While going 1 on 1 over email is interesting and useful it is also very time consuming. I've done a lot of this over the last several years. It served a purpose when I wasn't sure, as people with equal or stronger scientific backgrounds than me asked difficult questions.
I have been thinking about this for several weeks actually. My conclusion at this point is that it might be time to get off the sidelines and present this to a much wider audience. To that end I am organizing my journey, findings and conclusions into a paper. At the moment I am thinking of publishing it through the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of which I am a member. That part isn't set in stone though, there might be better options.
To be candid, one of the serious concerns I have is related to the just how vindictive and violent ideological mobs have become over the last decade or so. Going up against both climate change mobs (believers and skeptics) can have serious and permanent personal consequences for both individuals and their family. This is the real tragedy of our times and something that has turned this particular topic into what it is.
Saying anything against the mobs can make you radioactive, and life is over. I mean, just look at your reaction to a simple statement (not to single you out, I see this all the time). You have a set of conclusions that you are convinced to be correct and reject even as much as having a somewhat public conversation about the possibility these conclusions might be wrong. Now, you don't strike me as a vindictive violent zealot at all. However, those people are out there. Social media amplifies their voices and influence. That is precisely how they are able to cause tremendous damage to anyone who counters challenges the positions they have taken.
It reminds me of a recent case of the guy who raised around a million dollars to donate to children's hospitals. The mob didn't like him. They dug into his social media record and found a stupid thing he said when he was 16 years old. They pushed that hard all over the place. They then went to his sponsors and pounded them just as hard. The end result was that the sponsors pulled out their matching contribution and the entire effort was destroyed. Children's hospitals did not receive the much-needed funding because an angry mob attacked one person with such fervor and violence that they made it impossible for that to happen.
Climate Change is a hundred times, a million times, worse than this. The minute you have children marching on the streets all over the world you have to consider how personally dangerous it could be to speak up. Not because of the children, but rather due to the unavoidable fact that there are people and companies making millions, if not billions of dollars selling an ideology. If you screw with that you are dead, perhaps even literally.
I want to do the right thing, just not entirely sure how to go about doing so without the potential for great harm to those I love most.
