Some of us know rather a lot about a narrow topic, while others of us know a little about a lot of different things. In this way society seems to be divided up between experts and generalists. Which is better? It’s hard to tell.
Global warming or, if you prefer, climate change offers a good example of what I’m talking about. Ask yourself this question: “Do you know, of your own personal knowledge, whether or not climate change is to any significant degree the product of human activity?”
Now, remember the question. It requires that your response be based upon “your own personal knowledge.” Not what you’ve read, not what you’ve heard, not what you’ve seen on television or at the move theater. In answering the question you are asked to rely on nothing other than your own personal knowledge.
Answering for myself, I would have to answer “no.” I am neither a climatologist nor a scientist of any sort. I haven’t conducted a single scientific experiment to determine whether the planet is warming or not, and I would have no idea how to go about constructing such an experiment. If I want scientific insight I have to ask a scientist.
Most scientists who do know how to conduct experiments or, at least, how to interpret the data produced by experimental studies, seem to agree that the planet is, indeed, warming. Further, most seem to be of the opinion that certain activities of human beings, like driving SUVs and burning tons of fossil fuels, is significantly contributing to the warming trend.
Being fair minded, as I try to be, I also acknowledge that there are at least a fair amount of scientists who disagree with their colleagues. Some deny that the planet is warming at all, and others dispute that human beings have much at all to do with a warming trend they do acknowledge.
So, how do I settle this question? With which side in the political fray do I align myself? Which opinions do I adopt, which do I reject, and what actions, if any, should I take with respect to the way in which I interact with my environment?
I might decide the question for myself simply by looking at the number of scientists who advocate for a particular viewpoint. Clearly, the greater number of experts are aligned on the side which holds that climate change is both a fact and the result of human activity. That might be one way of making a personal decision, but it clearly wouldn’t be the only way. As a fair and honest person I’m not going to be upset if someone chooses to base their decision upon a different criteria and comes to an opposite determination.
Some people may say their gut tells them that the climate-change-ain’t-real scientists are more reliable witnesses. I have to admit that I’m old enough to recall when many respected climatologists were warning of an impending ice age. They seemed no less serious than, and at least as persuasive as, Al Gore seems today.
Back in the 1970s we were all concerned about three things—communism, atomic bombs and the coming ice age. I had a professor in college who painted a doomsday scenario involving glaciers in Chicago that was no less frightening than Al Gore’s scenario when he’s at the top of his game.
The fact is, I don’t know much of anything at all about the climate from my own personal knowledge. My guess is that the same is true of most everybody else. On the other hand, there are several things I do know:
I intuitively know, as my father often said, that it isn’t a good idea to crap in your own mess kit. Yet, that’s what we’re doing every day with the tons of pollutants released into our air, water and land. Whether it’s pesticides recklessly sprayed on our produce, toxic wastes dumped into the land and into our waterways, or automobile fumes released into the atmosphere. We’re crapping in our own mess kit, and it’s costing us dearly.
You don’t need to be a scientist to understand that poison isn’t good for you. Just about everyone intuitively knows that eating pesticide isn’t a good thing. Similarly, most people will accept without a great deal of persuasion that breathing automobile exhaust fumes is likely to be detrimental to your health, and releasing poisons into our waterways results in a number of undesirable consequences. It would be difficult to find anyone who’d dispute these things that we all intuitively know.
Pretend for a moment that the evidence in support of climate change caused by human activity is overwhelming and indisputable. The prescription for dealing with that situation would seem to be identical to the prescription for maintaining the purity and safety of our air, food and water—stop using poisons in agriculture, better control the manner and place of disposing of toxic materials, and reduce the amount of carbon emissions produced by burning fossil fuels.
So what are we arguing about? If climate change is real and man is causing it, these steps will go a long way toward taking care of the problem. If climate change turns out to be a hoax or just another goofy prognostication like the coming ice age scare of the 1970s, so what? Taking these steps will go a long way toward providing us with cleaner, healthier food, land, water and air.
These would be good things, no?
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Your point is exactly what I’ve been thinking but couldn’t get together well enough to say. It is so simple that you would think that anybody could understand it.
Maybe somebody should start a new political party and call it the Reasonable Party. On second thought, that would never catch on.