The Negligents

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Crichton's scientific points against climate change are anemic. The strength of his appeal on the issue is that he questions the authority of the scientific establishment. He appears to be genuinely concerned that a cabal of powerful professors and bureaucrats has silenced scientific debate in order to hoard grant money for themselves and to soak in the glory of the NPR circuit.

The cabal complaint is strange for at least two reasons. First, if Crichton had written 30 years ago then his hero would be facing "intimidation" in the other direction. Scientific consensus, such as it existed, was against anthropogenic warming, and it was the proponents of the theory who spoke out against conventional wisdom. In fact, it was just last year that Jim Hansen, a NASA scientist, was silenced by political appointees within the agency after he reported some alarming results about anthropogenic climate effects. Second, the surest way to scientific stardom is to tear down an existing understanding. Even if economic and political powers really did align behind the theory of climate change -- which they most certainly have not -- the cabal would leak badly as curious and ambitious young scientists sought to prove their star value by demolishing the fabricated consensus. "Oh no!" say the Negligees, "they're much too afraid of losing their grant money." The claim that research grants cause more corruption than oil money is, shall we say, non-intuitive.

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I'd like to pitch the following story to Michael Crichton. Imagine a world in which wealth and power depend on a magical substance found deep under the earth. Then, imagine that this substance was found to cause floods, disease, and severe drought. Fearing popular retribution, the wealthy and powerful deny the findings. Studies on the danger of the substance are cast into doubt, their authors are charged with alarmism and corruption. The public is confused -- and reassured. Of course, all the while the harmful qualities of the substance continue to act, with increasingly costly effects. Members of the corporations insulate themselves from the danger with canny investments that perpetuate their extreme wealth. Even when the worst predictions are recognized, the propaganda machine continues to churn, assuring victims that their fate was natural and unavoidable.

I know; it's a crazy story. It is also the point at which the analogy between Creationism and climate Negligism breaks down. As far as I can tell, Creationists aren't profiteers. The key advocates of Negligism are. Profiteers invented the idea, and profiteers ensure its publicity. In legal terms, these are the "willful" Negligents. Then there are those who profit indirectly, whose cynical stance on climate change has won them notoriety and influence. These scientists and authors could be described as "carelessly" or "neglectfully" Negligent. Finally, there are the dupes. Hobbyists, politicians, and contrarians who believe the propaganda and use whatever influence they have to further the profiteers' agenda. Call them the "inattentive" Negligents.

The analogy between the science of evolution and the science of anthropogenic climate change also has its limits. Perhaps most important, the two fields differ in the nature of discovery. Evolutionists enjoy nothing more than confirming their discoveries with tangible evidence. Scientists of anthropogenic climate change, in contrast, need to use their discoveries to stop further physical confirmation of the theory. The more evidence we allow to accumulate, the less we'll be able to do about it. The Negligents know this. Every article that takes them seriously, every conference that invites them to speak, every policy brief that includes their testimony, is a victory for the profiteers at the expense of society. We need real debates: debates about priorities, about opportunities, and about mitigation. The illusion of scientific disagreement acts to postpone these debates, and to drop climate change from the political agenda. It's criminal negligence.

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