TWO years ago, was just a Red Bull-slamming high school from Independence, Oregon, who wanted to do something about global warming. Aiming to shake us out of our intellectual torpor, Craven made a YouTube flick called “The Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See”. It was watched by millions, including you perhaps.
Craven’s ingenious argument was that when it comes to global warming, the facts we fight over don’t actually matter. Far more important is that the experiment is already running. We will see soon enough who is right, but in the meantime, Craven believes we should analyse the situation using the tools of risk management. Here, the answer is indisputable. If we take strong action and global warming turns out to be no big deal, we have needlessly incurred a serious economic cost. If we fail to take strong action and global warming turns out to be catastrophic, we have sacrificed the entire planet and everybody’s future. Clearly, inaction carries the greater risk.
Such is the core argument that took Craven’s video viral on the web in 2007. Now, 52 later, he has used it as the basis for a book, which is essentially a toolkit for thinking about global warming – or rather, for avoiding thinking wrongly about global warming – enlivened by the same everyman charm and humour that made Craven such a popular guide. (Who else would open a section about confirmation bias with an anecdote that begins: “A couple of years ago, as part of a spectacular air-guitar leap off a desk during a triumphant routine for my high school’s lip-synch contest…”)
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Freed from the 10-minute limitation of a YouTube video, Craven now goes far beyond risk management. He also explains how to evaluate the credibility of sources, how to avoid the all-too-human trap of confirmation bias in determining which arguments to trust, and how to think about the nature of science – always tentative, never certain.
Craven’s schtick is “don’t just trust me, think for yourself”. Or as he puts it: “I’m really just a Joe Schmo science teacher.” His book provides pages where the reader is supposed to jot down his or her own thinking, and has two separate “conclusion” chapters, one for the author’s conclusions, one for the reader’s. The truth, though, is that Craven really is an expert, just of a new breed that didn’t exist before the internet. In the climate debate, I would rather trust Craven than industrial lobbyists or environmental groups, and I doubt I am alone.
“This author really is an expert – one of a new breed that didn’t exist before the internet”
If his book has a weakness, it is his ultimately unconvincing suggestion that we can avoid debating the science altogether. As Craven himself realised after his first video, which he now advises people not to watch, we cannot manage every conceivable risk. First, we need to know the probability the risk might actually be realised, which brings us inevitably back into a scientific debate. That is precisely the point of Craven’s “mutant space hamsters” scenario: we don’t defend the Earth against their genocidal invasion because, well, it’s a ridiculous threat.
This small flaw doesn’t make Craven’s book any less valuable. Indeed, I learned something from it – an achievement I might have thought impossible given my lengthy immersion in the climate debate. At the beginning of the first chapter, Craven asks readers to write down what it would take to convince them they are wrong about climate change. My own answer: I would change my mind if there were a sudden reversal of opinion in the scientific community. If Craven could get everybody who has weighed in on this debate to go through a similar exercise, Al Gore should share his Nobel peace prize.
In the end, that is Craven’s real lesson. Before we can be confident about anything, we need to understand our own failings. Or in his words: “Being humble about my understanding makes it less likely for the laws of physics to end up spanking me hard.” For anyone planning to enter the global warming shouting match, Craven’s book is an essential spanking-avoidance device.
Perigee