As I was looking through the book, an elderly gentleman began asking me questions about what I was reading. Hence began our conversation about the polar regions. I mentioned about the glacier melts, particularly in the arctic, and this elderly gentleman said, "Yes, but it has happened before." I agreed that periods of warming (and cooling) have occurred in the past before, but what I was concerned about is humans' role in climate change this time around.
That began a rapid change in his attitude toward me. He insisted on all the data and models that would argue against human-induced climate change. I asked this elderly gentleman about the fact that we have 35% more carbon dioxide than we had 150 years ago. Since carbon dioxide absorbs heat and since there is 35% more of it now than 150 years ago in our atmosphere, and since it is humans that have emitted literally more than a few million tons of carbon dioxide, wouldn't this suggest that human have played a role in our present climate change? This elderly gentleman told me in an agitated voice that carbon dioxide plays a minor role in our present climate change, and he knows because he is a physicist.
To this, I smiled and said that although I am a mere chemist, I have read some about climate change models, and see how complex the models are, and how interdependent and sensitive many of the variables are. He paused, looked me in the eye, and nodded.
So, we agree that there is a lot of data scientists have gathered and examined, and that there is uncertainty in both the data and the models? I looked him in the eye as I ask him this, and he nods.
Well, I have ben thinking about my effect on our environment from a practical and moralistic point lately, I told this elderly gentleman. I see that practically, burning fossil fuel has really not done this world much good -- all of the harm we have done to habitats through extraction, production, and spills to all the runoff we have due to our roads to the obesity-related problems we have due to our dependency on cars. And I have looked at it from the moralistic point of view -- do I have a right to use so much resource on our finite planet when I am a mere one in 6,800,000 people? This elderly gentleman's eye and mouth softened.
I went on to tell him how I have reduced my driving down to 4,000 miles per YEAR, and I feel better for walking and biking more, and have greater connections to my community for all the carpooling I have done. He stares at me for a moment, and then said "That I agree with."
At this point, my two daughters show up, and give me the "we are ready to go" look. The elderly gentleman sees my daughters and said to me with some sadness, "Oh, you did not come alone." As we said our good-byes, he told me that I reminded him of his daughter. (And I look nothing like him, so I was very pleased that he saw the inner me and not the outer me.)
This occurred a few months ago, but I have thought quite a bit about this. Part of the reason I think about this meeting is that this elderly gentleman is the first "scientist" I have met to disagree with the general scientific community's consensus that there is overwhelming evidence that our present climate change is largely human-induced. But the main reason I think about this encounter is that I was rather proud of myself for not getting emotional about his insistence on examining certain data and certain models, while ignoring others. That is a very unscientific thing to do, and my old self would have been just as unscientific by arguing for the models that made sense to me, while not listening to what he had to say, and how he was saying it. I would have forgotten to examine the larger picture and hence failed to meet him on common ground.
We must find common ground if we are to avoid greater environmental crisis. And the only way to find common ground is to listen to each other, agree to disagree on the things we cannot resolve, and then look at what are truly important to us --- such as justice and community and good health and family, and agree to work together toward the things we do find most precious in life.
