If You Believe…

If you believe in Andropogenic (caused by humans) Climate Change, then…

So far, we have a Subject and one sentence within the text body of the post, and six periods. Bear with me, and we’ll see if we cans stretch some of those dots out. In regards to Climate Change, there are those who believe the science, those who do not believe the science, and those who might believe, but who don’t think that the evidence is conclusive. Let’s call them believers, atheists and agnostics. The religious connotation of that statement is, I believe apt.

Science and Religion are two sides of the same coin in the sense that you either believe or you don’t. They are entirely different in another sense though. One is based on fact and is self-correcting, while the other is based entirely on faith. In my opinion, there doesn’t need to be a clash at all. A phrase attributed to Jesus in the synoptic bibles reads, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." The original discussion was whether taxes should be paid, but I think that we could make the case for substituting science for government in this case (not that I’d recommend that in general). So just replace the word ‘Caesar’ with ‘Science’, and we’re set.

Okay, there’s one minor problem. That which is getting rendered to Science is getting bigger, and God’s piece of the pie is getting smaller. That’s the problem of a God of the Gaps theory. But even so, we could still make the case that religious faith and science can co-exist. A good many scientists, philosophers and theologians believe that science is true (now there’s a word we could discuss further), but are also still able to maintain religious faith.  

Forgive me. I didn’t quite mean to go off on such a tangent about science and religion. What I did want to do is call attention to the belief in science. I think most people would say they do, but even so, perhaps not quite so many believe that Andropogenic Climate Change is a fact.

How many? Polls vary, but the latest shows that “Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults say they are worried a ‘great deal’ or ‘fair amount’ about global warming”. The percentage appears to be higher in other parts of the developed world. I think that whether you are worried, and therefore believe in climate change depends mostly on your belief in science.

So the remaining thirty-six percent must be the agnostics and atheists. But not (quite) so fast. Some of those who did express concern concede that climate change may be happening, but are agnostic or atheistic as to whether humans have caused it. The polls cited here didn’t address this question, but others have. We’ve evolved on this question too, however. The query about whether global warming is happening at all used to be more in question. Now the polls show that more people do accept that it’s occurring (hurray for at least this aspect of science), but still may not believe that humans are the cause. But there’s science behind the Andropogenic-ism of it as well. A lot of it. So much, that 97% of climate scientists and their scientific papers say so. I know some have questioned those numbers, but it is still as close to a consensus as there is on anything.

Let’s say that you are convinced. Either a) you were already a believer, or b) I convinced you (and I know that’s highly unlikely). Let’s change the focus here from If you believe, to Since you believe.

Since you believe that Andropogenic Climate Change is real, what are you going to do about it? Wouldn’t it then be the most important global issue facing our planet and our species? I sure think so, and I said so in a previous post. Therein I urged you, my Earth-Loving Friends, to cast your vote in this upcoming Presidential Election based on Environmental issues alone. That is the single most important thing you can do to help us out of this hole we’ve been digging for ourselves. Casting your vote in this direction will almost certainly also cast it in favor of other aspects of humanity that are also on the correct side of history.