I don’t believe what the media tells me about science because they are not experts in it. I believe what the scientists tell me because they have a long-standing history of knowing what they’re talking about. And the only scientists that doubt climate change are those who are simply taking a responsible approach to the data…as any good scientist would. They are hesitant to state with 100% certainty they know anything about anything because that’s just how science works. Even gravity is “just a theory” because we know how it works but don’t fully understand why (yet). But the numbers of scientists that outright deny humanity’s effect on climate change are a vast minority.
Long before this turned into the idiotic debate it has become, scientists were giving us plenty of warnings. The nuclear arms race came to a halt once they made it clear that nuclear winter could be a reality. Countless calculations show that an all-out nuclear war would destabilize the environment in very real and dramatic ways. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine what billions of people, hundreds of millions of vehicles, and thousands of industries working in concert over several decades could do to a planet as delicate as ours.
If you need an example of what atmospheric destabilization can do, just take a look at Venus and Mars. Venus is closer to the sun and suffers from a runaway greenhouse effect. Mars is farther away and has lost most of its atmosphere. A little warmer and you get the insane environment of Venus; a little cooler and you get the inhospitable environment of Mars. We can literally point to our sister planets and say, “See that? That could happen to us!”
The reason they changed the name from “global warming” to “climate change” is due to simple logistics and the fact that it’s far more accurate. After all, there are people that still don’t understand what the word “theory” means, so imagine if they called it “global atmospheric and climate destabilization theory.” People misuse terms all the time, and it was quickly becoming clear that the term “global warming” was misleading people to think that it was simply getting hotter. The reality is far more complex than that.
Accept it or not, humanity is playing a serious role in the continued degradation of the environment. There are *three times* as many people alive as there were just half a century ago, and that growth shows no sign of slowing. All of those people consume and produce waste, and their lifestyles require certain levels of consumption and waste production. Without regulation, everyone’s self-concerned and short-sighted behavior is eventually going to catch up with us. We can either sit on our hands and debate it endlessly or we can be responsible humans and do something about it before it’s too late to fix.
Think about this. What if the people who are claiming that climate change is real are wrong? What harm could come about from following their advice about reducing greenhouse gases, responsible fuel consumption, and alternate forms of energy? How is improving efficiency and protecting the environment even kind of a bad thing? Now think about this. What if the people who doubt climate change are wrong? What good would come about from unregulated greenhouse gas production, wanton fuel consumption, and a single (limited) form of energy? How is running out of fuel and exploiting the environment even kind of a good thing?
Politics and the virulent nature of memes are the only reason there is even a debate on climate change. The vast majority of people talking about it aren’t even qualified to do so. Our opinions about scientific facts have zero bearing on the truth. Regardless of whether it’s true or not, we are wrong to cast it aside as the rantings of financially- and politically-motivated people just trying to impose their will upon the rest of us. We may have become cynical over the past few decades, but that is no reason to justify irresponsibility just to prove a point.
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