Stepping into Rivers
To say that everything changes would hardly be an original comment. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus (circa 535-475 BC) supposedly said, ‘No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.’ He also said much the same thing in another way: ‘Everything flows, nothing stands still.’
One of
the biggest concerns and controversies of our time is the issue of
climate change. As I understand it, there is an almost universal
concensus among scientists (in the relevant fields) that climate
change is happening and that it is caused by human activity – the
burning of fossel fuels to bring much needed energy to our modern
human societies is leading to massive environmental destruction
brought about by ‘global warming’.
There
are, of course, those who deny this, those who simply do
not believe
what the majority of climate change scientists tell us. Many of
these people are willing to accept that climate change is indeed
taking place, but they deny that it has a human cause. After all,
some of them say, our planet has a history of climate change dating
back long before human beings walked the earth.
I
started this piece by quoting a philosopher, and I’m very tempted
to carry on in a philosophical vein by talking about a branch of
philosophy called ‘epistemology’ (that’s a good word to slip
into any conversation!). Epistemology is to do with the theory of
knowledge. It asks, How do we know what we know? For those of us
who are convinced that climate change is indeed caused by human
beings, the obvious question is, How do we know?
The same question applies to those of us who are just as convinced
that climate change does not
have
a human cause. How do we know?
If you
are a scientist who specialises in climage change, you can make
careful observations, compare them, and then try to develop a theory.
You can then test that theory by making further observations to see
if there’s anything happening that might prove it wrong. But if
you continue to observe the same patterns repeatedly with no
exceptions (if you establish an ‘empirical regularity’), then you
can be pretty sure that your theory is right.
But,
there is a problem. Did you do all this work on your own? Did you
conduct all the observations yourself? Did you do all the analysis
of these observations yourself? Or did you have to rely to some
extent on work undertaken by other scientists or technicians, work
that you weren’t in a position to supervise personally? If it’s
the latter, then you only know what you know because you are
convinced by the work of other people. And that is the same for all
of us. In most cases, we only know what we know because we are
convinced by what other people have told us. We are not always (or
even usually) able to test things out for ourselves.
For
what it’s worth, I am convinced that the changes currently taking
place in the world’s climate are indeed
a reality
and that human behaviour is
responsible. But how do I know?
That fact is, I don’t
know, I’m just sufficiently persuaded to accept what a particular
kind
of authoritative figure tells me. (I also think it’s not worth
taking a chance over something so potentially catastrophic.) For
someone who denies climate change, the situation is pretty much the
same. The denier doesn’t actually know
that climate change is false, he or she just happens to be persuaded
by the arguments of a different
kind
of authoritative figure.
But,
as Hereclitus said, ‘No man ever steps in the same river twice, for
it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.’ Hereclitus
knew this (I assume) because he had experienced or observed it (or
something similar) for himself. ‘And this I knew experimentally,’
said the seventeenth century figure George Fox. He was speaking of
personal religious ‘revelation’ (not the sort of thing you can
prove to anyone else), and he knew what he knew ‘experimentally’.
Like Hereclitus (so I assume), Fox was convinced by something
because he had experienced or observed it for himself; he was not
convinced because someone else had told him what to believe.
In
fact, we all
know
about change ‘experimentally’ (or so I’m told!). We may not
know very much about climate
change – apart from seasonal variations – but we do
know about change in
general.
Change happens. It’s reliable. We know this experimentally.
Given
the often difficult subject matter I try to address in my writing, I
find it very encouraging that the one thing that we can all rely on
is change: some things may deteriorate and get worse, but there are
many things that can develop and improve.
____________
Delivered
Unto Lions by David
Austin is published by CheckPoint Press
ISBN
978-1-906628-21-5
For
more information visit www.davidaustin.eu
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