I’m thinking about the possible effect on the future of mankind of a president who thinks global warming is a hoax. It’s hard to understand why an educated person can’t grasp the science behind it. It’s pretty simple. Nature spent millions of years turning carbon-based life forms into fossil fuels beneath the surface of the earth. Humans have dug or pumped up much of it and burned it since the beginning of the first Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, releasing the carbon into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a primary greenhouse gas. It traps heat in the atmosphere, which makes the planet habitable. The more carbon dioxide, the more heat will be trapped. Simple, right? This is something we can measure, and it doesn’t take a genius to link warming with the accelerated combustion of fossil fuels.
Climate change deniers charge that the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists who agree that global warming is real and influenced by human activity are part of some vast conspiracy to delude the world just so they can keep receiving research grants. They prefer to cite instead the handful of dissenting scientists who are in the employ of oil and coal companies.
Real scientists believe that the principal side-effect of global warming is climate change, and we are amassing more and more evidence each year to support that belief. This is the part of the science that’s not exact, but we’re seeing the very dramatic changes in weather patterns that have been predicted since the 1980s and perhaps earlier. The increasing severe weather events and polar melting are two of the most visible indicators.
Right now Rick Perry, the Republican primary frontrunner, is staunchly in the denier camp. This alone should disqualify him as a presidential contender, but there he is at the top of the heap — and he could win, if voter anxiety over jobs and the economy doesn’t ease.
Perry isn’t alone. Global warming denial seems to be at the top of the Republican primary platform, with only John Huntsman firmly on the side of common sense. So imagine a world with its leading democracy firmly entrenched in the dark ages of science.
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