One More Round on Climate Change

Rick says: 

It is a mistake -- that is, it is not consistent with "sound science and economics" -- to take as not-to-be-examined-ly given any particular scenario with respect to climate change's effects, causes, costs, extent, etc.  Second, to propose the preceeding sentence is not to be a "denier", anti-science, etc., etc.  Third, it would be equally "sinful" to engage in foolish, harmful, damaging over-reaction, or misplaced reaction, as it would to engage in foolish, harmful, damaging under-reaction.  Fourth, point number (4), above, needs to be understood in such a way that "protecting" includes "not imposing upon the poor the costs and harms that could be associated with growth-stifling over-reactions.

I think (1) has been "examined" and is now largely uncontested within the scientific community.  I'm not talking about the precise contours of the problem or precisely how to solve it, which remain subject to substantial, although certainly bounded, exploration.  I'm talking about the existence of the problem and its potential for catastrophic impact, both of which a great many people continue to deny (again, see the comments at dotCommonweal and on just about any of the hard-right web sites for examples of this).  Anyone who suggests that the fact of a human impact on climate is up for debate OR who asserts with any confidence that climate change will certainly NOT be catastrophic is indeed anti-science in a way that is very difficult to square with traditional Catholic views of human reason.  Those ships have long since sailed, and wasting time on them is just a distraction from the real issue:  how (not whether) to respond.   

In addition, I completely disagree that it is EQUALLY sinful to take preemptive action now that might turn out to be overkill in order to reduce the potential for a catastrophic result.  The two end-points are simply not symmetrical.  One (the overreaction) involves marginally lower standards of living in our lifetime and in the near future.  The other (the underreaction) involves the potential for the end of our civilization.  I was going to add a (5) to my suggestion above, which would have involved some endorsement of a precautionary principle, and Rick's response has now provided me with the opportunity to make that amendment.  For that very reason, I think certain responses (e.g., voluntary reductions in carbon emissions) are so facially implausible and inadequate as to be almost per se not in good faith and inconsistent with (1) and (2). 

I agree with Rick's gloss on (4), but that just goes to the distribution of costs of responding, not whether it is wrong to take a precautionary approach to responding.  I agree that we in the developed world will have to bear the lion's share of these costs, not just because we put most of the additional CO2 into the atmosphere to begin with but also because we are far better equipped to bear those costs.

On the contraception part of my response below, if the point of Rick's correspondent was simply that a proper concern for climate change could be improved by a theologically correct view on contraception, then my apologies for the misreading.  That's not how I understood it.  But my response still stands insofar as it focuses attention on the relative importance of the two issues.  Setting aside the fact that I disagree on the merits of the contraception issue, the point just seems irrelevant and/or trivial.  It's like saying:  "who's more "green," the person who understands the threat posed by climate change or the person who understands it AND is a vegetarian?"  If we were facing a world in which there was a moral and political consensus on the need to act on climate change, then I would agree that discussions of how to improve on that baseline would be worth having  But we're far from that happy place.  And given that, in terms of priorities for the human race, I'd rather have a planet full of people wrong on contraception and right on climate change than vice versa.  There's no reason to choose between the two in the abstract.  On the other hand, given limited resources and the consequences we face, I think the Church perhaps could stand to spend a bit more time talking about its views on the latter.