In the swirling maelstrom of popular opinion, it is a little known fact that global warming is the scientific consensus. Not just global warming and climate change as a part of the Earth’s natural climate cycles (of which there have been many, and will continue to be many), but global warming induced by an increase in atmospheric CO², primarily released into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels.

Is global warming a fact? Well, not exactly. It isn’t anymore a fact than Darwinian evolution, or Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity. Global warming is a theory. And like other well established scientific theories, it has been constructed with skepticism and extreme care: with intense methodological precision and an overwhelming body of empirically verifiable evidence.

As with any theory, there will always be nay-sayers and skeptics who refuse to believe in the carefully constructed theories of dedicated science professionals. Case in point is a recent, somewhat contentious exchange between myself and the blogger at 7.62mm Justice.

As with most things in the climate change arena, the issue of uncertainty is addressed most eloquently by Tim Flannery in his book The Weather Makers:

…yet science is about hypotheses, not truths, and no one can absolutely know the future. But this does not stop us from making forecasts and modifying our behavior accordingly. If, for example, we wait to see if an ailment is indeed fatal, we will do nothing until we are dead. Instead, we take medication or whatever else the doctor dispenses, despite the fact that we may survive regardless. And when it comes to more mundane matters, uncertainty hardly deters us: We spend large sums on our children’s education with no guarantee of a good outcome, and we buy shares with no promise of return. Excepting death and taxes, certainty simply does not exist in our world, and yet we often manage our lives in the most efficient manner. I cannot see why our response to climate change should be any different.

Think for example, of the threat of an avian flu pandemic. So concerned is the President about this possibility, that on November 1st 2005 he asked Congress for $7.1 billion to prepare the nation for a potential outbreak. Yet, one must wonder, how at risk are we of a flu pandemic? Have we reached a point of scientific “certainty”, so that we can be assured that our tax dollars are being spent to avert a disaster that is sure to happen if we don’t act now? Hardly.

The President’s call to action to curb the risks of a flu pandemic, and his shocking inaction on the much broader threat of global warming on the basis of “lack of certainty”, reveals a double-standard of mammoth proportions. It exposes a man willing to funnel billions of dollars in subsidies to the corporate elite in preparation for a “pandemic”, yet unwilling to preserve the well-being of future generations for fear of betraying his friends in the hydrocarbon industry.