Below is from a talk I gave recently. Bill Allen 11-10-19
“Who are you gonna believe, me, or your own’ eyes?”
This line is from Chico Marx in a 1930s Marx Brothers movie. But my talk today is not about old movies. It is about whom we should believe today.
Our heart is mostly muscle. The heart beats about 80 times a minute. If you are 50 years old, your heart has beat about two billion times. The muscle burns energy every time it beats, and it needs a continuous supply of blood to produce that energy. This is provided by little arteries attached to the outside of the heart muscle.
Many people have a condition known as atherosclerosis in which there is a gradual clogging of these arteries. This slows the flow of blood to the heart muscle. When the flow becomes too slow, the body sends a signal that we call angina. In my case this began with a slight tingle in the tips of the fingers of might right hand. Over several days it gradually got worse and caused pain that extended up my right arm to my jaw.
This was in 1984. I went to my regular doctor and he referred me to a cardiologist. He prescribed some medications. I followed his advice and things were OK until 1993. The angina returned, I had some more tests, and my doctor recommended open heart surgery. I read some books on this—-one was pretty scary—and decided to follow his advice. Two clogged arteries were bypassed, and things were OK again until 2000. The recommendation then was to use a procedure called angioplasty and to insert stents to expand partial blockages in two locations. I agreed and this was done. This cycle repeated and another stent was inserted in 2012.
What is the moral of this story? I followed the advice of medical experts: people who have spent their lives developing drugs and procedures for dealing with the problem I have. I’m standing before you today in pretty good health.
The Boeing 737 is one of the most successful planes in commercial airline history. An advanced model called the 737 Max 8 was selling well. In October of last year one crashed in the Java Sea, killing all aboard. Another crashed in Ethiopia in March, with the same result.
The entire fleet of nearly 400 planes is now grounded and sitting on tarmacs all around the world. The cause of the crashes has been determined, and Boeing is working hard to fix the problem.
Evidence is accumulating that Boeing ignored early warnings of the problem, and that our federal government had transferred too much responsibility for assuring safety to Boeing.
Suppose that Boeing designs and installs a fix on some planes next year and declares these planes safe to fly. And suppose also that Boeing invites a group of regular commercial airline pilots to try out and fly these repaired planes, and that almost all the pilots report that the planes are still unsafe.
Whom would you believe? Boeing, whose negligence caused the problem in the first place, or the professional pilots? Would you buy a ticket and fly on one of these planes?
Evidence of global warming and huge related problems are all around us. Fires in California aggravated by record dryness and near Hurricane force Santa Anna winds are the most recent example. Record spring flooding in mid-western farm country is another. July 2019 was the hottest month in the 140-year, world climate record.
Congressional testimony by climate scientist James Hansen put the problem before the public in 1988. Recent disclosures show that Exxon engineers understood and were discussing the problem in the 70s. Climate scientist Stephen Schneider wrote this book in 1989 and I read it in 1992. The title is Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century? His answer was an emphatic YES.
This was my first book on global warming, and the related problems of climate change, sea level rise, and ocean acidification. I have at home fifty-one more books on these problems that I have acquired and read.
There are probably hundreds more books on the subject that I haven’t read, perhaps thousands, and there are tens of thousands of peer reviewed articles. Estimates vary, but there is good reason to believe that 80 to 90 percent of climate scientists believe that the earth is warming, and that we are contributing to that warming when we burn fossil fuels.
There are some who deny that the earth is warming and that we humans are part of the problem. Like Chico Marx they are saying that we should not believe our own eyes. We should not trust the experts who have studied this issue for decades.
An overwhelming majority of climate scientists believe global warming is an existential threat. They urge us as rapidly as possible to slow—and eventually stop burning fossil fuels. I believe them and am doing what I can.
Whom do you believe? Will you follow their advice?