Climate change as an issue is afflicted by two major difficulties when it comes to gaining public acceptance of the urgency of the problem.
First, climate is the product of many interconnected events whose interactions are only dimly understood. We know that cause and effect are constantly in operation but it is devilishly hard to say which cause lead to which effect. So if we want to assert a direct connection between human activities, greenhouse gases and climate it is easy to demonstrate the logic of that claim but harder to point to any one thing and say "Yes, this is directly due to human activities that have lead to climate change."
Second, climate change is easy to challenge because of the very uncertainty that attends any statement about climate. This makes it easy for those who have a vested interest in business a usual to create a climate of doubt and uncertainty in the debate about climate change. Bjorn Lomborg is a good example of someone who says on the one hand that climate change is real but who then goes on to argue against doing much of anything about it because after all we can't be sure exactly what effect human activities are having whereas there are many problems we are sure of so why not spend the money on those.
This is a very alluring argument, especially to policy makers who must spread ever decreasing resources among an ever increasing array of problems. The fact that the effects of climate change are not expected to be felt for another 20 or 30 or maybe 50 years doesn't do anything to build the case for urgency.
So we continue our vast experiment with the atmosphere and adopt and wait and see and let's hope for the best approach while continuing to pump out greenhouse gases that we know are not good for humans or for the atmosphere.
If there is any truth to the idea of the butterfly effect - small changes can lead to large results - then what can we expect from 150 years of pumping what now amounts to billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere?
Somehow the term butterfly effect seems inadequate. I suggest a new term, the albatross effect. For those unfamiliar with the species, an albatross has a vast wingspan and can travel hundreds of miles over sea without resting. It was considered by ancient mariners to be a good luck charm.
That didn't stop them from killing them and eating them. We are human, after all. It is in our nature to destroy the very things that sustain us. Certainly what we have been doing to the earth is on a scale that is perfectly suited to the physical and mythical properties of the albatross.
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