Charioteering for Dummies

Especially in the United States, the political debate about global climate change became polarized along the conservative–liberal axis some decades ago. Although we take this for granted now, it is not entirely obvious why the chips fell the way they did.

That's MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emmanuel in a Boston Review essay called "Phaeton's Reins."

Pheaton, you may remember, (I sure didn't) was the son of Helios, the sun-god of Greek mythology. In Phaeton's starring role in the mythos, he borrows the keys to his dad's chariot, then drives it like Jehu. As the story goes, Africa became hotter than blazes and the skins of all its inhabitants were blackened with sunburn, thanks to him. And to top it off, Phaeton gets himself killed.

Getting back to Emmanuel's essay, it may help to know that he is no stranger to the conservative-liberal polarity of the climate debate, having been caught in the middle of it after publishing a paper in the journal Nature, positing a strong correlation between rising sea surface temperatures and the destructive power of tropical cyclones. I mention it, because Emmanuel doesn't. His article is mostly a primer on the science, with much attention given to all the complications and uncertainties. It's also a dispassionate critique of factions on both the right and left (scientists, journalists, politicians and environmentalists included) who have made global warming a partisan issue.

Without saying as much, he suggests we are behaving like reckless teenagers, too caught up in our petty bickering to pay adequate attention to the road ahead. And we'd better knock it off, because, like Phaeton, we're driving this thing and headed for trouble.