The older American worldview of science is nostalgic for an era of unprecedented modeling accuracy that gave a compact summary of how the near-atomic world worked, consequently fueling a backlash against the rise of disciplines that intend to study far more complex systems albeit with the inability to perform experiments in the fashion of the basic sciences.
Nutrition, psychology, economics, and climate research all tout the banner of at least using some parts of the scientific method, which to those Americans who have been spoiled by the awesome forecasting of more reductive studies, are left to question the legitimacy of fields that fundamentally cannot perform experiments with the same exacting repeatability and direct hypothesis testability that was so blazing branded into the public zeitgeist for what American STEM should be capable of accomplishing.
In addition, given that at least the first three of those disciples mentioned above are notoriously abused in the US by governments and corporations as retroactive justifications for legal, social, and economic policies by paying for expert testimony and directly funding questionable studies on condition of flattering results, it is extremely hard for the American public to trust any hard-to-swallow policy-advocating scientific communities without (ir)rational skepticism.
Americans dealing with science are like romantically-oblivious nerds dealing with a heart-wrenching series of rejections and betrayals. If as a scientist you want to court these delicate creatures, please proceed with gentle and loving care building trust and helping them heal from the toxic relationships that soured their faith in domain experts. Denigrading them that they should just get over the past already and put their faith in the absolute consensus of the world is truly not helpful.
It's not that people are acting stupid and should know better, a lot of people are just incapable of understanding the implications of a complex situation like this.
Slashing energy usage means slashing many of the benefits of living in a post-industrial society. Think living in one-room houses (no cheap heating), eating bread and potatoes in winter (no imported food), working locally with little career progression (no easy commuting) and many people returning to manual labour (no cheap machinery). All this to prevent 60cm-1m of sea level rise by 2100 - something we can manage, if we maintain the civilisation we have worked so hard to build.
If we took the very dramatic changes of switching all energy to nuclear, changed to a mostly vegetarian diet, and replaced as much of transportation usage as possible with electric we would end up with an 80% or greater reduction in emissions and still enjoy plenty of the benefits of a post-industrial society.
A combination of insulation, thoughtful design (south-facing glass, adjustable awnings, solar water heating, heat pumps vs. resistive electrical heat, etc.) and renewably sourced electricity go a long ways towards the heating issue. I live in a cold-ish city in a 2 bed apt with only electric storage heaters (which are awful) and pay for supposedly 100% renewable (wind/solar/geothermal) energy and my bill peaks at €65 a month in the winter.
Commuting:
There are also thousands of businesses within a 30 minute walk from my home. Not turning cities into parking lots and skidpads with a building dropped here and there helps. If I cycle, the number of businesses in that range increases by about a factor of 9. (I cycle around 3 times as fast as I walk, so can cover a distance roughly three times as far, or area ~9 times as great). If I don't like pedaling, an e-bike or 50-150cc scooter/motorcycle will get me even farther.
Food:
I'm not well informed enough on this to comment. Where I live already has pretty bland food with loads of bread and potatoes. Good burritos, though. I'd miss that. We'd probably eat a lot less meat. I could do with a better supply of soyrizo, anyway.
Effects:
Sea level rise is far from the only concern. Stronger storms, drought, the displacement of peoples and an ensuing refugee crisis as their crops fail and water supplies dwindle, ocean acidification, and changing weather systems from the loss of the Arctic ice cap (and possibly a chunk of Greenland) are just a few of them. Also, I suppose this makes me impossibly impractical but hey, the loss of polar bears would make me sad. Maintaining the civilisation we built at the cost of the natural world we inherited isn't fantastic; watching the forests of my home (California) be completely devastated by drought, heat, and beetles is a bummer, to put it mildly.
As for the effects of climate change, they look intimidating as a whole - when you look at each item individually, they are unpleasant but manageable. Humans have been dealing with the weather for millennia, after all.
> Stronger storms, drought
These happen routinely now. Yes, it would be preferable to have less storms and drought, but we know how to handle them.
> the displacement of peoples
In the last decade the Chinese have built scores of new cities across the third world - it's not that hard for people to move.
> an ensuing refugee crisis as their crops fail and water supplies dwindle
We grow crops in many different climates now. Crop failures happen now in poor countries with bad infrastructure and management. Societies with sufficient capital and technology can adapt to almost any climate. (In extreme climates, with desalination plants and hydroponics - or people could just move).
> Maintaining the civilisation we built at the cost of the natural world we inherited isn't fantastic
This is really the crux of the issue - should the standard of value be maximising human flourishing, or minimising human impact?
Your argument is equivalent to saying, in the 60s, "These guys believe the future is in toy computers that fit under your desk. If they succeed, the majority of people will have to turn to abacuses to do their taxes."
Your summary of my argument is completely off-the-mark.
The solution to climate change is not simple. Yes, emit less CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. But the amount of things you can supposedly do to achieve that are numerous and the effects are maybe not even visible in your lifetime.
The cult leaders have spent their whole lives debating with people and poring over the wording of documents, they then see another group of people threatening to drive the narrative in society in future and react by adopting the debating style of this group and by trying to detect linguistic errors in scientific documents. They miss the point that their skillset just isn't applicable to the problem.
The cult followers were in a clientelist relationship with the leaders before, they have received cargo in the past and would like to continue to receive it in the future so are happy to go along with the cult.
To be fair it's not disbelief in climate change, it's a healthy skepticism of man made climate change.
Let's be honest about why conservatives have this "healthy skepticism": because the fossil-fuel industry has successfully linked belief in anthropogenic global warming with liberalism. It's a correct association to some degree in that part of the solution would mean more regulation of business, but the value of such an association is that it becomes an us-versus-them situation. You don't have to understand it to disagree with it. And to be quite frank, that's the case - the majority of people who hold a disbelief in climate change are ignorant of the basic premise. In fairness, the majority of people who hold a belief in climate change are also ignorant of the basic premise. This is because, as mentioned above, it's no longer a scientific issue in the mainstream view, it's a political one.
Anecdotally, every "skeptic" I've ever met has used arguments to justify their disbelief such as:
- "scientists are not always right"
- "the climate changes all the time"
- "the Earth is so big, how could we have any effect"
- "if global warming is happening then how come it's so cold"
- "CO2 rises and falls regularly"
I will treat an informed dissent respectfully, but let's not shit ourselves about how many opinions meet that bar.
- The climate isn't changing in any meaningful way
- The climate is changing, but not because of people
- Sure the climate is changing because of people's actions, but changing our ways is too expensive, we'll just have to adapt
- Of course everyone always believed we should have done something about climate change, but liberals stood in the way of the solutions we suggested (something invented about public vs private solutions)
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
If it's sarcasm, you probably consider my thinking sloppy and I'd like to know why.
If it's just a joke, then hah hah and forget I replied.
Text can be such an ambiguous medium!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_th...
> It's ludicrous to think that I could hold a "healthy skepticism" on the efficacy of heart transplants when I don't know the first thing about human anatomy, biology or medicine, but this is exactly what is happening with an equally complex scientific issue.
I also find it interesting you speak of the complex nature of the study of climate change yet make the blanket statement that anyone who disagrees is an ignorant person. I would be correct in assuming you are a scientist that has studied climate change?
> I will treat an informed dissent respectfully
And therein lies the problem. You assume every person who 1) disagrees with any part of climate change and 2) holds politically conservative views are too ignorant to form their own opinions based on their own self study. You assume they are a bunch of low IQ ignorant hicks that can't think for themselves and must rely on big evil corporations to feed them their climate change arguments.
Yes, that's very respectful :)
What I was trying to say in the previous message is that the majority of people, conservative or liberal, are ignorant of the basic premise. Liberals happen to be largely ignorant of the issue in a way that leads them to vote the way I like, but they hold the same majority ignorance. We aren't having liberal versus conservative fights over the efficacy of various surgical procedures, airplane designs or pharmaceutical drugs because most people are ignorant of these things (myself included) - again, because these are scientific issues and should not be political. Climate change has been politicized, the majority of people hold a strong opinion in spite of being ignorant of the basic premise. Individuals, regardless of political leaning, may do enough research on their own to develop an informed opinion, but the majority (from both sides) do not.
You having done your own research that leads you to the conclusion that AGW is not happening doesn't make you ignorant. I disagree with you, but I am not insulting you. So hopefully I made my point clearer: I am not making the blanket statement that anyone who disagrees is an ignorant, low IQ hick. I _am_ making the claim that, much like the economy, a complex issue which most people don't really understand has been boiled down to simple, tribal arguments by both sides with the unfortunate consequence of stalling urgent, badly needed action.
My point is, from the viewpoint of conservatives, most liberals think conservatives are dumb hicks who don't know anything and are just brainwashed by big oil and the GOP. This viewpoint is perpetuated by statements similar to those you, with no malintent, made. You lament about the politicization of climate change yet you yourself initially related conservatives to those who use ignorant excuses to ignore or reject climate change. For the most part, when someone disagrees with climate change, they are instantly labelled as an ignorant science denier who has done no research on their own. That's not a good way to have a fruitful conversation with someone and it will never help solve any problems related to climate change.
Your point that conservatives can't dissent without being piled on is valid, and it's one of the reasons I apologized and tried to frame my point more tactfully (the other being that I felt bad for being nasty). The inability to have tactful conversations where we really listen to the viewpoints of one another troubles me deeply (I regret contributing), and is no doubt a major contributor to the intense polarization we are currently experiencing.
We are all, myself included, prone to uncritically accepting peer views and refusing to accept facts which contradict our narrative. Science, though imperfect, attempts to temper our irrationality with reproducible results and critical, fact-based consensus. The fossil fuel industry is responsible for dragging the issue of climate change from science into politics. I'm not saying they brainwashed a bunch of idiot rubes, but they did successfully muddy the water on a complex issue and connect it to identity. This is why I reacted so strongly to the phrase "healthy skepticism"; thoughtful individuals may be displaying this, but broadly I see it as the fossil fuel industry having exploited the instinct to draw more closely into one's tribe to guard against outsiders.
And that seems to be part of the problem: You just made a statement that is quickly proven false[0], which leads to further skepticism from these people.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_th...
I count eight people who seem to have worked in (broadly) related fields:
Timothy Ball, historical climatologist, and retired professor of geography at the University of Winnipeg
William Kininmonth, meteorologist, former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology
Anthony Lupo, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Missouri
Tim Patterson, paleoclimatologist and professor of geology at Carleton University in Canada.
Murry Salby, atmospheric scientist, former professor at Macquarie University and University of Colorado
Nir Shaviv, professor of physics focusing on astrophysics and climate science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Roy Spencer, meteorologist; principal research scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville
George H. Taylor, retired director of the Oregon Climate Service at Oregon State University
This is the equivalent of saying "Zoologist X Somebody in University of North Carolina said there's no link between smoking and lung cancer!", and keeping smoking while having a lung cancer while ignoring mountains of research, except that it's not your own lung this time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_th...
What's more, the vast majority of their statements doubting an aspect of climate change are not even part the peer reviewed scientific literature. They are simply opinion statements. And they only found a couple dozen people to put on the list? Not a very strong showing..
All of this is found in the linked Wikipedia article itself.
I guess you don't know that in the 70's it wasn't global warming that was a serious issue but global cooling? Funny how that works.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OWXoRSIxyIU
In short, during the 70s, there were some papers on global cooling. But even then, there was still 6 times more papers on global warming. Science overall has been looking in the correct direction for a long time now. The narrative isn't changing.
My hope is that the people most responsible for spreading doubt (e.g. fossil fuel lobbyists) live long enough to see the consequences, but this is unlikely. The most likely scenario is that the brunt of this problem will be borne by future generations, assuming we don't get really unlucky and trigger an extinction event. :-(
God damn, what a fucked world we live in. I wish I had the comfort of disbelief these people have.