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Climate Change: What Would Lincoln Do?

Twenty-five years as a physician-scientist have taught me a few things about science and scientists that help me when viewing the climate change debate. For example, some scientists really are, as frequently portrayed in the media, a bit eccentric. They are often curiosity-driven loners with an insatiable need to explore, to know. Scientists are skeptical of the scientific findings of others, and the best of them are equally distrustful of their own work. Most are truth seekers who know that their legacies will be determined by whether their discoveries withstand the test of time. Some climate change deniers suggest that reports that mankind is contributing to climate change are part of a scientist-led conspiracy. This accusation, to anyone who knows scientists, is unlikely. Getting scientists to agree on anything, even things that seem indisputable, is like herding cats. The idea that they would agree on something they know to be false is preposterous. Other deniers argue that scientists who believe man is contributing to climate change are, despite being in the majority, simply wrong. These skeptics suggest that manmade climate change is simply a “theory” and they rightly point out that heretics who reject conventional wisdom are sometimes ultimately proven correct. There are, however, two problems with this position. The first relates to the word “theory,” which in everyday speech can refer to mere speculation, but to a scientist means something else. Scientific theories are how scientists make sense of the physical world. Scientific theories make testable predictions that, if proven incorrect, cause their revision or abandonment. Most scientists require multiple lines of corroborating evidence before making conclusions, and they perform repeated experiments that pressure test their ideas. Indeed, it is here that heretics play vital roles in science, stimulating scientists to challenge their assumptions and to probe the veracity and robustness of their theories. The second problem is that relying on heretics to make policy decisions can be disastrous. For example, by the 1980s, many lines of evidence indicated that a blood-borne virus caused AIDS. Unfortunately, a few heretics who still disputed this convinced the South African government to abandon antiviral AIDS therapy in the 1990s, leading to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths. Remarkably, Abraham Lincoln foresaw the need for a source of sound and objective scientific advice to avoid such debacles. In 1863, he created the US National Academy of Sciences to provide the government with the best available, data-driven recommendations on scientific matters in an apolitical manner. The National Academy of Sciences has a rigorous vetting process for electing its members and creating scientific reports for stakeholders and policy makers. It, like its G13 counterparts, has issued many reports warning of the dangers of man-made climate change (eg, http://nas-sites.org/americasclimatechoices/events /a-discussion-on-climate-change-evidence-and -causes). Scientists and physicians are both fallible. Wise patients and their loved ones therefore rely on the consensus of the best physicians they can access before making decisions. The same reasoning should apply to policy makers and scientists. Earth’s climate is indeed cyclical, but these cycles occur over millennia and should not be palpable in one’s lifetime. Carbon-based fuels are obviously causing deleterious effects on the environment and our health. They are only “cheap” if one ignores their hidden costs, including costs related to illness, property damage from flooding, and cultural and military costs to ensure their uninterrupted supply. As with any transformative change, weaning off carbon-based fuels will create new winners and losers. While it is unclear why scientists would mount a conspiracy against carbonbased fuels, it is obvious why those who profit from them would obfuscate the truth about climate change. The current debate in the lay press surrounding climate change reminds me, as a cancer physician-scientist, of the confusion around tobacco and cancer that persisted long after the data linking the two were clear. Science and engineering in the United States helps keep us safe. In fact, “technological overmatch” is a central tenet of the Pentagon’s defense strategy. Science and engineering flourished in our country after Sputnik, enhanced by our ability to attract top minds from around the world to complement our own. US policy makers who make denigrating statements about science and scientists when discussing climate change send a message to the scientific community, both here and abroad, that potentially imperils our future safety and prosperity. The United States can either lead or follow with respect to climate change. The United States can make decisions based on science or on expedience and wishful thinking. Winston Churchill allegedly said, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.” If the United States becomes a climate change pariah, we will inevitably be taken to task as the planet warms and sea levels rise. It shouldn’t take an international boycott of our universities and products or some other collective act to get us to do the right thing. Hopefully, President Trump and certain members of Congress will eschew antiintellectual rhetoric on climate change and emulate Lincoln who, in addition to creating the US National Academy of Sciences, admonished: “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” A PIECE OF MY MIND