Culture Change
I have little say about the details surrounding the Climate Change debate that's ongoing in the public sphere. I'm not undecided on the issue, but to borrow from Homer Simpson: "Facts are meaningless, you can use facts to prove anything that's remotely true!"
What rouses my curiosity is the nature of the stances people take. On either side of the debate, at the extremes, are people who seem to believe in one conspiracy or another; it's either the oil companies trying to cover something up, or the environmentalists pumping up a non-issue for glory and money. So many people have an opinion which, by the very necessity of its own design, stands in direct opposition to the conspiracy theory to which they've subscribed.
On its own, this poses a problem; our opinions on these matters should be informed by reason, and not swayed by a group of people in irrational opposition with whom you feel you identify. But my concern rises when this gives way to finality. It's fair for a person to express their opinion and say, "I don't believe climate change is an issue we need to address"; the qualification this statement needs is "right now". Perhaps climate change is not an issue that needs addressing; perhaps the opportunity cost of addressing climate change, in favor of other global problems, is too high; perhaps there's something else.
But to assert that you have the final answer, to say of the issue, "This is the way the issue is, so let's close the books entirely on this one", that kind of statement is predicated on an assumption that isn't true in the world: staticity. I've learned to mistrust the small amount of information I've consciously retained from grade school. Hesitancy to trust one's memory is a good rule of thumb, but moreover, much of this information has changed radically since I learned it.
More importantly, this glosses over the fact that this is a complicated issue. Which part of the "climate change conspiracy" do you disagree with? How it will affect the oceans? How it will affect agriculture? How will the agricultural effects be different in Brazil compared to Nepal, given different crops and methods of farming? How will it affect the atmosphere? And so on. The issue is nuanced, and it is dangerous to be dismissive of the whole, when any one of the parts might need serious consideration.
It is of course also fair to assert your opinion the other way, but the same danger still holds: that you fall back mostly on what you learned yesterday, and don't update your path forward based on present new information. We should be cautious about the infrastructure we invest in to deal with climate change, and careful to invest in ways that maximize human well-being. I've come to feel that it is an issue we as a civilization should be addressing, but like any layman, I have no idea where, how, or how much.
Hubris is a universal constant in human nature, but it's been my observation the average scientist tends to be much more adept at considering and incorporating new information than the average climate change "denier". In terms of climate change, this alone is evidence of nothing, except that I respect a culture of people willing to periodically question their own ideas over one that doesn't. This is of immeasurable utility: even when the issue is too technical for me to understand, I can use the proportions of these cultures on each side of the debate, as a proxy, to assess the likely quality of their conclusions.
What rouses my curiosity is the nature of the stances people take. On either side of the debate, at the extremes, are people who seem to believe in one conspiracy or another; it's either the oil companies trying to cover something up, or the environmentalists pumping up a non-issue for glory and money. So many people have an opinion which, by the very necessity of its own design, stands in direct opposition to the conspiracy theory to which they've subscribed.
On its own, this poses a problem; our opinions on these matters should be informed by reason, and not swayed by a group of people in irrational opposition with whom you feel you identify. But my concern rises when this gives way to finality. It's fair for a person to express their opinion and say, "I don't believe climate change is an issue we need to address"; the qualification this statement needs is "right now". Perhaps climate change is not an issue that needs addressing; perhaps the opportunity cost of addressing climate change, in favor of other global problems, is too high; perhaps there's something else.
But to assert that you have the final answer, to say of the issue, "This is the way the issue is, so let's close the books entirely on this one", that kind of statement is predicated on an assumption that isn't true in the world: staticity. I've learned to mistrust the small amount of information I've consciously retained from grade school. Hesitancy to trust one's memory is a good rule of thumb, but moreover, much of this information has changed radically since I learned it.
More importantly, this glosses over the fact that this is a complicated issue. Which part of the "climate change conspiracy" do you disagree with? How it will affect the oceans? How it will affect agriculture? How will the agricultural effects be different in Brazil compared to Nepal, given different crops and methods of farming? How will it affect the atmosphere? And so on. The issue is nuanced, and it is dangerous to be dismissive of the whole, when any one of the parts might need serious consideration.
It is of course also fair to assert your opinion the other way, but the same danger still holds: that you fall back mostly on what you learned yesterday, and don't update your path forward based on present new information. We should be cautious about the infrastructure we invest in to deal with climate change, and careful to invest in ways that maximize human well-being. I've come to feel that it is an issue we as a civilization should be addressing, but like any layman, I have no idea where, how, or how much.
Hubris is a universal constant in human nature, but it's been my observation the average scientist tends to be much more adept at considering and incorporating new information than the average climate change "denier". In terms of climate change, this alone is evidence of nothing, except that I respect a culture of people willing to periodically question their own ideas over one that doesn't. This is of immeasurable utility: even when the issue is too technical for me to understand, I can use the proportions of these cultures on each side of the debate, as a proxy, to assess the likely quality of their conclusions.