Frankly, there are many, many people who have political and idealogical interests in global warming being “true” enough to become policy.
In my opinion, many see victory in political terms, even if there are very good arguments and certainly much scientific debate going on around them that suggest otherwise. I count myself lucky to be part of a majority that is skeptical of global warming arguments, but I’m concerned that there’s now enough political will to allow restrictions on the way we all live according to some pretty bad ideas.
Global warming is in some sense happening, I believe, and many scientists think so, but some drivers of global warming have other interests:
The “Anti” people-Some environmentalism has its roots in Marxism, Communism, and other anti-capitalist idealogies. Anti-technology, anti-corporation, anti-animal testing folks can all find a common expresssion of what they are against within the idea of environmentalism, and global warming is their vehicle.
A deeper question-I think some of environmentalism has its roots in an old philosophical debate, about how one thinks about nature. This could, in part, be traced back to Rousseau. How self-interested are we? But I also think it explains why some people who love literature, poetry, music, etc….some people at NPR, for example, don’t utilize reason and analysis enough to resist hopping on the global warming express, though they seem to be doing a decent job.
So, what to do?
Although I posted this quote before, I’ll let it do the talking for me:
“…a light broke upon all natural philosophers. They learned that reason only perceives that which it produces after its own design; that it must not be content to follow, as it were, in the leading-strings of nature, but must proceed in advance with principles of judgement according to unvarying laws, and compel nature to reply its questions.”
Immanuel Kant-Preface to the Critique of Pure Reason
