The recent discovery that our Solar System and the Milky Way galaxy may be traveling in opposite directions, has led to a surprising reassessment of the causes of Global Warming. The CureZone (which gets over a million visitors monthly) states:
“The overall biggest contributing cause to Global Warming, and the melting of the polar icecaps of — both — Earth and Mars is actually caused by our arrival down into the brighter, more energetic equator region of the Milky Way galactic disc as we are coming in from deeper space.”
Thank God for the Internet and the rapid sharing of information! Without it we’d all be wallowing in the mistaken belief that Global Warming has something to do with the unprecedented burning of fossil fuels adding gigatons of CO2 to the atmosphere. Now that that has been cleared up, we can idle our diesel engines with impunity and go back to living life as we’ve always had.
Meanwhile, actual scientists are still reticent when putting forward the real implications of climate change. Pulling no punches, Hansen states:
I suggest that `scientific reticence’, in some cases, hinders communication with the public about dangers of global warming… Concern about the danger of `crying wolf’ is more immediate than concern about the danger of `fiddling while Rome burns’.
Now, why would they ever be scared they wouldn’t be taken seriously? 
There are definitely reasons why people might be culturally and/or psychologically resistant to science. As Deborah points out in her blog on this topic — Why do some people resist science? — resistance to science is not merely stakeholders protecting their interests. An example of such stakeholder resistance would be Exxon-Mobil funding pseudo-science. This does more than just spread misinformation and create confusion; it actively undermines public trust in the authority of the scientific community.
However, American’s trust in science is still strong enough that a majority are deferential to assertions backed by scientists. Is this a good thing? Personally, when it comes to my health I have a certain skepticism of some of the claims made by mainstream medicine.
And this brings us back to my sarcasm and irony at the top of this post. Most people don’t pay attention to science – even those who aren’t resistant to it – they pay attention to trusted authority figures, whether they be priests, politicians, talk show hosts, websites, neighbors, or journalists reporting on science.
This is why the IPCC reports on climate change are both important and flawed. The final language of any IPCC report reflects not just a scientific consensus, but also a political compromise — one that often waters down the full import of the scientific analysis.
The political compromise is the lowest common denominator of agreement among the governments of the world. As such they establish the ground floor of debate about climate change, but they often understate the issues, the stakes, and the latest science on the subject. They only speak with clarity and certainty about those issues which are beyond debate (which makes it all the more significant that in the language of the IPCC reports, climate change from anthropogenic activity is no longer in doubt). In the Summary for Policy Makers (pdf) of the Fourth Assessment report, Mitigation of Climate Change, the debate has shifted to identifying an acceptable level of risk. However, here the IPCC report is muddled and largely unhelpful. As should be expected given the political process, and the political nature of the question: what is an acceptable level of risk?
Within the scientific community there has long been consensus that beyond a 2 degree global average temperature increase from pre-industrial times, we are entering a realm of uncertainty that is potentially catastrophic. Debate continues as to what level of CO2 equivalent will hold us to a 2 degree increase or less. Increasingly, however, scientists are realizing that stabilizing at levels above 450ppm CO2e is unlikely to achieve a less than 2 degree increase. Tom Athanasiou and Paul Baer explain this quite well in their essay, Honesty About Dangerous Climate Change.
And thus we are left with the question, who pays attention to science, anyway? Obviously, someone must. But it certainly isn’t the general public.
Well that solves the global warming issue (at least takes it out of our hands). Score one for science. I don’t know what is more scary, thinking the warming effect is in our hands or thinking that it’s not.
Of course the general population isn’t paying attention to science. There’s so much pseudoscience out there making ridiculous claims that a normal American with little or no science education doesn’t have time to wade through all the crap, and doesn’t have the mental tools to discern between garbage and the real thing.
I’m glad you linked to curezone - I’d never heard of it, or seen such a huge collection of unmitigated crap. They should change their slogan to “mis-informing and hocking snake-oil.” It’s both reassuring and completely devestating that the people who think global warming is caused by starlight at cosmic positioning also think that AIDS isn’t infectious because oxygen kills HIV, Saturn in retrograde is the cause of colds and constipation because astrology is the major determining factor in daily health, and while smoking tobacco doesn’t cause cancer because “Native Americans never got lung cancer”, getting vaccines and not sweating does.
I’ve worked in the world of science education for 30 years. Gosh, would I have gone into this field 30 years ago if I’d thought people would be so much more resistant to science now than they were then? I thought, we all thought, things would get better not worse. But we were wrong.
And yet … I’m still hopeful. Call me crazy. But I think sometimes things have to bottom out before they can get better. I know that scientists nowadays are coming out of their ivory towers much more than when I was young. They are speaking out … and trying to help. Maybe a change in U.S. administrations will make a difference as well.
Deborah
Hi Orion,
Great post, great blog.
I blame my fellow journalists for the mistrust. Reporters, particularly on television, present administration denials and caveats as half of the story, for fear of appearing imbalanced. I believe they should be presenting the truth (as they see it), based on the facts.
But people have every good reason to distrust scientists, with so many of them on the payrolls of major corporations, and working in the service of government agendas.
Scientists are reaching out - so would anyone else that was drowning.
Here’s a great article from popsci that illustrates how much fake science we’re all inundated with: http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/65510b4511b84010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
I hope that a change in administration will do us some good - I was a Texas resident when (then Governor) Bush made good on his campaign promise to make every school in Texas a blue ribbon school… by lowering the standards so much that an elementary school in my district with almost a 30% hold-back rate and 4 sexual attacks by teachers on students is now (still) a ‘blue ribbon school’. I’m just glad he didn’t work so hard to keep his presidential campaign promises.
With people _that dedicated_ to education running our country, it’s not so surprising that 1 in 5 Americans think the Sun goes around the Earth: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/30/science/30profile.html?ex=1184472000&en=1a5177950502a289&ei=5070
The other day I was asking my friends how a digital camera works. We all had a basic sense of photos, light hitting a film and leaving an impression. So we all assumed that a digital camera worked in much the same fashion, light hits a sensor of some sort and this registers instantly. But beyond that, none of us really understood the magic of the camera.
I know really smart, well-educated scientists who can’t accurately explain basic concepts of evolutionary theory, like natural selection. In fact, most people probably don’t understand it, even if they do accept evolution as an explanation for life.
As science gets more complicated, I think it moves into a space of magic for most people. And systems science is made even more obscure because it is a science of probabilities. The science of global warming is not just poorly explained and clouded with misinformation, it is genuinely hard to understand. Even harder to want to understand it — since the details are mathematical and tedious.
At the Kennedy School of Government, where public policy makers are trained, it was drilled into me that busy people don’t have time to read even a 3-page memo — they need a summary abstract and highlights. They hire aides to examine the details and make recommendations.
So I suppose a scientist aide to a policy maker will be curious about the IPCC reports. But I doubt we can expect the general public to ever fully digest the issues and questions of climate change — public arguments generally boil down to who do you trust to do your thinking for you. Luckily, most people go with the flow — and in this case, the growing consensus is that global warming is a threat that we need to address.
The debate therefore has shifted to “how”? “How” is an inherently political question — involving trade offs of budgetary priorities. But again, policy makers will look to scientists for guidance as to what is an acceptable level of risk…will the general public weigh in on this question? I am genuinely curious how science matters in such debates.
Helped me lot… thanks for such a informative article
I have no idea how many readers have attended a debate where professors debate their papers. Very rarely is there ever a conseous among these scientist! This happens very often unless a Canon of Science is proven. Something like Kock’s postilutes, Maxwell’s Equations and etc. Remember there was a conseous of scientist during the 14th Century that the Earth was flat and the Earth was the center of the universe! So conseous of scientist means nothing but what a majority of scientist think. It does not mean that they are right, just look at scientist during the 14th Cenatury.