Climate Change and the Climate of Congress

Four days ago, we significantly increased the number of people now in Congress who can't - or won't, or maybe are paid very well not to - understand science, specifically the science of climate change. Not only climate change, though – lots of science, and other good things, took a beating this election cycle.  I don’t think there has been a time since the Dark Ages when knowledge and facts and insight have been so in danger of being immolated by the fires of fear and threats to the established order.

Their position is effectively "I'm not a scientist, so I'll only take advice from people equally small-minded when making science policy.” They’ll take science input from poll-takers who move with the wind, from industry lobbyists with deep pockets, and from pastors who imagine that science is “anti-God” and “a trick of Satan.”  We need more public voices saying things that are real - and scientific - and smart - to counter these people who lack the courage to see and to speak the truth.  There are plenty of things they hide from, but since climate change is the one that’s most likely to doom our children and grandchildren, let’s at least take up that issue for now.  Plus, if we can get the general public to see the obvious science behind climate change, maybe they’ll be more amenable to acknowledging the science of evolution, vaccines, etc.

Let's not deny that climate change is real. Let's not try to bury it under some pseudo-smart sounding hyper-nuanced answer that, as much as outright denial, allows us hide from truth.  Let’s stop arguing that small exceptions to a scientific principle invalidate the entire rule. 

Albert Einstein said, “I have little patience with scientists who take a board of wood, look for its thinnest part, and drill a great number of holes where drilling is easiest.”  In this case, we have laymen drilling holes where the drilling is easiest, and then proclaiming that their hole invalidates not just the integrity of the board, which it doesn’t, but the whole existence of the board, which it most definitely doesn’t.  That leaves aside the handful of quisling and collaborationist scientists who like to claim the title of scientist without using any of its tools.  Instead, they use their titles to bolster anti-science arguments from people who are proud of proclaiming their ignorance. “I’m not a scientist, BUT …”

We’ve been polite and patient for decades now, and have told ourselves “They’ll get it … any day now, they’ll get it. They can’t ignore reality much longer.”  But they can. They live for today’s ballot, and their corporate owners live for today’s profits, and they have no incentive for changing their positions other than the eventual threat of losing power, privilege and attention.

This is far from the only dark outcome to this week’s election. While there were local and some regional outcomes for science, reason, tolerance and individual rights, nationally the average is bad. All across the US, conservatives won out against those four principles.  Sure, the pendulum has been swinging back and forth for years now, from right to left, from midterm to midterm, but what we can’t afford is to simply hope that science, reason, tolerance and individual rights will get better treatment in the next election.  The direction may well stay toward the dark for a while as conservatives fight against changing demographics by increased fear-mongering on a whole spectrum of issues. 

I was trying to wrap up with something hopeful, but instead I have in my hands this quote from Camus: 

“We shall be sure that freedom is not a gift received from a State or a leader, but a possession to be won every day by the effort of each and the union of all.”

It’s more about Sisyphus and his rock, I think, than about an invigorating triumph, but we work with what we have.  I’d lost hope for a while, and I’d even given up on rolling my rock to the foothills, much less up the mountain, but maybe despair and hope are irrelevant, and we just do what we can – together.