Part of the problem is that the American distrust of intellectualism is itself not the irrational thing that those sympathetic to intellectuals would like to think. Intellectuals killed by the millions in the 20th century, and it actually takes the sophisticated training of "education" to work yourself up into a state where you refuse to count that in the books. Intellectuals routinely declared things that aren't true; catastrophically wrong predictions about the economy, catastrophically wrong pronouncements about foreign policy, and just generally numerous times where they've been wrong. Again, it takes a lot of training to ignore this fact. "Scientists" collectively were witnessed by the public flipflopping at a relatively high frequency on numerous topics; how many times did eggs go back and forth between being deadly and beneficial? Sure the media gets some blame here but the scientists played into it, each time confidently pronouncing that this time they had it for sure and it is imperative that everyone live the way they are saying (until tomorrow).
Very human scientists, with all the human weaknesses of jealousy, insecurity, greed, and sheer cussed stubbornness study complicated things and use their reputation of scientific integrity to make the leap from explaining the current state of understanding to make claims that they can actually solve whatever problem their research purports to solve. This has probably always been this way since scientists proposed using sheep bladders to predict earthquakes.
But the real problem comes when government then tries to impose the solutions of the scientists on the entire society to really get to work solving the problem. That's when you get scientifically engineered panics, ecological damage, and even genocide.
And the consequence of listening to these guys like they are gods isn't just the petty annoyance of twisty light bulbs and the injustice of people with carbon footprints capable of filling a stadium lecturing the rest of us about global warming--and getting rich off of it. This will work out just swell, don't you think?
If climate engineering research isn't done now, climatologists say, the world will face grim choices in an emergency. "If we don't understand the implications and we reach a crisis point and deploy geoengineering with only a modicum of information, we really will be playing Russian roulette," said Steven Hamburg, a U.S. Environmental Defense Fund scientist. ...
Provoking and parrying each other over questions never before raised in human history, the conferees were sensitive to how the outside world might react.
"There's the `slippery slope' view that as soon as you start to do this research, you say it's OK to think about things you shouldn't be thinking about," said Steve Rayner, co-director of Oxford University's geoengineering program. Many geoengineering techniques they have thought about look either impractical or ineffective.
Oh, silly scientists! Don't worry about what people think about what you are thinking about! That's what the alliance with government is for, with their power of coercion and instruments of state violence! Sure we have to start right now to avert disaster. But you just want to "tweak" the planet. Perhaps by just a smidgen, right? What's the problem with a little crash geoengineering on a planetary scale?
Science surely advances our understanding and standard of living. It is a good thing. If it is really science and not political agendas advancing under the color of science. But real science goes back and forth, getting refined, and can even loop back on itself, before it finally (usually) settles down. And that's just for the understanding side of a problem. That can be annoying enough as you alternately abandon and then again embrace eggs or apples or carbs or coffee, or whatever it is you eat or do. But at least on these issues it was your choice. You screw it up and it's on you. If it works, eventually more will probably follow suit.
It takes human scientists--with all the frailties and weaknesses of ordinary people--who are unduly sure of their answers and solutions, multiplied by the power of a strong state, to really tally up a body count.
