You’re describing what James Hansen and others have described as ‘scientific reticence’, which tragically has done almost as much harm to the climate debate as outright denialism.
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Fine, we’ll concede that drunk-drivers kill pedestrians on roads, but how sensitive are those people, really, to those 2-ton automobiles?
‘Extremely Likely’ Majority Of Global Warming Effects Are Man-Made
Trump: This only confirms what I always knew: Global Warming IS a man-made Chinese Hoax.
Burning consumes oxygen.
Humans need oxygen to live.
What about the danger of fossil fuels don’t you get, conservatives?
Ha, it could be.
But this is what I was thinking of:
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No, it has in no way done as much damage. What does the damage is that people don’t understand the difference between how scientists talk and how the average person talks. Take the word theory…to the average person it means an idea, but to a scientist it is the best explanation for a physical phenomenon. So, gravity is a theory, which means it is how the universe works. We do try to explain how this works to people, but science talk is a very small slice of the world, so it gets lost in the yelling; and we also get to deal with people who play on the common definitions (“it’s only a theory!”) instead of being honest in their discussions of science.
And, this is exactly how it should be…every theory in history has been shown to have flaws and been replaced by a new theory, and that will likely happen to all of the ones we have today since they all have flaws. Ironically, the people who are the hardest on scientific theories are scientists themselves, because we are constantly poking holes in our understanding in order to improve it. We have to discuss what we do honestly, and that includes discussing the flaws and making sure we don’t over-promise or over-claim. We can’t do anything about dishonest brokers who take advantage of our honesty, except explain to people how the universe really works and why the brokers are liars. Scientists have wanted to remain neutral in politics, because science does not follow a political party, but now we’re becoming more active because of the threats to reality that the Republicans are producing.
So, blaming scientists for not screaming that the Earth is warming is blaming the wrong people, especially since we are actually screaming that in our own words. Keep your fingers pointed at the liars, they are the problem.