Climate science

Suppose you built a time machine and travelled thirty years into the future, and saw the consequences of some present-day decisions later causing great strain on society. You’re surprised that those decisions felt so safe; normal. Acceptable. Your curiosity is piqued now, so you dial the time machine another fifty years into the future, and are horrified to find that the world is in absolute turmoil. You’re alarmed, but want to see how the chaos plays out, and visit more decades, the next century… the next millennium. You gaze out at an alien world — one without people; almost entirely lifeless — and cry for the losses. Billions of human lives and trillions of others; your trip was a stop-motion view of their slow mass extinction, you realize.

After a while, you collect your composure and, considering that you have a time machine at your disposal, race back to warn people of what is coming — to instruct them to change. The problem is, they like the decisions they’re making, and dismiss you. They say that the changes you call for will harm the economy and ruin the quality of life enjoyed.

This must be what it feels like to know climate science.

––Kyle Beauchamp, Saint Joseph