Being Wrong on Climate Change

Let's admit it upfront, everyone has been wrong about at least one thing in their lives.  Now thats part of being human, we make choices based on facts, opinions or some intuition and we can't alway make the right one.

Now most of us would agree that certain decisions are more important than others.  For example things like getting married, having children, buying a house are significant issues that we hope to get right.  Sometimes they are made impetuously or acidentally but we judge tham by the consequences and know these have significant ones.

Deciding what to order at a restaurant or what to buy for dinner at the store is something that we know normally has minor consequences so most of us can do that fairly quickly, although I often am accused of overthinking these myself.

Now when you consider our elected officials, they sometimes let politics decide how they vote on an issue.  Similar to our decisions this may or may not have significant consequences.  For example, despite the clear science, many politicians from "Tobacco" states refused to accept that these products were harmful.  How many died or got ill because of their "politics" is hard to say, but they have to live with what they did.

Looking at our current congress and senate, politics seems to be the only thing they concern themselves with.  Whos the next Supreme Court Justice is one of those issues but honestly, that probably is something that will be resolved politically and while who it is may be extremely significant, the country will survive the delay.

However those who refuse to accept the science behind climate change are a whole different animal.  The science is as conclusive as science can get and the consequences to our future are enormous.  This is not something we can afford to be wrong on and yet we are seeing efforts to address the issue stymied for political reasons.  Whatever short term threat ISIS might present, is nothing compared to the millions of people who will be displaced as the ice sheets continue to melt.

The people who continue to deny this may or may not have to live with the consequences, but others certainly will.