Will we understand what happens to us?

I had a conversation about climate change denial with an older, wiser friend a little while ago. He didn't know much about it, so I told him how the public increasing believes that either the earth is not warming, or that it is warming, but we aren't to blame. I said this was the result of a well-organized and well funded propaganda campaign to sow confusion as to what scientists are actually saying.

I thought that eventually people would figure out that the climate was changing, and that we were causing it, decades in the future. By that point, runaway feedback effects would mean it would be too late to do much about it. It may already be too late now.

He had a different take. He told me about visiting the Galapagos. It was then, he said, that he realised just what effects we humans have on our environment. The whole world used to be full of large animals, but now they only remain in large numbers in those areas which we don't use for our civilizational purposes.

But by and large, people don't realise this. They look at things around them, and take that for normal. The same could well happen with a changing climate. It's changing rapidly by the geologic standards, but its still a fairly gradual shift as measured by a human lifetime. And we humans can forget how things were just a few short years ago. Does anyone remember what life was like before Google? I think it's quite possible that the climate will be changing, measurably, yet people will be quite uncertain about it.

If people don't understand what scientists are saying now, who's to say they will in the future? We can already measure the melting of the ice in the Arctic. If this doesn't convince people now, why should we be so sure future events will convince them? Toronto had a very warm winter this year. There was very little snow. The children of today and tomorrow may well simply accept this as the new normal.

Most people don't have the tools to understand scientific data, and to figure out what is credible information and what is not. People are increasingly inclined to disbelieve authorities of all kinds, including scientists. Let's not be idealistic about this. People absorbed the past findings of science largely on the weight of authority, not the way they're "supposed" to (ie. learning about the scientific method, and judging for themselves). Some smart looking nerd in a lab coat said it, so it's true. It often was true, because the things the guy in the lab coat said were informed by the results of the scientific process.

But this was a fragile foundation. People are not so trusting of scientific authority anymore. This is not because they have developed a better method, or are judging the facts for themselves. They simply don't believe authorities as they used to. In some ways this is good, in others bad. But one of the bad effects is that when scientists do figure things out using the scientific method, people are less inclined to accept their results, particularly if they're inconvenient for their pre-conceived beliefs, or hold unsettling implications for their way of life.

We who accept the evidence for anthropogenic climate change tend to believe that in the long run, everyone will come to understand the evidence as well. It's not so clear to me that this will inevitably happen.

Edit: This process is not limited to climate change. On most topics, you'll find that the conventional wisdom is often either inadequate or flat out wrong. I think this will only increase in the future. Contrary to initial expectations, the internet has proven to be excellent at spreading disinformation. While it is incredibly useful for informing yourself if used correctly, misinformation actually seems to be rising on a number of topics in the "information" age.