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The last time there was this much consensus among the scientific community was the late 1800s, when scientists finally agreed about evolution. In both cases, debate continues about how they occur, but no legitimate scientist that doubts that either global warming or evolution do, in fact, occur.

Climatologists generally agree that our current climate change is human-caused, and only disagree about the extent to which humans are responsible. The predictions made by scientists regarding the effects of global warming are all being confirmed as well. We are experiencing more climatic variability, with greater extremes. Some areas are getting substantially drier, others wetter, some hotter, some colder. An extremely cold stretch does not mean that the planet isn’t heating up, but rather represents climatic fluctuation consistent with global warming simulations.

Why then does public perception of climate change diverge so much from the scientific community? Again, the example of evolution is illustrative. The media refuses to address it at all except to report that there is much public disagreement.

What links public attitudes concerning these two issues is vested interests. In the case of evolution, with few exceptions church leaders viewed it as a threat. With climate change, it is instructive to look at American energy policy and usage.

The United States runs on fossil fuels. We have coal-burning power plants, gasoline-powered automobiles, and petroleum products: plastic, asphalt, pesticides, personal care products, tape, and a million other products we use every day. Most products we consume also require petroleum in their manufacture and distribution. Ecologist Howard Odum once said that it takes a pound of oil to produce a pound of potatoes.

Worse, power companies are pushing for new coal-burning plants. Average gas mileage of automobiles is the same as the early 1980s. And consumption and energy use continue to grow, and will continue to do so as long as economic growth is worshipped. Many influential people and industries profit from energy consumption, and a lot of policy makers have close ties to those people and industries.

Which suggests why the scientific community has trouble publicizing its message about climate change. Even National Geographic Magazine is full of advertisements purchased by Exxon and Shell Oil.

What is to be done? The government needs to revamp its energy policy, placing its focus on renewable energy sources and stringent emission and fuel economy standards for the auto industry.

The government needs to start counting externalities like pollution and climate change in GDP using “true cost” economics. It should emphasize the need to reduce consumption.

State and local governments ought to engage in city planning based on pedestrians and mass transit instead of encouraging auto use through car-centered urban planning. Here in Minnesota the state plans to spend around 20 billion dollars on roads through 2020, subsidizing for suburbanites and urban sprawlers, instead of funding mass transit and pedestrian-friendly urban renewal.

However, we can’t count on the government to act in the best interests of the public, since we don’t send them full-time lobbyists and massive campaign donations. Nor can we count on the EPA, administered by “former” industry executives and lobbyists, to use reliable science in regulating and policy-making. Thus, it is up to us to enact change.

I’m sure everyone has heard it before: carpool, use mass transit, bike, walk, shut off energy-using devices when not in use, etc.

But there are things we can do that we haven’t heard about. Buy local goods that haven’t been transported around the world. Buy food and other goods that are less processed and thus require less energy to produce. And just buy less in general.

Products come from somewhere and take energy to make. Our GDP may go down, but it’s time to find a new measurement that takes environmental health into account. If we don’t, we may find ourselves living in a desert.