I realize I may sound like a broken record on this theme, but repetition is one way to teach.
Readers may be aware that I’ve been frustrated in the incredible level of polarization in discussions of global warming and climate change. Personally, I’m willing to accept that there is likely to be some adverse human-generated impact on the global climate, but most of the recent climatological weirdness being hyped is more a result of long-term climate cycles (and random noise), than any slow, underlying human-driven trend.
Some of the changes being sought by climate change activists are ones that I am at least somewhat in favor of. Reduction of polluting emissions, increased efficiency, and a transition to renewable, sustainable fuel sources are good ideas from my point of view, on general principle, even without the threat of climate change.
Thus, I become concerned about the potential backlash should the public react badly to hype turning out to be just that.
For example, a story in The Australian discusses a plateauing in global temperature trends, and how Mother Nature seems to be behaving more resiliently than models predict. The story includes the following comment:
If Marohasy is anywhere near right about the impending collapse of the global warming paradigm, life will suddenly become a whole lot more interesting.
A great many founts of authority, from the Royal Society to the UN, most heads of government along with countless captains of industry, learned professors, commentators and journalists will be profoundly embarrassed. Let us hope it is a prolonged and chastening experience.
With catastrophe off the agenda, for most people the fog of millennial gloom will lift, at least until attention turns to the prospect of the next ice age. Among the better educated, the sceptical cast of mind that is the basis of empiricism will once again be back in fashion. The delusion that by recycling and catching public transport we can help save the planet will quickly come to be seen for the childish nonsense it was all along.
That would be exactly what I’m afraid of. Even if changes aren’t necessary to forestall impending climatological disaster, conservation and more environmentally-friendly tech are good things in their own right. It’d be a shame to see them fall out of favor due to a backlash.