I read these separately, about a week or so apart. I am biased towards those who acknowledge climate change. My initial response to the First Things article was disappointment that the journal published the piece. Far from clarifying the reasons for why some continue to deny climate change the author, the author makes many unsupported claims. Example:
“The science is in, settled, or enjoys overwhelming consensus.” One needs to know nothing of the physics, chemistry, or biology of climate science to judge this frequently heard assertion as plainly false. Catastrophic change has believers and skeptics of equal eminence and probity. To claim consensus by excommunication from the lists of fair debate is despicable as well as logically untenable. More than that, science is never finally settled, and consensus is the stuff of politics.
Really? One needs to know nothing about basic science to casually dismiss this assertion? And which skeptics of great eminence and probity are you referring to? Who has been excommunicated from the list of fair debate?
The bulk of this article consists of questioning the validity of the "scientific consensus," the integrity of the peer review process, the quality of the data, and the intentions of those who make climate change warnings. However the author seems to glibly conflate bald assertion and groundless questioning with demonstrating the questionability of these issues. To merely question something is not to discredit it unless such assertions are based in demonstrable fact. Mr. Anderson does not back up his assertions with examples, studies or data.
In contrast, the Slate piece points to well documented attempts by appointees of the Bush administration to censor a prominent climate change scientist. (Complicating the picture that Mr. Anderson of First Things paints in which it is only the climate change skeptics who are unduly censored.) Furthermore, in the Slate article Mr. Hari actually backs up his assertions with examples, e.g. on the political side the fact that an independent investigation by the Inspector General later confirmed the rewriting of NASA's mission statement by Bush appointees to remove language committing NASA scientists to protect the earth, and on the science side things like the prediction in 1971 that continued warming and polar ice melt would result in the opening of the North West passage.
A few things frustrate me about conservatives and climate change. First, I've never understood why climate change has become a convenient litmus test for one's political stance. Why should concern for the environment exclusively be a concern for either the left or the right? Indeed, why must conservation be anathema to so many who consider themselves conservatives? (some, like Patrick Deneen, make compelling arguments that this ought to be quite the other way around).
The practical reason for this seems to be conservatives fear that admitting human action causes climate change validates a liberal social agenda. Cross that--they believe that science supporting climate change is merely liberal propaganda invented to create a catalyst for a liberal social agenda. This strikes me as misguided for two reasons.
First, there is no reason that accepting scientific evidence for human created climate change binds one to a liberal social agenda. In fact, many people choose to accept the science behind warnings of climate change but argue we can address these challenges through scientific or technological means. This raises other debates, but at least it moves us to discussing different solutions to our potential problems. If someone wishes to play the devils advocate and argue from scientific data that climate change is overblown or not real I do not begrudge them, but at the very least do not argue this from a position of ideological fear.
Secondly, let's suspend our disbelief for a moment and consider the possibility that these "liberal propagandists" actually have their science right. If one thinks that widespread public belief in climate change today would result in widespread social upheaval, how much more disrupting will it be if we do nothing and the catastrophic prophesies come about? If the solution to climate change is more social change than you are comfortable with, how much more drastic social change would take place if the scientists are right?
Another way to look at this would be to suggest that perhaps the "liberal" environmentalists are attempting to avert a cataclysmic social upheaval in response to cataclysmic climate destruction. I just finished P.D. James' book "Children of Men" which paints a picture of the sort of social changes human beings will accept when faced with a severe catastrophe (in this case the sudden infertility of all humans) to maintain some semblance of security and comfort. Her study of human nature is compelling, and it disturbs me when I think of what an even moderate climate disaster would do to our political system.
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