I’d trade hot air for fresh air.
For session 5, Climate Change and the Role of Science, I think the thing worth discussing is the latter portion of that statement. That is not to say that climate change should be ignored, I merely mean that to me it seems that everyone has heard the debate before. We’ve all had numbers hurdled as us, seen hundreds of graphs that show exponential change, and read several catalogs of doom. If this was an effective approach to communicating about climate change, well then why would it still be a debate? The reason is because it is not, numbers and charts do little to incite change in one’s daily life. The way I see the current role of science in the climatic debate is one of fear mongering, and that is why those who oppose drastic change are currently winning. The scientist offers dooms while the businessman offers blissful ignorance and denial of logic. People cling to that because it offers hopes.
At that point in the discussion, it matters little who is right. If we have reached a tipping point of irreversible change, or soon will, well then why would we drastically reduce the quality of life by forgoing modern convenience? I understand that environmental vocalists fancy themselves watchdogs of the planet, and in many ways they are, but anyone who has a dog knows that constant barking, although alarming at first, eventually just becomes annoying and loses its significance. However, if we truly are barreling towards doom at unprecedented rates, what other choice do vocalists have but to raise the alarm?
Before I address how I think climate change should be handled, I would like to concretely illustrate how it currently is being expressed, using our own readings as a foil. In David McKay’s Without the Hot Air he incorporates 17 graphs across his 16 pages of text. The next article is titled Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math. The last article by Justin Gillis ends on the note, “[A] three foot rise in particular would endanger many of the world’s great cities – among them New York; London; Shanghai;Venice; Sydney; Miami; and New Orleans.” Clearly the most popular approach is to throw out numbers/charts and extrapolate those implications to absolute calamity. In fact the only article that talks about how science should treat such issues is Chapter 3 from Freyfogle. In it he describes how science needs to reconnect with moral values, shuck aside absolute objectivity, and expand itself beyond what he describes the “limits of proof.”
However, I think there are other roles that must also be incorporated in scientific communication. First and for most, hope. Hope is the main weapon against science, against endless pessimism, against gloom and doom. Unfortunately for us all, this hope currently comes in the form of willful ignorance and ignoring fact. It is being employed by professional nay-sayers and to disastrous effect. If hopeful exhibitions of current implementations, budding technologies, and the responsible actions of ethically outstanding businesses were discussed half as much as the doom we all face then I truly feel people would be more inclined to pitch in. The reason is because doom appeals to a sense of self-preservation, but hope appeals to a sense of a better tomorrow. Self-preservation can lead to vicious and selfish acts but hope can lead to community oriented action that rests upon ethics and morals. No one views themselves as innately bad, but after being told time and time again that we are destroying ourselves, what choice does the populace have but to believe it? Thus, in my eyes, if the question is “what should the role of science be in the current climatic debated?”, I would have to say that beyond presenting fact it would have to be offering hope that we indeed can change and fix it. And I take it as self evident that all scientists feel we can indeed change it, because what would be the point of writing an alarming article if not incite change? No one would ever write a relative battling cancer that statistics show they are screwed and that they should fear their demise everyday. No, one would only write to offer hope, to incite optimism, and to rally them to battle all the harder. That is the way in which we must approach rallying the masses to curb greenhouse gases.