Note: This and several subsequent posts will be about possible adaptations to climate change. Serious consideration of adaptations does not require any slackening of effort to mitigate climate change.

We’ll start with the sea levels.Background: If all the ice on land were to melt (mostly Antarctica), then sea level would rise about 220 feet. If all sea ice melted (mostly in the Arctic), sea levels wouldn’t rise but, without human intervention, a lot of animals that depend on the sea ice to hunt will certainly go extinct (e.g. polar bears, ring seals). It is currently predicted sea levels will rise that 1 to 4 feet and end-of-summer Arctic Sea ice could disappear by 2100.

What types of adaptations would be necessary to reduce the damage to humans and the rest of the biosphere? Starting with humans, what have been some tried-and-true approaches to defend against sea encroachment and its side effects? Here, per Wikipedia, is what the Dutch have done:

“Natural sand dunes and human-made dikes, dams and floodgates provide defense against storm surges from the sea. River dikes prevent flooding from water flowing into the country by the major rivers Rhine and Meuse, while a complicated system of drainage ditches, canals and pumping stations (historically: windmills) keep the low lying parts dry for habitation and agriculture. Water control boards are the independent local government bodies responsible for maintaining this system.”

Okay, so they didn’t build the natural sand dunes – but engineering could figure out reasonable substitutes in the form of levees and seawalls. Of course, none of these are completely disaster-proof (e.g., most seawalls were overwhelmed during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan). And there are trade-offs (e.g., eyesores and erosion). But limitations and trade-offs are part of almost every engineering project. You don’t just give up in the face of imperfection – you keep trying to do the best possible job and then continue to adjust the process as new knowledge and technology become available.

Engineering solutions would have to be complemented by maintaining and enhancing coastal ecosystems. For instance, wetlands and reefs play a critical role in “reducing the vulnerability of coastal communities to rising seas and coastal hazards, through their multiple roles in wave attenuation, sediment capture, vertical accretion, erosion reduction and the mitigation of storm surge and debris movement.” (Spalding et al;, 2014). Some islands and coastal areas may be able to increase the height of the ground.

A lot of people will still need to move inland, to higher ground, or off the island. By 2050, about 3.7 million people in the US alone may need to migrate away from coastline and areas vulnerable to storm surges and rising rivers. Over a longer course of time, we will see much greater migration away from vulnerable areas (Manhattan?).  For the US, such migration is manageable – there will still be plenty of empty space (currently at 35 people per kilometer). The US could also take in many more people from other countries, where there is little room for internal migration, such as Bangladesh.

None of this is to deny the likely down-side of large-scale migrations or the immense suffering of those who are forced to migrate. Migrations will bring about a host of new issues to deal with, including effects on the international order, global economy, and agriculture. That’s why advance planning and problem-solving are so important. Anticipation is half the battle.

 Reference:

Spalding et al; The role of ecosystems in coastal protection: Adapting to climate change and coastal hazards Ocean & Coastal Management Volume 90, March 2014, Pages 50–57

Not being a climate skeptic myself, I’m not that interested in spending a lot of time trying to disprove the consensus, and much more interested in maintaining an atmosphere where questioning the consensus isn’t met with bullying, name-calling, mind-reading, or immediate dismissal as a nutcase. Good science is not served by an atmosphere of intimidation.

Of course, openness as a principle still has to be exercised on a case-by-case basis and some anti-consensus arguments may be so clearly wacko they don’t merit serious attention. Others are more interesting and may be worth some initial consideration (for me those would include certain assumptions that go into some climate change models, especially re: demographics or socio-economic-technolog­ical trends). But this whole “what side on you on?” way of thinking makes it hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. The science of climate change involves a myriad of research questions, each of which can generate a myriad of hypotheses, generating a range of predictions spanning a continuum of possibilities. Turning climate change into an Us versus Them issue can have a chilling effect on the field if researchers choose not to pursue certain lines of questioning out of fear of being classified as one of Them.

I suspect the strong feelings evoked by the climate change debate have a lot to do with the assumption that one can’t be a skeptic and also be an advocate for policies that would promote climate change mitigation and adaptation. This is not necessarily the case. It’s quite possible to be an ardent environmentalist and harbor some doubts about the climate change consensus. There are many reasons to want to reduce CO2 emissions, the specter of global warming being just one. However, the tendency to group people into camps can become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, as individuals expelled from “respectable” circles seek support elsewhere and that support will partly come from people with their own, quite different, agendas.

Find common ground when possible. Agreement on all points is not needed. There are lots of reasons to reduce CO2 emissions – the specter of global warming being one of them. Way back in the 1970s, the initial push to reduce emissions and lower consumption of petroleum products had nothing to do with fears about climate change and much to do about reducing pollution and conserving nonrenewable resources. Approach skeptics not as knaves or fools but as fellow problem-solvers. Of course, keep climate change as part of the conversation – while acknowledging that reading the future is fraught with uncertainty – but don’t insist on embracing the consensus as a precondition of working together on environmental initiatives.

What to do, what to do. Personally, I love the “3% solution” being put forth by World Wildlife Fund. Refreshingly, it seeks a partnership with business rather than assuming that business is the wolf that must be kept thin or else it will devour us all. But that’s just one idea, no guarantee it will work, but part of a whole range of possible actions. Of course, government also plays an important role.

Some measures to reduce GHGs may be counter-productive in the near term but ultimately bring about an overall reductions. An example would be government regulations mandating carbon capture technology installed in all new manufacturing facilities, which would lead some companies to delaying building new facilities, relying instead on less efficient and higher carbon emitting old facilities. Whether the measures are worth it depends on several factors, such as how long the counter-productive period lasts.

Another consideration: if a government favors a particular technology through special grants and tax breaks, that may channel resources away from R&D on other technologies that would have been better in the long run. Whatever the policy, consider trade-offs and the possibility of unintended consequences, and always be willing to cut bait if the effort turns out to be counterproductive. One problem with government favors is that they create interest groups that then resist change. So the favors should be time-limited and require legislative action to renew.

Then there’s the downside of success. Say, for instance, the US manages to greatly reduce consumption of CO2-emitting products, especially for electricity generation and transportation, lowering global demand for oil, reducing the global market rate for oil, increasing consumption of oil elsewhere. That may be ok, because eventually the technologies that resulted in reduced consumption in an advanced economy will filter out to other economies, especially as they get cheaper to produce and keep improving.

But if a technology is essentially subsidized by the government because businesses haven’t figured out a way to make them affordable, then that might discourage innovation and eventual affordability, not only for rich countries but poor ones as well.

A carbon tax would be part of the mix. But not too onerous. A problem with using a harsh punitive approach to CO2 emissions is the likelihood of electoral backlash, economic turmoil and reversal of public support for environmental protection. Also, if a large carbon tax succeeds in reducing GHG-emitting production and consumption, global prices for oil would go down and at least partly neutralize the effect of any tax. This is not to say that a carbon tax is not ok but such a tax would have to be carefully crafted and implemented.

Certain GHG-reducing proposals could make things worse. Some may encourage gaming the system and result in a net increase in emissions. This just happened with the European cap and trade system, with Russia and Ukraine doing a major scam on their well-meaning partners.

Mandating specific emission reductions for individual companies could also create problems, especially the creation of perverse incentives and disincentives. If the reductions are based on a baseline, businesses will prefer high baselines so that reductions are more doable and less costly. For instance, when in the market to buy new manufacturing facilities, a company might want to buy high-emitting operations to establish a high baseline, thus reducing subsequent compliance costs.

I personally like combining the carrot approach with gentle pressure, such as the WWF’s 3% Solution. Have respected, non-divisive environmental organizations work closely with businesses to reduce emissions and provide free publicity for those that jump on board. Companies do value the good will of the public. So what if they’re motivated by profit?

Relying on sticks alone will backfire. People will find a way to get around the rules, forcing regulators to play a constant game of whack-a-mole.

Recommended read: Carbon Capture: Has climate change made it harder for people to care about conservation? by Jonathan Franzen in the April 6, 2015 Issue of The New Yorker.

Franzen sees the all-consuming warrior spirit of climate change activists as potentially hurting other environmental causes by redirecting priorities and resources away from conservation projects to the cause of reducing green house gases. Climate change is one threat to biodiversity but there are others, such as habitat loss and fragmentation. If funds are diverted away from preserving habitats, climate change mitigation isn’t going to help those species already lost due to insufficient protection. Is the operation really a success if the patient dies?

Franzen isn’t minimizing the potentially catastrophic effects of global warming. He is simply asking that we accept the reality of trade-offs in any particular proposal to counter climate change, arguing that reductions in GHGs isn’t the only thing that matters when designing and greenlighting projects. Efficient energy developments can harm wildlife and local ecosystems. Care must be taken.

The dominance of climate change in environmental discourse can also turn off people who could become allies in other contexts. Public concern about climate change has been declining for years. It may be the climate change narrative lacks traction because humans have a hard time envisioning and caring about dire events that may or may not happen within their life time. In contrast, the disappearance of wildlife is very real and very now. No one has to be hectored into “believing” that species are dying off on an epic scale. And you don’t have to be of a particular political persuasion to care and want to do something about it.

Franzen notes that human brains aren’t really designed to engage in complex probabilistic thinking about possible scenarios hypothesized to unfold over the span of decades and centuries. Skepticism about climate change springs in part from human nature. Franzen takes issue with the characterization of opponents of aggressive mitigation efforts as a bunch of knaves and idiots, arguing that inaction on climate change isn’t the result of the knaves manipulating the idiots but of rational self-interest and healthy democratic processes.

Another issue is that in some ways we have already lost the battle with climate change. It’s going to happen because governments and people aren’t going to make the necessary sacrifices. As Franzen puts it:

“Even in the nations most threatened by flooding or drought, even in the countries most virtuously committed to alternative energy sources, no head of state has ever made a commitment to leaving any carbon in the ground. Without such a commitment, “alternative” merely means “additional”—postponement of human catastrophe, not prevention. The Earth as we now know it resembles a patient whose terminal cancer we can choose to treat either with disfiguring aggression or with palliation and sympathy. We can dam every river and blight every landscape with biofuel agriculture, solar farms, and wind turbines, to buy some extra years of moderated warming. Or we can settle for a shorter life of higher quality, protecting the areas where wild animals and plants are hanging on, at the cost of slightly hastening the human catastrophe. One advantage of the latter approach is that, if a miracle cure like fusion energy should come along, there might still be some intact ecosystems for it to save.”

Franzen isn’t suggesting we just throw up our hands in the face of inevitable climate change. Of course we need to do what we can. But knowing that the climate will change, we should also focus on preparing wild areas for the changes that lie ahead:

“In an era of globalism of every sort, a good conservation project has to meet new criteria. The project has to be large, because biodiversity won’t survive in a habitat fragmented by palm-oil plantations or gas drilling. The project has to respect and accommodate the people already living in and around it. (Carbon emissions have rendered meaningless the ideal of a wilderness untouched by man; the new ideal is “wildness,” which is measured not by isolation from disturbance but by the diversity of organisms that can complete their life cycles.) And the project needs to be resilient with respect to climate change, either by virtue of its size or by incorporating altitudinal gradients or multiple microclimates.”

Sound advice.

Public concern in the US about global warming peaked in 2000, when it reached 72%. It is now about 58%. While the majority of Americans accept that human-caused global warming is happening (including most liberal and moderate Republicans), many feel that that the dangers of climate changes have been greatly exaggerated.

If climate change activists are truly interested in converting the general public to their cause, I suggest toning down the rhetoric. Don’t use “consensus” as an argument. Don’t refer to skeptics as “deniers”. Avoid ad hominem attacks. Don’t argue from extreme cases – that is, assume that the worst case scenario will happen without drastic action now. Alarmism is rarely an effective form of persuasion (see, e.g., The Boy Who Cried Wolf).

Which brings me to: Ten Commandments of How to Fail in an Environmental Campaign Environmental Politics Volume 10, Issue 1, 2001 by Avner de-Shalit (Associate Fellow Oxford Centre for Environment, Ethics and Society, Mansfield College, Oxford).

Here’s the Second Commandment:

“Always Use the Terminology of Despair (Environmental activists “try to show how desperate a situation is… and [since many] can point to cases in which scenarios predicted by environmentalists have failed to materialize….Also, people generally react in a very basic way to the threat of dire consequences and horrific scenarios. They simply repress and doubt what they hear – a common strategy when faced with alarming prognostications. Thus while environmentalists try to force an impression on the general public with their somewhat exaggerated predictions, the eventual outcome is counter-productive: many people simply disbelieve, do not want to believe, or even refuse to listen.”

As any business knows, if you want to convince people of the value of your product, do some research on your potential customers. And don’t waste your time on people who have made it clear they will never buy what you’re selling.

Regarding climate change, you have to be able to distinguish mild or moderate skeptics –people on the fence or who have doubts about this or that aspect of climate change theory – and those whose opinions are pretty much set in stone. Don’t paint all skeptics with the broad brush of “denier” – that just creates resentment and may even push some people into the arms of strong disbelievers. (How that process works: if one side shows no respect and treats your doubts with sarcasm and condescension, there are others who may at least listen without immediately trying to bat down your concerns and questions).

For a more informed understanding of why people may doubt global warming, start reading the actual research about factors that influence people’s opinions and beliefs about global warming. The journal “Environment and Behavior” would be a good start. I also recommend the article “Climatologists’ patterns of conveying climate science to the agricultural community” in Agriculture and Human Values. In that paper, the key issue seemed to be trust in the source of information.

Concluding, some tips on getting the climate change message across:

1. Acknowledge that “mistakes have been made” – e.g., that in the past, predictions of future calamity have been made by aligned individuals/groups, which have turned out to be false, such as the population explosion and peak oil. So acknowledge that credibility is an issue and that some mending of fences is called for.
2. Don’t underestimate the intelligence and sophistication of those with whom you disagree. For instance, don’t push a message of authority and proof regarding scientific forecasts that are expressed in a wide range of scenarios, each with a range of confidence, and which rely on different assumptions. Acknowledge that uncertainty and prognostication go together. (For a great illustration of the latter point, check out the number of time “uncertainty” is used in the latest IPCC report).
3. Don’t talk down to people you disagree with – avoid mockery, sarcasm, and condescension.
4. Don’t question the values or motives of those you disagree with. Not seeing climate change as “serious” can mean different things to different people and does not in itself imply callous indifference to the plight of the planet or humanity. I know a lot of climate change skeptics who care deeply about environmental matters and are quite willing to make personal sacrifices if they think it will help a greater cause.
5. Don’t assume homogeneity among those you disagree with. Climate skeptics range from those who are absolutely certain that climate change is not real, serious, and/or anthropogenic to those who are skeptical about some of the dominant claims or opinions. By characterizing climate skeptics as a “type” best characterized by the supposed attributes of their most extreme associates, one pushes further away those with whom there might have been some common ground.
6. Quit pushing “consensus” as a reason to embrace global warming predictions. Consensus by itself is never sufficient, so quit badgering people with it. I doubt people believe the earth circles the sun because it’s the “scientific consensus” or that vaccines usually work because that’s the “consensus” – they believe because they have seen, heard or read of evidence that support these beliefs.

There’s a U-shaped relationship between per capita GDP and the quality of the environment. “Measures of the quality of the environment do indeed fall in the initial stages of economic growth, but this trend turns around at about $5.000 per capita GDP, with many measures of environmental damage showing improvement from $8,000 onwards.” (Quote from filipspagnoli – although the link doesn’t seem to be working anymore.) Once a country achieves a certain standard of living, inhabitants become less focused on doing whatever it takes to survive and start caring more about the world around them. Poorer countries tend to chop down forests, richer countries to plant them.

Economic growth also promotes technological innovations that reduce GHG emissions, especially in electricity generation, manufacturing, and transportation. Economic growth leads to increased urbanization and falling birth rates. Concentrated human populations are better for the environment than dispersed populations, because more room becomes available for wild habitat. Add in highly productive intensive farming and you’ve got even more land freed up for the flora and the fauna. With fewer humans, less land devoted to agriculture and less dispersion of human populations (e.g., urbanization), you get more and more re-wilding and re-foresting.

But isn’t economic growth associated with higher CO2 emissions and increased materialistic consumption? To a point – but we are witnessing both the decoupling of growth and CO2 emissions and the dematerialization of advanced capitalist societies. So what was true about economic development at one time is not necessarily the case anymore. For instance, in developed economies, young people care more about digital products and less about physical possessions. “Things are disappearing right before our eyes,” writes Russell Belk in Extended Self in a Digital World (Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 40, No. 3 (October 2013), pp. 477-500). Fewer things, less environmental damage.

Of course, economic growth will not solve all environmental problems, nor are its effects entirely benign. But growth is not the bugaboo a lot of environmentalists make it out to be. Harness and manage growth – don’t try to stop it.

This is a continuation of a series on how certain sensibilities within the environmental movement could lead to policies that, if applied on a broad scale, would result in net environmental harm.

Shade-grown coffee. Connected to above: sharing the land is less efficient than sparing the land and agricultural inefficiency translates into more land needed for agriculture, which if small landholders are doing this, means they will cut down more and more trees around their farms when times are bad. This is what happens with small “shade-grown” coffee farmers, e.g., Tree Cover Loss in El Salvador’s Shade Coffee Areas Allen Blackman, Beatriz Ávalos Sartorio, Jeffrey Chow RFF Discussion Paper 07-32 May 2007. Also, shade-grown coffee extends coffee production into forested land, decreasing biodiversity in those areas and result in net increase of Co2 emissions. See: Intensification of coffee systems can increase the effectiveness of REDD mechanisms Agricultural Systems Volume 119, July 2013, Pages 1–9.

Get Back to the Land. Rural living in developed countries requires greater energy and land usage per capita. Rural living in developed countries promotes poverty and with increasing development, more car driving. Poverty in rural settings leads to environmental degradation and the loss of wild habitat. In developing countries, rural poverty in agricultural areas is associated with increased birthrates. See, for instance: Global Profile of Extreme Poverty. Prepared by the Secretariat of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. 15 October 2012.

 Anti-Corporate/Anti-Business. Larger businesses promote economies of scale, higher wages (known as the big firm wage premium), and de-materialization of production, logistics and transportation (meaning fewer emission per unit produced). Of course, there needs to be a mix of large, moderate and small businesses, and monopolistic power should be avoided. But all entities promote their self-interest – that doesn’t make them inherently evil or harmful. Balance of power, reasonable regulation, competition and a diversity of voices in the political process can do much to mitigate the excesses of big companies. To the extent that large successful businesses are more efficient (productivity- and energy-wise) and promote higher standards of living, the better for our planet and for our ability to tackle global warming.

This is a continuation of a series on how certain sensibilities within the environmental movement could lead to policies that, if applied on a broad scale, would result in net environmental harm.

Anti-GM foods: Although research has failed again and again to substantiate any harm from GM crops, the anti-GM activists just won’t stop, creating impossible conditions to satisfy their concerns. And GM foods are such a godsend! (see, for instance: http://www.economist.com/printedition/2014-11-08) Just think: more crops that are resistant to extreme weather, including drought, that require less pesticide and fertilizer, and that are more nutritious and require less land to grow. Remember: we need to reduce agricultural land, so more is available for wild habitat and forest.

Anti-Large Farms: This is in part a romanticization of small farms and part a knee-jerk demonization of large businesses. So we have “Big Ag” and “corporate agriculture”. Actually, the vast majority of US farms are family-owned, including the biggest farms . And most of corporate farms are small-to-moderate size. Just check out the USDA Economic Research Services for the latest numbers on this. (Note, though, I don’t have a problem with corporate ownership per se – for me, “corporate” is not a synonym for evil).

The problem with this “small is beautiful” mentality is that small landholders tend to          operate on very small margins and are the least likely to afford sustainable practices like    letting a portion of their land fallow every year and to allow some bordering forests to       remain intact. In poorer countries, when times are hard, the trees are chopped down to   sell the wood and whatever can be planted will be planted.

Pro-Integrated Agriculture. This is the idea that farming should be integrated with non-cultivated areas to preserve biodiversity as much as possible. Research, however, does not bear this out. First, agriculture of any type is disruptive of biodiversity. Second, farms need access to more land to produce the same output if they have to “share” the farm plots with non-farm areas. Third, “sharing” the land in this way has been found to be less conducive to biodiversity than simply leaving more land (e.g., forests) alone and concentrating farmland (so-called “sparing” the land). See, for instance: Ben Phalan et al (2011) Reconciling Food Production and Biodiversity Conservation: Land Sharing and Land Sparing Compared, Science, Vol 333, 2 September 2011

How a certain narrow-mindedness within the environmental movement could lead to policies that, if applied on a broad scale, would result in net environmental harm:

Anti-nuclear bias. Electricity generation is the biggest source of GHGs. Expansion of nuclear energy would save lives and protect habitat now and greatly reduce CO2 emissions from power plants. When nuclear power plants fail, they do so dramatically. But the technology keeps improving and the risks keep decreasing. Even with the old technology, the cumulative damage done to people and the environment throughout the history of nuclear power has been much less than what is wrought by coal and natural gas every year (mainly through air pollution). Of course, renewables like wind and solar should play a part in the battle against global warming but only nuclear energy has the potential to deliver reliable power at the scale the global economy requires while greatly reducing the carbon emissions that so endanger our planet. As Obama’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology put it “achieving low-carbon goals without a substantial contribution from nuclear power is possible, but extremely difficult..”

Organic agriculture. Organic agriculture is less productive overall and so organic farms require more land than those that use conventional methods. See, for instance http://www.nature.com/news/organic-farming-is-rarely-enough-1.10519 :” Crop yields from organic farming are as much as 34% lower than those from comparable conventional farming practices, the analysis finds. Organic agriculture performs particularly poorly for vegetables and some cereal crops such as wheat, which make up the lion’s share of the food consumed around the world.” Both to expand habitat for endangered species and to have more of the planet forested, we need to make agriculture more productive, not less. Conventional farmers are already getting better and better at reducing the environmental impact of farming, e.g., large expansion of no-till farming in the last decade, use of cover crops, less burning of crop residue, measures to reduce fertilizer run-off, plus less and more targeted use of pesticides and fertilizer.

Localism. This is the idea that our food should be locally produced for a variety of reasons, from romantic ideas about community to reducing CO2 from long-haul transport. Problem is, any specific locality is only appropriate for a few types of crops so locally-sourced produce and cereals are simply not feasible on any significant scale.  Localizing would also mean forsaking comparative advantage in agriculture and require more inputs to grow a given quantity of food, including more land and more chemicals—all of which come at a cost of carbon emissions. Also, for more people to reap the “benefits” of locally sourced foods, the population would have to spread out and “de-urbanize” – requiring that they commute longer distances to work and increase cultivated and developed lands overall. Plus, smaller trucks with less storage space often emit more CO2 per unit transported than those big-ass long-hauls, because the latter transport so much more stuff per haul. Efficiency matters. For more on this, see: http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the-inefficiency-of-local-food/ or read the wonderful book, “The Locavore’s Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000 mile Diet”.

Note: I am not a climate change skeptic. From what I’ve read, the general climate change consensus seems reasonable. In a few months, Exploring the Problem Space will have a special issue about the climate change debate. This piece does not deal with the particulars of that debate.

A few years ago, I read a magazine editorial titled “Climate Science Under Attack: Who Speaks and Why?” In this piece, the author echoes the advice of Rachel Carson (of ‘Silent Spring’ fame) that we “look behind the curtains” of those who disagree with the current scientific consensus about global warming to ascertain their true motives for opposing the dominant view that human activity is causing climate change that will be disastrous for earth and humanity. Such individuals are not just innocents naively begging to differ with majority opinion, based on their own understanding of the evidence – no, they are a “horrid little population” that squirms and scatters when their “true motives” are revealed, “hired critics” protecting of interests of “profit peddling” concerns.

Ad hominem  attacks like these are common in the national debate on climate change.   The other side consists of scoundrels and idiots.  Problem is, focusing on the personal qualities of those with whom we disagree gets in the way of determining whether their case has any merit.  Sometimes we can learn a thing or two from people we dislike. I don’t assume that simply because someone is affiliated or used to be affiliated with some industry, religion, or ideology that I am now absolved from ever considering what they have to say. And I don’t consider purity of motive an important criterion for assessing the soundness of any particular scientific claim.

When encountering opinion pieces and articles that touch on scientific matters, instead of focusing on “who speaks and why”, I’d ask questions such as:

What is the evidence? What is the quality of the evidence? What were the methods used to collect data? What data were excluded and why? If projections are involved, what assumptions are the projections based on? Are these assumptions reasonable? Were the statistical analyses sound? Was there a peer-review process to review and critique the research? Are the data and methods for collecting the data available for others to review? What conclusions does the evidence support? What are the limitations of the evidence? What questions remain unanswered? What further research is needed to address these limitations and unanswered questions?

The scientific method is a self-corrective form of inquiry that accepts its own fallibility. Scientific ‘truth’ is not based on authority, so statements like “this is the truth because the scientific community says so” would be pretty hard to find in a serious peer-reviewed scientific publication.   “Truth” in science is provisional, based on the evidence to date, and even if there is a consensus, that fact alone doesn’t grant immunity from revision or criticism. It’s a good thing that young scientists often advance in their disciplines by taking on their elders – this is how knowledge grows.

No one is pure of motive; everyone is advancing some agenda and everyone is biased in some way – this applies to scientists as well as capitalists. In any scientific project there exists a certain tension between desire, bias and principles. Scientists are people too – they have egos, get overly invested in pet theories, and seek fame and glory (or, at least, career advancement). All these feelings and motivations can influence how scientific evidence is pursued, presented and interpreted. That doesn’t mean the result is necessarily without value.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that bias is harmless or that we should ignore it in opinion pieces or scientific articles. Bias can lead to all sorts of sins: excluding relevant data, including questionable data, overstating results, ignoring alternative explanations. When we detect obvious bias, we should be on the look-out for these sins. But (forgive the double negative here) just because a writer or scientist wants it to be so doesn’t make it not so.

Other people’s biases can make us think about something we never considered. Biases can open up new avenues of research. Biases can lead to better understanding and predictions. Biases can lead us astray and biases can get us closer to the truth.

Of course, time and mental energy are scarce resources with alternate uses, so we have to choose how these resources are allocated. We can’t pay attention to everything. We still need heuristics to help us decide how to spend our time and how deeply we want to process whatever comes our way. But if we find ourselves reading, or listening to, only what we agree with, I’d say our heuristics need some tweaking.

In relation to global warming, my plea for a certain intellectual charity may be considered self-indulgent and beside the point. Activists might argue that we are living in dangerous times and the looming catastrophe of climate change calls for swift condemnation of skeptics. According to this perspective, the most important thing now is to get humanity to act, unconstrained by notions of scientific humility, caution and open-mindedness.

This reminds me of one of my old anthropology professors who defended Marx’s more ridiculous proclamations (say, in Das Kapital) by saying their purpose was rhetorical and not analytical and we shouldn’t hold Marx’s rhetorical tracts to the same standards as his serious works. Science may be about the search for truth but rhetoric (and its cousin, politics) is about getting people to do something.

The problem is that sometimes the rhetoric is so over the top (in the aforementioned editorial, the author compares global warming skeptics to Galileo’s tormenters) it discourages free-spirited debate. Freedom to disagree is the lifeblood of democracy and science alike. Responding to climate change requires a clear and accurate understanding of the processes and consequences of global warming. Demonizing dissenters discourages independent inquiry and chills debate, which can only undermine an effective response to the changes that lie ahead.