Bill Nye, better known as "The Science Guy" and a member of the Skeptics Society, was on the Larry King Show this past Friday night, along with a number of participants who believed in UFOs, extra-terrestrials or both.
When Nye said that while he did not doubt that they thought they might have seen some unexplained phenomena in the sky, it was a considerable stretch, according to Nye, to assume or believe they had seen vessels carrying aliens from another world. At this point, some of the participants became angry and directed personal attacks at The Science Guy.
We humans love to believe in spirits and various gods. It's part of our very nature as Homo sapiens. We generally however don't take kindly to people who ask us to see things as they are, and not as we believe or feel. It is often seen as an attack on our basic human instincts.
Of course, at the same time, science doesn't say that these six or seven individuals couldn't have seen real space ships or extra-terrestrials, only that given what we currently know about the laws of physics, etc., it's highly unlikely.
It strikes me as akin to the climate change debate. One has only to read some of the comments in the Kansas City Star (or any paper in the country) for example when articles appear on climate change.
Many of these comments can range from outright silliness--scientific conspiracy, socialism, so-and-so novelist doesn't agree--to the anonymous haters who oftentimes sound unhinged. Al Gore is a particular target of this bunch, but we'd need several psychiatrists to analyze all the reasons for the venom.
Climate change is complex and that's part of the problem. Added to this have been the fossil fuel industry and its front groups attempting to create confusion among a public that is essentially clueless and scientifically illiterate.
Last but certainly not least climate change raises the distinct possibility that we humans may have to change our lives dramatically in the near future, not something most of us want to contemplate.
For those policy wonks with a scientific background, you might want to take a look at Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing. Of particular interest is a section entitled "How do Human Activities Contribute to Climate Change and How do They Compare With Natural Influences."
Beyond the assorted calculations, which caused me to glaze over, the section reinforces the complexity for climate scientists in identifying all the factors that affect climate.
It is little wonder that many climate scientists have difficulty explaining the subject to the general public (a story in itself), which sometimes makes it easy for the deniers to sow confusion and doubts. Water vapor for example is one of those non-issues frequently made into a pseudo-issue by those who deny climate change.
Before the industrial age water vapor was the most important greenhouse gas and it helps maintain the average global temperature.
But there are greenhouse gases and there are greenhouse gases. Methane is some 20 times more potent than CO2 and produces approximately one and a half times as much warming as "natural" ones.
Scientists are nevertheless interested in how water vapor contributes to positive and negative feedbacks, even though water vapor cycles in and out of the atmosphere frequently, supposedly every 10 days.
A few other sites some people may be interested in are Energy Trends to 2030, Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator, and Short Term Energy Outlook.
One of the important things to remember in all of this is that a sizeable number of people will deny climate change regardless of what is put in front of them.
We ought not to waste any time worrying about it. The past eight years should be the impetus to move forward aggressively on climate change, which also includes a first world energy policy. We know how to flush the toilet once and for all.
While I largely agree with Mr Winch, he is begging the question of what the sensativity of the climate to elevated levels of greenhouse gas is, and therefore how agressively we should move forward with a first world energy policy. I believe that ecosystem collapse has been underestimated:
"Few seem to realise that the present IPCC models predict almost unanimously that by 2040 the average summer in Europe will be as hot as the summer of 2003 when over 30,000 died from heat. By then we may cool ourselves with air conditioning and learn to live in a climate no worse than that of Baghdad now. But without extensive irrigation the plants will die and both farming and natural ecosystems will be replaced by scrub and desert. What will there be to eat? The same dire changes will affect the rest of the world and I can envisage Americans migrating into Canada and the Chinese into Siberia but there may be little food for any of them." --Dr James Lovelock's lecture to the Royal Society, 29 Oct. '07
There is a very inexpensive simple way to immediately cool the Earth: just put a small amount of aerosol into the air to dim the sun. We won't be able to stop rapid ecosystem collapse without geoengineering.