I see the attempt to mock climatologists has had something of a reverse effect. Mark, too, has been taken in by the cute picture of a polar bear on an isolated oceanic ice chunk. (Not the real image on the left.)
Some enterprising Republican thinks a big scandal has been uncovered by comparing the identical ice, ocean and sky behind the bear and the penguin. Here’s a clue: I knew they were photoshopped from the start. Polar bears, though they can swim, are not aquatic animals. But even getting stranded on a real iceberg (back in 2007) is usually not a big deal. Bears will go to shore–that’s where they hunt, eat, breed, and bother human beings.
Did they not know these images of a lonely animal on a shrinking piece of ice were icons? Symbols to elicit an emotional connection?
It’s good to separate the issues from one another. First, the question of a warming trend in Earth’s climate is pretty well conceded across the board. That’s a step up from ten or twenty years ago. In the bigger picture of the environment, it’s not a big deal. The Earth has warmed and cooled in the past, and will continue to do so for billions of years. Plants and animals will survive, though some species will eventually go extinct and be replaced by new species.
So then the second line of protest is that human beings didn’t really cause the warming trend of the past several decades. Well, the degree to which human heavy industry contributes is not known exactly. It’s greater than 1%, and probably less than 100. There’s no other single factor that accounts for warming across the globe than the byproducts of burning hydrocarbons. Scientists have looked. In the air and oceans. In space. Something might be there that’s causing it, but we know that human beings can significantly alter the Earth’s atmosphere by dumb blundering. Fluorocarbons and nitrogen compounds take out the ozone layer. It happens. We see it and measure it. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are also climbing. People who suggest human beings aren’t at fault haven’t found another suspect.
Third line: there’s nothing we can do about it anyway, so let the next ice age or ice melt come. These people may have a point. It might be that human beings lack the ability or even the will to shape their environment. You tell me. I do know that if the Earth’s climate changes, either by flooding Bangladesh or India (Florida, not so much: they always have Alabama) there will be a planetload of political instability falling out from shifts in monsoons, or tens of millions of refugees on the move. Climate change is less about what it will do to polar bears. It will be a hell of an inconvenience if Nashville-style flooding plays out on a national scale in South Asia. Climate change would seem to demand some response from us. At the very least, knowing when to pull Americans out from foreign coastal regions (not to mention Florida and Rhode Island) in case the worst happens.
I know much objection is spit out there because of the political ramifications of climate change. Obviously, Big Oil is on the hook. But in another few centuries we’re going to run out of hydrocarbon fuel anyway. Unfair, others say, to spend our shrinking tax dollars to put carbon emitters out of business. I don’t know. We supported Big Oil and their automakers quite a bit by installing the interstate highway system. Are we operating a welfare state or not? Do we sponsor their shift to hydrogen cells and fusion? How did carmakers treat manufacturers of those horse buggies and steam trains?
Anyway, what to do in public policy about climate change is separate from the debate on whether or not it exists. But posting videos on plants making happy in high-carbon dioxide environments isn’t generating any credibility. That’s third-grade science, one blogger concedes.