltaic) and the cost to store power (batteries and pumped water) is dropping dramatically and will continue to drop. It is also likely that other technologies will be coming on line. For example, enhance water electrolysis methods would provide a simple way to generate H2, a remarkably energy rich, storable and easily transportable material. Since the raw material cost of renewables is 0 (the sun is free), renewables will eventually win.
2
@Rob-Chemist
Hmmmm No I think not.
I spent a major part of my career as a Has-Mat and Right to Know Officer part of my research was how did government get involved. The answer was profit over everything else be it the human costs or the environmental impacts profit was the winner. The only counter to that was government's intervention and that was resisted as too costly.
So I have no faith in business taking responsibility for their actions and to help the greatest amount of us.
1
What if the leadership create the conditions encouraging burning coal and oil and subvert all the research and $ away from these solutions.
@Andrew Given that there is significant money to be made by private companies manufacturing renewables, private companies are now investing significant dollars in the research. For example, the newest windmills are primarily the result of private research.
Consider that third of our population that regards the Bible as literally true: 6,000 year-old universe, Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood, etc., yet most of them believe in continental drift —an unlikely idea if ever I’ve heard one — because it is not contradicted by their fundamentalist ideology. That’s all there is to it. We are not Dr. Spocks, rationally calculating probabilities.
1
We can discuss this topic until the planet is dead. Action at EVERY human level is required now!
3
If you wast Trump to change his thinking about climate change, don't use logic. Work on the people that he admires the most: Duterte, Putin, Al Saud, Kim Jong-un. If they accept the science of climate change, Trump will soon follow!
1
The 97% number of climate scientists agree is a fraudulent number. What they agree upon as it relates to climate change is all over the map. If you asked them what we should do about climate change, you'd also get a wide range of answers.
The simple fact is that no one knows if climate change is an imminent threat. The prognostications of what the situation will be 80 years from now are blatantly presumptuous. Scott Adams of Dilbert fame deconstructed the "new and hilarious" government report (and all the hysterical reporting about it) that came out last week and it's worth a trip to his blog to listen to what he had to say about it.
https://blog.dilbert.com/2018/11/24/episode-314-scott-adams-the-new-and-hilarious-climate-change-report-schumers-scotus-tweet/
3
@Dougal E
Right it's amusing that there have been over 20 - 500 year storms in the last decade.
We are witnessing Climate Change every year. According to science the planet should be cooling and it's warming at an unprecedented rate.
Storms are becoming more violent and destructive droughts becoming more frequent lowlands are flooding more frequently due to sea rise from melting ice cap and glaciers. Ice cores from Iceland and Artic, Antiartic show a massive increase in greenhouse gases over the past 100 - 150 years.
But but nothing is happening...
RIGHT!!!
3
@Dougal E
Agree, only a small percentage would agree with the "progressive" climate apocalypse prophesies.
It is odd that this study is relied on as "fact"...That's all I'm hearing and reading on the news...."Trump denies more facts!". Similar to the "fact" that the Crown Prince ordered the killing....In truth, Trump logically denied the part of the report that indicated future economic disaster, as he should...
This type of "fake" reporting only leaves the public more skeptical in regard to these issues and in regard to the press....As is appropriate.
1
Much too complicated.
@Peter Rudolfi Not really. It's very simple...Earth's climate is changing
I'm not convinced the author understands what he means when he talks about "climate change". From the "progressive" perspective climate change is actually a set of hypothesis, not just one.
* The climate is changing - trivial it always changes.
* The molecule CO2 is the primary driver of climate change - not been proven.
* Human industrial activity puts more CO2 into the atmosphere and contributes more to climate change than natural sources - not been proven no scientist can decouple natural occurring climate change from that caused by human industrial activity.
* Politicians can force their populations into energy and economic poverty and tune the climate to their liking. Don't believe this for a second.
The entire point of the Climate Apocalypse Prophesies is to give politicians absolute power. I am surprised that so many don't understand this simple point.
3
@jaco
Although you never respond to science questions...will try anyhow.
What are the "climate apocalypse prophesies?" Are they different from the IPCC projections?
Just tell us why the planet is warming over the past five decades while the sun has been cooling.
Include why sea levels are rising and accelerating over the past 20 years. (NASA data)
Provide the natural forcing as proof.
I have for decades noticed, both among friends and in national Libertarian/Republican sources, the following logic:
1. Man made global warming would require government action.
2. Government action is wrong.
3. Therefore there is no global warming.
More recently when overwhelmed by facts they change the logic:
1. Some forms of corrective action are costly.
2. Therefore we should not take any forms of corrective action.
(Here there is a split among Republicans. Some would like the deficit and eventually the debt to fall. Others want the deficit and
the debt to skyrocket, if it's caused by tax cuts that mainly go to the wealthy, trade wars, border walls and wars.)
1
@Marvant Duhon
That rings way too true.
As a purported philosopher, the author should be familiar with the fallacy of "begging the question."
That's all his opinion is -- he assumes without any independent critical analysis that: a) the earth is warming rapidly; b) the cause is man-made greenhouse gases; c) the warming will be a net detriment; d) government intervention can prevent the warming; and e) the cost of the intervention will be less than the net detriment from the warming.
After assuming all this on faith, he proceeds to psychoalyze why others aren't so credulous as him.
Incidentally, anyone who cites the nonsense "97 %" talking point as proof immediately loses all credibility.
@Ana Hedonia
I see so the folk who have created many of the things that make our lives better(scientists) today are foolish and dreamers? I think not.
It was science that was a result of folk using their G-d given gifts that created the world we enjoy today. The same folk are telling us we need to wake up.
I have many years behind me and massive less before me and I can see what is happening. I also see what the scientists are talking about.
25-30 years ago, it was "determined" that the ingestion of egg yolks created harmfully-high levels of heart disease-inducing cholesterol. After spending thousands of dollars on egg beater, scientists quietly concluded that eggs were ok after all. So, I think we have the right to be skeptical, especially since climate advocates want to turn the world upside down economically in order to deal with their concerns( BTW, I would also check their investment portfolios: are they by any chance long in wind and solar power?).
@pete
It's the nature of science that things are discovered revealed and established.
Climate Change is not like eggs it's more complex and we have some historical records to compare current data with therefore making reasonable conclusions.
3
"how could it be that I know I will be grading [this weekend]... and not know that the shopper... will lose the lottery"? Is it possibly due to our optimistic nature: we want the shopper to win, because its wonderful and unexpected, but we know we will be grading, because disappointment is what life throws at us (first you suffer, and then you die). Those alarmed about climate change are attacking our cars and airplanes, two of the most cherished 'freedom-enhancing' inventions in our lives, in service to their depressing future of storms, fires, and floods. They 'just can't be right' about that, can they? We are supposed to be flying to Mars, not drowning in Antarctica. Maybe we stack the probabilities against the scientists because, at heart, there's a little bit of Vegas in all of us.
1
@Phil
That's funny!!!
The planet on a carp table.... Rich!!!
The prospect for addressing climate change in the world?
It looks very grim. Let's pretend for a moment that right wings in even the most advanced nations will not address the problem at all, that we can state unequivocally that they do not care at all about climate change. That leaves us with questioning what we can expect from left wings in even the most advanced parts of the world not to mention in backward areas worldwide.
My belief is that it's largely a myth that left wings are more for science and tackling problems such as climate change than right wings. What left wings are much more interested in is a socialistic leveling of society, in fact subject to the age old myth of a golden age which existed in the past except they have this myth updated in modern form. By this I mean left wings rail at white men day and night, talk about racism, suppression of women, etc. and how the West in its political and economic ways of life supplanted cultures millenniums ago in which everybody was equal and lived in harmony with nature, as if just topple right wing ways of life today, topple capitalism, put especially white males in their place, and the economy will flourish and we will tackle climate change and other problems and we will all live in harmony with each other...
It's just ridiculous listening to left wings on a daily basis as an alternative to right wings when it comes to climate change or really any science. We all are in the grip of myth while the earth smokes.
2
@Daniel12
At least you realise the earth is smoking.
That's huge...
1
Why don't you address the elephants in the climate change causes? Over populations and emerging third world countries. We could stop driving cars tomorrow and heating our homes with coal and it won't dent the effects of India and China and Indonesia on climate. How do you influence them? And watch out for that big volcano.
1
If we get or make a big eruption, such as Mount Tambora in 1815, it may lower global temperatures by up to 5°. Given we've only gained 1.8° since 1880, that would be a temporary benefit....Except, in many areas, crops won't grow and many people will die of starvation...However, many estimates indicate more would die due to warming....Perhaps research will progress to allow a safe method of releasing a gas of some type to cloud the atmosphere to reflect light back reducing warming....If not, an "accidental" volcano eruption could buy some time...Fortunately, no volcanoes where I live!
Science never “proves” anything. Science produces hypotheses and theories, but never proof. Theories must always be tested, questioned, and revised. Anyone who claims science has “proved” the existence of man-made global warming only proves their own ignorance.
1
@Greg
Right to follow your train of thought....
Prove you exist to me or I exist to you...
We enjoy the benefits of science every day those benefits came from constant testing of scientific research.
If you want to deny science then you are denying progress.
That ended when the world was still flat.
Our poor stable genius, a few days ago he had to explain why the CIA didn't know what it was talking about in the Khashoggi situation. Now, he has to explain why his administration's scientists don't know what they're talking about regarding climate change. It's a good thing he is a stable genius or we'd all be mislead.
8
I actually think both side use this argument
When we are confronted with what it would take to stop global warming - the compete reversal of our lifestyle in the developed world and especially in the US- than even believers think, ugh, maybe these scientists are overplaying this and my grandchildren will inherit the Blade Runner world vs children- then we get back in the car and charge up that iPhone
2
The most important question is how likely it is that additional information will change the correct course if action.
So, what kind of information WOULD NEED to come to light to make expanding fossil fuel use a good idea?
How likely is it that new insights will show that converting to renewable energy sources is NOT beneficial?
Answering these questions will help tell us if what's needed is waiting, further investigation, or action.
The problem is not that humans produce pollution, it is that there are too many humans polluting. Consider two things:
1) The Earth's population could approach zero in roughly 100years in the absence of procreation. Zero humans = zero pollution. Perhaps we need to pick a sustainable number between 10B and zero?
2) Most of our economic and societal planning requires GROWTH in population with a perpetually larger number of contributors than collectors.
So rather than worrying about the efficacy of climate science, labeling people good skeptics or bad skeptics, or getting wrapped around the conspiracy of politics/economics, we should be considering the real problem?
4
@B Maybe we’ll get lucky, and there will be a terrible war or plague that will kill the necessary billions.
To your point, the most advanced countries generate the majority of global pollution, both absolutely and per capita.
They also face a future were unskilled labor is becoming not needed, not economically productive enough, and hence bound for permanent poverty or subsidized minimum income. This is another issue with the US/capitalist "growth model".
Moreover, an economy where 70% of the GDP comes from consumer spending works only when you have a growing middle class with shared income levels. Instead we are headed to extreme income inequality and a shrinking middle class.
This discussion, when applied to climate change, is beside the point. The reason Trump and the Republicans deny it is simply greed. The reason their followers believe them is they play follow the leader- or they just don't want to have to make any sacrifices so they refuse to believe in anything that would lead them to do so.
What this article leaves out is the motivation to believe or not believe something. It has little to do with skepticism.
4
You are raising a complex, dynamic, multidimensional issue which merits considering a number of additional parameters. Firstly, to be aware of the either/or trap of binary banality. Is/isn't there human created climate change? Consider "reality," in terms of what is currently known, which is generalizable for ranges of conditions; currently unknown, because of gaps in necessary information and technology, as well as being unknowable. Unmeasurable. Instead of YES/NO, under what internal and external conditions? Consider that reality's dimensions, all too often not considered, include uncertainties. Unpredictabilities. Randomness. Lack of total control, no matter what we do.Timely or not. Appropriate or not. The "likelihood" that something will, or will not, happen is numerical attributed- information re infinite time. Just as the map is not the geographic area it is created to represent, and no word can adequately represent what it is created to explain, describe, answer, question, no number "causes" or is associated with a specific weather event happening. Or not. Nor its quality.We also need to remind ourselves, as we consider weather, its dimensions, implications and consequences, that we have created and enabled the constraining framework of: cause and effect, associated with...and ocurs, but we neither know nor understand why, as a tool. IT is not THE TRUTH! Lastly. people can be,and are, wilfully blind, deaf and ignorant whether it's about our weather or whatever!
Science is not a beauty contest; majority doesn't matter to bring this to its ridiculous side; If all of us decided the earth is flat.
My main concern is with the proposed remedies; what is the point in the west reducing carbon emissions by a few percent, if China (opens two coal power stations per WEEK), India who together produce around 70% insist on hugely increasing their production.
Carbon production is global, reduction must be global for effectiveness.
Time and time again we saw "green" initiatives fail because their creators are zealots, take EV's they don't reduce carbon, the electrical power is still created by burning fossile fuel.
Renewables are mainly a waste of resources because they are unreliable and not suitable for developed countries.
1
@PyaulDirac 1 you should drop your alleged name or at least be very ashamed of your ignorance and hubris. 2 are you aware that Iowa via MidAmerica Energy produces almost 30% of its power from wind turbines and Texas produces the most from wind turbines of any state. There is a great deal of green energy in the good old USA and the last time I looked we were still a first world country.
1
@Hiram levy
My adopted name is a tribute to this great Physicist, hardly likely to confuse anyone, does it now?
I am ashamed of my ignorance and am trying to improve every day.
Renewables are a waste of resource in a technologically advanced country. We all require constant availability of energy and this can't be done from solar and wind because no one can store sufficient energy to back up the time when wind doesn't blow and sun doesn't shine.
This means that every Watt you produce MUST be backed up by nuclear of fossil or some other assured source.
This means energy production costs are doubled, I call that waste of resource.
In a response to a recent cold snap Trump sarcastically tweeted, “What ever happened to global warming?” I think this is an example of a skeptic’s mind at work. It only believes what it can see.
It’s how our non-science oriented ancestors justified their own beliefs about the solar system. One could go outside and say, “Look, the sun moves across the sky. The earth doesn’t move.” And, “See, the earth is flat disc with a dome over it, just like it says in the Bible. Darn that Galileo and his heretical agenda!”
The explanation for skepticism may be as simple as that.
The issue is not that there are still a few climate change deniers around. Indeed most people accept what the scientists say.
The bigger issue I think is that most people don’t seem to understand the urgency of the situation. We have only a few years left to start making substantial reductions in our CO2 emissions and methane leakage rates to prevent intolerable changes to our climate, changes that most of us will have to deal with in our lifetimes. We need to stop messing around and get on with fixing the global warming problem.
7
Our problem is that the quality of our powerful intelligence is fixed Air, in detriment by position, the limited light of mid winter in the Aquarius degrees. The eye of man is fixed in place, not born in sin but rather in his stature, which doesn't allow him to see above the blades of grass in the field very well. What Socrates understood about the limitations of man in recognizing where he is.
1
"As hedge fund managers, economists, policy researchers, doctors and bookmakers have long been aware, the way to make decisions while managing risk is through probabilities."
How could the author forget insurers? Insurance companies are our main bulwark against intentional climate ignorance.
3
Ken of Tilson has is right
Follow the money. It is the people who are invested in industries that Climate Change will impair if brought to full throttle are the skeptics.
Also the poor coal miners who are being led by the nose thinking they are digging "Clean Coal." To the coalminers it's Liberal thinking Climat Change like Socialized Medicine, they are Trump's flock who have not a clue.
2
The problem with the proposed solution is that it is already used. People make the point that 97% of climate scientists agree. What we are increasingly left with is exactly what the author is trying to fix, people who are making partisan statements rather than rational ones.
1
The author has raised a key problem with making rational arguments in opposition to dogmatic belief. Science inherently acknowledges uncertainty through the use of concepts such as margins of error and "significance" of statistical results while a true believer will seldom admit any uncertainty whatsoever. Try asking a religious fundamentalist what the probability of God's existence is!
Unfortunately, in our ossified political camp structure, adherence to the precepts of our tribe often resembles religious adherence far more than scientific empiricism. So there's NEVER enough evidence to convince the dogmatic "skeptic,"
This leads to the paradox that propositions reliant on evidence are ALWAYS seen (by some) as inferior to those supported by no evidence whatsoever, only by faith, since only the latter is conceived as 100% certain.
2
@Peter I like your explanation. It seems to me that people are sometimes happier with faith than with probabilities. With faith, uncomfortable facts can be disregarded entirely. If dying happily is a goal, then I guess "disbelieving" dire climate change warnings works for many.
This isn't about knowledge, it isn't about certainty, and it isn't about probability. It's about power and dominance, it's about the fossil fuel industry and allied billionaires duping Democracies into dropping the ball on the biggest moral issue that humanity has ever faced. We faced this dilemma before with the abolition of slavery and we persevered. The main reason that the fossil fuel industry has so much more of a hold on us than slaveholders had on abolitionists, is because we are all using automobiles, whereas slavery was localized in the South, the Caribbean and the Southern Hemisphere. We are like tobacco smokers, who can't quit and so fall prey to the tobacco industry's campaign of deceit. We can make the change and ditch fossil fuels but it will take a mobilization on all human scales from individuals to the global economic system. We can't just commit to this change by adopting better moral principles. We need to start doing things that show our commitment, like learning how to use cars less often. Doing the right thing builds commitment and working together and organizing around furthering the public good creates the right pathway.
4
@Charles Justice You’re absolutely right that this only about power- the power of government bureaucrats to control every aspect of human life by regulating CO2. No thanks.
@Greg, your message and your perspective is manufactured for you by the fossil fuel industry. If government doesn't regulate then it is a case of all against all and the biggest and strongest gets the prize. Your's is a recipe for failure on a truly massive scale.
3
I have always found it remarkable how both liberals and conservatives are more than happy to deny science when it suits their personal beliefs or wallet. For conservatives, denying the effects of increased atmospheric CO2 on atmospheric heat content is rather outstanding. But then on the liberal side, you have beliefs that so-called GMOs are dangerous, organically grown food is better for you than conventionally grown food, etc. Skepticism is always good, but when the science is so overwhelming as it is in the case of CO2 and GMOs, one really should start believing the science.
@Rob-Chemist
If YOU would have cultivated scepticism, you'd know that the governments and citizens who reject massively using GMOs do so precisely because changing nature on such a massive scale without ANY long term study is dangerous - which of course is perfectly obvious. To say that we don't know how much this will harm insect species crucial for the reproduction of any plant on earth doesn't mean being "skeptical", it means acknowledging the truth.
And most organic food contains more vitamines (not all of it though), as science has shown, so of course it's better for our health compared to eating the average fruit or vegetable full of pesticides. And then we're not even talking yet about what those pesticides do to the soil and other crucial species needed to survive as human beings. So here too, science has PROVEN that that's the case, you see?
1
@Ana Luisa I would argue you are wrong on both of your points. First, relatively long term (10-15 years) studies have been performed on the effects of growing plants containing insect resistance genes (typically proteins that kill insects). The result is exactly what biology predicts - you end up selecting for and developing insects resistant to that toxic protein. In other words, growing plants with natural insect resistance does not affect the insect population. In terms of organic vs. conventional foods, there is no evidence that providing additional vitamins to someone who is not deficient improves their health. Indeed, there is substantial evidence that increasing vitamin intake can have substantial detrimental effects in many cases. In terms of pesticides, plants are naturally loaded with pesticides. And, as multiple studies have shown, the typical levels of pesticides in plants have no significant effect on human health, be they natural or synthetic pesticides.
It is curious that skeptical pressure is applied selectively by the same people.
Statistically, many climate change deniers are conservative and religious and yet never apply skeptical pressure to conclude the non-existence of the deity at the foundations of their religious beliefs.
You’d think that the convenient absence of corroborating witnesses from critical close encounters, like when Moses allegedly collected the Ten Commandments from God, and the fact that God has apparently run out of miracles would have some of these people at least mildly perturbed in their beliefs.
You’d think that science would have earned some amazing street credibility in this world simply because we are surrounded by its fruits everywhere we look. When a loved one is ill, we seek a cure provided by medical science. We augment our lives with cars, trucks, planes, elevators, mobile phones, tablets, computers, gaming consoles and cameras. Engineering science creates the infrastructure that powers our society. Biological science helps feed us. Physical and mathematical sciences are busy forging the foundations.
And yet when science says we must act to protect our home and sustainer, the Earth, from the ravages of human induced climate change, the denialists say no.
It seems that many people simply choose what they want to believe. Right or wrong. Everything that comes after that is a matter of pretext and justification.
@Richard Mitchell-Lowe
I agree and constantly am amazed at some who claim to believe in G-d and that the Christian Bible is an accurate account of history. I had discussions with some folk who said the Bible is the history of the world and the world(according to them) is about 10,000 years old. I pointed out that we know the world is about 4.5 billion years old and that has been proven by many scientists and that modern humans have existed for at least 250,000 years. I was told that was not in the Bible so it was not true.
My response was then G-d has a wicked sense of humor.
About a week later the same person came to me and said the last renovation of the earth G-d did was about 10,000 years ago. At that point I gave up.
I find it strange that folk seemingly cannot use critical thinking and research what is real instead would would rather be told what to think.
That's sad to me
1
Speaking from the perspective who has studied Global Warming since the early 1980s, it has been interesting to watch the progression in beliefs of the skeptics. First, there was outright denial. The skeptics claimed the data was not conclusive enough, or it was due to a variety of factors related to the way temperatures used to be measured versus how they are currently measured. Once they could no longer deny the temperature records, then they started claiming the differences were because of the "Urban Heat Island" effect where modern temperature records were affected by location of thermometers. They moved on to claiming variability in the the Sun's output. Then it was orbital permutations that were the culprit. They have finally admitted that Earth is warming, but now are claiming that climate has always changed and that it will eventually get colder again. The point is that the skeptics can't seem to settle on any counter explanation to the one that is right in front of them, namely that CO2 absorbs infrared light radiated by the earth at night, thus slowing down the radiation of heat off the earth's surface. The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more heat is retained in the atmosphere at night and the warmer the earth gets. It is a simple concept and it is difficult for me to understand why skeptics can't get it.
5
@Independent One Thank you for the simple description of why increasing the CO2 concentration must increase the atmospheric heat content. I have always found it odd that folks try to challenge this basic chemistry.
If those who want to forestall government intervention in energy markets were smart, they would go after the models being used to try and predict changes. All of these models are based on untested (and untestable) assumptions. For example, how will increasing CO2 affect latent heat (water vapor) vs. sensible heat (temperature), what will happen to the earth's albedo, by how much will convective cooling of the earth increase, etc. Not only are these attacks on the models unanswerable, the resulting discussions might even result in improved science.
1
Many smokers in my generation reacted to cancer warnings by quitting smoking. Maybe similar warnings about cancer and climate change would lead to more proactive activities. My husband and I and many of our friends are fighting recurring skin cancers. My parents lived into their 90s with no sign of skin cancer. Newspaper articles about climate change never, as far as I've seen, mention the possibility of a link between climate change and the almost epidemic occurrences of skin cancer today. I wonder if there is research going on in this area.
@Molly
That is one of the things that were discovered when scientists realized the ozone layer was developing holes in it. We are witnessing Climate Change all the time but many refuse to see our activities are a main factor in it.
I am skeptical for many reasons but here are three: first, the author wants us to believe that warming is caused by humans because 97% of publishing climate scientists believe it. That is an appeal to Faith (in those scientists), not science. And because scientists are a clique like other cliques, I doubt climate skeptics are allowed to publish very often—or even get in to grad school for that matter. Secondly, I don’t believe that climate scientists have the data they need to make their projections. Whether we are attempting to consider the weather from 2,000 or 2 million years ago, or from 100 to 200 years ago, it is difficult to believe their data is very good. Just the human error involved in taking temperatures around the world (past and present) is reason for skepticism. Finally, the arrogance of so many of the global warming true believers (referring to nonbelievers as “deniers”), even though their models are constantly wrong and even deceptive, is also reason to be skeptical—given the suffering that they are asking people to endure.
3
@ehillesum
1. I agree with your first argument. Scientific truth and winning a democratic election are two different things. In science, it's not what the majority believes that counts, it's what has been proven to be true, period. That means that we need to know what most STUDIES PROVE, rather than what most scientists personally believe.
2. No believe needed here either. Just read the recent US government report, and you'll see that we HAVE the data needed to make reliable projections on many specific, climate-related issues.
You also seem to confound climate and weather (as many GOP politicians hope you'll do). For decades already we have scientific tools allowing us to gather information about temperatures on planets (earth and others) from millions of years ago. That's how we know HOW a non human climate evolves, over the years, and how exceptional and not explainable by non human causes the current, extremely rapid increase in the earth's AVERAGE global temperature is. Natural climate change is extremely slow: less than 1 degree in 10,000 years. Today, we have 1 degree in less than 100 years, and that is SO fast that many species can't adapt and disappear. We also know that if this continues, too much carbon in the oceans will make it impossible for shellfish to make their shells, for instance ...
Weather, however, is local, not global. And it depends on MUCH more parameters, most of them change so fast that we can't measure them in time to predict them.
3
@ehillesum no I refer to 'non-believers' as people who don't understand climate change, that is all. You could start by reading the latest report put out - and now, by the way, the number of scientists confirming climate change and it's causation by humans is 100%. Do you understand the concept of how greenhouse gases warm the earth - that is 9th grade science. And that is what is happening now, being caused by humans, with thousands of people already displaced, etc. It's bad, and we need to work towards changing it, just like we eliminated CFC's and helped heal the hole in the Ozone layer, and ditto for acid rain - solved that problem! we CAN solve the global warming issue, but we need to act now. Don't be someone who doesn't understand global warming. Try to read up on it!
How do you know that "natural" climate change is less than 1 degree for every 10,00 years when we haven't even been keeping track of specific temperatures for that long? How do we know that the temps didn't oscillate during those 10,00 years( and then averaged out to 1 degree) like they are allegedly doing today? Viewed in that light, the data points you cite are meaningless. Even if you're right and shellfish can't evolve quickly enough, whose to say other more efficient species wouldn't evolve and take their places. Also, there are many uninhabitable areas of the world right now that climate change might render habitable. Mass migration has been the rule in human history not the exception. Of course, if you're hoping for the status quo into eternity, better try a different galaxy.
1
Donald Trump is expressing his skepticism about climate change based upon a certainty: certainly that he will have the support of the fossil fuel industry is he expresses doubt about climate change, and he he will have to make no difficult economic or social decisions based upon climate change if he sticks to his current energy policies.
If people were prudent and concerned about the futures of their children and grandchildren they would rise up and demand action. People are also self-interested and don't want to give up what they have no matter the ultimate unsustainability of their lifestyle; cheap electricity and transportation. Both seem to be more important than a liveable earth and survival of their offspring.
1
If there was solid proof that we are killing the planet, people would change. But computer models and slightly warmer summers are not going to be enough to convince me to give up my car and my nice house. Sorry.
@Greg
Your car and house may be at risk as the folk who live in low lying areas are forced to migrate inland.
That is if the super storms and fluctuations in weather do not create a drought and fires burn your home down.
I pray you wake up soon.
So maybe the author should try and arrange
time on the usual propaganda outlets to discuss
this approach to penetrating the denialist fog they
are principally responsible for creating.
It would also help if Maddow could program a similar
discussion...though its tone would be greatly different.
Science per se is not going to get the species out of
the dilemma that it can no longer resolve collectively. This is not really an issue involving science per se except insofar
that denialists feed off the woeful levels of education and critical thinking skills that too many have in order to create doubt,
which can then be exploited to instill a rigid paranoia
that purveyors of "junk" science are out to
get them.
@bl
I think you have missed the point and Critical Thinking tells us that Climate Change is happening.
Many folk either never learned Critical Thinking or do not apply it to all views pro and con.
That's depressing.
Good article, but perhaps its main point could be put more simply.
Do we ever have 100% certainty that anything is the case? In the 18th century, David Hume said that the fact that the sun had appeared in the east every morning in human history doesn't prove that it will appear tomorrow. Evidence discovered since Hume's time suggests that in roughly 5 billion years, the sun will become a red giant and incinerate the earth, putting an end to sunrise.
Until then, however, sunrise is a pretty good bet. Some things have a probability that approaches, though it cannot quite reach, certainty. And some things have a probability of being false that approaches, though it cannot reach, certainty.
We have reason to prefer what, according to the best evidence we have, is almost certainly true to that which, according to that evidence, is almost certainly false. And to act accordingly.
1
I think you're right, but that point is exactly what the anti people focus on. I couldn't count the number of times I've seen denial comments on a scientifically valid statement that this or that effect is highly likely, etc., that say well, if it's only likely, that means it's not happening.
Yet another reason why government should neither be conceived of nor run like a business...particularly in this era of complete capitulation to the shareholder class at the expense of all other stakeholders.
1
Working to ameliorate climate change costs money. Moneyed interests are basically who oppose action based on climate change research. Phasing out coal burning power plants is expensive and is costing the coal companies money and investment.
There can be little doubt that climate change is real, farmers in Alberta Canada have begun growing corn and soy beans. Ice caps are melting and the sea level is raising. Not preventing it will have its consequences, but after the opponents of measures to slow it down and reduce its effects are dead and gone, they do not care.
Some even give Donald the Dishonest credit for knowing it is real. He knows nothing, he simply parrots what certain selected individuals tell him. He is absolutely ignorant of scientific knowledge, he believes he knows what he does not know, or as Kruger-Dunning put it, he is so stupid he does not know he is stupid.
As we see his supporters, are of pretty much of the same mind set, followers of a sociopath who has given them hope that their own fantasies and beliefs can be achieved, despite the one thing that stops all such folly, Reality, that which exists independent of wishes, hopes, and fears, it can not be cheated.
1
And here is the problem:
"According to NASA, at least 97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists think that “climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely caused by human activities.”
Whats an "actively publishing climate scientist"?
What does "Think that" mean?
What is "extremely likely"?
Let's see statements like "The models have been 97% accurate in predicting the future climate".
Until then, and we may get there someday soon, skeptics are justified in their skepticism.
2
@B
If you want a scientific approach to any kind of issue, you HAVE to learn to be a skeptic.
Contrary to what this op-ed claims though, that does NOT means systematically doubting everything, no matter how much proof is available.
It means looking for real proof.
And IF you look for real proof in the climate science political debate launched by the GOP (and they alone ... the entire world's conservative political parties refuse to turn science into politics, remember?), then you don't need strange affirmations such as how many scientists "agree". Science isn't a matter of democracy. You either have proof or you don't.
As the UN and now a recent US official report show, there is actually PLENTY of proof, showing with 99,99% certainty that the current global warming is (1) unprecedentedly fast, (2) caused by human CO2 emissions, and (3) extremely dangerous for most living species if it continues for a couple more decades - including human beings.
If you think you found a study that is seriously refuting any of those three proven findings, could you please send us a link?
Thanking you in advance (no irony).
@Ana Luisa
I have made no claims about global warming. Im simply pointing out that skeptics are justified for their skepticism.
On the other hand, I would love to see your proof that offers 99.99% certainty. I am skeptical that such a proof exists.
@B (second comment)
Thanks for your reply.
In that case, by "skeptical" you mean that you doubt that it exists, or rather believe that it doesn't exist, no?
That's indeed how the author of this op-ed seems to use "skepticism" (simply taking over ordinary language dictionary definitions).
Philosophical/scientific skepticism, however, has quite a different meaning. It doesn't mean sticking to your own beliefs until somehow proof of the opposite pops up, it rather means not believing anything (in terms of "truth") as long as you didn't see evidence that proves that it's true. That implies NOT believing your own opinions as long as you didn't see evidence, and actively looking for evidence that questions them.
As long as you didn't do so, you can't claim to be a skeptic, and you can't believe in your own opinions, from a rational point of view - you have to admit that they're mere assumptions, which could very easily be totally false.
As to climate change: if you want to see scientific evidence, just read the latest government report, for instance. Or the latest UN report (= NOT studies financed by the UN, but UN scientists taking ALL studies made all over the world and summarizing them).
Example: when you increase the CO2 concentration in a closed chemical system, in a lab, it warms up more/faster. That has been proven for a century know, so it's certain (99.99% is simply because 100% means an eternal repetition of the same experiment, which is physically impossible).
I think climate change is very probably an emergency we must prudently address now.
But consider news stories on whether some substance has a salutary effect on human health. Some people think X is good for you. But a study shows it doesn’t make much difference as to a particular measurable facet of health. So save your money, eat a balanced diet, and take what your doctor prescribes.
The stories practically write themselves. Which apparently happened with some recent news reports on whether certain fatty acids and Vitamin D have a salutary effect; the early stories differed dramatically from later stories on the same studies.
Over the years with these stories I find myself wondering whether they’re asking the right question. I’ll notice different descriptions of the same data which seem to support different conclusions, so I conclude it matters whether a researcher assents to an alternate description by a journalist looking for clickbait or a pharma exec seeking to influence public policy.
So when talking about climate science, focus less on clickbait, be skeptical about commercial spin, and focus on what scientists understand in well-founded ways to a high degree of probability.
19
@Jack
You always have to look at who finances those studies, and what kind of evidence are they providing.
In the case of vitamine D, most studies are done by the pharmaceutical industry. That would be comparable to heaving the solar or wind industry doing climate change studies (which they don't do).
Secondly, not ONE single study has been able to come up with evidence showing how much vitamine D we actually need to be healthy and thriving. So the thresholds that doctors today advise nothing but numbers proposed by companies producing vitamine D, numbers that they cannot back up by scientific studies.
THAT is how to distinguish real science from fake science.
Similarly, the fossil fuel industry financed studies trying to refute AGW have failed to prove their point over and over again.
That's why today, for instance, the previous Exxon Mobile CEO Rex Tillerson advised Trump to stay in the Paris Climate agreement, whereas the current EM CEO supports it too. Decades of studies financed by EM and designed to try to prove that AGW doesn't exist or that studies who show that it exists can be refuted, have resulted in ... no results at all. So now even those CEOs know that it exists, and is real, and dangerous, and are calling for action. Which is, of course, why Trump fired Tillerson.
4
Philosophers have not only been "talking" about skepticism for 2,600 years know, the greatest among them have also invented philosophies that are called "skepticism".
How a philosopher can write an op-ed without even mentioning them goes beyond me.
Nor Descartes, nor Socrates, nor Wittgenstein were "skeptics" in the philosophical sense of the word.
Of course, like all serious philosophers and scientists, they refused to take "common sense" as a criterium for truth, and decided to question it instead.
What this op-ed does, however, is precisely to stick to "common sense". Any dictionary will tell us that in a common sense interpretation of the word "skeptic", being a skeptic means doubting that a statement is true and preferring to assume that it is false.
This op-ed goes even further than that, and proposes to identify ignoring and being a skeptic. No serious philosopher has ever proposed anything like that. And the reason here is simple: either you ignore whether a statement is true, or you decide to act based on the assumption that it's false.
What the GOP is doing for decades already, is the latter. As soon as scientific evidence proves that the statement is true, however, this kind of attitude is neither ignorance nor being skeptical, it is IRRATIONAL.
Spending 0.00025% of your income on a lottery ticket knowing that your chance to win an amount of money that is 20 times your income isn't irrational, as the cost is so low, and chances VERY low but real.
@Ana Luisa That Socrates was not a skeptic is far from universally accepted by competent philosophers, ancient and modern. If you read On Certainty with care, you may agree with many competent readers that Wittgenstein was a skeptic. So perhaps you ought be more careful in your chiding for historical ignorance.
@whim
None of them ever claimed to belong to a PHILOSOPHICAL form/school of skepticism.
So you have to put the history of philosophy aside and merely use ordinary language dictionary meanings of the word "skeptic" in order to refer to the fact that they, like any ordinary human being, preferred to doubt whether a statement is true or not as long as no evidence was backing it up.
Skepticism, in the history of philosophy, is a theory of knowledge, proposing very specific criteria for what can be called "truth" and "knowledge". And like all great philosophies, they propose NEW concepts of truth (which in philosophy means unique and until today most of the time not part of our "common sense" thinking at all).
Probability dictates that there always will be some climate change deniers. But in the United States, there are many more than expected by any statistical model. This suggests that there are forces trying to influence people against the idea of man-made climate change. These forces are created with outright lies about just about every aspect of the issue. All evidence suggests that the people spreading the misinformation do it willfully for economic gain. We’ve been through this already with cigarettes
1
As a student of both science and philosophy I was trained in skepticism, to constantly challenge received 'wisdom' and belief.
I frame this view in two statements of my personal view: 1) "I reserve the right to be wrong." and 2) "I do not believe in belief."
--------------------------------------------------------
A philosopher may seek logical proof (Socrates), while a scientist should test hypotheses per Karl Popper not for proof, but for 'empirical falsification'. Either way, it ain't what I know or believe, it is what the evidence shows. Trump's problem is that he isn't aware that he doesn't know, or how much he doesn't know. Thus he does not really know what he believes he knows. He remembers things he heard and believes those that fit his confirmation biases, and disbelieves those that don't. His 'skepticism' is untrained doubt, a playground for confirmation biases.
3
I'm skeptical that spinning the discussion from knowledge to probability will have any impact whatsoever on climate change deniers. What matters most to them is the denial not how they got there.
2
As a student of Philosophy, all that I can rightly claim to know is, “cogito ergo sum.”
Skepticism aside, the absurdity of the world that we live in is almost undeniably the result of widespread ‘epistemic angst’, and the subsequent absence of ‘a priori’ values which might otherwise exist.
Introducing percentages into purportedly philosophical interpretations and analyses is nihilistic. Philosophy is not a math. The most sophisticated epistemological thought in the Western world came from Friedrich Nietzsche, and his entire body of work was completely perverted in the name of the societal status quo (and the Third Reich).
Fortunately, Albert Camus existed.
These people (Trump and the Republicans) do not care a whit for truth, science, or the future of our children or grandchildren.
Short-term gain for their political ambitions, or their own pocketbooks, is all that drives them.
This acceptance of greed, selfishness and disregard for the common good started with their hero - Ronald Reagan.
3
Try this thought experiment - "if 100% of scientists said humans were causing global climate change with 100% certainty, would we still have millions of Americans doubting them, if Fox News told them to doubt?"
4
@Vanowen, thanks for your thought experiment. If scientists claimed absolute certainty, there would likely be even more Americans doubting them. The current President claimed that Putin emphatically denied Russian involvement in the 2016 election; do you feel more confident he is right? If experts claim 100% certainty they are not experts.
War criminal Richard Bruce Cheney formulated, or I should say maliciously purveyed the one percent doctrine, claiming that even that amount should be treated as certainty rather than risking Saddam Hussein attacking us with WMDs. Of course Cheney knew from the CIA that he did not have them nor would use them if he did, but he could not have cared less as he was bent on starting a war for motives of personal profit.
1
You don’t need to be a scientist, just do your school exams again,
CO2 is plant food, not a pollution
Water vapour/ clouds is thousands of times more of a greenhouse gas than CO2.
In Europe its all turned into a religion-
People believe in AGW and don’t even question it.
Its all a big scam to support electric vehicles, increase ‘guilt’ taxes and prevent business growth
1
@Mike
FYI: it's the ENTIRE world that signed the Paris Climate Agreement, remember? And that's because ALL international independent scientific studies show that it's real and extremely dangerous. So it's not just "the left" or "Europe" or whatever.
And a "scientific study" means QUESTIONING AGW, and coming up with proven, verifiable answers, which other scientists then question again, etc. That's precisely why scientific results are so solid.
As to the idea that you can easily ignore all science out there simply because CO2 is plant food: IF you yourself would have questioned it for a moment, I'm quite certain that you would have seen how false it is.
As with ALL kinds of food, in order to survive you need a specific amount of it, because with less or more, you die, you see? The exact same thing goes for plants and CO2. Or humans and oxygen.
And it's not just plants that need a specific CO2 concentration in the air, as many sea creatures depend on it too. With a CO2 atmospheric concentration as high as it is today (= the highest in more than 4 million years), oceans' Ph are acidity degree starts to change. And that means that the chemical reactions that shellfish need in order to build their shells, become much more difficult to obtain. If we continue to emit as much CO2 as today for a couple more decades, it will become impossible, and change will be too fast for shellfish to adapt.
And those creatures are at the bottom of our food chain ...
@Ana Luisa
Thanks for your reply , but its just more pseudo science again, ‘less or more and you die’
Where did you get that info from? Probably another corrupted IPCC sponsored site
Plants adjust their growth to the CO2 available, there is no optimum, if there was it would be much higher than todays levels, if you go back a bit more than 4 million years ago plants did far better than today ,
Also, shell fish did very well a few million years ago, which well explains all the carbonates laid down in the crust well before man came along,
Again just high school science.
Your could roll the dice and pray probability on your side --or you could look to scientific research for answer--namely
Svante Arrhenius-one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry. In 1896, was the first to use basic principles of physical chemistry to calculate estimates of the extent to which increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) will increase Earth's surface temperature through the greenhouse effect. Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1903). You want probability or genius prediction--I'd go with the genius
When Trump says "Who knows?" he has probably just told a lie. That is also a very common verbal slight of hand for rationalizing an untrue statement.
As good as NASA report is and as certain that we are in Climate change era and as conclusive evidence that CO2 levels are unprecedentedly high and caused by human activity.... Report has none of the science that shows impact of other internal or external factors that the report just mentions as potentially having impact...
So, back to your first paragraph... show me the proof!
Are drastic climate changes singularly the result of increased emission of gas that comprises a fraction of Earth atmosphere? What about Earth inner core? Have it warmed, cooled stayed the same? Why oceans are warming? Just because of increased acidity? Is it even linked to ea other...?
Why a multifactoral system being looked from a single variable perspective...?
Consensus means nothing in science if and has more attributes to religion... Majority of scientists were sure that Galileo was wrong... So, saying that 97% of scientist agree... we all agree that there's climate change and it would be good to reduce CO2 emissions... that's all.
Ostracizing those who have doubt is just not productive or effective... but it seems to be this paper's religion to paint Trump and his adherents as some lesser beings for doubting or espousing certain views... even though the science of climate change as serious an issue as it is, has no clear set of actions to be taken to curb it without severely impacting economies and people's livelihood, almost similar to treating headache with guillotine
2
The author fails to highlight the effect of one's volition and desire on one's irrational views, what she calls skeptical pressure....just a passing mention of climate change being a political issue. It's one thing to have a view about something one is not involved or vested in (someone else's lottery ticket probability)...but another when one's desires will be affected (climate change regulation, or one's own lottery ticket). It's also one thing to be in a situation where you are not in control (lottery), and another when you are (whether you will end up grade papers). Regarding climate change, the real factor in my opinion is whether people are willing to accept hard truths or keep their heads in the sand...personal bias is a big player in this.
26
@SP agreed... there is an element of my tribe vs. your tribe here, e.g., IF "climate change is real" THEN my tribe loses, so the author's argument, while illuminating, seems incomplete.
3
This would be interesting if we had a president that looked at and understood facts, at all.
This article has value beyond the topic he chose to illuminate, in my opinion. For example, if you ever have to serve on a jury, you may be stuck dealing with "beyond a reasonable doubt" in a criminal case, or "preponderance of evidence" in a civil case. If the defense lawyer in a criminal case can successfully get you to believe that a tiny nagging doubt is enough to let a perpetrator go, then you may prevent justice and possibly fail to provent more harm of innocents at the hands of a violent offender. Philosophers can be good at clearly describing an apparent common sense issue with nuance that turns out to be important. I very much like the idea that the vast majority of humans can think about their doubts in a more objective way if we just steer them towards thinking in terms of objective probability instead of epistemological certainty.
1
The problem with the climate change debate is that the observed facts -- record of warming temperatures coinciding increased greenhouse gas emissions -- gets conflated with fantastic projections of global catastrophe 50 to 100 years out based on models laced with assumptions upon assumptions. People with no scientific training, which is most all, take to preaching to others the truth of these dire projections, which in fact they take on faith and faith alone. Those of use who understand science and the art of modeling are not climate deniers, we simply aware of the margin of error embedded in those models.
@johnlo
I agree with the idea that most ordinary citizens who believe the self-declared "climate science skeptics" do so NOT because they reject science or would prefer to act in an irrational way (something that 99% of philosophers never called "skeptic pressure", by the way ... as skepticism and irrationality are two different concepts).
Quite on the contrary, they do so in the name of science.
The problem, however, is that the most of the rumors floating on the internet about imperfect models, impossibility to predict etc. have been proven to be false - scientifically proven to be false, that is.
That's why today you have to choose: either you value science, but then you have to admit that the most solid predictions available today all point to gigantic catastrophes requiring immediate action today ... or you don't value science, and then you just decide to adopt irrational behavior instead.
The UN reports calling for immediate and drastic action by all governments on earth, and the just released US report calling for the same kind of action IF we want to prevent the worst catastrophes by the end of this century, ARE solid reports, with solid predictions ... way too solid to decide not to act and still behave in a rational way.
In other words, if you believe that all those independent reports are wrong, WHERE are the studies proving that claim ... ?
The lottery example is quite different from the climate change example, because the risk or penalty of losing is so different in each case.
For many people, the penalty for losing the lottery is just the lost of a few dollars that is lost in in the noise of a multitude of expenditures. OTOH, not responding to threats of climate change can mean the loss of civilization, extinction of the human race, or miserable living conditions. So there are factors beyond probabilities that are in play, such as near-term effects versus long term effects or political ideology.
2
Amerikans don't accept Climate Change because, as a fact, it doesn't fit into their big- picture, frame of reference that supports 'their economic system'. In other words,what's called an 'ontology' in philosophy is called an 'ideology' in politics.
It's therefore obvious that what the author personalizes as the mental disorder of 'obsessive/compulsive" should be enlarged to encompass group behavior: being amerikan is the mental disorder that disables the rest of humanity from taking necessary action. Delenda est.
Nice... :)
Let’s have some absurd insults from someone who can’t spell...
That’ll show ‘em how to respect science... those “Amerikans” which is obviously unlike the rest of “us” who... want to do smthg... just smthg... :))
Not what “Amerikans” do... :)
Central to the Republican argument is flexible thinking, ie if they can make money or gain status, they're for it. No matter how destructive it is, no matter how many lies required to justify it, no matter what they said yesterday or will say tomorrow. Hence, they embrace the ideas of an ignorant lunatic. Trump.
Socrates had had his moment, so here's a tasty bite from a contemporary.
"They are told that their apprehension about the threat he poses to our constitutional democracy is not a form of vigilance but a disease: “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” “All they can do is attack the president all day long on the scandal of the day,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) who became an aficionado of the term.
This is the same Cruz who, in 2016, called Trump a “pathological liar,” “utterly amoral,” a “narcissist at a level I don’t think this country has ever seen” and “a serial philanderer.” Perhaps the senator suffers from Trump Rearrangement Syndrome, a disorder common among Republicans who disown every criticism they ever offered of Trump so he’ll help them win reelection."
- E.J. Dionne Jr. in the WP
Awareness of ignorance doesn't exist in Trumpworld. Climate change skepticism reigns as absolutely as does our 45th president. The ignorant are leading America to the death of Planet Earth.
1
Trump dishonestly denies the anthropogenic origin of climate changes, period. Academization of this issue is simply useless.
2
Certainly the philosophers of the ages have a term for those who choose to deny those things that are absolute knowns.
Missing in this piece is the certainty of the science. Scientists may disagree on the degree of the future effect, and self-interested parties will seize on that disagreement for their own financial and political gain.
But, that argument is an argument against the laws of chemistry and physics- ridiculous from the outset. That is the frustration of the whole climate change discussion, that skepticism has become doubting of the things that are known.
When CO2 is raised by 30% over pre-industrial levels (a known) the atmosphere will warm (a known). Warmer air holds more moisture, sucking water from already dry areas and dumping it in already wet areas-in massive rainfall events. When the atmosphere warms, ice will melt-duh. When there is 30% more CO2, the oceans might be as much as 30% more acidic. Marine life that has evolved over the millenia is now presented with an atmosphere that has developed over the past 150 years.
Let's stop arguing with the thermometer and do something.
Check your science laws again
Temperature change Follows CO2 change
@Mike
R Ho writes:
"When CO2 is raised by 30% over pre-industrial levels (a known) the atmosphere will warm (a known). "
So check his comment again ... ;-)
Let’s!
Do what???
Write a comment in NYT?
Stop smoking? Throw away your grill master...? Bike, run...?
What?
Criticizing is easy... Thinking thru and arriving at decisions that will not impact or limiting impact on humans’ well being is harder... :)
But still... Let’s!
Knowing almost with certainty that the fool in our White House lies with every comment about climate change or unlawful children or his taxes we can be sure our country and the world are in alot of trouble. Matched with that his administration to support all his lying we can be sure we will not succeed. With no knowledge or light coming from them we can bet on it.
1
This is one of the most unintentionally ironic opinion pieces I've seen in the NY Times. It's comedy gold.
Trump's statement that he doesn't know climate change is man made has nothing to do with what he believes or anything epistemological. It has everything to do with Trump is a liar.
In essence- stick with Bozo who claims to own winning ticket and denounces climate change policy in his Administration despite overwhelming odds- punt on this Disastrous Presidency and aggressively promoted climate change policy............
1
There are other reasons to hold unreasonable beliefs. I am 79, but expect to go on living indefinitely. II believe this because it gives more peace of mind than worrying that the end being near. And I can convince myself that I am adhering to Williams James' understanding of truth.
Maybe it would help to assure folks the consequences of being wrong are minor. Making it unnecessary to be correct beyond the shadow of a doubt. Renewable energy is cheap and dependable. Jobs building wind turbines or installing sea platforms for offshore wind energy aren’t that different than welding oil rigs together. Etc. switching energy sources or means of propulsion won’t change who we are or the communities we live in.
1
It's ignoble profiteering for the Kochs, Trump and their ilk. For many of their untutored tribe, however, cognitive dissonance likely plays a role. The term cognitive dissonance is used to describe the feelings of discomfort that result when one's beliefs run counter to new or challenging information that is perceived as threatening. People tend to seek consistency in their attitudes and perceptions, so when what's held true doesn't jibe with what one thinks, something must change in order to eliminate or reduce the discomfort produced by the dissonance. A classic example of this is "explaining something away."
2
Never mind high-class logic, philosophy, science, etc. The less credible you assertions, the more bolstered they have to be by well-sounding, even extreme, arguments to sell the product. so, for instance, the truth of religion being indemonstrable, to get people to buy into it you have to make the reward sound irresistible (heaven). similarly, to motivate climate-change fear, to overcome buyers' commonsense economic objections, activists have to make it sound as dire as they can: ecological catastrophe, the end of life as we know it, planetary heat-death. Climate change is really a religious/political movement its proponents are having a hard time selling, so they're ratcheting up the sales pitch in the hope of stampeding the customers into buying. In fact, their rhetorical extremism now actually damages their case. Plain old human ingenuity + greed (capitalism) will solve the problem (have faith, brother).
2
....except that the “activists” you reference are career scientists who rely on a system of generating knowledge based on observation and experiment (scientific method; been around since the 16th century), rather than some looney bunch of fear-mongers... your proposed “solution” (human ingenuity and capitalism) already undercuts your position: so there is, in fact, a problem in need of a solution? At least you acknowledge that much. Except now, you propose we continue down the same road that got us here: the same economic model that encourages consumption and waste (capitalism). “Ingenuity” may provide an ounce of hope - although it created the combustion engine, leading to reliance on fossil fuels, it may just yet lead to a new energy revolution, one that is cleaner, sustainable, and more just.
You assert with confidence that others are simply stoking fears of ecological catastrophe, but offer no evidence.
Is it possible you’re worried that your own claims may not be credible, and are bolstering an unsubstantiated opinion with overconfident, even extreme argumentation?
1
American may agree with “taking action,” but if you ask them whether they are willing to give up cheap energy provided by fossil fuels to live in the Stone Age or the freedom to reproduce at will (which is what the climate “scientists” are really recommending), I suspect they would change their opinions. A high level of skepticism is appropriate when considering a radical change to society.
1
I found two major philosophical and scientific problem with this article.
First the consensum among climate scientists is that "they believe" in man- made climate change and that it is "extremely likely".
Science do not deal with believing.
Either a phenomenon is happening or not, one should apply scientific reasoning and extrapolate results they can confront with reality of to be testable. A good theory could do it by according itself with other current and consolidated ones ( which is by no means a sureire of been successful).
In recognizing their lack of scientific assurance, climate scientists turned to say that man-made climate change is "extremely likely" .
The issue here is to turn on probability since assurance can't be guaranteed.
On the philosophical side the author adopted, then, a WEAK interpretation of scientific theory. He isn't anymore interested in exact results but in what degree of probability one can weigh among different theories. Skipping the whole psychological issue which is about be confused (i shut down gas?) which is about memory and not facts ( the person did in fact shut it down), the problem here is to relativize the world, and take the more probable as measure.
From that to the "believing" system the step is too close. And the whole system would be based then on "author's credibility". So scientific tradition narrates Aristotles was still right all nerves departed from heart, even if one physician showed that was not the case.
2
This essay is philosophically interesting discussion that is scientifically and politically absurd.
Science illiteracy is rampant in the modern world. When 97% of climate scientists believe man-made pollution (CO2, Methane, etc) are causing global warming at rates never before seen in the planet's history, the GOP-led denial efforts on behalf of the fossil-fuels industries are actively and knowing putting short-term profits above all else.
As a retired environmental remediation scientist who used risk management and probabilities of harm regularly, I believe a >97% probability of catastrophic global consequences our grandchildren and future generations will inherit from our actions / inactions is a legacy we will be damned for.
9
Humans (brain-equipped or not) are no match against Mother Nature's backhand. And if I could buy her war bonds, I would.*
+++++
* Then.. how would I redeem them?
I think that most climate change deniers view it as a liberal stratagem to enhance Democrat’s and the government’s power—over the economy and their daily lives—with little hard evidence right now of climate change’s catastrophic consequences. They will die before giving Democrats an upper hand, the science be damned.
4
Good article. Science is based on the assumption that no scientific theory is ever proven and all theories are subject to revision or rejection. To the average non-scientific person, that can be interpreted as a lack of commitment by scientists to any theory, whether well-supported by evidence or not. If scientists can't say something with 100% certainty (which is usually the case), it opens the door to doubt and skepticism by those who aren't scientists and who don't think like scientists.
3
When we refuse to say we know that the lottery ticket won't win, it's a feature of human language. Everybody knows that few tickets win, so if I say I know it won't win, people around me will raise their eyebrows and ask how I know -- meaning: How do you know that the probability of winning is not one-in-a-million, but straight zero?
Similarly, because human language is interpreted relative to the circumstances, if you say you know you will be gardening this weekend, everybody understands that this is you plan, not an absolute certainty.
Still, it's very interesting that by switching from "knowledge" to probabilities we may circumvent dysfunctional mental patterns.
This essay seemed to me a longish statement of the obvious. Perhaps there are people who are unaware of this phenomenon, but in my observation most people do understand the concept of probabilities and sense the irrationality of denying strong likelihoods, while at the same time find themselves subject to the lure of appealing — or self-justifying — irrational beliefs from time to time. Or even all the time. I was surprised the author did not even mention the influence of cognitive dissonance — the tendency to disbelieve new evidence that conflicts with a pre-existing belief. I also feel that the emphasis on probabilities with future outcomes — like the irrational hope of the lottery-ticket purchaser — obscured the powerful effects of cognitive dissonance in forming people’s perspectives. As we’ve seen, irrational skepticism is equally prevalent retrospectively — for example in continued denial of climate change when previously predicted results are manifest in the present. While skeptics like President Trump still say dumb things like “whatever happened to global warming?” every time there’s a cold snap, the new dodge seems to be acknowledging climate change while doubting that it’s caused, or at least exacerbated, by human activity. Isn’t this all just a fancy way of saying that beliefs are often more emotional than rational? And that this leaves a wide-open door for manipulation and exploitation of people’s hopes and fears? No surprises here.
A few things:
1. Ignorance in politics, whether willful or otherwise, is different than the sort of ignorance that is so crucial in driving scientific exploration. The latter drove people to ask questions about climate, leading to current reams of evidence based on experiment, as opposed to political theology.
2. Skepticism is not a uniform construct. Some climate skeptics accept that change is real and that human agency might be significant. They go on to deny that we know what to do about it and refuse most all attempts. These are different from those skeptics (purveyors of willful ignorance) who want the merchants of death and doubt to be allowed free rein to focus on their short-term profits--future generations be damned. [Note: I understand that some philosophers attempt to distinguish hardened skepticism from incredulity: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/#TwoBasForPhiSke . I am not sure how well that works for editorial columns in the public sphere.]
3. Failure is another concept crucial to science, and many climate skeptics do not wish to acknowledge that failure should be accepted along the way as we attempt to improve the environment. We should acknowledge the importance of accepting that we will get some things wrong (we seem to be doing plenty of that these days). We will never get anywhere if we cannot accept the possibility of some failure.
The debate around climate change and denial quite often leaves out an important reason behind the skepticism, the role of the government in ones life. People that deny climate change are emotionally bound to either distrust or even hate "government". Solutions to climate change require more regulations. Accepting that climate change is real means they have to accept a larger (and positive) role for government. Rather than debate the merits, or learn about the science, it is far more pleasing to jump on any possible uncertainty or claim its all a conspiracy since this affirms their belief that government is "bad".
4
While it is true that if you go with the probabilities you'll be right most of the time, in a given moment of decision you do not know if you'll be right or not. If you're trying to make a one time decision, it doesn't matter that you would be right 999 times if you were making that decision 1,000 times. This particular time might be the exception. You can call that sort of thinking OCD if you want, but the fact remains that one person in 1,000 who are making that decision will be a winner by going against the odds.
@Jason. I am not sure where you are going with that. Most people are familiar with some sort of cost benefit analysis. The person who buys the lottery ticket feels that spending a few dollars doesn't hurt him but the reward would be tremendous. As long as his actions aren't hurting, it is not really a problem. A report had just come out that says the costs of doing nothing are huge if the 97% prediction of climate change holds up while there are few negatives for switching to a carbon neutral or negative system. It has been said that it is difficult to convince someone of something when their livelihood depends on not believing it. Substitute political identity, world view. Are you going to convince coal miners that they should give up jobs? I don't think statistics is going to sway the climate change disbelievers.
1
The climate change deniers should be asked this question: Why do professional skeptics not doubt human-caused climate change? Re-insurance companies like Munich Re are focusing on renewable engergies, not fossil fuels. And they surely know how to manage risks.
1
Here is a thought experiment:
Announce at a faculty meeting you have problems with the computerized modelling of climate change and the secondary effects of CO2 on water molecules in the atmosphere---water being by an order of magnitude the main greenhouse gas.
Now watch your grants, tenure and academic career go up in smoke.
The Lysenko affair would educate you on your vulnerability.
2
The probability of a Fox News-watcher believing in anthropogenic climate change is zero. The probability of him changing his mind regardless of the technique used to present the evidence to him is also zero.
2
The richest and most rewarding reflection on climate change and knowledge that I have seen is the Robert Bringhurst, Jan Zwicky "Learning to die, Wisdom in the Age of Climate Change." Zwicky's essay "A Ship from Delos" is extraordinary.
OK, I'll bite, Dr. Pinilos.
The probability of climate change being significantly impacted by human activity approaches 1.
Have you ever believed in Calculus, or do you believe that there is no possible way we could rely on it for measurements of any kind to define curves? Which is it?
Does your navel-gazing approach to mathematical certainty provide some usefulness or is it yet again just another cover for the evil of greedy fossil fuel companies and oligarchs and their political operatives?
1
Dr. N. Ángel Pinillos:
I love the idea of probability for educating the public. I suppose the reason the science community hasn't convinced the news media to report probability is because there is no probability to report. Climate change as a result of humans unnatural activity (burning lie mad) is happening and it will continue to happen.
I think the current bit of climate change denial by those in positions of leadership and access to comprehensive information, is in reality pro-fossil fuel propaganda dressed up as false-humility/ignorance/skepticism. It plays on peoples' desire to avoid having to change how they live, by providing a false basis to preserve the status quo.
This is very similar to the venal "Obama is likely a US citizen - I couldn't really say" passive-aggressive statements issued by senior GOP Congressmen who didn't have the decency to emphatically state what they knew to be the truth. They preferred to allow the fire of falsehood about Obama's citizenship continue to their benefit.
In sum, it's all a lack of intellectual and moral integrity, dressed up in sham humility and scepticism.
1
Dr. Pinillos, you give climate change skeptics too much credit. Scientists base their theories on evidence-based probabilities. Climate change skeptics are not capable of, or are unwilling to engage in, this type of reasoning. There is something about skepticism in the face of substantial evidence that makes some skeptics feel morally superior (I would put anti-vaxers in this category). I also believe that some cannot face the evidence because they are actually terribly afraid to do so. I know a climate change skeptic, a man who has two young grandchildren. One would think he would be a strong supporter of policies that try to limit the damage our energy use is causing. On the contrary, he believes that climate change is inevitable and that we can do nothing about it. Does he love his children and grandchildren? Absolutely. Does he care very much about their future? Yes. Which may be why he is in such denial.
1
Thanks for bringing probability into the discussion. Regrettably we humans don't do probability very well; it's an intense intellectual exercise that our evolved risk assessment mechanisms don't align with very well. (That in itself is an interesting phenomena - what were the survival advantage in misjudging probabilities?). Myself, I think the politically powerful climate denier supporters are quite aware of the climate change reality but have their own ideas about how to take advantage of it. Those ideas don't involve democratic government response to which they would have to submit but rather responses they would control and reap the benefits of. They unleash "the merchants is doubt" to play on humans' naturally occurring skepticism to achieve their ends: paralyze government action and wait, preparing for the right crisis to make their move.
In a recent criminal case for which I served on the jury, the judge spent some time explaining the concept of "reasonable doubt," the standard we were instructed to use before making a finding of guilt or innocence. He also explained "circumstantial evidence" and "reasonable inferences." For the latter, he gave this example: on a snowy morning you look out your front door for the mail and see that the box is empty. A half-hour later, you look out again and see footsteps leading to and from your front door, and the mail is now there. Your reasonable inference is that the mailman has delivered the mail. It's not impossible that the mailman was ambushed down the street, the mail stolen, and someone else put the mail there. But the probability of such a thing happening, given the lack of a reasonable motive, is vanishingly small. The resistance to belief in man-made climate change, among doctrinaire conservatives, is rooted in the indisputable fact that if climate change is real, and a real problem that must be addressed, only governments (alone and with others) can act to address it. But since conservative doctrine says that more government action is always bad, the need for it must be denied, however preposterous, strained, and unbelievable the denials. I read recently of a Navajo proverb: "It is impossible to wake a person who is pretending to be asleep."
15
@Strix Nebulosa That is a brilliant proverb! Thank you.
1
@Strix Nebulosa All very true! I would add one further point of emphasis: for most conservatives, not only is their resistance to government action in all cases threatened by the realities of climate change, but also is their wealth endangered. I've long considered the following caveat to belief in free markets: the more ardent one's stated belief is in the truth of free market theory, the more ardent their opposition becomes to anything a free market may do to limit their own wealth. The reality of climate change presents us with a frightening test case of the ardor with which conservatives revile government and are false in their claims to believe in free markets.
1
I am surprised that a professor of philosophy would fail to mention that humans are much more comfortable with absolute truth then objective truth for the very reason he suggests. Religion presents believers with absolute truth. More generally, behavior is driven by collectively accepted myths. It is no accident that many client doubters are religious fundamentalists. The question is what class of myths are driving the doubters? What is it they believe that makes them doubt or ignore scientific evidence. Human behavior has never been driven by objective truth.
1
@Anon I will argue that most Judeo-Christian religions demand a leap of faith. Embedded in that notion is that you have to give up empirical evidence to be a true believer. The concept posits that we, as humans, and like other animals, are limited by what our senses reveal to us. Because we cannot hear ultra high-range sounds doesn't mean they are not there. Our dogs hear them. So all evidence has to be weighed against our human limitations.
1
@Anon
In real life, most Physics Nobel peace winners are religious people, as are most philosophers.
And all great theologians explicitly write about the importance of the experience of doubt, including doubt about whether their god exists, throughout their entire life.
So you actually need a LOT of (often political and social) pressure to force people to end questioning and doubting and start imagining and then truly believing that "absolute truths" exist ...
And the reason for this is quite simple: if you want to be able to predict the results of your behavior today, you need to question your own beliefs and find some evidence, if not "reality" will sooner or later teach you a quite hard lesson.
That's why Democrats systematically propose science-based policies, and then continue to modify those policies until analyses of the non partisan CBO show that it is indeed highly probably that if this bill passes, it will produce the results that it aims to produce.
It's how Obamacare for instance has been written and debated and analyzed and modified over and over again, until it became clear that it would save an additional 40,000 lives a year (= half a million American lives saved a decade) all while insuring 20 million more and curbing cost increases.
And most Democrats are religious people too, remember?
Only dogmatists are too afraid to doubt to still allow it to exist, when it comes to statements that cannot be verified (such as the existence of a god).
(Sorry, that should have been "Physics Nobel PRIZE winners", of course, and not "peace winners" ...)
Yes, thinking in terms of probabilities is helpful, but the critical issue is how it affects decision-making. Statisticians distinguish between a Type I error and a Type II error - which “assumption” should be considered the base (most danger of error)? The best example is a criminal court case: the defendant enjoys the presumption of innocence, because we would rather allow a guilty criminal to go free rather than run the risk that an innocent person would be imprisoned. That’s why we say the prosecution has the burden of proof, and must convince a jury of 12 unanimously “beyond reasonable doubt” to convict.
Compare a criminal case with a civil case: instead of imprisonment, a defendant faces a financial judgement. THe burden of proof can therefore be lower: a pre-ponderance of evidence, rather than “beyond reasonable doubt.”
This thinking can be compared to the climate debate. If 97% of climate scientists are correct, the future of life (or human civilization) on the planet may be at stake. If they are wrong, jobs and comfort and convenience are at stake. Which deserves the benefit of the doubt? Should be obvious.
2
Good article. But what if some climate deniers are really pro fossil fuel. They might be using their position and money to confuse the public, much like the tobacco industry did for decades. Only, now the stakes are bigger. It is not the individual that is at risk, it is the entire planet.
6
One of the core "themes" in my ongoing "exchanges" with Trump voting relatives, is around this topic. They deeply distrust "experts". FOX News and Trump together push the idea that one should only "trust your own experience and judgement".
As FOX puts it in the corporate tag line, "We give you the facts; you decide". For a Trump supporter, facts and conclusions by experts are distorted, false, manipulated by self-interest; an all-around "con job".
I take the position that, generally, one has to depend on experts. As a STEM graduate I understand what it takes to be an expert in one area, and "common sense" when applied to areas of science, is not in and of itself, useful., unless you have deep knowledge and training on the subject.
Yet experts disagree, so you have to be skeptical; have to cross-reference all the research available, etc. A Trump supporter just rejects that and just "goes with my gut".
1
@OSS Architect This kind of thing permeates my discussions with Trump-types as well. They start with a reasonable set of premises -- that science is sometimes wrong, that scientists have biases, etc. -- then jump to the unreasonable conclusion that they can therefore ignore all science that does not conform to their "common sense" or in-place views. It is in that sense that I think the author of this article is being far too generous. Climate-change deniers aren't simply ignoring long odds the way lottery-players are. They are buying into an entire reality based on deep social, cultural, and religious narratives, and enforced by both political and religious shamans. Facts are of no use in the face of such faith, and I doubt odds are any better in this case.
If this were an issue unto itself, maybe the author would have a point. But when issues like this are part of a tightly-woven tapestry, the faithful have to know on some level that if they tug on even one frayed end, the whole thing may unravel. Conceding on climate change or anything else would mean much more than admitting the other side was right about a particular issue. It would mean their entire epistemological framework is flawed -- which of course, it is. They haven't just formed an incorrect conclusion, they have accepted a fundamentally flawed way of thinking. I fear that nothing short of calamity will shake them out of their tribal trance.
1
As interesting as this all is, discussions about why people don't believe or care enough about climate change have become a distraction from the work at hand. Had data on climate change only recently become available we might hope that an education and communications plan would galvanize everyone into action. But this is a twenty year old story and trying to come up with a killer argument to make the scales drop from people's eyes is a fools errand. Lobby for a revenue neutral carbon tax, renewable energy and the myriad other things that will help but don't waste time and energy on convincing those whose for whatever reason don't care to be convinced.
3
The article reminds me of Pascal's Wager. Better to believe in the existence of God because there was little to lose and a great deal to be gained.
1
@Vito Sciscioli
Except that for many people, there is a great deal to lose. That's precisely how telling people that climate science that shows results that would make them lose a lot, isn't real science, is so popular today ...
For the GOP, for instance, telling the truth here would make them lose a crucial campaign issue allowing them to fire up their base against "liberals". Admitting the truth would mean having to campaign on what they're really doing in DC, which would inevitably turn them into an eternal minority party ...
Skepticism means INVESTIGATING what is proposed/supposed to be true, certainly not claiming to ignore what your own scientists have just proven to be true, after thorough investigation, and then to continue to deliberately spread lies.
Or - perhaps as Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
3
President Dunning-Kruger will be along presently to disabuse those 97% of scientists of any notion of being correct about climate change.
1
A few people still believe the earth is flat. I say we reopen that issue in view of the fact that no everyone agrees that the earth is round.
2
Donald J. Trump's negative comments about climate change stem not from ANY knowledge of the evidence or genuine doubt but because those he regards as his enemies accept the overwhelming scientific evidence of human causes based on serious research.
In Trumpian politics, one must never admit one's adversaries are correct. One must never (or almost never) admit one made a mistake. When Trump tells a lie and is shown that he lied, will he repeat the lie rather than admit he had lied?
Nothing in the Trumpian view of human-caused climate change has anything to do with authentic scientific study.
What research has President Trump really studied?
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
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@Doug Giebel, president Trump used to believe in anthropogenic global warming. He now denies it, and that is just another of his countless lies. His guts are quite sound and tell him AGW is real. His "going with his guts" is again a lie. He is going against his guts when it comes to the truth of the issue, but he is going with his guts about how to play the game.
You left out one large group Dr. Pinillos, the expanse of us who don't really care about climate change. Everything has a lifespan and no amount of mollycoddling is going to change that. We have a much greater chance of destroying our planet by rogue nations with nuclear and chemical weapons than we do by legions of flatulating cattle.
1
@Kurt Pickard
So your proposal is that when a doctor tells you that you're more likely to die in a car accident within the next five years than from your brain cancer, the best is to decide to ignore your cancer?
Not very rational/reasonable, isn't it ... ? ;-)
By the way, how do you calculate the likelihood of a nuclear war? Any concrete statistics that might back up your hypothesis about probabilities here? Or are you merely talking about your own subjective fears, rather than scientifically proven probabilities?
Pinillos does not mention the deliberate and continuing effort to foster doubt about climate change detailed by Oreskes and Conway in their book, Merchants of Doubt.
2
Like the author, I can't assess the "evidence" on its own terms only the rhetoric surrounding it. And that rhetoric makes me far more skeptical than I might otherwise be for several reasons. Much of it has a 'heads I win tails you lose' dynamic: unusually warm weather is adduced as evidence of climate change, but unusually cold weather (as we're having now) is either dismissed as just weather, not climate, or is somehow construed as evidence of global warming. If the temperature goes up, it's global climate change and if it goes down it's still global climate change. Can this theory be falsified? It comes off as a tautology. Related to this are the claims that any destructive weather event must be evidence of climate change, but if I point to the recent cold snap as counter evidence, I would be denounced as an idiot who had confused weather with climate. It seems like weather events that confirm global climate change are allowed into the debate but those that do not are not. There's also the quasi-religious apocalyptic claims - "the window is closing so we must act now!" Well, I've been hearing that for about 25 years and the window just never seems to close. Finally, if the activists are right, the only solution would be so draconian that no democratic government would ever be able to do what is necessary. Look at what's going in France with a modest tax increase on gas. Short of the human species returning to grass huts and caves, there is not viable solution.
@J
It is expected that we will experience more extreme weather events in a warming climate, so both cold and warm events can be consistent with global warming. As can more extreme drought, rain, fire, hurricanes, etc. You say 25 years have passed and the window hasn't closed. Yet if you look at the trends you will see that things have changed along the predicted path (short term variability, like 1998-2010, is not part of the long term climate change). Those skeptical of climate change used to say it is not getting warmer. This is getting hard to defend, so now they say it is not due to human activity, or it will probably get colder again at some point. Next will be, it has gotten warmer, it is due to human activity, but it is too late to do anything about it (window closed). Finally, no climate scientist will say any specific event is due to climate change. They will instead say it is consistent with, or more likely to have occurred because of, climate change. What if there is only a 50% chance that the scientists are correct? Take a look at the predicted economic impacts in the just released report and you decide how much we should invest as insurance against that outcome.
1
@J
No climatologist have stated that cold weather isn’t evidence of climate change or that winter wouldn’t be cold. Scientifically, since the earth isn’t flat the cold weather must go somewhere. The Arctic and Antarctica areas are warming drastically. Climatologist base their predictions on what is occurring now, the burning West coast, droughts, are becoming true. Super storms are a reality.
Claiming that science is somehow a religion is another tactic that deniers use in their arsenal. Science relies on facts, data and provable hypothesis not baseless a “theory” that some nameless cabal made up. Science is self correcting. If human caused climate change was not happening, there would be dedicated scientists out there proving or disproving that claim. Finally we don’t have to go back to grass huts or caves. We have the technology and the creativity to solve this problem. The first step is to acknowledge the problem not deny that it exists.
@J, your perceptions of a "heads I win, tails you lose" quality, reveals a very superficial reading. Or maybe you are reading know-nothing comments. Global warming is not deduced from hot spells and cold winters.
Global warming has been predicted from the greenhouse effect making our planet radiate less heat into the surrounding space, by reducing the temperature of the upper strata of the stratosphere -- by a very slight increase in the insulating effect of the lower atmosphere. The prediction has been very uncertain in magnitude -- we are talking about less than one degree Celsius so far. We fear that self-reinforcing mechanisms could drive the temperature up some six degrees in a hundred years or so -- worst case.
When you experience ten degrees warmer weather than usual, you can be sure that there are other places around the globe that are colder than usual. Nobody is suggesting the planet has warmed ten degrees! The same goes for cold spells.
We also have the El Niño/La Niña effects. During long periods the oceans, particularly the equatorial Pacific, absorb large quantities of heat energy, and then, from time to time, the ocean "breathes out" much of the heat in the El Niño episodes. Such things do not heat the planet long term, but they make it harder to measure a steady accumulation of heat energy.
Instead of looking for warm or cold spells locally, you should look at the long-term trend in the global average temperature, across several El Niño cycles.
Does Mr. Trump carry fire insurance on Trump Tower. If so, why? The probability of burning down is very low.
2
The worst we can do today (especially as philosophers) is to adopt a "common sense" (and as a consequence by definition non philosophical) notion of skepticism (= doubting the truth of a statement and deciding to act as if it's false), and then accept the proposal of those who claim that climate science isn't real science as soon as it shows anthropogenic global dramatic warming to call this kind of claims "skepticism" (as in climate change "skeptics").
PHILOSOPHICAL skepticism has always been at the very heart of any philosophical or scientific activity, and means the exact opposite: to doubt the truth of a statement IF there is no evidence proving that it's true and/or IF there's evidence showing that it's false. And then, of course, to investigate it, using reliable methods to produce evidence.
What climate science deniers today do doesn't have ANYTHING to do with real skepticism.
And when a president explicitly rejects the scientific reports of his own administration, and instead claims to "not know" what those reports prove that scientists know, he's NOT being "skeptical", he's BLATANTLY LYING.
We need philosophers to remind us how SHAMEFUL lying about science is, in times like these, rather than to add to the confusion by calling it "skepticism". It is NOT.
And of course, real skepticism has nothing to do with buying a lottery ticket either. You KNOW that chances of winning are minimal, that's precisely why you only pay very little money for a lottery ticket ...
2
Willful ignorance can also be compounded by religious beliefs. There are some conservative climate deniers that couch their disbelief in the comfort of the belief that "god gave man dominion over the earth" so we can do whatever we want to the planet and we will be all right. Too often religious mythology is used as a basis for a purportedly scientific conclusion. "God's will" is not a statement of fact.
1
I don't know that my house is going to burn down next week, either, but I still have homeowners insurance in case it does. The chances that climate change is going to cause massive disruptions to human life and the environment--and the probability that burning fossil fuels is making it a lot worse--are much higher than the chances my house will burn down next week. Am I smarter than the President of the United States who refuses to do anything about that threat, or just more prudent? Yes.
4
In a secular conversation, absolute certainty is virtually impossible to achieve. Reasonable adults accept that all references to certainty are references to "statistical certainties." For instance, a company that recalls a product does (and cannot) know which specific consumers have contaminated lettuce in their homes or which specific cars will develop an acceleration problem. They can only say that the occurrences are statistically significant and the potential for harm is so great that it must be treated, as far as public policy is concerned, as real.
Importantly, most people looking for proof beyond mere statistical certainty are not likely to be convinced by any HONEST person. That is why people purporting to guarantee favorable economic outcomes, returns on investment, prevailing in a court case, winning a trade/cold/hot war, etc. are often (at best) utterly delusional or (at worst) dangerous fraudsters. The key to their appeal is not careful analysis, but mere CON-fidence; hence, the term "con man."
But convincing people to make dangerous bets is a con unto itself. Telling people, for instance, that statistically insignificant risks of vaccines outweighs the statistically significant risks foregoing vaccination is not a game. The same is true of the president's message on climate change. He is asking everyone to go all-in on terrible odds, but (as usual) he is not gambling with his own well-being. He will be gone when it is time to settle up.
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Please share some examples of "how" we might better frame climate change in terms of probabilities. It would be very helpful in appreciating your thoughtful argument. Thank you.
5
The trend toward warmer global temperature is clear. It's short- and long-term significance is less clear. The recent warning by the scientists that created such a storm has been criticized as biased toward the upper end, or worse-case scenario.
There is, therefore, rational grounds for skepticism about the reality of the crisis in the shorter-term. In the longer run, however, unless dramatic alterations are made, either through mechanisms that curtail the use of carbon-based fuels as the primary energy source, or by means of a yet to be invented scientific-technical fix, the outlook is bleak.
Any public policy intervention, such as the proposal by Prof. Nordhaus for a universal carbon tax at fixed rates with no exceptions, or substantial public funds directed toward the invention and application of the "fix," will be met with significant resistance. The "warming war" is not the "Cold War," and the need for an equivalent to the manned lunar mission will be treated by many today as lunacy.
People do not see an existential threat from global warming or, more to the point, they just don't want to see it because it requires (a) an immediate sacrifice of current consumption in favour of investments whose benefits might not be seen in the lifetimes of today's populations, and (b) a fairly drastic reorientation of one's chosen lifestyle, e.g., large suburban energy inefficient homes, suburban sprawl development, trucks masquerading as cars.
Willful disbelief is easier.
5
@San Ta "...benefits might not be seen in the lifetimes of today's populations, ..."
Really??? Tell that to the residents of Paradise, CA, or the migrants from the many countries whose crops have been ruined by climate change, or the islanders whose islands are disappearing. Just because some people might need to switch to electric vehicles to reduce emissions and support a passive solar and wind generating smart electricity grid today doesn't mean there won't be jobs in the new economy to replace the (literally) fossil-based jobs of the past. It's not a zero sum game. It's a switch to save your children's quality of life, and the future of the habitable world.
If you can't see that, I apologize.
A problem with this analysis is that it presumes good intentions, i.e., that skeptics are not engaged in a strategic disinformation campaign in support of fossil fuel interests. We know this to be be false: see, for example, Oreskes & Conway's "Merchants of Doubt" and lawsuits by several states' attorneys general.
It's important to recognize what isn't in doubt regarding climate change:
1. CO2, methane, and other gases trap heat that would otherwise escape the earth's atmosphere, resulting in planetary warming. The science has been understood since the 1800's.
2. Humankind has emitted enormous quantities of CO2 and methane through the production and use of coal, natural gas, and petroleum since the start of the industrial revolution.
People who call themselves "skeptics" and deny either of these facts are simply ignorant or engaged in disinformation.
Exactly how this warming plays out in the complex, global climate system is difficult to say with certainty, but the broad strokes are clear: the fires, heat waves, droughts, massive precipitation events, extreme warming at the poles, pest and disease migration, and more have been long anticipated. If anything, scientists have been too conservative, as these visible effects are occurring faster and earlier than anticipated.
This isn't a question of (true) skepticism, but of vested fossil fuel interests corrupting our political system.
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@Rich
I think you make strong points, especially about the role of money in politics.
Similarly, I think Prof. Pinillos makes strong points about probabilities (in effect, decision trees). There are four possible outcomes, with VERY different probabilities and desirability: 1) climate change is real, and we forestall it; 2) climate change is real, and we do not forestall it; 3) climate change is not real, and we take unnecessary action; 4) climate change is not real, and we take no action.
Climate-change skeptics are worried about #3. We need to show that #3 actually makes us stronger: better economy (infrastructure and not wasting money on non-renewables) and better health (fewer pollutants). In other words, regardless of climate change, we are better off investing -- not spending, INVESTING -- as though climate change is real. Failing to invest is harmful to the USA even if (against all odds) climate change is not real.
I also suggest that the key goal is not to convince the corrupt or the ignorant. The key goal is to take positive action. We have no time to waste.
8
@MC. Yes. Renewable energy is a win-win.
1
The best way to understand the term "knowledge" and the verb "to know" is to see it as analogous to betting. Knowledge and knowing isn't a private and mysterious thing that happens only in the brain - it is a social phenomenon and practice that is bound up with all our other social structures and activities. Claiming to know something is to make a public bet that you are right - or rather, that you won't be proved wrong. It is about keeping face in your community - professional, political, or other.
The logic of making a bet has nothing to do with certainty, just as knowledge has nothing to do with certainty, though your degree of certainty is one factor that could make you more likely to make a bet publicly. Other factors include much you are risking or might gain by your bet (how much social capital you stand to win or lose), and how difficult it would be to definitely settle your loss or success (the more difficult to settle or the easier to quality or contest, the less risk that you will lose).
It is a mistake to look at knowledge in the classical way. We understand it better when we understand the claims to know are not just neutral claims about mental states - they are also social and political bets that are used to establish identities, forge communities, manipulate groups, and raise our fortunes. Idealizing knowledge in math and the natural sciences and assuming that all knowledge must be neutral and certain like this is a grave mistake.
4
I don't think it's that complicated. Oil companies and other businesses have a short-term interest in protecting the status quo, so they can keep making money as long as possible. They make up rationales that are designed to convince the masses, so they can keep on making money. Just like everything else in politics.
7
Philosophy is important but in the case of climate change it cannot find a solution about mans role. Here we are dealing with a correlational relationship: man effects cause climate change...a is related to or follows along with b. We know that correlationalall relations are not causative by themselves. But since both variables covery with each other it makes sense that influencing one would most likely affect the second. Cut back hydrocarbons and let’s see what happens to climate change. We cannot afford to let hydrocarbon interests be our science.
3
Doctors are constantly revising what they "know" but some things appear to be more durable truths: The heart pumps blood to the brain. But dietary cholesterol turns out to be pretty irrelevant, by itself, to cholesterol in coronary plaques.
We can believe in significant climate change but we can also be humble about "knowing" what to do about it. As the NYT magazine article this past Sunday recounts: Efforts to save the climate by burning plant alcohol in gasoline may have resulted in worse climate outcomes, as forests in Indonesia were cut down to replace lost soy harvests with palm oil.
The obvious fact is, Trump and his minions do not want to believe; it's not that they are humble. It's the old "hard to bring a man to understanding if his income depends on not understanding."
4
The question is not "Are humans responsible for climate change?" The question is "Is the climate changing?" It's hard to say "No" to that one. If you're not convinced by the atmospheric data, look at the oceanic data. Whether or not human activity is responsible for it, human activity has to do something about it. Right now.
3
Great article.
The very first book I ever read concerning philosophy was the trial of Socrates by Plato - I was about 10 years old. Over the next 30 years, I have read many more books with philosophy as its subject.
Yet, despite all that reading, my first philosophical lesson still remains undisturbed in my mind from that book by Plato. And it goes something like this..
You can lead a camel to water, but you can't make it drink.
In essence, no matter how good your philosophy or argument is, it will mean nothing to most others and will not change their minds. A perfect example of this axiom is that no matter what anyone said, Socrates was still going to be put to death.
As a postmodern philosopher, I will use Nietzsche as my next example and his idea of eternal recurrence. Again, no matter what you do or say there will be many who will be resistant to change, even in the face of their own death.
I am sure with the use of these 'arguments' and' rhetorical techniques' you could probably win over a number of climate sceptics. But never enough to make a difference in public opinion polls, or the desire to see action.
Even within the comments of this article, I doubt many sceptics will change their mind. So what to do?
My suggestion is and always has been, that if you want to save the world, start with your own little corner of it.
Actions will always speak louder than words. And it will probably win you more converts than any clever argument.
4
The ignorance is by design and choice. Big business needs an uninvolved president in order to continue to pollute. Past legislation removed lethal chemicals from the marketplace but are now widely used. This is only one example of thousands, but these are being used in food, and are actually causing serious illness, as well as destructive to plant life. Rachael Carson's "The Silent Spring" should be required reading in our deteriorating school system.
5
From the article:
"President Trump said of global warming, “I don’t know that it’s man-made.” "
That answer is perfectly acceptable; it is not necessary that Trump know whether climate change is man made. But what is critically important is that he defers the question to those who are trained, and who devote their careers, to know the answer. That is the whole reason we have universities and research labs, so that the nation has a pool of experts to draw upon for our difficult issues.
The breakdown is not that politicians do not believe in AGW (or climate change), it is that they refuse to rely on the experts who do know. As in many things in life, they need to set aside their personal biases and simply say "I don't know the answer but because the scientific community is confident, I will go with their assessment".
That is all I ask, that politicians and decision makers defer to the experts. They can keep their personal opinions.
8
@Scott Werden
Exactly. If you went to your doctor and she said you have cancer, would you just say, "She doesn't know what she's talking about...I'm not going to listen to her expertise?" No, you wouldn't. But climate deniers do this all the time. And the fact that they're playing with my daughters's future, and not just their own, is why they are the object of my ire.
3
@noley: Thank you. We will either learn to bring our lives in harmony with the earth or, like species that have dominated the earth before us and gone extinct, we too will go extinct. We are currently the dominant species; our existence has an impact on the planet; the planet reacts to our behavior. If the planet cannot sustain our presence, we will go extinct. The planet earth will continue on without us. All this caterwauling about self-interest directing our choices is important only to our survival as a species. The planet itself has no stake in that game.
11
While one thing we know for certain is the lottery buyer has a much better chance of winning the lottery than someone who does not by a ticket. In fact he or she is infinitely more likely to win than a non buyer.
3
@David Brown......Or put another way. If there are a million tickets in a lottery, then if a million of the tickets are sold, the chances of any individual having a winning ticket is one in a million. But the chances that a ticket will be drawn is absolute; or in other words, it is certain that a million to one chance will occur.
There's another phenomenon at work in the climate changes debate, which is converse of "skeptical pressure." It's called the "Dunning Kruger effect" (named after the two social psychologists who studied the problem), which found that "people generally overestimate their abilities in many social and intellectual domains.... [and] not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it." Of course, Socrates knew all about this too.
How many times have we heard President Trump proclaim himself a genius, that he knows more than generals, economists, intelligence experts, and scientists? All reputable scientists - including climate scientists - publish their uncertainties, because nothing is ever 100% certain in science. The entire field is predicated on doubt, asking questions, and verifying experimental results to the extent possible. But then we get President Trump, who is the poster boy for the "Dunning Kruger effect," talking about subjects with absolute certainty about which he doesn't have a clue.
Those who deny climate change are quick to jump on any uncertainty in the scientific evidence as irrefutable proof that all of climate change is a hoax. It's a twisted relationship between skepticism and ignorance.
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@jrinsc
Aristotle, pupil of Socrates' pupil Plato, wrote an excellent book on the subject, Nicomachean Ethics. I once read it to a man in his nineties whose mind was still great, but with minor deficiencies. He said that one great advantage of forgetting some things was that he could now marvel afresh at such a wonderful work.
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@jrinsc
This is also known as immaturity.
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As a physicist, I find the discussion of skeptical pressure mystifying. With the lottery ticket, you don't need to "know" the person is sure to lose; one chance to win out of 100,000,000 is quite enough. The are just very likely to lose, and the difference between this and certainty is small. Go with the probabilities and you will be right most of the time. Go with the lottery, and you lose most of the time. In dealing with the world, there is never certainty, only shades of probability. When someone plays the lottery, they have only their money to lose. When you deny climate change and limit work to mitigate its effects, you are paying with other peoples lives, at which point it becomes a moral problem, not one of probability. Climate change is a lottery we cannot win.
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@HM
In "Evidence Based Medicine" we have learned to discard certainty and deal with probabilities. This can be hard to accept at first. In a way, we are all like Schrodinger's cat; our lives are mere probabilities.
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@HM - you (and Pinillos) omit the most important factor: how consequential the unlikely contingency is. If I had a 1-in-a-billion chance of winning a trillion-dollar lottery, I'd buy a 1 dollar ticket in a trice.
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@HM As a (physical) chemist, I agree with you. This is the way that I think. [My sister actually characterized me as "data-driven" over the Thanksgiving holiday.] And yes, I completely agree with you on climate change.
BUT we have to face the fact that this is NOT how many people think. [I'm married to an artsie, I know.]
Anything that could move us more towards communicating in terms of probabilities as opposed to "yes-no" would be good.
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The author leaves out one important possibility: Trump and his minions actually believe in climate change. They just don't care!
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@ChrisAlso known as "owning the libs." More important to oppose everything the Democrats care about/are concerned about than to, I don't know, address actual, real problems and try to find solutions for the benefit of all of us.
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@Chris
not that they don't care, they do not want to admit that they are wrong.
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@Chris And the solution is? offer a solution and you'll get "care."
The skepticism is rooted in "inconvenience".
It is inconvenient to accept the overwhelming evidence and then not change your way of life.
It is inconvenient to say "no" to the gas-guzzling cars you love and to plastic bags that make shopping so much easier.
It is inconvenient to tell coal miners in Kentucky and West Virginia that their industry is dirty and destructive.
It is inconvenient to belong to a political party that gets caught in a big lie -- it means they will lie about anything and everything.
It is inconvenient to admit you were wrong.
It is an inconvenient truth, as one good man told us some years ago.
It is just easier to go into denial.
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Probabilities, too, can be problematic. Consider the following anecdote: A man calculated the probability that a terrorist might bring a bomb aboard an airplane and blow it up. Finding the probability uncomfortably high, he refused to fly. A while later, the man ran into a friend and the friend noticed an airline ticket protruding from his pocket. The friend expressed surprise since he know that the man was terrified of flying. The man rejoined: "Yes that was true, but then I calculated the probability that two people would bring a bomb aboard an airplane and it was vanishingly small. So, now I always bring a bomb on board with me and I feel completely safe. "
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In the 1970s and 1980s, scientists warned of environmental pollution, in the 1990s, scientists warned of holes in the ozone layer causing cancer, and now scientists warn us of the “catastrophic” results of climate change.
Why are some people skeptical?
Ask the boy who cried wolf? (Just maybe this is the real wolf?)
@Steven Roth, Well, control of pollution in places like CA solved the horrendous problem in LA and the same regulations, adopted across the industry resulted in today's vehicles producing only a tiny fraction of the pollution emitted in the 70s. Problem solved by regulation.
The ozone hole problem was addressed by transitioning away from ozone-depleting chemicals. Also solved, by regulation -- but with willing participation by industry as they found profitable alternatives.
In both cases, scientists advised politicians, who did the responsible thing for society. So what's your point? That we need CO2 regulation? I agree!
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@Steven Roth
And those warnings all came true. Some were cleaned up, pollution was lessened to a less dangerous amount and products that ruined the ozone have been taken off most markets. There is still danger in pollution for many people with lung weakness and cancer is still a problem in places where the ozone layer is especially thin; but some of it has been lessened in danger.
Global climate change progresses and the dangers grow.
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@Steven Roth
It's no good citing 'the boy who cried wolf' for events that really happened.
In the 1970's and 1980's there most definitely was environmental pollution. Three Mile Island, Love Canal, and the Kesterson marsh are prime examples.
In the 1990's there was a hole in the ozone layer -- and it's still there. By reducing emissions of CFCs and other greenhouse gasses, the hole in the ozone layer is slowly repairing, but it isn't expected to be repaired until 2050 or so.
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We humans are certainly full of cognitive foibles--just search for the Cognitive Bias Codex for a concise summary chart--but there is another, more obvious reason for climate denial: intentional deceit.
So instead of going down this rabbit hole of "skeptical pressure" or "epistemic anxiety," let's apply Occam's Razor to the question. The simpler and more obvious answer is that humans with a vested interest in denying climate change are happy to use message manipulation (aka public relations) to bury the known facts. See, for example, Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes.
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Philosophers are all very well in their place. But beware of them in legislative assemblies. Or in Roman Curias. Such bodies make law, and too often we've seen the progression: philosophy--->theology--->dogma, and, mutatis mutandis, in the legislative sphere. Ancient Greeks thought humans were so different from animals that there must be a humanizing spark which is responsible for all the wonders of the species. They called it the soul. Augustine and Aquinas grabbed on to that, and now we have legislation on person-hood based on ensoulment. Trying to argue science with people who believe the earth is maybe 10K years old is useless. Yes, let's discuss it with our friends, if we have any of that persuasion. But forget converting them. Likewise, those who've signed on to a particular fad in politics--e.g., Trumpism--won't be bothered by evidence. After all, we're dealing with a species that engaged in the Thirty Years War, witch burning, the American Civil War, and Islamic Jihad. Trump and Kudlow are self-centered people. Madame de Bovary spoke for them: after us the deluge.
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@Des Johnson
Your idea about philosophers is precisely what created the current anti-intellectual and as a consequence anti-science mentality among America's conservatives.
Now that the GOP has been taken over by neoconservatism, it's interesting to see how the founders of this doctrine wrote (Irving Kristol, WSJ 1976, op-ed "The Stupid Party") that for a conservative party to win elections, intellectuals have to stay far away from the public debate, because only when they operate "at the margins" of society can we obtain/maintain a "healthy society" (I'm quoting from Kristol's article here).
From the very beginning of the history of philosophy, Plato has shown the exact opposite. And any democracy is based on the the exact opposite.
The ONLY way to thrive, as a society, is to openly allow and encourage real, respectful debates among citizens. "Real" means assuming that even our deepest beliefs can turn out to be wrong, and accepting to question each and every one of them, because doing so is what allows us to get closer to the truth, and as a consequence to develop policies with a high probability of producing the result that we wanted them to produce.
And of course, consulting scientists to know what has been proven already is crucial here.
The same goes for philosophy (REAL philosophy, not "analytical philosophy", which is "doxaphily", as Plato called it, namely adoring and developing your own opinions, whereas real philosophy is a method to question them).
@Ana Luisa: I am a scientist, a doctor of natural philosophy. It isn't my attitude to philosophy that has brought us to this state: it is the glibness with which the powerful distort and abuse philosophy. It is also the tendency of some philosophers to arrogance, and the arrogant assumption that they've said all that is to be said on a topic. No one, philosopher of scientist, has all knowledge, and, by definition priduce half-baked ideas. As for society developing along lines we like through use of philosophy, I don't know what universe or indeed, what continent, you live in. Smith, Hobbes, Marx, Nietzsche all have been distorted and weaponized.
"Suppose you observe a shopper at the convenience store buying a lottery ticket. You are aware that the probability that he will lose the lottery is astronomically high, typically above 99.99 percent, but it’s hard to get yourself to sincerely say you know this person will lose the lottery."
No, it isn't. I have zero trouble with this. Why does the author think people would have trouble with this?
On false negatives: I always ask what the rate on that is, when it's come up in tests. I'm sure many people do.
The answer is not to be found in philosophy, but in psychology--irrational psychology. It's not that deep: people do not want to believe things for which they have literally 100% proof (like personal death, which few actually accept in full--no spirit, no personality-survival; it's all done when you die) if they find it threatening to some retaining wall in their identity--or whatever.
OCD is probably not at all related to anything philosophical; that's truly odd. I mean, I love philosophy, too, but not everything worth discussing falls under the rubric of that departmental letter-head, as it were.
Warming-denial not an apolitical phenomenon: it's the predictable result of endless propaganda, of riveting denialism to elements constitutive of a person's worldview: love Jesus? deny warming! It's not that complicated.
We all get into cars every day knowing there's a low probability we'll die or have a massive injury or kill someone. At any moment. But we go with it.
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There is no public discourse on climate change.
There is only insults from the left wing climate alarmists for anyone who doesn't accept their claims at face value.
The science has been corrupted by unjustifiable manipulation of raw data and the abuse of stochastic forward modeling.
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@Objectivist
What's truly remarkable is that people like you find it easier to believe that all the world's scientists, all the national academies of science, the CIA and the US military are engaged in a deceptive conspiracy (to what end?) than it is to believe that fossil fuel interests, whose entire business model requires emission of CO2 are in cahoots. This despite incontrovertible evidence that even Exxon understood the science before they decided to doubt it.
Turn off Fox News and educate yourself. Sorry if it requires reading.
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@Objectivist
Being an 'alarmist' can be good or bad- for example, shouting 'Fire' in a crowded room could be either good or bad- good if there is actually a fire in the room, bad if not. There is a fire in the room.
@Objectivist
Except that for decades now, scientists all over the world, from all kinds of social, religious and political background, have proven your hypothesis to be wrong.
And that is why the entire world signed the Paris Climate Agreement, for instance, remember?
Just stop listening to politicians for a moment, when it comes to science, and read some scientists, and you'll see.
A lot of politicians say they don't believe the evidence on climate change. They also say that they don't believe the theory of evolution. They say that they do believe in rampant voter fraud, in an immigration crisis, in the spread of Sharia law in America, and in a war on Christmas. They say they're afraid of transgender predators in public bathrooms. They say that throwing money at the rich is the best way to help the poor, that letting banks and corporations write the regulations that govern them is the best way to protect the rest of us from their greed.
It's plain as the nose on your face that these politicians are lying. They don't believe the things they say; they say the things that will rationalize their dishonest behavior. What I have trouble understanding is why, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, pundits & journalists & opposition politicians insist on believing that these politicians are misguided instead of dishonest. That's what I'd like to see explained.
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Along with the need to teach probability a lot better, we ought to require knowledge of how large million, billion, trillion, and quadrillion really are. I'm thinking of a random mile between DC and Richmond. Can you guess it? (1 in 100); a random day in the entire life of a 27 year old (1 in 10000); a random second in the entire life of a 31 year-old (1 in a billion); a random day since the Earth began (1 in a trillion). And no, Mr. Cruz, billions and billions of acres in the US aren't locked up. The whole country barely makes it to two.
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Climate change happening just as we have 7.7 billion people burning fossil fuels as fast as we can? What a coincidence!
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An easy way to resolve the stubbornness of this group of cave dwelling doubters is to put a financial penalty on their "beliefs".
So let's gather a list of the deniers by adding a checkbox on our 1040's. Do you believe that human beings are responsible for the unnatural warming of the planet? Checking the "No" box would flag that person for severe penalties once the time comes for even the most dedicated non-believer to admit being wrong.
At that point, either the original non-believer, or his/her descendants would be sent a very large bill to account for their share of the cleanup costs (to be shared with all other non-believers).
This would, as they used to say, sort the men from the boys.
Ignorance, or the lack of knowledge, is not inherently bad or good. It can be addressed and corrected. Willful ignorance, as practiced by Trump and others, is generally about denying unwanted truths, and those truths usually threaten to expose someone's unsavory or unfair economic or political beliefs. Ultimately defensive in nature, willful ignorance usually succumbs to the relentless siege of knowledge.
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'President Trump said of global warming, “I don’t know that it’s man-made' -- If we were to measure our understanding of nature by Trump's level, we would descend into the Middle Ages. In a more or less intelligent and civilized society there are those who "understand" and those who "believe". Understanding of complex natural processes cannot be expected of all. Believing, or not believing, the evidence is a strictly subjective reaction that is often difficult to reverse. An educational system that makes the Bible co-equal to Science is doomed to failure.
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We do love a good apocalyptic scolding, don't we? Especially if we're the ones dishing it out instead of taking it.
Unfortunately, the life cycle of a prophesy of doom follows a predictable pattern - one with a key step that includes "Time for us self-proclaimed saviors to hop in our private jets and meet for a fantastically-catered conference in a sufficiently chic venue and--"
And that's where you lose people.
Because you sound like the family-values Republican who gives a speech about piety at the prayer breakfast, who is hitting on cocktail waitresses by lunchtime.
Walk it like you talk it, and more people will listen.
There are various degrees of proof which are recognized by many legal systems such as:
“Preponderance of the evidence”
“Clear and convincing evidence”
“Beyond reasonable doubt”
To name a few.
We, as a society, will act based upon these varying degrees of certainty with varying degrees of repercussions.
We have sentenced people to death based upon a level of proof that is less than 100% certain.
So, when we look for proof of anything the first step is deciding what level of proof is needed for us to act and what actions are appropriate.
Ignoring 97% proof of man-made global warming will also be punishable by death.
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Not to sound specious, but modern human life in regard to that of the host planet might turn out to have the very ignoble quality Hobbes spoke about: nasty, brutish, and short!
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Donald Trump is psychologically damaged, and should not be used as an example of how humans reach conclusions.
This is the man who said that the sun came out during his inauguration speech, when it was raining. You want to let him decide whether the greatest calamity in our history should be confronted or ignored?
Having said that, if somebody could figure out how to make Trump look heroic, and if he alone is saving the world from this calamity, that just might work. Any ideas?
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We have the antivaxers flying in the face of established science as well as those limiting a womens right to choice.
According to Gallup 24% of the population believes the bible is the literal truth. 40% don't believe in evolution.
We have legislatures in 14 states funding the teaching of creationism..
Scientific illiteracy is the greatest threat we have to the planet.
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It's not a matter of ignorance versus knowledge, it's a matter of fossil-fueled greed ignoring and dismissing knowledge in the pursuit of corporate profits.
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Is it "skepticism" or cherry-picking facts to fit a belief?
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I have a different theory. With all the Opioids, pain kiillers, tynenol included, I think people dont care and lack compassion. As a coach of children I see an aloofness in parenting. Parents think they spend time with their kids but theyre only in the room, not really engaging with them. I see
more people walk past poor people begging in the streets. Not effected by what they see. Wake up America and stop drugging and drinking and see peoples needs in the world. Instead of being a taker be a giver and help someone out.
A true scientist would never refer to a skeptic as a 'denier' or 'unbeliever'...that is the realm of religious zealots and mind control freaks. There is ALWAYS room for skepticism in science; in fact, science should welcome this as it only strengthens the system. If the prevailing consensus stands up to doubters, all the better.
Climate change is obviously real as the data is overwhelming. But remember - this is science, not religion, and that you cannot deny.
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In all due respect, this article does not get to the root cause of AGW denial by conservatives. Their entire "ideology" is fear-driven, a remnant of evolution. As such, it is unconscious, automatic "thinking" they were born with. The most common symptom is the sense that everyone is out to get them, and government is a blatantly obvious offender. That is the root cause of AGW denial. They unconsciously prioritize their inner fears over the well-being of the people, country and planet. And when knowledge crosses paths with an inner fear, they make stuff up to deny it. This is nothing more than a survival mechanism from evolution. It may have helped them survive in caveman days, but has no place in positions of public policy in today's world.
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Philosophy is not science. Ignorance is not stupidity.
We can not explain nor do we understand the basis and nature of physical reality. About 70% of reality is a "force" called dark energy. Another 25% of reality is a "mass" called dark matter. The 5% of reality that we know is separated by two irreconcilable theories of quantum mechanics and relativity.
Ignorance is not knowing that 2 + 2 = 4. Stupidity is knowing that 2+2=5. Ignorance can be cured by curiosity. Stupidity is incurable and terminal.
The biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit reality is that there is only one multicolored multiethnic multifaith multi national origin human race species that began in Africa 300, 000 years ago. We are programmed by our nature and nurture to crave fat, salt, sugar, habiitat, water, kin and sex by any means necessary including conflict and cooperation.
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Skeptics are motivated by a desire to learn the truth. What we're dealing with, however, is willful ignorance.
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If you were told that a particular restaurant meal was 97% likely to make you ill, would it be sensible to be a skeptic? Or would it just make you kind of loonie? Exactly.
We used to call it brainwashing with propaganda. But because you all are bought and paid for, we need to come up with newer and more beautiful words.
It is all the right wing does: repeat lies via a mechanism which has proven to work, in this case strongman arguments by Trump. They do this every administration, except the liberal media has no memory.
America is a mediocre billionaire gambler's playground...it is shameful what could have been had America not wasted resources and demanded better of each of us to progress forward.
Mankind's failure so far to avert extinction of all life on earth has nothing to do with human emotional proclivities, and everything to do with the American automobile industry's contribution to global warming, which Professor Pinillos doesn't even mention.
Climate-deniers are generally low education people with a willful desire to promote their ignorance as "God given knowledge"...and in America we don't argue against God.
And by forcing their "knowledge" through religious-political power they make themselves feel better, important and powerful.
The probability of changing them is near zero because change means loss of power, and self- importance.
America, especially the GOP allowed the underclass to grow looking for uneducated people to do menial factory work; and now that their jobs are gone their ignorance still benefits the GOP with unquestioning loyalty and votes.
So Sad, Too Bad...Bye-Bye Miss American Pie
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Ignorance? the UN report that came out October 8, 2018, said we need 40% reduction of 2010 levels by 2030. The NYT responded by saying 2040. 2030 is all over the FIRST PAGE of the report.
The only reporting that said 2030 was Democracy Now, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and the Bulletin's report had links to reports that said 2019 could also be a yer when positive runaway feedback loops started, and they are irreversible. Yet "The Stone" gives us the grave news about how we are blind to the facts.
American prognosis on climate change, the environment?
Both political parties are worthless when it comes to thinking about almost any problem. Thinking generally becomes more worthless, watered down, ineffective the more it must appeal to a group of people. Thinking is acute the more it emanates from an individual and gradually gets watered down the larger the group. This is why individuals and small groups demonstrate greatest thought and talent and why political parties are so stupid.
The right wing in America is conformity whether we speak of law or religion or business. The left wing boasts of being more scientific, for tackling problems such as climate change, but it has an absurd socialistic, everybody equal agenda which any honest person can see will swamp an attempt to tackle complex problems like climate change.
To tackle climate change and indeed any number of current problems you need a coldhearted agenda of determining talent in every field, brutal testing of people to get at the best minds to lead the nation. Take as an example of this testing I mean the Forrest Fenn treasure hunt. You either have what it takes to find it or you do not. It has no sympathy for any of your cherished political ideals. We need many more such tests, some more difficult, others less, but true talent search and results the entire nation will have no choice but to respect.
I find it impossible to vote in this nation. It's junk thinking. Politics is preventing solutions to problems.
@Daniel12 Someone opined a few years ago that half of the World’s problems will be solved by itself if you dump all the politicians in the Sea. They create more problems than they solve. Now a days, politicians and their strategists have found an easy way to get rich by conning people.
We used to dump Wheat in the Sea to solve oversupply problem. May be it is time to start thinking about what to do with over supply of this commodity.
I read this, even though the NYT constantly says I have only 4 reads left (I've been a digital subscriber for years and the programmers are full of it and they're just greedy so and so's who know little about what they "do") but it's about time that philosophers got to the notion of probability. It's certainly says more than words and it's about time that some of the deniers get with it. Only the planet - and that includes America - is at stake.
Yes, we need to teach probabilistic thinking.
This is just one facet of the fact that we need to teach complexity: we must be wary of false dichotomy, of Platonic dualism. We must reject the Bush blunder of "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." (George W. Bush, 20 September 2001.)
Everybody knows the difference between 70% and 100% certainty. You don't need Socrates or philosophers to know this, living on earth for a couple of years is enough.
Skepticism, on the other hand, is a very old and respectable philosophical tradition, that has nothing to do with this difference (nor with Descartes), but refers to a whole series of very interesting theories about knowledge and truth, beginning already by 600 BC. Some argue that we should give up the notion of "knowledge" altogether, others (like Sextus Empiricus) argue that truth does exist, but to know it you need a criterion for truth, and those criteria will always be (and rightly so) the subject of debates, so most of our beliefs can't be said to be "true".
Apart from that, you have the "ordinary citizen's" meaning of the word "skepticism", which simply refers to doubting the truth of a statement to such an extent that you decide to act as if it were false.
Climate change deniers tell ordinary citizens that they should adopt this kind of attitude towards all climate science that shows dramatic temperature increases caused by human CO2 emission.
Why should we do so? Because it's not REAL science, they tell us.
So THE point of debate here has to do with the criterium for "real science". And as long as we don't address the main question at stake, politicians will continue to be able to mislead their voters for merely personal career reasons. Unfortunately, this op-ed doesn't address it at all...
No, I disagree that 'talking probabilities' is a way out of dilemma. It is the small percentages that climate change deniers lean on, to say there is doubt, so there is no need to act.. I have instead, for my own peace of mind, started to talk about 'people who understand climate change" v. people who don't - it is as simple as that. I am not going to argue with some old white man who believes that temperatures have always fluctuated throughout history. His argument is not worth my while. He just doesn't understand climate change, doesn't want to understand climate change, and has probably had ample opportunity to be educated. My verbiage may not help overall, but it helps me to NOT say I 'believe' in climate change - that was a ridiculous phrase invented by people who don't understand climate change. I won,t accept that label any more.
I think the recommendation to focus on probability as a way to lessen the grip of 'skeptical anxiety' is sensible, but can't help but also reflect on the fact that, when it comes to climate change, most of the professional 'doubters' represent the oil and gas business or are paid by those same industries. Though the Koch brothers, the shills at the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, Senator Inhofe and others claim to be 'skeptical,' they are in fact just self-interested.
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The writer deployed here synthetic philosophy. If such a division is non-existent as exactly as I thought, allow me to define it according to my understanding. In my opinion, synthetic philosophy tries to cover academic disciplines as many as possible over the history and foundation of Western philosophy. The writer professionally picked the profound-three, significant landmarks on the line: Socrates, Descartes, Wittgenstein. Along those, the self emerged by submitting self, then, asserted over the universal phenomena by cognition, then, was destined to be set for dispersion. Synthetic philosophy is ambitious as much as fascinating, because it might be able to synthesize all the fruits of knowledges in different fields for a good objective, aiming to bring a good society to all. However, the probability-oriented psychology cannot convince me as directing philosophical thoughts. To me, its linkage seems to be more true, potentially or experimentally, to medical science as the writer made the discussion in the piece.
@Juliette Masch (former Ignorantia A.)
As a philosopher working in the so-called "continental" tradition (notion that refers to a specific way of treating philosophies invented in the past, and that self-declared "analytical philosophers" created in order to claim that their conception of philosophy is legitimate too), I rather see nothing but "analytical philosophy" at work here.
People with a diploma in philosophy who adhere to this tradition still use the NAMES of great philosophers, and may once in a while take a quote out of context and use it to illustrate their own opinion, but you don't find any serious discussion/explanation/development of those philosophies. Instead, you have definitions of words that no matter what citizen would come up with himself, and then some subjective guessing around the author's own opinions about those words, "analyzing" his opinions a little bit. And that's it. As this op-ed perfectly illustrates.
Everybody who never studied philosophical skepticism will say that "skepticism" means doubting a statement to such an extent that in your daily life, you'll assume that it's false until you have more evidence proving it to be true. And that is exactly the sense in which the author is using that notion here.
Socrates did the the opposite: allowing people to feel how their own, spontaneous definitions of basic notions (including "truth" etc.) actually aren't as clear/certain as they thought at all. THAT is how/when philosophizing starts.
We should also distinguish what science has established from what it hasn't. Science has established, beyond any reasonable doubt, the fact of warming. It has also established, with fairly high confidence, that warming is mostly or entirely anthropogenic. It has not established that warming will be accompanied by more (or less) drought or storms.
It has not established that warming is, net, harmful. That is a question of economics, not climatology, and involves questions of adaptation that no one understands or can predict. For example, how do you balance sea level rise against longer growing seasons?
@Jonathan Katz The report does provide science that addresses each of these questions. I suggest reading it and anything else on the topic before coming to your conclusion. Many economists worked on this report and conduct research on net economic costs, growing seasons, the frequency of droughts, and storms, extreme weather, etc. See also IPCC report published just last October. Their scientific conclusions aren't personal notions, they used data to draw conclusions that might help our society make better decisions.
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@Jonathan Katz, another argument from ignorance. The disasters of huger hurricanes, longer droughts, has already impacted our human society, as it has impacted the animal and plant world. In case you hadn't noticed, people already live on coastlines or in huge river delta areas, like bangladesh - these people have been dislocated, will continue to be, and will not be able to find places that will take them in. The coastline is getting destroyed! Look up Hurricane Hayan, in the P.I., read about it, and then tell me that the bad effects of climate change have not been documented..Sheesh..What does it take to have people humans read facts? Not the percentages argument this columns author makes, IMHO
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@Jonathan Katz
It doesn't matter how long the growing season is if drought, freak frosts, or deluges of rain occur. These are outside the normal disruptions to plant growth and will lower the yields.
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Too much time and energy is focused on those who dismiss climate science (9% now according to the Yale Six Americas analysis). Yes, this handful of folks who are now having a field day of deregulation....and aiming to cash in IEA's forecast that the US will dominate oil and gas over the coming decades. But the real question is: how to empower and engage the two thirds of the nation that want more to be done....and want someone to do something. They (we) have been deliberately dis-empowered and dis-engaged by the elites who jet around to climate conferences or make a living on fossil fuels and keeping the status quo. Action is happening at the community and urban scale, and it needs to be ramped up, full steam ahead, so to speak. Let's forget the skeptics (for now) and focus on climate action in our own communities...and other "sweet spots" around the world.
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Maybe skeptical pressure is affected not only by the possibility of statistical error, but also by cost--the cost of being wrong about a lottery ticket is insignificant. The cost of rearranging the entire world economy to combat climate change is incalculable and could well be catastrophic--the solution worse than the problem; skepticism may not be unwarranted. If climate deniers are often conservatives I think it's worth noting that believers are usually liberals who typically embrace a vaguely anti-capitalist, non-economic point of view and are therefore more likely to wave aside economic arguments in favor of inaction. Climate change is a political issue and both sides have their biases.
@Ronald B. Duke I can’t imagine a greater cost to humanity than the earth degradations LIKELY from climate change trends. No solution could be worse than ending conditions for human life in this planet. But I realize there are those who think the solution cost is greater and than their immediate immediate profits, and can thus convince themselves that the chance climate change is a bogus issue is worth doubling down on, rather than taking any actions. Liberals like me are actually seldom “anti-capitalist” but believe that profit should not be the only or dominating motivation of life.
The GOP represents faithfully the 1% and big Corporations, climate change would negatively effect their bottom line. Much monies flow between these parties, therefore it is more astute to deny climate change.
Americans, by the polls you cite, appear to support addressing climate change. How can our voices rise above the veracity of money?
4
@Carol By getting rid of Citizens United. Donating huge amount of money is considered a first amendment right of an individual, but why should they be anonymous donors. If they believe in the cause, they should be willing to support it publicly. First amendment right to an individual is now construed by SCOTUS as a right of filthy rich to buy politicians anonymously! What about the hidden cost to We The People?
Certainly anything should be welcomed which elevates discussion on climate change from, "we gotta wait 'til we know for sure the house is gonna burn before buying insurance" to intelligent analysis of risk management options based on carefully estimated probabilities. But I doubt that'll be the silver bullet.
The carbon industry is undergoing a reality check not unlike that of the tobacco industry. Smoking declined very slowly even after it became widely accepted that smoking increases the probability of early death and the "they can't actually prove it causes cancer" argument lost its effect. Turns out that accepting that probability and "planning" to change behavior is one thing, actually changing behavior today is another. I expect that consumers will have similar issues with actually reducing carbon usage even if they accept that the probability of future unacceptable costs. They won't decide not to, just not to today. The big problem might not be denial, but rather procrastination.
3
@Jeff Atkinson When a squirrel stops in the forest to pick up an acorn, he's burning carbon. Also, when he stops from his frolics to take a nap. All organics are dues-paying members of the carbon industry.
@HLB Engineering
Not too sure what your point is, but in response I would just point out the the squirrel is working within the present day carbon cycle, but 'fossil fuel' is working with the carbon that was buried millions of years ago.
People are innately conservative. We tend to stick with what we know. Also, with an increasingly complex world facing us our reactions come down to the simple question Who do you trust?
As much as I admire the man, Al Gore’s entry into the climate change debate gave the powerful forces opposed to dealing with it a focus they could rally opposition against. Even today his big house is one of the first things deniers tend to bring up. While many of us cheered his work all around the country Republican minds snapped shut.
To bring people around on this issue it seems to me that all sorts of issues are going to have to come into play. Fear of change vs fear of what will happen if we don’t change. How making the necessary changes can enhance people’s lives even if they limit them in others.
To do that we’re going to actually talk to each other and that’s the tough part.
1
@Brooklyncowgirl
And Gore's private jet, which puts out more carbon than his house. He's got to live somewhere, but he could fly commercial, economy class, like ordinary mortals.
He's a crony capitalist making money off renewables, not someone who genuinely believes warming is a threat and trying to do something about it.
Trump did not discount the notion of global warming in his 60 Minutes interview. He merely said he didn't know if it's cause was man made. So, I wish the follow-up question had been, "If global warming is real, then what difference does it make if it's man made or not?" Rather than debating the cause, why not just talk about next steps? Whatever causes it, we know the results of it. Let's talk about ways to mitigate those results.
4
@Ms. Pea
We cannot successfully mitigate the results if we deny the cause. And we know the cause within a reasonable probability - as the author has explained.
4
The 97% number of scientists is wrong.
There is not a SINGLE case of any scientist showing a climate model that shows AGW is not real.
They went back and looked at the articles arguing against AGW and found significant flaws in every single one of them. This is not to say there are not flaws in the models showing AGW is real. I am sure there are many flaws in those models.
The idea that CO2 is a greenhouse gas is 100% accepted science. (yes 100% really means about 99.99% but rounding is often acceptable)
This is an argument that will never be settled because some people have a religious belief that God promised never to flood the earth again.
But the 97% figure is outdated. The proper number rounds to 100%.
29
What are we but point-like entities that can only be understood by the application of the mathematics of probability and statistics? If the egg heads at CERN and Fermi Lab could only apply their prodigious talents to quantize human behavior theory, we might find a way out of the mess that is the human condition. Sci-fi perhaps, but I recall Capt. Kirk’s global communication device as being part of that realm once.
1
@Stranger Than Fiction
"...we might find a way out of the mess that is the human condition."
Yes, I agree, but, although a mess, we are ( at least up until now) a succesful solution to the problem of survival. An elegant mess, but one of the many momentary successes that ultimately fails in extinction.
1
Many psychologists, including Jonathan Haidt, theorize that brains and language evolved primarily so that we could sell ourselves to others in our group. Thus, a very human tendency exists to accept "truth"--about what happened to the pie, about who shot John--as whatever the group decides it is; perception is reality. This can be frighteningly powerful in shaping human-to-human interactions, in shaping our own beliefs in who we are and who others are.
The problem with group "truth" is that the real world does not play this game with us; it doesn't oblige us by conforming to our belief of what it should be. Science is the discipline that overcomes our tendency to declare truth by consensus. It creates rules about how we learn what the real world is, is doing, and is going to do. We still use consensus to arrive at scientific truth, but it's consensus on what was observed and how that observation conforms or refutes a theory.
So: The real problem with climate change denial is a group refusal to accept a scientific approach to a real world issue. As long as that group plays by nonscientific group consensus rules, it's going to be hard to make progress.
6
Early on though, philosophers also distinguished skepticism from sophistry. To them, skepticism serves a purpose. Didactic or dialectic if you will. And this is not confine in Western Philosophy. In the East, koan and mondo were used by the Zen Buddhists not for being cute. They are a way to open one's mind.
Alas, the modern world has managed to weaponize sophistry into deniers and anti-vaxxers, turbocharging the suspicious and the paranoid
5
The problem of calculating skepticism is made more difficult when you try and add in the effect of millions of dollars spent on propaganda to convince people to think the opposite of what the probabilities show.
15
Is it possible that skeptical pressure comes into play when the consequences of the low probability outcome are significant? While the chances of winning the lottery or of a false negative diagnosis might be minuscule, the consequences of such events would be monumental, should the occur. Only one death from air travel occurs per billions of passenger miles but most of us consider the possibility when flying. For climate change deniers, their political and religious beliefs are on the line. Talk about skeptical pressure.
Setting aside for one moment it existence on which I make not comment, climate change has morphed from a scientific issue to a moral one and from there to an absolutist position. That is the problem with the debate. Respect the man who seeks the truth, beware the man who claims to have found it.
4
@RomaineBillowes,
Yes. In fact, the quality of the debate is a perfect (unintended) example of the opening thought in this essay; skepticism is essential to real wisdom. Particularly in the realm of science. Science is not about certainty, it's about inquiry.
The use of the label "denier" and the refusal to actively debate the issue suggest that it's no longer about the science, but a purely social/moral/political issue.
It's beginning to seem more psychological all the time. We live in an age full of doom-and-gloom thinking. The natural hopefulness of the human mind has been turned upside down, all in the last decade or so.
Very strange!
Very well done insight, yet the final step keeps failing. Many climate skeptics have attempted to refute climate trends, only to fail and admit the climate is changing, and anthropogenic emissions are the cause.
Skeptics claim other factors are driving it, but provide none or single-digit probabilities that those causes are the true causes.
Inhofe does not doubt climate science. He’s paid to fake it to avoid taking action. AEI and CATO do not doubt the science either, they just don’t to do anything about it that would cost their patrons power and money.
That’s not skepticism, that’s bad faith.
8
The latest entry in the "Climate Change" debate seems to be, "human caused climate change is real, but it's too expensive to do anything about it, so we have to live with the status quo".
If this is where skepticism surrenders to pragmatism, the question must be asked, "what is the value of that which the human race is losing by ignoring the problem?"
We should calculate the estimated value of the plant, animal and human life -- the health and abundance of the seas, oceans and fresh waters of the world -- tangible treasures we are losing and have lost in the recent past, and present moment. Comparing the on-going damage estimate to the cost of saving, or slowing, the loss of things upon which human life depends, should be a calculation that transcends skepticism, speculative probabilities or pragmatism. What have got to lose? Everything.
7
I think many "climate change skeptics" are less skeptical of the science behind climate change and more so of the potential government responses.
Many Americans have a lot invested in the independence and privacy they associate with the automobile culture. It goes well beyond any rational need for transportation. Our cars, SUVs and trucks represent refuge, power, security, fashion statement and more for ourselves and our families. Virtually every disaster movie includes a Dwayne Johnson type character saving their family by driving through collapsing civilization (and exploding mass transit) in an oversized vehicle.
Even the most reasonable efforts at slowing climate change, like the Obama EPA CAFE fuel mileage increase to 54.5 MPG by 2025, are effectively opposed by arguments against government mandates. Ditto for fuel taxes.
This is another issue that resonates most powerfully in rural and small town America, with greater driving distances and government skepticism.
Groups of states will likely drive more climate friendly and safe transportation, led by California, where cars and trucks have long been worshipped. Their scale will make alternatives like electric vehicles overtake Federal mandates as a cost effective solution. And urban mass transit is coming to freeway choked Los Angeles, with a recent $121 billion transit bond approved by voters.
5
Understanding climate change isn't a questions of probability, it's really more like accounting: a known amount of energy comes into the atmosphere from the sun which has to go somewhere. If more stays on the earth than goes back into space the earth will warm. Carbon dioxide is black to the glow of warm objects on the the earth (what we see with a thermal camera) and blocks warmth from leaving into space. Add more CO2 and the earth gets warmer. For the ten thousand years of human civilization the temperature of the earth has been constant to within a degree C because the amount of heat coming and and out have been the same. Now we have thrown a blanket on the earth, and the earth is getting warmer. The probabilities are about the exact size of the effect, not about the cause and direction.
Denialists are like the promoters of failing companies, shouting out endorsements and ad copy while the accountants are pointing out they're loosing fifty cents on every unit they sell. Journalists love that ad copy with the flashy videos and simple words while they find it hard to understand the dense and careful columns of sums from the accountants/scientists.
7
Hardly a convincing argument pitting the sheer certainty that any given lottery ticket purchaser has virtually a 0& chance of winning vs legitimate skepticism about climate change is pretty weak.
As far as the 97% of climate scientists blah blah blah ... here's an interesting rebuttal.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexepstein/2015/01/06/97-of-climate-scientists-agree-is-100-wrong/#708fced03f9f
And as I'm sure the author knows, the zeitgeist is very important in determining what people think on a topic -- including scientists. And I wonder how many climate scientists would have much of a career if their research focus was on debunking climate change.
Moveover, the US is the only area of the globe with a substantial temp data history -- and even James Hansen (hardly a skeptic) admitted in the 1990's that the US hasn't warmed. If you look at the graph of our temp history since 1900 you will see that it fluctuates year to year and shows cycles up and down over longer periods, but it's hardly indicative of rapid warming. Nor would any rational investor, seeing a similar stock chart, would be 100% certain (probably not even 50% certain) that the long term trend is up.
1
@Ralphie On the contrary, Alex Epstein, the author of the Forbes article you mention. has been proven wrong many times. His arguments have been debunked.
For more on climate denial try
https://www.skepticalscience.com/
Any way you slice or dice the research, point out errors, and re-calculate the findings, the 97% argument stands.
You have fallen for the denier fallacies. The risk of ignoring climate change is huge. The risk of investing in alternative energy is small. Why insist on dangerous risk when the consensus is so strong?
You ignore the most important reason millions deny man-made climate change- religion and politics. Religious and conservative political leaders use the denial to unite followers in opposition to "intellectual elites." If these same leaders, both religious and political, would alter their position and announce that recent scientific studies have convinced them that man is destroying the planet the vast majority of the climate change denying lemmings would follow.
5
In my opinion, most often considering any idea that suggests change from the usual ways of doing things, or thinking about things, causes resistance to even proven facts, or established probabilities.
It seems to me that people who position themselves as climate change deniers, are just thinking that the benefits of the old way of doing things, getting and spending, out weigh the hazards of changing the way they are currently getting and spending. Thus, if they are making money now, or prospering now, they will resist any possible change to that. And people who are rigid in this way, seem not to care one whit whether their methods benefit or harm any one else. It's basic selfishness and greed. What is working for me, has to keep working for me. Climate change deniers have no concept of the greater good, the long haul picture, or the interconnected web of all being.
7
"One way to counter the effects of skepticism is to stop talking about “knowledge” and switch to talking about probabilities."
And this is precisely why the IPCC reports on climate and the National Climate Assessment report "confidence level" and "likelihood (%). See, for example, Figure 2 in Volume 1 of NCA4, 2017.
However, neither measure has stopped the professional, well-paid climate change deniers from "denying".
You might consider adding another category to your analyses, "willful and/or purposeful ignorance".
18
Focusing on the probability that they will have to change their life style is what motivate deniers (they are not true skeptics) to voiciferously deny and obfuscate. Unfortunately, until their lives are directly and materially impacted by a climate change event they will continue in this destructive behavior much as the smoker does.
6
Not surprisingly, you’ve got this all wrong. Conservatives don’t necessarily doubt that our climate is getting marginally warmer, we just doubt that it will be the end of the world as we know it. And, since the Left is hysterical about this pending disaster, we are even more sceptical because the Left is always wrong but always needs something to get hysterical about.
2
The idea of 97% of scientist in agreement has been discredited. Is it possible statistics used in climate science are as reliable.Scientist in studying human and animal would never fudge the studies why wouldn't climate scientists. Aren't you even a little bit skeptical when philosophers start weighing in?
Suppose it's 12/31/2099 11:59 pm. The Union of Wealthy White People (an economic block of European and North America nations created to stay China's influence) has long ago collapsed driving its people into poverty, starvation and desease. It started in 2032 when President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and eventual Supreme Leader for Life of the UWWP implemented the Organic Sustainability laws in effect destroying any chance of the developing world as well as America's poor of escaping poverty as. All fossil Fuel, nuclear power, pesticides and herbicides were outlawed. The World Bank strictly enforced these laws in effect destroying world's economy.
@JoeG
"The idea of 97% of scientist in agreement has been discredited."
Could you please point us to a credible source that backs up this assertion?
Trump and the Republican leadership know climate change is real, just as tobacco companies knew all along that cigarettes cause cancer. They simply don't care.
They stir confusion around the cause of climate change to give them license to do nothing. Their base is so poorly educated they go along with it. The rest of us have limited power to demand change.
Yes, all our children and grandchildren (and subsequent generations) will suffer terribly, but so what? Trump and the Republican leadership will be long gone. So why should it matter to them?
11
I am surprised that there is no discussion of Pascal’s Wager - the acceptance of the unknowable existence of God because the consequences of belief to the contrary would be dire.
To have a meaningful discussion about knowledge, skepticism, and probabilities, one must assume that the debate is with people acting in good faith.
Trump tends to question “knowledge”, only when it serves to justify his actions. He clings to Putin’s denials of Russian election meddling despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He clings to Prince Bin Salman’s denial of involvement in the Khashoggi despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In both cases, he conveniently uses the possibility, not the probability, that Putin and MBS could be correct to justify his current course. This kind of denial in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence is not skepticism is simple political expediency.
Similarly climate change deniers are not true skeptics. They are convenient skeptics. The certainty they require would prevent them from stepping out in the morning lest gravity fail. Yet they still venture forth. They rely on electricity. They rely on the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.
45
I had to stop reading this essay halfway through because the author never considers the likely situation in this case of self-centered dishonesty in reaching a conclusion. The reality of climate change and a response to ameliorate it would require a lot of people to lose something they value, like a ton of money for oil companies, or just learning new, more inconvenient behaviors for individuals. Yeah, the article probably has a different central premise than I’m working from, but maybe a better question the author should be considering is along the lines of why would anyone still support Trump. Hmm. I think the correct response would still have to consider self-centered dishonesty.
4
Here is what is missing from this excellent and fascinating discussion about skeptical pressure:
1. I would like to understand why, especially today, people feel that their decisions about complex ideas are as valid as those from experts. Everyone seems to have a firm belief, either for or against existence, of human-caused global warming. Yet, the vast majority of people have not read the data in favor of existence, and could not understand the data even if they had read it. Of course experts are often wrong. But in highly technical matters like global warming, or your likelihood of succumbing to a newly diagnosed disease, the expert knows so much more than you as to make your “opinion’ epistomologically valueless.
Perhaps this is an effect of the internet where everyone gets information but is ill informed, perhaps an effect of the rise of skepticism (post Vietnam, Watergate...). How do we combat this?
2. Resorting to a discussion of probabilities is a great idea save for the fact that most people are poor at both the mathematical fundamentals of probability, and the psychological processing of it’s meaning. In order for the discussion to have impact we would need to be careful how to phrase the probability, and skeptics would simply turn it around (“there is one chance in thirty that we will spend a fortune for nothing!”). How to combat this when the skeptics are also zealots?
3
The Climate Mafia has created a "chicken little" scenario by framing the argument on simulated results that are highly dependent of un-quantifiable variables. A believable argument is the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere that is quantifiable without question. A further problem is that there are NO reasonable nor profitable solutions ever presented. The people you refer to as skeptics are really "can do" people constantly bombarded with a stream of "no you can't do" actions. All anthropogenic CO2 came from the ground and the simplistic thing to do is to put it back into the ground. This is actually very simple and can be done at a profit using the new understandings in soil science. Within 50 years it is technically possible to reduce atmospheric carbon to pre-industrial levels given the political willpower. No amount of "green" energy will ever do this. Only net-carbon negative soil projects are capable of achieving this. However, neo-Malthusian wiseguys will never let this happen as it would enable sustainable population growth to upwards of 30 billion, unlimited meat production, and continued use of fossil fuels.
2
Walter Lippmann in his book, Public Opinion, offers up the best explanation for why most of what our public thinks and acts upon are opinions---unfortunately for our country, poorly conceived opinions, mostly formulated within tribal like cultures. These opinions offer up a double edged sword---on the one had they reduce the complexity of the environments we live in to simplistic cause and effect appearances; on the other hand, most of these opinions masks the reality we are really experiencing---in effect, as Lippman puts it we all live in a world of fictional realities---or in Trump's words fake realities---Until Trump, I did have difficulty understanding Lippman's thesis, but not anymore---I should add, at the time I read Public Opinion, I believed Lippman was a bit harsh on the public's ability to grapple with complex issues, but not anymore.
2
Interesting arguement, but more academic than anything else. Still, it offers an interesting perspective.
But more important is the broad reaction to the data that makes climate change appear to be a reality. Let's assume for a moment that what is being interpreted as anthropogenic climate change is a natural shift in climate, the latest of many over humans' time on earth. Given that such shifts typically last for hundreds if not thousands of years what should humans do?
Regardless of why the planet is warming, there are massive ramifications for human societies. How can we mitigate those risks and dangers? That is the challenge that needs to be faced, and arguing about the causes of a melting Arctic or wildfires or drought only wastes time. We may not be able to address or avoid a natural change, but can plan to adapt to it.
4
To me, it is obvious that man is depleting the planet with or without climate change- depleting aquifers, loss of fishing stocks in the ocean, loss of topsoil, the ocean filling up with plastic, cities where it is difficult to breathe, overpopulation.
The whole global warming argument is a way to deflect what humans are doing to the planet. These people believe that if climate change is not real, then we must not be destroying the planet. I would like to see the case presented in easily presented data, not scientific theory. Loss of forests and aquifers, desertification, contamination of water is easily tracked and believed.
2
It’s a neat trick of the deniers to focus the debate on the somewhat academic question of whether climate change is man-made. That keeps people distracted from asking more pertinent questions like, “Is there something we can do to mitigate climate change? If so, shouldn’t we be doing it given the potentially catastrophic consequences of not taking action?”
31
It is a given that the climate is changing.......it always has. So the the disagreement is to what degree if any does mankind contribute to this phenomenon. Man induced change has become a religion rather than hard science, and there are many ways to analyze the data. One thing I have challenged the believers is to take the climate model that they use to predict the future and work them in reverse and see how the model compares with actual data. It is also relevant to know that grant money flows to those who agree with the prevailing philosophy not to sceptics.
2
@Ancienthoosier
I am curious why you would think that with so many bright people working on this problem, that your idea if comparing past predictions with historical fact hasn't occurred to anyone. This has, of course, been done many times, and unsurprisingly, the predictions publishing years ago have been indeed born out. The climate models are accurate and the science is sound.
I would refer you to the article entitled "Analysis: How well have climate models projected global warming?" at http://tinyurl.com/y6vwm426
Perhaps most interesting is scientist James Hansens predictions from his 1981 paper in science magazine. In it he predicted that warming could create drought-prone regions in North America and Asia, erosion of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, rising sea levels, and the opening of the fabled Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean. All of these things are now coming to pass.
10
@Ancienthoosier
Very well said Hoosier..a balance to all the alarmism on this subject.
@Ancienthoosier
Good thought about working the models in reverse. However, it might surprise you that already, every climate mode that is made or has been made works backwards to check on accuracy of prediction. Your challenge' was accepted a long time ago.
Let's see - lose the lottery and everything remains economically the same for that one individual that lost - basically as if they never even bought a ticket. Lose the 'climate change is real' argument and billions of humans suffer, biodiversity crashes, large parts of the planet become inhabitable, the oceans acidify etc. etc. Excellent comparison.
12
In this case, it seems clear that the most productive approach is to consider the relative costs of remaining skeptical, despite the evidence, and of believing that the evidence is convincing. One of the--no doubt deliberate--falsehoods in this debate is that the 2 sides deserve equal respect. Not only is this untrue on the evidence, but the consequences of remaining skeptical are dire. On the other hand, believing--and acting on--the evidence would avoid those negative consequences and open a large space for positive results.
15
I’m glad the author introduced the idea of probabilities into the discourse. Even if you’re a climate skeptic, the logical, rational course of action is risk aversion. At the risk of catastrophic economic loss due to the threat becoming real, the appropriate response is to avert the risk by taking action; action is called for when the probability of economics loss from the treat exceeds the certain outlays to be made currently. We regularly do this in our daily lives with life, home, auto, medical, liability, and other types of insurance.
24
The good professor misses the forest for the trees. The overwhelming reason climate change skeptics are climate change skeptics is because they don't want to believe man-made climate change is real. As the world-renowned philosopher Upton Sinclair once stated: "“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary[, or way of life, or political identity] depends on his not understanding it.”
226
@Yo
You make a good point with the Sinclair quotation... which brings up an important question:
What percentage of the 3% of scientist-climate-change-deniers are beholden to the extraction industries?
That would seem important to Dr. Pinillos argument. As Sinclair suggests, salary (or a donation) is more persuasive than probability.
Finally, what about the role of Fox News?
Even if we turn climate change into a discussion of probabilities, there's still a 100% probability that Fox will find the right way to punch holes in the argument.
And 100% of liberals know to a 100% degree of probability that Fox propaganda is 100% persuasive to its conservative audience.
8
There is a big difference between climate change denial and skepticism about the proper recourse for addressing climate change. To the chagrin of many of my well-meaning, left leaning friends, I embrace the position that our fight must be AGAINST pollution and waste, and FOR conservation and green technology. When article like this assert there must be muscular federal policies against climate change, I cringe because I would like to see water, air and land pollution dealt with by all jurisdictions. Narrowly framing our environmental issues to federal solutions to climate change only deepens our political divisions.
5
@Louise Kowitch
It would, however, make a YUGE difference if the Trump administration recognized climate change, and make a serious stab at addressing it in attitude and policies. Instead, its position is not unlike Holocaust deniers. In fact, considering the administration's attitude overall, it coddles groups that would appear to believe that both the Holocaust and climate change are fake news.
Our lives are dominated by decision making under uncertainty. Our goal should always be to make the best decisions. The "best decisions" are those that select the options with the most attractive distribution of outcomes. The Trump administration's denials of climate science are nothing more than Sinclair Lewis's "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it" problem.
5
Using the best sience and existing technology the solutions are worse than the problem. We could fix climate change tomorrow by eliminating most of the human population of earth or returning to a standard of living equivalent to subsistence farming. Even the most extreme environmentalist aren't calling for that, yet. What we get now is virtue signaling and socialism disguised as a fix.
5
Brian,
So we can assume by your second sentence that you admit the existence of climate change. That's at least a start.
Suggested solutions?
@Brian
Uhm, surely you understand that those aren't the only solutions to anthropogenic global warming. We can 'fix' climate change, if not tomorrow, then well before the end of the 21st century, by converting the global economy from fossil carbon to carbon-neutral energy sources. Economists agree that a relatively modest carbon tax such as Carbon Fee and Dividend with Border Adjustment Tariff, by making renewable energy sources price-competitive with fossil fuels, can drive the transition within decades. Please see "citizensclimatelobby.org/basics-carbon-fee-dividend" for details.
I'm not saying that ending man-made climate change will be painless, but it need not be as as inhumane as you claim. Your consideration of only worst-case proposals is the classic "straw-man" fallacy. It's transparently pseudo-skeptical, I'm afraid.
1
The fallacy of this editorial is the implicit, underlying assumption that the stated skepticism of climate change by Trump and the Republican Right is genuine. But there is no evidence to support this assumption. To the contrary, given the obvious conflicts of interest of Trump and so many on the Right, it seems much more likely that their professed skepticism is simply a strategy to profit from perpetuating a fossil-fuel based economic system for as long as possible. They will be the 1% who will be immune from the effects of climate change, because they will be hoarding the dwindling military and economic resources while the rremaining 99% fight over the scraps. It's survival of the fittest, in their eyes.
162
@Luomaike
Occam's (or Ockham's) Razor states that when two conflicting explanations are offered for an observation, we should prefer the one requiring the fewest assumptions: for example, if you hear hoofprints, think "horses", not "zebras". A corollary is Hanlon's (or Heinlein's) Razor: that one should not attribute to malice, what can adequately be explained by stupidity.
Unfortunately, neither of these is sufficient to explain the Republican Party's official pseudo-skepticism of man-made climate change, because they're not mutually exclusive: the party's leaders evince both 'malice' (i.e. cynical self-interest) and 'stupidity' (i.e. scientific incompetence) in abundance 8^(!
Note: I'm not claiming that Democratic Party leaders never act out of either self-interest or incompetence. It's a curious fact of history, that only within the last 20 years or so has the GOP adopted denial of the overwhelming scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change as a strategic plank. It's probable that large investments by fossil fuel billionaires, as documented in books like "Dark Money" (nytimes.com/2016/01/24/books/review/dark-money-by-jane-mayer.html) and in peer-reviewed journal articles such as "Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations"(drexel.edu/now/archive/2013/December/Climate-Change/), have something to do with that.
87
Let's not overthink this. Trump and his cronies know climate change is happening and that humans are the cause. It's just not convenient to their financial interests or those of the corporate capitalists they serve. So they seize on whatever narrative they can to cover their motives.
It's helpful to remember that this is politics we're dealing with, not everyday human thought and behavior. Much as I hate to say it, the cynical explanation almost always turns out to be the correct one.
124
"Sometimes, when it appears that someone is expressing doubt, what he is really doing is recommending a course of action."
This deeply philosophical piece is a great teaching tool about the human mind, probability, and skepticism.
But what it doesn't do is shed much light on a president who routinely lies to shock, or doubts to "recommend a course of action."
Who in their right mind really knows what the president is thinking just from what he says? America has never had a leader more manipulative or devious than Donald Trump.
I truly believe for Trump, words are merely a vehicle to achieve an outcome he plans to make happen anyway. Of course he might know that climate change is real, Putin is a meddler, and Kashoggi was murdered on the orders of MBS, but he doesn't care because of his investment in the outcome--big energy donors fund his campaign, he's in deep with Russia (based on past real estate deelings, and his foreign policy is based on lining up allies against Iran.
So, thanks for this article, Professor Pinillos--I may apply it among those I suspect are letting ignorance get the better of them.
As to the president, well, "who knows?"
11
@ChristineMcM. I have long believed Trump lies for the perverse pleasure of it. That he receives a deep joy in making demonstrably false statements, a way of saying I am so superior to you, I can say what I like without consequence, even when we both know I'm lying.
A deeply sick man.
1
This erudite discussion of skepticism ignores some mundane reasons for doubt. Upton Sinclair summed up one such reason with the comment (I paraphrase) that it is difficult to persuade a man to believe something when his income depends on him not believing it. Almost certainly (high probability) many people disregard the evidence for climate change because dealing with the problem would force them to change their lifestyle or would damage their livelihood.
A second cause relates to the widespread skepticism among Americans with respect to the reliability of expert knowledge. Demeaning comments about intellectual elites have long formed a staple of popular culture in this country, stemming from a mistaken idea of the meaning of human equality. Throughout our history, some Americans have interpreted the phrase from the Declaration to refer to mental capacity.
If the common man needs no assistance from the inhabitants of ivory towers to understand the future of our climate or the effects of childhood vaccinations, then why pay attention to scientific studies which express the conclusions of such experts?
Focusing on probabilities would not necessarily alter the mindset of individuals whose self interest or democratic biases encourages them to doubt the reliability of science.
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@James Lee You write, "Almost certainly (high probability) many people disregard the evidence for climate change because dealing with the problem would force them to change their lifestyle or would damage their livelihood."
That's true only if/when people act on their beliefs. Consider the average adherent of Christianity, whose numbers mount into the millions: do you notice vast hordes of humans actively feeding the hungry, healing the sick, sheltering the homeless, etc.? Some of this goes forward, yes; but If those who claimed to support such Christian goals actually did so both with their own efforts and with their votes, these problems would have been eradicated long ago.
It's perfectly possible to believe that climate change is real, is happening, and is the direct result of our own activities while actively continuing to contribute to its causes; and this, IMO, is a much larger problem than skepticism.
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@James Lee Absolutely...skepticism as a political delay tactic based on self serving, short term, financial gain for the few is different than simply being skeptical of science and change. To disregard the future of the planet and it’s people is bad, to disregard future consequences based on greed and abuse of power is exponentially worse.
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"I think that we should also think about the philosophical nature of skeptical reactions, an apolitical phenomenon."
Well and good, but in the meantime those of us who are absolutely terrified and angry for the future of our grandchildren should do everything possible within our own personal power and resources to turn the tide against the ravages of climate change. And wanting to leave drinkable water, breathable air, livable oceans, and thriving forests isn't a pipe dream -- it's sanity.
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@JessiePearl. I certainly hope the democrats will make this a top issue in the 2020 election. There are few topics more crucial and most of us realize these wildfires and intense hurricanes are not just a run of bad luck.
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@Sparky ~ yes, we all need to be contacting our representatives!
As a person said to me a few weeks ago in regard to climate change, I don't know much about the subject, but I do not think whatever is going on is man made. I offered to give him a text book on paleoclimatology and pointed him to several authoritative web sites on the issue but he demurred, saying he wanted to keep an open mind.
I responded with the famous quote: "It's good to have an open mind, but not one so open that your brains fall out."
When one is skeptical of a scientific finding, they need to practice scientific skepticism. A scientific skeptic has to look at the facts, look at the explanation derived from those facts, evaluate alternative explanations and evaluate whether that alternative better explains the facts.
Sadly, people do not know how to be a scientific skeptic, because they do not understand how to apply the scientific method in the first place.
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@Andy
And--what I find so absurdly inconsistent in the mindset you are describing is that those who doubt the scientific method in an area such as climate change are perfectly willing to accept it in areas such as open heart surgery or telecommunications, because they like and rely on those.
I've often said that if you don't think there is scientific evidence of the probability of human caused climate change you shouldn't believe in modern medicine or engineering or technology either. But then you can't take statins or use your cell phone or drive, especially over a bridge . . .
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The argument shouldn't be whether humans caused climate change. Even Trump seems to recognize that it's happening. The solution seems to be to limit the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere. Humans can do that. In my home, we don't try to determine which of our three cats threw up. We just clean the carpet.
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Not mentioned is the very human tendency to take as fact that which is desired to be true. Believing in what is most comforting, rather than what has more evidence, is a great way to avoid stress - very motivating.
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@Ann O. Dyne Believing is relieving.
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Big Oil & the GOP aren't the problem when it comes to enacting climate change legislation. American voters don't want to pay more for energy. Every poll backs this up. The GOP is simply reflecting the desires of their constituents. The point of cap & trade was always to increase the price of 85 percent of the energy we use in America. That is the goal. For it to “work,” cap and trade needs to increase the price of oil, coal, and natural gas to force consumers to use more expensive forms of energy. President Obama’s former OMB director, Peter Orszag, told Congress that “price increases would be essential to the success of a cap and trade program. The majority of U.S. voters will never go for this. Period. The overall reality in that climate change legislation is hard to pass even in good times. It's a real killer in an economic downturn where citizens & business fear higher costs, even slightly higher costs, & may see no concrete benefits. The US is extracting carbon & flowing it into the global energy system faster than ever before. We're trying simultaneously to reduce demand for fossil fuels while doing everything possible to increase the supply. Mind you this started when Obama was President. Can we bring ourselves to prioritize renewables over cheap fuels? Are we willing to vote against our own self interests & approve higher taxes on fossil fuels? Can we muster the restraint needed to leave assets worth trillions in the ground? Absolutely not. It's never going to happen.
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@Bill Brown
While I tend to agree it is a very steep uphill battle, I guess some voters (typically on the left) can sometimes vote for higher taxes if the tradeoff is well presented - typically, increase taxes to do something specific, like increase public transportation or provide financial incentives for people to do energy-efficient things like home insulation or buying smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.
But i agree overall, as a society, no more fossil fuels means less energy available, thus economic shrinkage, thus net loss of actual purchasing power for people. How do you insure prosperity without growth?
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Some people factor in the costs they will pay for gas when they buy a car and so create an insentive for vehicles that get better mileage. If we factor the future costs of fossil fuels we would already have a large insentive for other fuels. This cost is so great you need not factor in the emerging fact that the direct costs of employing renewable energy has come down dramatically to the point of being not only competitive but in many cases cheaper. These price reductions are ongoing in a way that echoes the development of computer chips: the cost and power of renewables gets better regularly. Costs have for example come down over 90% in the past decade.
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@rg Absolutely correct and further investment means even more cost reductions both from lessons learned through expanded exposure to more mental capability and economies of scale. This aside from direct and intended invention through the standard research avenues. But the people who can invest the most are those that have the most and that would be the fossil energy industry. The fossil energy industry is the single greatest profit machine that has existed in human history. The renewable energy industry can be profitable but by it's nature it will spread the wealth a little more, and create more jobs, so it is not as attractive to the people who make money on fossil fuels. Both are profitable but one makes more and that is all that matters to them.
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I have been aware of the rapidly rising CO2 levels in our atmosphere for decades. One of the easiest science courses in junior high school was how the carbon cycle works. After debating people online and in person for years, I've come to the conclusion those who most vehemently deny human involvement in Global Warming have not grasped those 2 simple facts. So know I give up, we've gone beyond a large portion of our population. Writing about Global Warming has gone over many peoples heads. Lets do the planet and our existence a favor, simplify the story. To me that will help more than any debate or conversation. Tell it like it is simply, then it is our job to not condescend but encourage our fellow earthlings. Kindness does work.
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We should also keep reminding people that there's an enormous right-wing public relations machine exploiting our tendencies to doubt in the face of evidence. One reaction might be to mobilize an opposing machine that uses science to affect opinion. I don't like thinking how democracy is changed by the manipulation of opinion, but these are perilous times.
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A good place to learn more about this problem is to read Joseph Schumpeter. In his essay about Creative Description he makes it clear that capital will fight the transition from one technology to another. We are in the middle of that right now. Trump and Kudlow are now the political voice of a large herd of capitalist who are on the wrong side of new technology.
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@Ed Jones
See " The Structure of Sclentlflc Revolutlons" Thomas J. Kuhn
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@Ed Jones Well put, but your auto-correct misspelled "Creative Destruction".
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@Ed Jones
There is a word for that: Luddites.
Forget about skepticism and just follow the money. There aren't many West Virginia coal miners who think a belief in climate change will put food on the table. And a Wyoming cattle rancher can't afford to worry about the carbon hoof prints left behind by his herd of future Big Macs.
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@WDG. How many Californians in the path of the Camp Fire or North Carolinans in the wake of the Hurricane Florence floods believe climate change denial will keep their next home safe from destruction?
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@WDG. How many Californians in the path of the Camp Fire or North Carolinans in the wake of the Hurricane Florence floods believe climate change denial will keep their next home safe from destruction?
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Consider the insurance industry. Large insurance companies have been taking climate change seriously for years. Their business model depends on probabilities to be successful, no exceptions including, and especially, climate change.
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@Lawrence
Exactly. The insurance industry, the military, transportation companies and others who cannot afford to indulge in nonsense have recognized the reality of climate change for a long time.
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