Year 3, Month 5, Day 27: You Say Yes, I Say No.

The Calgary Herald has a columnist named Brian Crowley, who is attempting to thread the centrist needle on climate.

The time has come to think differently about climate change.

For too long, the debate has been monopolized by two parties. One is almost religious, fervently believing in man-made climate change, and that only large changes in human behaviour can stave off disaster.

Their opponents argue that the science is uncertain, unsettled and inconclusive, and therefore, that no action is warranted until we possess that missing certainty.

I don’t agree with either camp. In most areas, there is only ever certainty of uncertainty. In other words, both those who believe certainty has been achieved and those who say it has not share the same assumption: that certainty is what we are after and we can get it.

The reality is that long-range future energy, climate, economic and other carbon-related environmental conditions are and will remain significantly uncertain, highly variable and largely unpredictable. Scientists and mathematicians know that the systems involved in the various dimensions of climate change policy are in fact extremely complex and often chaotic, fraught with considerable, irreducible uncertainty.

But contrary to the so-called skeptics, this uncertainty does not license inaction. Most human decisions are made in conditions of imperfect uncertain information. We have to act even though we don’t know everything.

More than the usual denialist bullshit, stuff like this really makes me mad. The Herald did not stipulate a word limit, so I let myself run on a bit. Sent May 17:

In his attempt at a “centrist” position on climate change issues, Brian Crowley sets up and knocks down several convenient strawmen.

One: caricaturing those concerned about Earth’s climatic transformation as “almost religious, fervently believing in man-made climate change” misrepresents both environmentalism and religion by overlooking the simple fact that those advocating for action on climate change would be delighted to learn they’d been mistaken (unlike the faithful, who resist contradictions, facts, and logic with preternatural stubbornness). Those who understand enough science to recognize that our civilization is in deep trouble aren’t persuaded by out-of-context statistics, ad hominem arguments, or pseudo-scientific irrelevancies, which is why there aren’t a lot of “former climate-change believers” around except on internet comment threads.

Two: Mr. Crowley’s dismissal of “policies that promise to prevent climate change.” No such policies have been seriously proposed by any politician anywhere, for the simple reason that those who understand the science know that the changes are already irreversible. Realistic global warming legislation advocates either preparation strategies (e.g., investing in strengthened infrastructure) or mitigation (e.g., ways to reduce greenhouse emissions).

Three: he dismisses the notion that human attitudes and behavior can change, calling it an assumption “that has little or no basis in social science or historical precedent.” Mr. Crowley’s notion that the conveniences of contemporary civilization are somehow permanently fixed in our species’ way of living is risible. Two hundred years ago, most people never traveled more than a few miles from their birthplaces; one hundred years ago, almost nobody on Earth owned a car; fifty years ago, almost nobody owned a computer; fifty years from now, we’ll be out of oil, and living on a grossly hotter planet — and we will have to adapt if humanity is to survive.

Warren Senders

Published.