Where Are They Now?

Where Are They Now?

Climate Change Debunkers

Accusing the scientific community

Of being on the take

Snowball hefting

Senators

Profiting

(with the next election's votes)

Politicians

And

Politicizing

Profiteers

Posturing Pundits

and

Punditry Imposters

Now that the world

Is aflame

And their snowballs

Have melted

Where are they now?

It would be interesting to do a study of what sports pundits thought would be the result at the end of the season and how they repositioned themselves after the final standings actually came in. In fairness, many say, “I blew it,” “I sure made a bad prediction”, and that honest acknowledgment makes them more credible.  Some are easy calls - 'Bama, for instance, but some are harder to predict and so it's easier to miss the call.

The 24/7 news cycle makes it easy to forget what was claimed just days before, and therefore it’s hard for people to be held accountable for how they honestly made a mistake. 

But let's face it, it's hard to 'fess up and say we were wrong, no matter who we are, and we all do.

Politicians seem less likely to hold themselves accountable, in general, for mistaken statements. Politicians seem less likely to apologize and say, “I got that wrong, and we are paying for it as a country.” Politicians seem less likely - are unlikely -  to apologize, admit they were wrong, misleading, or deflecting (“I’m not a scientist.” Well, then, listen to scientists!).  (This is true, as we all have observed, irrespective of party or issue.) The elected officials who can manage a "Mia culpa" or "I was mistaken about that" have my deep respect, because the potential consequences are so personally consequential for them.

Meeting the challenge of the existential threat of climate change should be, and should have been, job one for leaders political, leaders business, and leaders of every type for years and decades. The threat is real and now clearly visible.

The means to meet that threat is open to multiple viewpoints and methods and is over-ripe for deep discussion and planning and action with all parties at the table. We have been slowed and sidetracked by those who have dismissed science and scientists (seems to be more and more of an issue these days). Even if the odds were small – they weren’t – that climate change has been affected by human activity, the potential outcome is so calamitous that responsible people from nearly all ideological perspectives would seem to naturally flock around the goal of cutting off that threat.  Alas, this has not been so.

Too late now, we can only hope for mitigation. In our lifetimes, even throughout the lifetimes of our wee ones now, life as we know it is likely to have more storms, bigger droughts, and increasing weather-based threat.

Where are those politicians who said, “The science is not settled?" Regardless of one’s definition of “settle”, the scientific community has reached consensus, and has for quite a while.

From Scientific Consensus: Earth's Climate Is Warming (posted by NASA)"

“A consensus on climate change and its human cause exists. Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that human activities are the primary cause of the observed climate-warming trend over the past century.”

There is no more profound issue facing humankind than climate change.

Now that we can see the effect of this climate change more clearly, with our own eyes, perhaps it’s a good time for reflecting back about who we’ve been listening to about this over the years. Scientists? Or people who cast aspersions upon science?  People who have turned out to be prescient, based on data? Or those who whiffed the call completely, sometimes honestly, but in some cases negligently.

Let's face it, it's hard to 'fess up and say we've not been paying attention to the real experts, no matter who we are.

But then, perhaps, we can make better choices in the future.

Sources and Resources

Scientific Consensus: Earth's Climate Is Warming, https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/