Ninety percent of engineering is an exercise in fact gathering, making assumptions, and defining critical boundaries. The other ten percent probably involve some form of awkward social communication, gadget hunting online, or feet gazing while slowly shuffling about. Kidding. It's really only about five percent of our day. But since our mindset is so fact based, it's hard to turn off that part of our brain in other aspects of our lives.
Take climate change. News stories on the topic, the few that exist before the comics section or at all, still feel compelled to insert words like "alleged" when reporting on the topic. Or they quote quasi-scientists funded by Big Oil or Dirty Coal to provide the opposition view. While I am definitely in support of high caliber journalism, and many big papers (I'm looking at you, Gray Lady) generally write well on climate change, the lack of facts and the abundance of rhetoric is too often unsettling and dangerous. I think if more of the public had the facts in their hands, there would be much less resistance to curbing the climate change activities in our lives. As an engineer who has read many of the reports on the latest climate science, it's sobering to comprehend even the very basic, top-line findings of the reports. It appears that as we learn more about the climate system worldwide, while inputting the latest emissions figures from around the world, that the climate is actually warming at a much faster pace than even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted in 2007!
How could this be? -- Say many of my friends and family (especially so) back in Minnesota who just experienced a record string of cool temperatures in early June. After a few deep breaths and a slow countdown from 10, I'll say that this brings me to my next point. I don't know if people say this to get me worked up, but to put it in the most basic analogy I can, it's like saying the Lakers aren't a good franchise just because they lost a few games. It's folly to conflate a cool stretch of weather as proof that global climate change is not occurring, or to go a step further, as proof that global cooling is happening. Disregarding the utter lack of scientific integrity in that statement, it's also logically faulty. The next time it's 60 degrees in December in Minnesota, then does that prove that global warming is happening?
I think these examples prove that while weather will be weather will be weather, these extremes in temperature, rainfall, and other phenomena could be strong signals that our climate is changing. But it's important to separate the normal statistical variation from the overall trend which, well whatdya know, is exactly what climate science does! Imagine that.
So while part of me wants to either laugh in disbelief or gouge my eyes out and cut my ears off when I hear these arguments, I think it may be part of something deeper than just wanting to piss me off. I think it's either a general distrust of science or a general illiteracy in it. I'm not saying that these people are stupid. I'm just saying that something in our system, whether it's media, politics, or education -- or a combination of all three -- something in our system must change before we as a society value factual data enough to take stock in it. Even when it's staring us in the face. Especially when it's staring us in the face.
As an engineer, I value facts. As a profession, perhaps we do this at the expense of other important considerations, be they political, economic, or social. But that's why we also have to be so smart in communicating the facts, laying out the impacts, and expressing the dangers of inaction. That's why I'm glad we have some brilliant journalists, honest politicians, and concerned citizens (and scientists!) on our side. But we need to be sure that we don't miss the boat on climate change. While a certain level of understanding exists among that relatively small group, we can't assume that it exists elsewhere, even among friends and family.
Now back to the mumbling awkward hello's while staring at my feet that I need to do to make up my required 5 percent for the day...I love engineering!
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