When Pope Francis made some recent statements about climate change, some suggested he leave science to the scientists.
Isn't that sort of like leaving driving up to auto-manufacturing engineers? At what point do we grow interested in science?
Others dismiss this as a lazy, cheap attempt to take no action in response to global warming. If it's "fake science," then we can continue to burn fossil fuels, and not make the expensive leap to clean/green energy. Seeing how nearly everyone uses these fuels in some way, it should be nearly everyone's responsibility to learn more and be part of solutions.
I don’t see that there are only the two extreme choices: bulling ahead as we’ve done for about 100 years, burning fuel as if there were an endless supply, or instantly giving up fuels that provide heat, air conditioning, transportation of goods and people and a ton of petroleum-based products. There must be a middle ground.
More importantly, there is no reason why technical terminology or complex science should be reasons for us to leave our energy future to specialists. We don’t seem to think of football as too technical to make us want to buy tickets, or law enforcement as too complex for us to know how we’d like to be treated by police; why would we doubt out ability to learn more about fuel and energy?
No opinion I’ve heard or read about Planned Parenthood or pregnancy in the past couple of months was accompanied by the notion that pregnancy or health science is too complicated for most of us to understand. No one seems to question their own qualifications to give an opinion, as it’s seen as a moral question, despite very few of us having a real depth of knowledge of the medical subjects involved.
There might be plenty of division on how and what can be funded (or de-funded) and discussion of political or political priorities, but there is no discussion about lack of technical knowledge — even though medical folks spend years in school, studying, among other things, modern scientific terms and hundreds of years of complex OBGYN history, economics and sociology. Most of us feel like we know enough in this area to have opinions.
Yet, somehow, whether we take oil from the ground or find better ways to harness solar and wind energy are too complicated — even though global warming would affect more of us directly than some of Planned Parenthood’s issues.
We don’t defer to scientists when it comes to roads, bridges, hi-tech gadgets or airplanes; we know safety, cost and efficiency are all important. A STEM Council meeting held in Newton last week reinforced the idea that science is for everyone, whether you are an engineer, an artist or a young person whose path in life is still evolving.
We don’t defer to scientists on what types of food to eat — most of us can figure out that moderation, a balanced diet and cardiovascular exercise are important, and that enriched flour, processed foods and high amounts of refined sugar and fat are basically bad for us.
We don’t even defer to scientists on how to treat the planet. We basically know it’s better to leave an environment alone, and we don’t really need much science to know that ripping out trees and plants and replacing them with polluted water and air are going to ruin the world we live in.
In fact, we don’t even think we need scientists to interpret our weather maps anymore. “Show me where computers think the storm is headed, and how fast the wind’s blowing; I’ll take it from here.”
If we are going to simply rely on science for data, and not for advice, we had better start using that data to draw “non-scientist” conclusions.
Contact Jason W. Brooks at
641-792-3121 ext. 6532
or jbrooks@newtondailynews.com