It's getting hot in herre!

The following is the original draft of my column for this Thursday's edition of the Ionian. Unfortunately, it runs much, much longer than usual, and I'm going to have to cut it down before it goes to print. Damn the traditional media and its space constrictions! So here's the whole thing, uncut and unedited...

I’d like to think that I’m a pretty intelligent guy. Still, I know my strengths and my weaknesses, and I’m not particularly adept in the world of the sciences—regardless of how many hours I spent watching Mr. Wizard and Bill Nye back in the day.

In fact, over the past semester-and-a-half, I regret to report that an introductory course entitled ‘General Biology’ has proven to be more than enough to stretch my scientific abilities to the max. It’s taken me a surprising amount of blood, sweat and tears to wrap my mind around the nuts and bolts of such basic concepts as diffusion (molecules like to have their space!) and photosynthesis (plants can cook their own food!).

Accordingly, when disagreements occur on topics in science that are far more complex than those I’ve just listed, I tend to feel a little helpless in determining what to believe on my own.

For the most part, then, I simply side with authority in these instances. If the established scientific community supports the theory of evolution, then it doesn’t seem unreasonable for me to trust them. I may not grasp all the intricacies of carbon-14 dating or DNA analysis, but I’m willing to accept the evolutionary tree mapped out by scientists using those tools.

It’s important to note that my willingness to embrace evolution is undoubtedly helped by the fact that, despite my Christianity, I was never raised to read the Bible literally. Even back at my Catholic elementary school, I was taught that the story of Adam and Eve was symbolic in nature. So, unlike fundamentalist creationists, I don’t have any real reasons to hesitate in trusting scientific authority about evolution.

But what happens when a scientific debate arises that I do have preexisting interests in? Then, it seems logical to believe that I’d be much more attracted to defying authority, if authorities went against my interests.

Such is the case with the theory that greenhouse gases are causing significant global warming, which the vast majority of scientists spanning the globe support.

The thing is, I like to drive. I don’t get to drive when I’m here at Iona during the school year, and driving is something I look forward to every time I go home to Watertown, Mass. And when I’m driving back to my house from a friend’s place or the bank or the grocery store or wherever it may be, sometimes I like to take a spin around the block once or twice before pulling into my driveway. And I really don’t like to think that the exhaust spewing out from the back of my mom’s Ford Taurus could be contributing to the trend that might send more and more Hurricane Katrina’s our way in the future.

The thing is, there’s only a very small range of temperatures I find comfortable. I like my house and my dorm room to be warm and cozy in the bitter cold of the winter, and I absolutely love to crank up the A.C. on the hottest days of the summer and enjoy a nice, artificial chill. But I don’t like to think that my excessive energy consumption could help lead to the continued melting of the polar ice caps and the permanent flooding of low-lying coastal regions around the world, including Manhattan. I like Manhattan, and, as I learned last weekend for the first time, first-hand, I’m not a big fan floods. I mean, flooding can be fun in a silly kind of way if the water recedes quickly and the damage isn’t too, too horrific, but that’s beside the point.

The point is that I’m not predisposed to being environmentally conscience, and I’m not thrilled about the idea that, barring a break from this predisposition, my everyday actions could be directly connected with a rapidly approaching apocalypse. So when I saw a headline last week that a very prominent hurricane forecaster had described former Vice President Al Gore as a “gross alarmist” for his work in advancing knowledge of the global warming theory, it caught my attention.

The forecaster’s name is William Gray, and a few quick internet searches told me how he’s been railing against the popular idea of global warming for years. An emeritus professor in the atmospheric science department at Colorado State University, Gray may be in the minority in thinking that observed warming results from simple ocean circulation patterns and that global temperatures will actually begin to drop over the next five to ten years, but his depiction of things seems perfectly plausible to me. Learning about Gray gave me the same warm, fuzzy feeling I imagine creationists experience when they hear of the rare scientist who questions the merits of evolution.

But as real as that warm, fuzzy feeling was, and as appealing as it may be to me to believe what Gray says, it seems to me, logically, that I can’t stray from authority on this issue. Too many scientists say the opposite of what Gray says, and the risks at stake in ignoring the mainstream opinion are much too high. I worry about the publicity Gray’s viewpoint has recently received because I’m sure that at least some people have neglected to view the situation the way I have, and, at the potential peril of the world, their reservations about burning too much gas in their cars or racking up too high of a heating bill have been eased.

I, along with many of my fellow Iona students who don’t frequent Cornelia Hall, may not have the scientific prowess to determine whether or not Al Gore is a “gross alarmist.” But, if we defer to authority here and assume he is not, it is imperative that we hear the message of which he is a spokesperson. I C Green, a relatively new club on campus dedicated to the environment and sustainability, is hosting a viewing of Gore’s award-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” in Ryan Auditorium on April 24 at 7:30 p.m. I hope to see you all there.