“Views” or “Beliefs” on Climate Change

When my childhood friends came to learn that I’d become an author of materials of environmental sustainability, they sometimes asked for my opinions on climate change.  I explain that because climate change is a science, it’s inappropriate to apply the term “opinion” or “belief” to the subject.  We have opinions on things like politics, art, sports figures, justice, literature, and philosophy–but not chemistry, physics, or math.

When someone says that he doesn’t believe in AGW (anthropogenic global warming, aka climate change), all he’s really saying is that he doesn’t understand the science.  And that’s fine; there are huge swaths of science that lie far outside my knowledge base.  But we need to keep in mind that one of the good things about science, as Neil deGrasse Tyson likes to say, is that “it’s true whether you believe in it or not.”