A Complex Question

The question of climate-change is a very complex one for the layman. For it is not merely the question of whether global or regional climates vary over time, irrespective of man’s activities, on various time-scales ranging from decades to millions of years. It is not even the complex question of whether there could also be any significant anthropogenic factors. Rather it is a question made still more complex by its political element — such that it might even include the question of whether one ought to become a member of the Church of Al Gore, Latter-Day Saviour. This complexity is to be regretted.

.....Back in the days when climate-change was more the object of scientific interest than the subject of politically-driven hysteria, I wrote my undergraduate-dissertation on human cognitive evolution, whereof I cited climate-change as an indirect cause. Nowadays, however, I cannot hear talk of climate-change without being reminded that the neocortex — despite its enlargement — is still at the mercy of more primitive structures.