His was a curious comment, angling out there in cyberspace as if to purposely instigate a tweeting battle. It did. Hurrah, bold typist. I’d been aware for some time that Go-Text-Charlie did not put any stock in global climate change, me additionally cognizant of the fact that each beer in Charlie added a new level of anger to his expressiveness on the subject whilst always prying him ever more emotionally open to tell you why he FELT climatological results were an international conspiracy.

I guess, described in that way, it might be easy to dismiss Charlie. His single chat board opinion seemed a fringe venture, whatever one’s political bent. Yet, what you don’t know about Go-Text-Charlie is his decades spent as No-Text-Charlie, years replete with informed ideas, thoughts, opinions, and feelings vastly kept to himself. They were and still are years highly steeped in logic and reason, selflessness and intellect. Charlie mulled over all his innermost undertakings as if locked in a vault with nothing but math, method, and Descartes to guide him. Those rare, whispered assertions he would share were always among a privileged few listeners who’d marvel at what his mind and his untainted practices had accomplished.

Newly unconcerned about “backlash,” he posted publically, and disappointingly. His novelty comment claimed that climatology was bereft of scientific method. The fight was picked, the sides chosen, and the barrage of point and counterpoint that flooded hurtful ones and zeros through the ether astounded me.

Amidst that chaotic throe I found myself genuinely disinterested in adding to what passed for “debate.” Charlie means something to me. I was certain that I could set up a proof to dissuade him from his stance, convincingly, but I didn’t want to throw in with the scrappers and the moaners or get lost in the torrent. I needed to mature away from the word skirmish and the infuriating fact that every reply to Charlie’s comment was little more than a platitude, a sound bite heard a thousand times over, or a partisan campaign motto. Not one contributor, not even Charlie, offered anything more than what s/he’d heard elsewhere. The “argument” was definitively immature at best.

My attempt at maturity, I share. I offer it, hopefully, as a sobering aspect to this supposed “debate.” Charlie is not out there generating his own climate studies, gathering his own data, conducting his own experiments scientifically. And, to be fair, Charlie, neither am I. In this regard we are equals, equally versed in what we don’t know. Given that we don’t know, we have chosen to listen to others for our information. I think it logically sweeps away all the open sermonizing and pat generic responses attached to your comment when we realize that our choice resolves the issue. You have chosen to listen to the wise politicians, the studied pundits, the talk radio icons, and the popular hardliners who fervently disagree with the congruent results of independent global studies. I have chosen to listen to the people who conducted the studies.

Labels: Charlie, climate, climatology, debate, logic, mature, maturity, method, reason, science