You live your life surrounded by science. Everything you touch, everything you do, was created and enabled by the scientific method of discovery. Your house, your job, your car, your cell phone, your entertainment, your health, your money, everything except raw nature has been created for you according to the scientific method. None of it would work, none of it would exist, if the scientific method gave wrong answers. So why should the scientific method give a wrong answer about climate change?
People believe what they want to believe. So the real question you should ask about global warming is: “Why do I want to disbelieve the proven science of climate change? Why do I want to reject science? In this one solitary instance? What is my personal, selfish emotional reason to deny the proven reality that the greenhouse effect is trapping heat in the planet, and that the greenhouse effect is being caused by humans burning fossil fuels?”
Are you rejecting it because you are taking sides against a liberal intellectual elitist establishment (which happens to be right this time)? Are you afraid they will take away your big truck? (Well, they won’t take your truck away, they just won’t allow any more to be sold; or they will require new big trucks to get 40 miles per gallon.) Are you afraid they will claim that guns contribute to global warming?
You don’t get to personally choose which scientific discoveries are correct. Science is true whether you believe it or not. And the science of global warming is supported by more intense and complete and detailed and objective scientific study than many technologies we rely on daily. So if you want to disbelieve in global warming, you have to reject all science and all scientific method.
Unless you live in a cave, eating only what can be caught or gathered, with no electricity, no running water, you are relying on the same scientific method that proves that global warming is caused by us humans. And if you do live in that cave, don’t expect us to use any of that questionable science to come save you when you need help.
So, The Real Question You Should Ask About Global Warming is, “Why do I want to disbelieve the proven science of climate change?” Because, although you don’t want to admit it, you know they are right.
Photo: Avalanche Lake, Glacier National Park; copyright 2016 Bruce Merchant
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