Hubris, Scientism, and Climate Change
As is my habit, I listen to many podcasts as I travel to and
fro, mainly to keep up on current affairs and to remain educated in topics such
as history, engineering, and so forth.
This past weekend, as I was returning back from military duties at Fort
Drum, I was listening to Fareed Zakaria GPS[i],
which had been recorded earlier in the day.
The following dialogue intrigued me:
“ZAKARIA: All right. We have to go but, Bret, I've got to
ask you. Your column on climate change
caused a -- you know, a Twitter storm, maybe a real storm. So, you know, basically saying we shouldn't be
so overconfident and act as though there is absolutely no debate to be had on
climate change. Liberals should be
willing to imagine that they could be wrong.
And what a scientist said to me in response was, look, that would be
like saying, you know, when you turn a light switch on maybe the light will go
on, maybe it won't, it's still up in the air. That there is so much overwhelming science in
this direction. So that's the pushback I
heard from one very intelligent, liberal scientist.
STEPHENS: Well, I don't deny global warming or climate
change. And I don't deny that we need to
address it seriously. The point of the
article was to say that there is a risk in any predictive science of hubris. There was an IPPC at global U.N. report at one
point that said that the Himalayan glaciers were going to melt within our
lifetime. This turned out not to be true. The skeptics, or the genuine deniers,
obviously, pounced on this detail.
So the column was an attempt to be was a warning against
intellectual hubris. Not an effort to
deny facts about climate that have been agreed by the scientific community. And I think that's a distinction that I'm afraid
was lost in some of the more intemperate criticism. But people who read the column carefully can
see that I said nothing outrageous or beyond the pale of normal discussion.
ZAKARIA: And it's always struck me that the best answer to
these kind[s] of things is not to try to silence people or drum them out but to
answer them. To have a vigorous response and a vigorous debate which is what
you provoked I think in that. So I was
very grateful for it.”[ii]
Based on this dialogue, I was called to actually read Mr.
Stephens’ op-ed piece “Climate of Complete Certainty”[iii],
which I actually thought was really superior:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/opinion/climate-of-complete-certainty.html. I give this link as I think it is certainly
worth your consideration and a fair reading on your own. What I very much appreciate here is his call
to be careful of over-reach, hubris, and certitude. This is something anyone that is in a true
academic pursuit should be always conscious of, because it often skews results,
or worse, gets things completely wrong.
And this is no less true in real-life, history and politics. One could certainly quibble with Mr.
Stephens’ comparison of the climate change debate with the Hillary Clinton
campaign, even if it did bring up some good points in his piece. A more apt example might actually be the
march to war in Iraq in 2002-2003 on the hubris induced, and ultimately wrong,
theory that Saddam Hussein held massive cashes of weapons of mass destruction.
Of any character flaw that I take seriously, it is that of
hubris. Whether at an individual level
or in a group, when people become pompous and arrogant, it is a sure sign that
trouble is on the way. In the climate
change discussion space, I cannot be pegged as one who is in any sense a
climate change denier. I serve on the US
Green Building Council’s Upstate NY Board[iv],
I am active in Lutheran’s Restoring Creation[v],
I teach courses in sustainable building and construction at Clarkson University
(which always leads off with the reason for a need to be more sustainable), am
active in efforts to support positive action to curb the damage of
non-homeostatic impacts on the environment[vi]
and I even have a fairly well viewed "TIM Talk"[vii]
on this topic. The point being, like Mr.
Stephens, I am in no way attempting to "hurt" the cause of trying to
fight against the causes of what is likely to be catastrophic effects of
climate change. In reality, I am trying
to do the opposite; I want to ensure the cause is strengthened by ensuring that
it doesn't succumb to the sin of hubris.
To that point, I am fully on board with Stephens in regards
to the need for us to acknowledge and be forthright in how we speak about the
science and the facts regarding climate change.
One of the main reasons for my concurrence is because I continue to see
evidence of the great harm that over-prediction, hubris, and certitude have
wrought in this effort. Take for example
this meme that was put out over Facebook by someone I know that lies in the climate
change denial camp[viii]:
It isn’t hard to figure out the point of this meme, and how
over-prediction and extreme alarmism are used as a punchline, especially when
baseline facts do not support the conclusions:
NYC, while flooded during Hurricane Sandy (with extensive damage and
cost), has not been converted into Venice, the average price of a gallon of milk
is well below $12.99, and gasoline is presently at a third of the above predicted
cost (although it has fluctuated as high as $4 per gallon, it’s never reached
$9 per gallon). There are certainly tons
of holes in the meme that those of us that live in a fact based world can
certainly point to[ix],
but such apologia is of little avail, given the bald face and gross over-predictions
laid out and that were never even close to being realized. This is the precise type of intellectual
hubris that Mr. Stephens is speaking to in his warning to those that are
absolute fire-brands for the climate:
resist absolutism, be clairvoyant and true, and gain some humility.
And it is to the primary antidote of humility that I see Mr.
Stephens trying to turn us to acknowledge as critical in the climate change
discussion. Pope Francis, in a very
recent TED Talk[x] spoke
to this very point, especially to those that lead and are involved in politics. He said, “[p]lease, allow me to say it loud
and clear: the more powerful you are, the more your actions will have an impact
on people, the more responsible you are to act humbly.”[xi] Francis, in the encyclical Laudato Si[xii],
spells out the way forward in this work, one that certainly takes humility
seriously and eschews hubris. We have to
avoid scientism[xiii],
and instead accept that we can’t have all or nothing approaches to the
challenge before us. Rather we need to
remove the blinders that such hubris and arrogance build and instead be all
about an open dialogue, bringing honest, factual discussion to the fore. To that end, the following should help to
paint the true picture for us all.
Global Climate Report
2014 – Annual Global Temperature[xiv]
Climate Change:
Global Temperature Projections[xv]
I can say with strong certainty that we are indeed in the fight
of our lives and a fight for the only known inhabitable, life sustaining world
in the universe. Does this mean we have
to take drastic measures? Most likely it
does, despite the fact that we can’t have 100% certainty. But taking such drastic measures should be
based on the facts that are skeptically arrived at, not hyperbole and over
statements that belie an unwillingness to stand up to scrutiny. We have to fight back against those that deny
the reality of climate change, but we cannot deny the truth and its lack of
perfect coherence as we do so. We can’t
afford, in this effort, that perfect becomes the enemy of good. And it is for that reason I agree with
Zakaria, I am grateful for Mr. Stephens piece, but even more so that there are
many of my colleagues and many in the world working on this cause that think
likewise, honesty really is the best principle.
[i] If you have an appetite,
as I do, of multiple perspectives on the world and the US, this is a podcast
worth listening to: https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/fareed-zakaria-gps/id377785090?mt=2
[ii] Fareed Zakaria GPS, 7 May
2017, from transcript, retrieved from http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1705/07/fzgps.01.html,
retrieved on 10 May 2017
[iii] "Climate of Complete
Certainty", Op-Ed, Bret Stephens, 28 April 2017, New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/opinion/climate-of-complete-certainty.html,
retrieved on 10 May 2017
[iv] Currently serving as the
Vice Chair.
[v] A grassroots organization
working within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to create an
eco-reformation
[vi] Including participation
in the Climate March here in Potsdam, NY on 29 April 2017
[viii] Sergeant First Class (Retired)
Thomas Paxitzis. SFC Paxitzis and I
served together in the 955th Engineer Company (Pipeline
Construction) which I commanded from July 2001 to February 2003 and July 2004 to
December 2004. Tom was a Platoon
Sergeant and one that was probably the most empathetic in the unit. His views today, on a number of subjects
including this one, are well out of the comportment that he once held. Given our serving together I am unwilling to
sever a connection, but only hope and pray that his bitterness will turn to empathy
and his anger to acceptance; especially as he is a faith leader in his local
congregation.
[ix] Among them that Good
Morning America didn’t make those predictions, it reported on those that were;
that the dossier of John Coleman is checkered at best and demonstrates his
misleading and un-factual stances (https://www.desmogblog.com/john-coleman);
and that these were all “worst case scenarios” that had variable likelihoods of
occurrence.
[x] “Why the only future worth
building includes everyone”, April 2017, https://www.ted.com/talks/pope_francis_why_the_only_future_worth_building_includes_everyone?language=en,
retrieved on 10 May 2017
[xiii] “Scientism: Unlike the use of the scientific method as
only one mode of reaching knowledge, scientism claims that science alone can
render truth about the world and reality. Scientism's single-minded adherence to only
the empirical, or testable, makes it a strictly scientific worldview, in much
the same way that a Protestant fundamentalism that rejects science can be seen
as a strictly religious worldview. Scientism
sees it necessary to do away with most, if not all, metaphysical,
philosophical, and religious claims, as the truths they proclaim cannot be
apprehended by the scientific method. In
essence, scientism sees science as the absolute and only justifiable access to
the truth.” Source: PBS Glossary, http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/sciism-body.html,
retrieved on 10 May 2017. I’d also offer
the lecture of Henry F. Schaefer III, given at the C.S. Lewis Society of
California, http://www.lewissociety.org/scientism.php.
[xiv] Global Climate Report -
Annual 2014, Various Global Temperature Time Series, updated through 2014, https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/13/supplemental/page-4,
retrieved on 10 May 2017
[xv] Climate Change: Global
Temperature Projections, David Herring, 6 March 2012, available at https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature-projections,
accessed on 10 May 2017
