Are We Preaching to the Choir on Environmentalism?

One of the many things I like about the community here is that we are most certainly not “preaching to the choir.” There are many people here whose viewpoints, while divergent from my own, are stimulating to the conversation, and, more likely than not, constitute the principal reason that people like to be here.  

A reader commented the other day:

The problem began when environmentalists told us the sky was falling and the sea rising. We would be controlled by taxes and higher costs to force us to reduce carbon.

Someone wrote back and told him that this, in fact, was not where the problem began, but rather that the onset was civiliation’s decision that energy companies would not be held responsible for the externalities (unintended health and environmental consequences) of their product.  I came along a few minutes later and pointed out that global warming deniers should realize that there are numerous reasons that have nothing to do with GW per se to break our addiction to fossil fuels: ocean acidification, cancer, terrorism, national security, peak oil, etc.

But in retrospect, with all due respect to the comment’s author, I need to remind him that the vast majority of studies on the subject tell us that the problem IS real. By using the phrase “the sky is falling,” the author disrespects the serious science that he, for whatever reason, is choosing to ignore.  In the course of my travels, I’ve spoken with a great number of scientists whose testimony on the subject has swayed me personally. These people are the professors you and I had in college, and (generally, though not exclusively) are not a bunch of whacko extremists.

And the consequences, if they as a whole are right, are catastrophic beyond measure. Isn’t that reason to be at least concerned?

In any case, I have no doubt that a great many climate change deniers, proponents of nuclear energy, detractors of electric vehicles, and oil company spokespeople hold sincere beliefs about their positions, and their presence here is more than welcome. Factually, it would be kind of boring without you.