Imagine a guy who goes to the doctor about some complaint and is told, after being subjected to all the recommended diagnostic procedures, that he has a serious, chronic disease that will progress steadily with dire consequences for his quality of life unless he takes aggressive steps to manage the condition now. He seeks a second opinion, because the prescribed changes represent for him an overhaul of his whole way of life, and he can't imagine himself living under the strict new regimen. When the second opinion matches the first he makes more and more appointments, but the whitecoats all concur. Then finally he finds one guy, the twentieth to whom he's submitted himself, who says his condition isn't serious and if he takes two aspirin with a shot of whiskey each morning he'll be fine. So that's the advice he takes. He'd always taken a shot of whiskey in the morning anyway but now he adds two aspirin. One thing the first nineteen doctors agreed on was that he must stop drinking whiskey.
In the US, this patient's approach models the position of the "conservative" political party on climate change. It's as if the gravity of the diagnosis were a reason to dismiss it: false, because unpleasant. I don't know when this attitude began qualifying as "conservative." At some time in the remote past, like maybe when Edmund Burke was alive, the conservative attitude in politics was distinguished by a determination to face facts and do what needs to be done, no histrionics. Now it's all histrionics. For example, a US senator, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, has argued that the earth isn't actually warming by playing with a snowball on the Senate floor. He was at the time the chairman of the Senate Committee on the Environment. Whatevs!
The theory of anthropogenic climate change, like the practice of medicine, is grounded in science. The physical processes are understood and implacable. It's magical thinking to suppose there is a connection between them and human wishes. If the doctor says you're sick, you probably are, and your idea of a "realistic" treatment plan might not make you better--because nature doesn't care about your preferences. To me, this seems like the kind of hardheaded good sense that conservatives once championed, but nowadays, in our country, they just shout stupid stuff. I will continue to drink whiskey! They say the earth is warming but it's cold out today!
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