Dear climate change skeptics,
There has been a lot of coverage lately that indicates your points-of-view are gaining traction in the general population. More and more, people are finding occasional holes in climate change theory as evidence for the complete falsehood of anthropogenic climate change. I understand your skepticism. If climate scientists are right about their theory, we are going to have to fundamentally change the way in which we live. Less stuff. Less frivolous usage of energy. It's hard to think about something that will so dramatically change your life, and it's natural to not want to believe it or even to fight against it. Not to mention, it's painful to grapple with the idea that we are responsible for destroying mother Earth. While all of this may be valid, there is one thing that the scientific community has not expressed clearly enough:
We hope you are right.
Or, in other words, we hope we are wrong. That isn't to say that scientists don't see the potential benefit of moving away from fossil fuels, and to stop living like a bunch of self-entitled fools who feel the world belongs to us. We do see that, and we're very excited about the cultural evolution that will occur as a byproduct of this change. On the other hand, we are as scared as you are about this "crazy" climate change theory. We're scared because scientific work is embedded in the principles of truth: observation, hypothesis, analysis, and conclusion. This cycle repeats itself constantly because our understanding of the world is constantly evolving. Every day, we create new tools to extend our senses so that we may be able to interpret things we haven't previously comprehended. Sometimes we are wrong. This is a natural part of creating hypotheses, or educated guesses based on observable phenomena. It would be impossible to think that scientists are right 100% of the time. The important thing is that we immediately begin to revise these ideas based on the new information. We don't just hit a brick wall and say, "oh well, that was fun while it lasted, let's go bowling". No. We are hard at work every day to bring out new truths about the world around us. So when the evidence in favor of a particular idea builds over the decades to the mountain of information we now have, it is somewhat fair to think that we may have a point. When a few bits of information leak out that draw some of the data under more intense scrutiny, that doesn't mean we should do away with the entire idea.
What is incredibly difficult about this ongoing debate is that it has been set up to have a supposed winner and loser. There are those who are very locked into the notion of "winning" the debate, while completely disregarding the underlying point. In a variety of conversations with climate change skeptics, I have noticed this passionate drive in asserting their opinion as "right" and others as "wrong". Fair enough. Again, we hope we are wrong.
Let's just suppose that climate change theory is completely false, and the overwhelming majority of the scientific community that is in favor of this theory have just been pulling the wool over our eyes. What harm is there in making a transition to renewable energy sources? That is, to stop importing foreign oil that greatly increases our trade deficit and exports huge amounts of money to countries who harbor terrorists. Who could argue against that? In the meantime, by moving to renewable energy sources, we are helping to ensure that human existence on this planet will not be imperiled by the absolute certainty that fossil fuels will run out. Hopefully you can agree that a finite resource is one that won't be around forever.
Now let's suppose that climate change theory is accurate, even if some of the data has been misinterpreted or misreported. If this is true, and we do nothing or little about it, we are dooming ourselves to a guaranteed fate: eradication from the face of the Earth. It won't be the terrorists who get us in the end, but the planet that we have called home for eons. Indeed, it's a bit crazy to think that humans could be wiped out in such a fashion. Take moment to realize, however, that we haven't always been here. The Earth, and life on it, went through a great number of changes before human life could be supported. If that's true, it is just as likely to continue to change (with a little help from a friend) so that human life can no longer be supported.
At the end of all of this is the fact of the matter - this is not a win or lose debate for the scientific community. We are simply reporting our alarming findings to the world in an effort to change things before it's too late. You can argue with the theory until you're blue in the face. But just stop for one second to consider the implications. If you "win" this argument at the cost of the realities of the issue, we will all suffer whether we like it or not.
While I may not speak for the entire scientific community, I believe this sentiment to be relatively common - we hope we are wrong. But if we're not, and our tireless efforts have accurately predicted this trend, you will have an answer to who "won" this argument within our lifetime.
As an addendum, here is a link to a very interesting graphical juxtaposition of climate skeptics vs. the scientific community's argument on the issue: climate change deniers vs the consensus