See Me Squeegee

Not long ago, an old friend posted a meme on Facebook that essentially said “until Democrats stop driving cars and flying on airplanes, they can’t talk to me me about global warming.”   Which struck me as odd for a few reasons:

1. It just seemed needlessly aggressive (this wasn’t days before an election or anything) and sort of stupidly misplaced (as a Democrat concerned about global warming, my position isn’t “everyone must halt all activities that consume energy,” but rather “the government should both invest in technologies and create policies that encourage cleaner, more-renewable energy”).
2. This came *after* one of 2017’s major hurricanes – events that scientists believe are intensified and made more likely by warmer temperatures – forced him and his family to evacuate their home.  Global warming (if you choose to “believe in it”) had just been a threat to his family, his young children, his home…  Shouldn’t those events have at least (this isn’t a word but I’m going with it) “disemboldened” his anti-environmental advocacy?

Like anyone confronted with an aggressive social media post from the other side I muttered a curse word or two, thought about angrily replying and then remembered that no one ever wins an argument in the Facebook comments, thought for a split second about unfriending or blocking him, and then walked away and let it stay in my head all day.  And upon further reflection, what really stands out is this:

I just don’t understand the position of climate deniers at all.

I really just can’t fathom it – and in particular the passion and zeal with which they pursue it.  I guess I could see just never having learned about it, or having heard that it was a hoax and wanting to learn more about it (this reminds me of the time my adorable young sister held my hand while we were standing looking at the ocean and, knowing that you’re supposed to say deep things at times like that, asked “Brian, do you believe in crocodiles?” – she legitimately wasn’t sure whether they were real or a mystical creature, and having suspicions on either side wanted to know more.  Note – she did not say “until you and your loser teenage friends start wearing body armor next to large southern bodies of water you can shut right the fuck up about crocodiles.”  Alas, this was a few years before Fox News became mainstream…).

But seriously – I just don’t get the zeal behind seeing the majority of the global scientific community agree that “this could be a massive problem that threatens our very way of life,” hearing fellow countrymen and neighbors say “we really ought to do something about this to protect our cities, homes, and childrens’ futures,” and then smugly posting online “it was cold yesterday, losers – wipe off your frozen tears and shut the hell up about global warming.”

And I guess what it comes down to for me is that:

1. I don’t understand the risk/reward on climate denial, and
2. I actually don’t think there’s any risk in believing in climate change.

I’m genuinely curious – there are, of course, political debates that I get angry about, but on this one I really just don’t know.  Here’s what I don’t understand:

The Risk/Reward of Climate Denial

When I was in my 20s, I had a group of friends, a handful of which loved the game “Credit Card Roulette.”  Essentially the game goes this way – when the bill comes for a group dinner, everyone puts in a credit card, someone shuffles them up, and they ask the waitress to blindly pick one card.  That person pays the whole bill.  And I *hated* Credit Card Roulette.  Why?  The reward just didn’t seem to justify the risk – as a 24-year old making maybe $40,000, paying for a sensible $20-25 meal out once or twice a month wasn’t a big deal, but getting stuck with a $300 bill was a big deal – that might mean staying in a few Saturday nights, or saving less money for grad school.  Winning wouldn’t impact me much – I had already mentally committed to paying for dinner and had chosen moderately-priced items anyway – but losing would have a major downside.  Plus, as it always goes, the guys who loved Credit Card Roulette were the ones who would pay the $2 extra to upgrade their sides, would order drinks with premium spirits, etc.

Even if Climate Change were a small probability (science suggests that it’s not), denying climate change seems like a massive game of Credit Card Roulette with imbalanced stakes.  Because suppose climate change is real – if we don’t protect against it, people run the risk of losing their homes, we run the risk of majorly impacting the food supply, we could see major cities and highways completely flooded over by rising sea levels.  It’s like playing Credit Card Roulette with a thousand oil executives who are all drinking vintage bottles of liquor and wine, getting truffles with their surf and turf, ordering off a secret cigar menu…all while you enjoy your soup-and-sandwich combo off the value menu.  You could lose everything, and you have little to gain.

Because that’s the other side of the risk/reward of climate denial.  The risks seem huge – in reality, it’s like you have to put in every credit and debit card you’ve ever owned, and the thousand oil executives get to choose one and have it play against you.  And they tipped the waitress to feel for the heavy Amex Black and pick another one.  If you’re just playing the probabilities, the 95+% of scientists who agree that climate change is real suggest that, yep, you’re probably picking up the tab here.  But even if you want to flip the odds to maybe 10 or 20% like a classic game of Credit Card Roulette at a small table of friends, remember that they’re running up a massive, massive steaks, lobsters, and premium spirits tab, and you only stand to win…

What?

What do you stand to win?

What do you gain if climate change is a hoax?  

Again, I’m genuinely curious.  I guess it’s something – maybe lower gas prices?  Maybe your Exxon/Mobil stock grows a little faster, or better maintains its value?  Maybe you get to tell a picture of Al Gore to go fuck itself?

Now for an oil tycoon the gain is obvious: the more the world uses oil, the richer you get.  But for the average person?  I guess if you’re heavily invested in oil stocks you’d have something to gain (or to “not lose” from a progressive environmental agenda).  But if your investment portfolio is 100% in oil futures, then 1) your financial advisor is an idiot…diversify!, and 2) you have time to change that. (Again, diversify!)  As oil stocks swoon, stock prices should rise not only for alternative energies, but also for companies that use lots of energy as their energy costs also fall.  So I don’t totally buy that one for the average person.

Gas prices?  Yeah I could see a progressive agenda creating disincentives via gas taxes, and using those taxes to pay for solar and wind subsidies.  But 1) gas taxes are generally very unpopular so there’s certainly no guarantee of that.  And 2) policy should give incentives for electrics, hybrids, carpooling, public transportation.  So I doubt there’s a danger of your monthly transportation energy bill doubling or tripling.

And if anything, a plan to combat climate change is one that, in the long run, should lower energy prices.  That plan should subsidize wind, solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric energy, and create targets for utilities to raise the percentages of those renewable sources among their energy supply.  That plan should subsidize the installation of electric vehicle charging stations, and create targets for automakers to increase the average miles-per-gallon and percentage of electric vehicles among their fleets.  In the long run, a wider variety of mostly renewable energy sources, coupled with vehicles and machines that are designed to lose less energy, should lower all of our energy costs.

Or maybe you’re worried about how the government would pay for a progressive environmental agenda in general. As discussed above, maybe there are some gas taxes. And of course there’s cap-and-trade, and some industrial products may rise in price a bit if they’re more expensive to manufacture.  Is it income taxes you’re worried about?  Neither party likes to raise income taxes on the middle class.  Ultimately any environmental plan would probably be paid for by deficit spending – which is not ideal, but as evidenced by the recent deficit-increasing tax break for corporations and pass-throughs, it doesn’t seem like anyone in either party thinks the deficit is really a problem  Your taxes didn’t go up to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it’s unlikely they’d go up here.

So what does the ordinary person really stand to gain from climate denial?  Some short-term savings at the pump?  The time saved from rebalancing your portfolio?  Because remember, you have to balance that gain against the potentially huge losses that would result if climate change were real – losses to your property and government expenses to rebuild from hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and everything else.  And don’t forget the smaller costs of increased insurance premiums, food prices, etc.

So, at least as I see it, the reward for denying climate change doesn’t seem all that great, which also means that the risk of believing in climate change is pretty small.  So let’s look at the flip side:

The rewards of believing in climate change (even if it turns out to be a hoax)

Let’s say that Hannity and Trump are right, and climate change is just a big hoax made up by China to…I guess slow down their current industrial revolution or something.  Whatever…climate change turns out not to be real.  And the U.S. has invested in alternative energies and instituted tough fuel economy standards and regulated industrial waste and all that stuff, like a bunch of suckers.  What do we have to show for ourselves?  Other than, of course:

• Cleaner air and water (less smog, no oil pipelines rupturing into groundwater, etc.)
• Fewer accidents like the Exxon Valdez or BP Gulf Coast spill
• More competition in the energy sector among cleaner, more renewable sources, driving down energy prices
• Less reliance on foreign oil, so less need to intervene in Middle Eastern civil wars and territorial disputes (ok I get why Dick Cheney denies climate change)
• American companies leading the next generation of energy technologies
• Byproducts of better energy storage systems (longer-lasting iPhone batteries, that kind of thing)

And byproducts of scientific research in general.  Think of all the technology you use today: how much of that came from our investment in NASA (satellite communications, GPS), or in military technology (the internet)?  Investment in new technology spurs on the economy and tends to raise our standard of living.  I honestly don’t understand: why wouldn’t you want the government to invest money – and I swear virtually none of it will be yours – in innovation that can reduce your cost of living, enhance your standard of life, create new industries for you or your children to eventually work in?

And let’s talk about terrorism for a second.  When an act of terror affects even a few Americans, we’re willing to spend millions to prevent the next one: we send American troops all over the world, we willingly give up certain civil liberties, we’ll do anything to protect against – fuck it, I’ll say the words that climate deniers so desperately want Democratic candidates to say – radical Islamic terrorism.  But 1) where do you think radical Islamic terrorists get their funding?  It’s largely oil money.  So why wouldn’t our “defend against terrorism at all costs” instincts lead us to invest in new technologies that will undercut oil?  And 2) climate change has the potential to kill or harm hundreds of thousands or millions of Americans at a time through violent storms, massive droughts and food shortages, and other cataclysmic events.  We overreact at any hint of something to fear, whether its SARS or bird flu or gang violence on the south side of Chicago; why doesn’t that kick in here?  How can you take this one threat, backed up by the vast, vast majority of the scientific community, and laugh it off as “screw you libs” or “if there’s global warming why did I have to wear a sweater yesterday?”

And I guess maybe it is a vast conspiracy of climate scientists, all hyping this threat so that they can continue to earn their research grant money to model the climate.  But why isn’t Zika a conspiracy of mosquito scientists?  Why isn’t the next big winter storm just a hoax perpetuated by Big Meteorology to sell ads on Headline News and the Weather Channel?

I just don’t understand climate denial, in particular when it comes so enthusiastically from people with the most to lose from being wrong.  What am I missing?