I always get a kick out of the claims of a true believer in whatever the current name for weather. They call me a “skeptic” or “heretic”, reinforcing my use of the term “true believer.” So far, they don’t demand I be burned at the stake, maybe that would produce too much carbon!

Both sides have scientific information on their side but ignore or make wild claims about the science they think supports the other side. But only one side, the true believers, claim the science is settled.

Science is never “settled,” new information changes it. After all, in the early 1400s settled science said the earth was flat, and in the 1970s it said we were due for another ice age by the year 2000 if we did not make drastic changes to our lifestyles. Sound familiar?

In 1975 while working on my first Masters

Degree I had to write a research paper on global cooling. The “settled” science then said our lifestyles had to change and we had to spend billions of other peoples’ money to avoid a new ice age, with glaciers covering half of the US by the year 2000. When that “settled” science didn’t work out too well for them they changed the name so it would fit any weather we had.

Closer to home for me right now, cancer research for the past 100 years has settled the question of why our bodies immune system does not fight off cancer. Science was “settled,” except for a few skeptics, that our immune system thought cancer was a normal body cell so did not attack it and nothi9ng could be done about that “fact.”

A few weeks ago, two research scientists, call them skeptics, won the Nobel Prize in medicine for their breakthrough research that found an enzyme in cancer cells fools our immune system into thinking the cancer is normal cells. They have been able to deactivate this enzyme in mice and the tumors were killed, offering new hope for a new cancer treatment that goes against 100 years of settled science.

My biggest problem with true believers is their claim that “common sense” demands the government spend billions of our tax money and we make drastic changes to our economy and lifestyles. The problem with using the term “common sense” tries to imply those that disagree are totally wrong, and any cost is worth it.

The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that efforts to stabilize levels of greenhouse-gas emissions would require investments of about $13 trillion in the next 12 years. It also noted that reducing emissions would reduce the rate of economic growth, costing much more in the long term. Just the cost of switching from carbon fuels to alternative energy sources would cost 44 trillion between now and 2050.

That report does not mention the problem of reliability of alternative energy, the more dangerous smaller vehicles, and lack of and inability to accomplish some goals. For some, a tiny tin can car may be fine, but if you hunt or fish, especially if you pull a boat or trailer, they do not work.

Some will say we have to make sacrifices, but they almost always want others to make those sacrifices. Every time I see celebrities and politicians with private yachts and jets say I need to cut back on my carbon use I can only shake my head. One cross Atlantic trip for them to attend a climate conference in their jet uses more carbon that I will in a lifetime of fishing and hunting using my truck and boat.

Just like they want to spend my money, they want us common folks to change our lifestyles while they live in luxury, changing nothing. And they demand we make those changes immediately, before their “settled science” changes.

Another “settled science” claim is low lying islands will be uninhabitable due to melting glaciers causing sea level rises. They say sea levels have risen about 8 inches in the past 150 years and are predicted to rise another sixteen to 48 inches in the next 100 years. But almost every example of this I could find says the islands are getting smaller due to sea level rise AND erosion.

A 2017 study by Duval and other looked at 111 islands “threatened” by sea level and erosion changes. Their study covered the past 50 years and found only nine that had actually gotten smaller. Fifteen had gotten bigger, with the vast majority not changing.

All this claim of change is based on computer models of our climate. But those models are only as good as the programmer writes them, and they depend on data input that can be manipulated. If you have a computer, you know how unreliable they can be. Auto spell correct is a computer model on your phone. How accurate is it?

I took a cruise up Glacier Bay National Park a few years ago. The naturalist told us the open water in the bay was 110 miles long. In 1764 when it was discovered it was covered by glaciers. They had retreated 110 miles in just over 250 years. And the fastest retreat took place from 1860 to 1870. I guess it was all those Civil War SUVs! There are 1045 glaciers in the bay and some of them are growing, not retreating. Why? They are not affected by climate change?

If our settled science is correct, our environment has always changed and probably always will. I have seen a lot of different weather in my 60 plus years outdoors, but climate changes very slowly, not fast enough for a person to see.

I have faith in human nature enough to know we adapt to climate change and thrive no matter what happens. And I see no sense in doing all the drastic, expensive changes to our lives because some computer models and true believers say its “common sense.”