Uncertain Times

In this little bastion of liberal idealism in northern California called Chico, I thought for sure I had the population pegged. I’d walk into the book discussion group on Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes on a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, and everyone would be sipping lattés and chiding the imprudent decisions we’ve all made since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution that got us into this warming mess. I’m constantly seeking out the open disagreements that make science what it is in my work as a journalist. So, I thought, it would be nice to go beyond what I think of as a pretty soundly answered question—i.e. are humans causing climate change?—and learn about what other people think we should do about it for an hour in my spare time, rather than debating whether or not it’s happening and who (or what) caused it. 

Boy, was I wrong. The discussion started off predictably. Our moderator had asked Matt Chang, a slight, witty professor from California State University, Chico, to stoke the conversation with a reflection on his research into fisheries economics. He dove into the subject of climate change, and as any good scientist would, celebrated uncertainty. “We just don’t know,” he said several times, on the likely effect on fish stocks of climate-dependent factors ranging from sea level rise to ocean acidification. 

An older man raised his hand. When Chang called on him, the man twisted in his chair to address the group. At first a little cryptic, he soon stood up and began by calling Kolbert a “world-renowned environmentalist.” Then, in what seemed to be a rehearsed speech, he capitalized on the opportunity to use uncertainty to his advantage—though it still wasn’t clear what he was trying to say, until he pulled a glossy-covered report from the stack of papers he had pinched between his elbow and ribcage. “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate,” reads the cover. The man holding the report introduced himself—George Roy—and his companion, Lionel Brooks, who was, in Roy’s words, a “Ph.D. chemist.” Roy said they were both among the 32,500 scientists who had signed a letter to the United Nations, which basically argued that man hasn’t had the hand in the changing climate as the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and others have claimed. 

The cat calls started. “We appreciate your opinion, but would you please sit down?” offered one woman amongst the groans. I must admit, my own gut reaction mirrored that of the group. I am not a climate scientist by any stretch and don’t pretend to understand the intricacies of the subject, but I’ve spent enough time immersed in the literature and speaking with scientists to be satisfied with the assertion that we humans are at least playing a part. It’s mystifying to me that someone could spend an entire career in the sciences and not be struck by the same conclusion. So these were the types of “scientists” that George Will and his fact-checkers rely on for arguments against the idea of anthropogenic climate change? They really do exist. I’d have been less surprised to see a leprechaun jump up with a report about the alchemical properties of rainbows. 

A side note: George Will, a conservative political pundit and op-ed writer for the Washington Post, is usually someone I respect. He’s typically level-headed and dispassionate, if erudite, in his arguments, and I thought that his hosting President Barack Obama at his home for dinner was a grand gesture that bespoke of his willingness to rise above the shrill Rush Limbaughs and the Ann Coulters of the conservative movement and to participate in the conversation. However, he’s been embroiled in a controversy over a statement he made in his column a few weeks ago—something about the icepack at the poles being at about the same level now as it was in 1979—a claim few ice scientists agree with. I won’t go into details, but science writer Carl Zimmer’s continues to chronicle the story on his blog, “The Loom,” as it unfolds. 

Anyway, I stayed after the meeting to speak with Brooks. Perhaps a little too confrontationally, I asked him right off the bat who funded him and the other scientists who had signed the letter to the United Nations. Irritated, he told me he’s retired and no longer has his own funding. So I asked him a few more questions about climate change, all of which he sidestepped. I came to learn that he and Roy had worked in the nuclear industry for decades, and though I’m still not clear in what proportion to the debate at hand, it seems as if nuclear power was a bigger stumping point for them than climate change—it just put them, it seemed, on the same side of the fence as the climate-change disbelievers. 

“I want to make sure my kids and grandkids have a reliable source of electricity,” Brooks told me. I said I understood that, but I pushed him again on the climate issue: “Don’t you think it’s important,” I asked, “that we figure out if we’re having a hand in warming the planet and then what we’re going to do about it, regardless of whether it’s nature or man?” He seemed to agree with me, even going so far as to admit that investments in solar and wind power were a good idea, though he questioned what he called “the real cost”—that is, after tax incentives, et cetera. 

As we were walking out, I shook hands with Brooks, and Roy introduced himself to me, saying if I ever wanted to write about climate change to look him up—he’s in the phonebook—and he’d give me all the information I could want. While I’m just as befuddled that anyone could stick their heads in the sand and try to deny climate change nowadays, he’s at least willing to talk—something I can’t say about some of my like-minded fellow book clubbers who simply wrote these two off when it became clear what they stood for. 

I’m not trying to make this whole ‘listening’ idea a theme of this blog, but I do think it’s important that we try to see others’ perspectives. Do they have some misguided, and perhaps biased ideas? Sure. (I still don’t know where their money comes from, but I’ll figure it out.) Did the word ‘crackpot’ cross my mind a few times while I was listening to them? Absolutely. But my point is this—getting pissed off and retreating to a liberal bunker is not going to change anyone’s mind. That’ll only further entrench and separate the two positions—which is, in my opinion, a step away from the massive behavior shifts we ALL will have to make if we’re going to find our way out of this climate change mess.