The Simplicity of the Climate Change Consensus
The science itself might be complex, and experts have raced in recent decades to catch up with the mutability of the situation, but measuring how scientists agree on what the problem is, isn’t, well, rocket science. If you don’t think man-made climate change is happening, you just don’t understand. The time for being allowed to publicly deny anthropogenic climate change is gone. There are too many lives hanging in the balance.
Planes
When I look up and see a plane cruising past overhead – nervous flyer as I am – it still makes me think about how we got to the point where someone decided enough is enough, let’s take to the skies. There is a a concoction of specialisms at work in pitching one of those beasts into the heavens, but the primary principle is that of Bernoulli and his fluid dynamics. Any physicists reading this please look away now as I clumsily point out how that theory deals with the speed of the flow of the air over the shape of a wing (taking into consideration the weight of the flying object, its velocity, and of course the severity of the gravity at any given location). I might consider myself a writer in some fashion, but I know I’m butchering the art. Apologies.
But the thing is, that principle, which came into the sunlight 286 years ago (in 1738), still holds sway today. I think Daniel Bernoulli would be impressed if he were able to see what has become of his work. It took another 165 years for humans to meaningfully get off the ground. After that we didn’t look back. Bowling into the 20th century saw the development of subsonic, supersonic, and hypersonic flows, the mainstay of modern aircraft design.
Naysayers
In all that development though, there will have been – must have been – doubters and naysayers. And that’s fair. That’s the beauty of science. It will always leave itself open to question. That’s how Einstein was able to saunter up to the world, with precious little scientific training, and turn the universe of physics upside-down. The wonder of the discipline of science is being able to stand on the shoulders of giants, but also ask those giants how they got to be giants in the first place, to speculate on and question their gigantism.
Also in fairness though, Einstein wasn’t some rube who fell off the back of a cart and into a technical assistant job in the Swiss Patent Office in Bern (which was two years after the Wright brothers made their celebrated flight). He just happened to be one of the brightest intellects humanity has ever produced. You can’t help but think that gave him some small leg up. Perhaps it’s also fair to say that Einstein wasn’t really questioning the scientific consensus of the time. No, Albert was proposing a whole new way to look at the universe, and an argument can be made for it being one of the greatest discoveries ever.
Propriety
I digress. The point being that science is open to scrutiny by anyone and everyone. But it also has its propriety. Unless one is prepared to study a given field, get some letters in it to give themselves some intellectual weight, and then spend copious amounts of their time tinkering with the theories and suitably debating them, one cannot expect to simply criticise or deny the accepted thinking. Common sense suggests this has to be the way. It’s why they don’t let passengers up to have a cheeky turn at flying an aircraft. You have to learn and become learned before you can have a go.
It’s spectacular to me then, how many people out there question the science of man-made climate change (it makes me wonder what those same people are thinking when they look up at a passing aeroplane). When I look up at that plane, I see the climate change scientific consensus at work. It is the same process, the same discipline, that got us to understand the impending danger of creating a greenhouse. It seems, as ominous as it is becoming, that we live in an age whereby no one can be the authority on anything. A prime and consequential example was the advent of coronavirus. The then UK PM Boris Johnson has been criticised for not getting the lockdown locked-down faster whereby thousands of people’s lives would have been saved. Sadly, the experts were telling him to put his foot on the throat of the issue some time before he did. He just didn’t listen.
Nubs
In 2021, Lynas, Houlton, and Perry, published findings in Environmental Research Letters that the scientific consensus on climate change was over 99%. There are more than a fistful of studies having been carried out over the years that have come similar conclusions. Messrs Lynas, Houlton, and Perry themselves had scrutinised 88,125 climate-related papers to get to their understanding. And here’s the nub: you don’t get any surer about something in science. In fact, what you do, when your that certain, is you get someone to sit in the cockpit, you point the nose at the sky, you remove the chocks, and you go for it. Because, if you’re going to continue to debate it, you may never get the damn bird off the ground.
One wonders if that’s where we are with climate change science. The plane is ready to go, raring to takeoff even, but the pilot is on his social media accounts listening to the buffoons who don’t understand the relatively simple concept of the scientific consensus. The time for talking is over. The time for wondering what if is over. The time to put the heel of our boot on the wriggling issue that is climate change is at hand. We should get on with doing it (and ignore any dullard who doesn’t seem to be able to grasp the very easily grasp-able) before it’s too late. And the thing is, time’s getting on. If we’re gonna do it, we should do it now…
KG Abbot, freelance writer, ex-law enforcement intelligence analyst, BSc in environmental science, and MA in creative writing. One tries one’s best…
