Earth Day and the Hockey Stick: A Singular Message
Much as I agree that fossil fuel burning is a horrendous thing that has sent us on a life-threatening trajectory, I also think this narrative is overly simplified. The fight to minimize fossil fuel would benefit from a more realistic (i.e. humble) approach IMO. Doubting if Thomas Mann will be the person to do that though.<p>To be clear, climate science has come a long way and has shown beyond any reasonable doubt that fossil fuel burning is changing our climate in ways that already is causing damage to the livelihood of millions if not billions of people, something which will accelerate in the short term and put our capacity for adaption and human compassion to a severe test, that we will probably fail miserably.<p>So the core issue is not up for debate. But there are still claims that rubs me the wrong way, for example that is that this is &quot;a fight between science and self-interested industry&quot;. Yes, to some extent. But climate science is not a mature science like (some parts of) physics. As a science it is still struggling to explain why things like ice-ages were (are?) a recurring phenomenon.<p>The reason is that climate science is in essence a historical science. What this means: while we can tell that the climate has behaved in a certain way historically, and many times (not always) understand why, we have no way to determine the accumulated future effects of warming beyond a certain, in geological terms, fairly short horizon. It may well, through the combination of various tipping point effects, planetary, intergalactic or even hitherto unknown extra-galactic phenomenon have the exact opposite effect, as far as we know.<p>So part of the drama is in my view caused by climate science trying to establish itself as a mature science with a predictability powers comparable to sciences that can perform reproducible experiments, downplaying its own nature as a historical science. The fossil burning industry (and all the other interests tied in with them) is handed a gift in a way, since they can appeal to the natural intelligence of the average person, and get an agreement that the climate science is making hyperbolic claims.<p>We don&#x27;t know everything, and it would serve the sane discussion well to delimit what we can and can not predict.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Geologic_temperature_record#&#x2F;media&#x2F;File:65_Myr_Climate_Change.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Geologic_temperature_record#&#x2F;m...</a>