What happens when you get a scientific lab with too much free time on its hand, a desire in apocalyptic prophecies, and a firm belief in Global Warming and the inevitable rise of sea levels? You get the University of Arizona’s Environmental Studies Library and a host of scary images about the rise of sea levels all over the world. For those who want to know a bit more about their predictions, you can check out their viewer and see how your part of the world looks with a 1-6 meter rise in sea level. It’s not pretty [1].
What’s wrong with this sort of “scientific research?” A few things. For one, there is the assumption that changes in recent decades can be extrapolated evenly into the future and that human beings are responsible for what is going on. Given the very limited data we have to work with and the faulty nature of our modeling efforts to date, neither of those assumptions is a reasonable one to hold to. We ought to be particularly aware of our fallibility and to act accordingly, rather than assume that we understand things perfectly.
There is enough that human beings are responsible for that it is unnecessary to waste precious (and limited) taxpayer money in an effort to scare people by showing their homes and cities to be underwater within the next few decades. That sort of thing is not conducive to positive relations. There are enough scary doomsday scenarios to imagine [2] that are less far flung in nature. When scientists cease to examine the world as it is and seek to become doomsday prophets, we are all worse off for it. There are enough doomsday prophets in this world already to enlist scientists to join their ranks with pseudoscientific research to add to the religious speculation that already runs rampant. The world is scary enough as it is without imaginary fears to add to the list.
One thing would be intriguing to ponder, though, besides the need to lower the science budgets of overly speculative science laboratories who are wasting taxpayer subsidies so frivolously. There is a profound sociology and history of science research question to be examined about what made scientists turn into doomsday prophets. Is it something in the water at conferences, or is it the awareness that something is horribly wrong with the world combined with a desire to frame that vague sense of unease in scientific terms because one lacks the theistic belief to frame it in moral or religious ones? I strongly suspect it is the latter, and if so, the question is: where did this sense of unease come from, and what can be done to make sure it is directed properly and properly examined.
[1] http://geongrid.geo.arizona.edu/arcims/website/slrworld/viewer.htm
Edge Induced Cohesion 