Climate Change: Doubt is not Enough
Global warming deniers have used the strategy of raising doubt about the facts, following the very successful reliance on such strategy by the tobacco companies. Those who saw the danger have engaged the critics in an ongoing contest of competing claims. This has it entirely backwards. It is not what is known that should frighten us. Rather, it is what is not known.
One of our government experts on climate change was recently asked to give his personal assessment. He said that he waxed hot and cold on the matter, sometimes thinking we will be ok, and at other times thinking that we may have already crossed the threshold of catastrophe. He who is among the best informed is confronted with the unknowable. The things we most need to know we do not know and cannot yet know. Neither the data nor the scientific models are in place. The skeptic can always take refuge in such ambiguity, but that is a false harbor.
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