Climate Change

What if you're wrong? - Chris Wallace of Fox News, speaking to Scott Pruitt of the EPA

 The role that scientific research plays in political developments has not always been very noticeable. I can think of no better example than that of Climate Change - the broad idea that, by several mechanisms, human activity is contributing to increased volatility of global climate and temperatures. Surveys consistently find that about 97% of climate researchers believe that the Earth is warming, and that human activity contributes in some way to such warming. However, polls show that about 47% of Americans do not believe that climate change is caused by human activities and only 49% of Americans believe that most scientists agree that global warming is happening. This is significant because it highlights the slowness of the movement of information in the US, even when real data and studies continue to be done and shared throughout the world.

I believe that it is important that the conversation about climate change continue to happen in the future because I believe that this issue highlights a greater issue facing the country today - a lack of proliferation of good information. It would surprise no one to hear that people will gravitate toward the materials that support their pre-existing ideas about a subject, but as Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers, the theory behind freedom of information is that if people continue to be faced with all sorts of information, good and bad, the best ideas will eventually come to the forefront. In other words, if people hear about every idea, and discuss these ideas openly, then over time people will come to a consensus on that issue. I emphasize this because this is exactly what I think is not happening in this case. People are not being met with all sorts of information, but rather they surround themselves with studies and surveys that agree with them already, and discuss these instead.

I think it is important to note, too, that those that disagree that climate change is man-made, or believe that climate change is not founded in solid science are by no means fools. Rather, these are people who have probably read more on the subject of climate change than an average person, however they read dubious sources and studies that prove themselves correct. Exactly like the issues facing news media in the face of conspiracy theories and fake news, these are people who hungrily seek out information, but due to targeted media, misleading reports,  and a hefty amount of money thrown into producing studies that prove a company's products or methods are not damaging, these people come away from their studying farther away from the truth than they were when they began.