People who add "gate" on the ends of certain headlines...

...are idiots. For instance, the cringe-inducing headline, "climate-gate." Apparently someone hacked into the email accounts of a British climate research center, and these candid emails somehow prove climate change is false. The "gate" thing is just... it's done. (It's a tired reference to the Watergate scandal of President Nixon for those don't know.) It's like there's some mass coverup and these emails prove scientists have all been lying to us for some reason.

I don't care what the rest of the world does, but I don't understand why it's so hard to find another Mormon who gets this stuff...



Anyway, I'm no scientist but I understand how to read. While I haven't read the one-thousand or so pilfered e-mails, I trust others who have read them and reported that while they prove scientists can sometimes be smarmy a-holes, they don't disprove climate change. From what I have read it appears that the general consensus amongst the scientific community is that climate change is real, and humans are influencing it.

I'm going to stop right there, because I know that last sentence is already a cause for argument.

Some people out there say that no, scientists aren't even in agreement over anything and really it's the liberal media that claims scientists agree. Again, I haven't researched the opinions of scientists exhaustively, but I have found enough trusted sources that make this same claim, and so I believe it. For example: Politifact.org and Factcheck.org have both stated something to the effect that there is a consensus among scientists on the reality of man-made climate change. Both those sites pride themselves on being un-biased, apolitical entities. Heck, if you want proof look at a poll conducted by CNN and this article by Fox News. They both report that most scientists agree. The American Association for the Advancement of Science, The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the American Meteorological Society also say that there is a consensus amongst most scientists. (There is a well-documented and fairly long list of scientific organizations that agree that climate change is real and human-influenced in this Wikipedia Article.)

I understand that SOME scientists don't believe climate change is caused by man, and that some don't even believe climate change is taking place. My assertion is that, from what I've read, MOST scientists believe climate change is real and caused by man.

Can we at least agree on this?

The reason I'm laboring this point is that this is one of the (main) reasons I personally accept man-made climate change as a fact. I understand that just because lots of scientists believe something it doesn't mean it's true, but how is this issue different from so many others? There are many things I believe about the world at large that I have not researched on my own but that I accept as fact. I guess that might sound really naive, but isn't it how most people function?

At what point can we really know anything is even true? There are people who believe the earth is flat, and they have seemingly good science to back them up on it. There's lots of people in America that believe 9/11 was perpetrated by the U.S. Government (if this is you, go here). There are people that think autism is somehow linked to vaccines. Yet, most experts agree that the earth is round, 9/11 was a terrorist plot, and vaccines are actually good for you.

9/11 Conspiracy Theories 'Ridiculous,' Al Qaeda Says
***

In this brave new world of unlimited information and opinion, it's actually quite easy to find people who believe in pretty much anything. With just a few clicks you can start making it your life's work to get people to stop drinking McDonald's milk shakes because they contain melted plastic. It doesn't matter that millions of people disagree with that "fact." With the internet, anyone can write and publish anything! Even me!

***

If all these educated men and women are lying to the world about climate change, the next question that naturally arises is "Why?" What's their motivation for lying to us? I heard some of my sophomores talking about how Al Gore was making bank off of selling carbon credits. Is that what this is all about? Al Gore is orchestrating all this to get rich?

I don't know how much money the "clean energy" people have, but don't you think big oil and coal might possibly have a bit more? If it's all a hoax to make money for Al Gore and the clean energy people, how on EARTH have big oil companies not exposed them yet? Their resources are unimaginably vast! They own entire countries! How on earth could measly start-up green corporations even hope to stand up against the leviathan of big oil?! It's madness! They would be obliterated by big oil if they were just making crap up to get rich!

And then, what about scientists and researchers who have no connection with Al Gore? How do they benefit from lying to the world? Using this logic, ask yourself another question: what do manufacturers of fossil fuels stand to lose if climate change really is caused by them? And why is it that studies funded by oil companies tend to show that the climate is not affected by C02? Their conclusions are different from almost all the others! Doesn't this seem the least bit suspicious? Consider this quote: "It appears from the details of the [e-mail] scandal that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change." Who made such a bold statement? Saudi Arabian climate negotiator Mohammad Al-Sabban. Weird. Why would a member of the Saudi government make such a sweeping statement about climate change based on some e-mails he never read?

I realize we can play the "who stands to benefit from this?" game all day. (For example: the big pharmaceutical companies don't want you to know that autism is caused by their expensive vaccines! That's why they suppress this information!)

I know, I know, there are lots of people who don't believe climate change that AREN'T connected with fossil fuel profit, but I kind of suspect that they just think this way because of Fox News and talk radio. What if George Bush and Rush Limbaugh had been the first to come out years ago and tell the world about the dangers of climate change? Would the deniers still be denying?

***

What bothers me most about all this is how many LDS people are opposed to even the idea of man-made climate change. It seems like something we should understand better than any other people, and yet, we don't. There's nothing in the church doctrine about opposing climate change, and I don't remember President Monson or the general authorities issuing any statements on it, and yet the consensus among church members is that climate change is a myth.

Weren't we all taught since our youth that in the last days, the earth itself would experience great upheavals, storms, earthquakes, hurricaines, floods, and all manner of calamities?

Don't we also learn in church that the Lord doesn't necessarily just destroy things Himself, but allows the fallen state of human nature to kick in and do it for Him? Jeremiah and Lehi and other prophets prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem in 600 B.C. Then, it got destroyed. It wasn't God Himself who came down with a bazooka and a Abrams tank! He allowed invading armies to come in and wreck the place. Same thing happened when Christ prophesied the destruction of various cities. He didn't come back with a flamethrower; they got leveled by other military forces. This is also how blessings often work, is it not? God doesn't necessarily come down and give us stuff, He works through the good will of others.

That's another reason why climate change makes so much sense to me! We've been told for millenia that the world will eventually end in great calamities. Isn't it perfect that the industrial revolution, which brought unprecedented wealth and ushered in a new age of light and truth (and subsequently much sin and darkness) will be the very thing that causes the earth to destroy itself? All that progress came with a price, and now that we are very comfortable with this quality of life we refuse to do anything to sacrifice even a little bit! So we'll keep pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, the earth will keep retaining heat, and then ocean currents will change, weather patterns will change, crops will die, famine will ensue, and we'll have a mass die-off. Lovely.

Maybe the problem is that Mormons know the end of the world is inevitable, and so there's no point in even trying to curb emissions? But if that's the case, we should know better. Yes, there's always sin and pain in the world. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make it better. At the very least, we can admit that it's actually happening and that it will end the world. I realize we are a peculiar people, but we don't have to look like such idiots on this, agreeing with whatever conservative news tells us to believe.

Here's something from President Ezra Taft Benson:
In Matthew, chapter 24, we learn of ‘famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes. . . .’ (Matt. 24:7.) The Lord declared that these and other calamities shall occur. These particular prophecies seem not to be conditional. The Lord, with his foreknowledge, knows that they will happen. Some will come about through man’s manipulations; others through the forces of nature and nature’s God, but that they will come seems certain.
- Ezra Taft Benson "Prepare Ye" Oct. 1973 General Conference

Note how he said some will come about through "man's manipulations." I realize he may not have been talking about climate change, but he understood that the calamities could just as easily be brought upon ourselves. Also, he does say that they're certain. So maybe we can't necessarily stop them, but can't we at least acknowledge the possibility that climate change IS indeed happening?

Here's a great quote from President Joseph Fielding Smith regarding the calamities at the end of the world:

"Talk to them; hear what they have to say—these learned men of the world. ‘We have had worse times,’ they say. ‘You are wrong in thinking there are more calamities now than in earlier times. There are not more earthquakes, the earth has always been quaking, but now we have facilities for gathering the news which our fathers did not have. These are not signs of the times; things are not different from former times.’ And so the people refuse to heed the warnings the Lord so kindly gives to them, and thus they fulfill the scriptures.”
- Joseph Fielding Smith, General Conference Report, Apr. 1966, pp. 13, 15.

Holy crap! Doesn't that sound just like the people who go around saying how we're actually in the end of an ice age, and how things are just as cold as they've always been, etc?

I have this personal theory that people will put their political beliefs even before their religious ones. I can't prove this, but I think that if the prophet himself came out and said that climate change is caused by man, people in the church would not listen. They'd find ways around what he said, or make excuses. It wouldn't matter. All that matters is what Fox News and talk radio say. Their prophets are Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity and whatever other political entertainer is currently popular. I don't mean to pick on Republican/conservative types, I really don't. This just seems to be an issue where I don't agree with them.

***

So what if it really is all a bunch of B.S.? The scientists are all completely wrong/lying to us, and the world is fine. Or what if yes, the climate is changing, but there's nothing we can do about it because it's completely natural and out of our control?

(I stole this, by the way)

Scenario 1: Climate change is fake and we do nothing about it.
Awesome! Non-crisis averted, everything is fine!

Scenario 2: Climate change is fake and we make all sorts of crazy laws and stuff.
This sucks because it will hurt our economy and potentially lose everyone a lot of money.

Scenario 3: Climate change is real and we make all sorts of crazy laws and stuff.
Awesome! Crisis averted (hopefully!) everything is going to be okay!

Scenario 4: Climate change is real and we do nothing about it.
Mass destructions, dead zones in the ocean, hurricanes, droughts, immense famine, the end-times, irreversible damage to the planet, mass die-off of human race.

So from a "risk assessment" point of view, which is more risky? Scenario 2 or scenario 4? That's what it comes down to. If it's all a hoax, we will lose money and our economy will suffer, but economies can recover eventually, right? If it's real and we do nothing, we basically kill ourselves all off.

I do believe the world will eventually end. I take the scriptures quite literally in this sense. Does this mean I should hasten the end along?

I won't lie: I really hope climate change is all B.S., personally. Because this crap scares me, and I don't want to be held responsible in the afterlife for doing nothing while thousands died needlessly. So don't think I have a personal interest in climate change. I just wish more of us used critical thinking skills, or could give me answers to these questions.