The topic is interesting by itself, by itself, but it's this guy's use of visual aids - animated graphs in particular, that make this amazing.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Friday, April 6, 2007
Is it worse to be right, or to be wrong?
I'm of two minds here. And I really don't want to be of either.
Scientists Detail Climate Changes
So, for years I've been one of the only people around here who studies things that are related to climate change. Peripherally, but still - I had a lot of schooling in that field, keep up with most of the research, etc.
The problem? All of a sudden, we go from a majority of people not caring, to this seeming tsunami of public opinion that we need to do something. (Is Al Gore the cause or just the lucky effectee of the change? Who knows?) In my gut, that's a problem, because I get really uncomfortable when mass public opinion swings my way - because I know the track record of mass public opinion.
So should that color my view of global climate change? No - it shouldn't. But it does.
I know exactly how complex the problem is. How non-linear. I always take such research with a healthy dose of skepticism. Not disbelief, but good, old-fashioned scientific "prove it to me" skepticism. Even as I weigh the evidence and decide that on the balance, humans are very likely the cause of the recent observed changes in climate, there's always that doubt, that realization that we may not be right. The remembering that it's dangerous to get on a bandwagon - you stop looking at the underlying premises and go blithely along.
What if we're wrong? Or what if we're just not right enough - that the earth's climate changes, but not enough to affect people enough for them (in the USA) to really care? What happens to the scientists who cried wolf?
So - do I hope that we're right - that humans are adversely affecting the earth's climate? Or that we're wrong - that the variations we're seeing are somehow natural and will swing back soon? Damned by public opinion in one case, damned by nature in the other.
Damn.
Scientists Detail Climate Changes
So, for years I've been one of the only people around here who studies things that are related to climate change. Peripherally, but still - I had a lot of schooling in that field, keep up with most of the research, etc.
The problem? All of a sudden, we go from a majority of people not caring, to this seeming tsunami of public opinion that we need to do something. (Is Al Gore the cause or just the lucky effectee of the change? Who knows?) In my gut, that's a problem, because I get really uncomfortable when mass public opinion swings my way - because I know the track record of mass public opinion.
So should that color my view of global climate change? No - it shouldn't. But it does.
I know exactly how complex the problem is. How non-linear. I always take such research with a healthy dose of skepticism. Not disbelief, but good, old-fashioned scientific "prove it to me" skepticism. Even as I weigh the evidence and decide that on the balance, humans are very likely the cause of the recent observed changes in climate, there's always that doubt, that realization that we may not be right. The remembering that it's dangerous to get on a bandwagon - you stop looking at the underlying premises and go blithely along.
What if we're wrong? Or what if we're just not right enough - that the earth's climate changes, but not enough to affect people enough for them (in the USA) to really care? What happens to the scientists who cried wolf?
So - do I hope that we're right - that humans are adversely affecting the earth's climate? Or that we're wrong - that the variations we're seeing are somehow natural and will swing back soon? Damned by public opinion in one case, damned by nature in the other.
Damn.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
