All of us are ignorant about most things. The universe is boundless, while our brains and our time on Earth are extremely limited.

That is why Socrates famously was quoted as asserting that he was wise, as he knew that he knew nothing.

Most men assume they are wise because they know things, while true wisdom is recognizing the limits of one’s understanding.

Of course, as beings who must live in the world and make decisions, we are required to make considered judgments about the way things are, so the wisdom of the active person is to act based upon provisional beliefs and then adapt to circumstances.

That’s a long way of saying that it drives me nuts when I have a conversation with people who are absolutely certain they know things about which they could not possibly be certain. Worse, it is infuriating to get lectured by people who have no idea at all about the subject they are passionately lecturing about.

That is my beef with the climate change fanatics. I am perfectly willing to examine the evidence, listen to theories, explore what is known, what is deduced, what is supposed, and what we are only guessing at, and consider competing arguments.

I am by no means what the fanatics would call a “denier.” I am “climate curious,” let us say.

But I am a skeptic of what I have been told, of the data, of the reliability of the models, and of the scale of whatever problems may arise from human activity. But I don’t scoff, because I don’t know enough myself. I know that I don’t know enough to be certain of anything.

I keep following the science. Eventually, it will get good enough to make decent predictions, I hope. We aren’t there yet, though.

One of the reasons I am quite frustrated by all the debates is how ignorant almost everybody is about the changes in Earth’s climate at geological timescales. We keep hearing about temperature trends over decades, and occasionally centuries, but almost nobody talks about the actual timescale at which climate change takes place.

Everybody is freaking out about a degree or two in temperature, and very small increases in sea level.

It’s a joke.

Sorry, it is. Only a few thousand years ago the sea level was about 400 FEET lower than today, much of North America was buried under a mile or more of ice, and human beings were crossing land bridges to settle new continents.

We were at a glacial maximum not that many generations ago. As things warmed up things changed dramatically, and generally for the better if you are…alive. It turns out that most living things don’t like things like being buried under glaciers.

We are not talking about millions of years ago. This isn’t plate tectonics. Human beings watched the floods that opened up the English Channel and the connection of the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean. Human beings walked to North America on a land bridge from Asia. The map of the Earth we see today was vastly different within the lifespan of the human race.

Human eyes, in North America, saw glaciers that were miles high and temperatures that were wildly colder than today. So don’t whine about human extinction from a small increase in sea levels, melting ice, or a degree and a half of temperature increase.

It’s a joke.

All this is to say that it bugs the crap out of me to have a conversation with somebody about Earth’s climate when they haven’t got a clue about the Earth’s climate history.

The theory that increases in CO2 in the atmosphere would lead to increased global temperatures is based on physics and hence is hardly implausible. I don’t dispute the physics, although no model in today’s computers is sophisticated enough to actually make any predictions. The climate is ridiculously sophisticated and we simply don’t understand or even measure all the important variables.

But I am willing to listen. Eager to listen. Interested in the theories. But those theories are as well developed as our theories of what happens when two black holes collide–we have nice, very simple stories that get some of the broad strokes, but hardly a comprehensive understanding. This is why we keep hearing about new discoveries, and theories and invest billions in new space telescopes.

The belief that modest increases in atmospheric temperatures will lead to a global disaster and mass extinction is based upon voodoo and nothing more. We are currently in what is likely to be a short interglacial period (we are technically still in an Ice Age), and the current global temperature is still lower than it was in the last interglacial period.

Global temperatures today, in other words, are below average compared to most of the time life has existed on Earth. The Earth is not burning, but still shivering.

Unless there was a great mass extinction 140,000 years ago–and there wasn’t–the likelihood that reaching the same global temperatures as happened then or 340,000 years ago seems like not much to worry about. Last I checked, human beings walked the Earth 140,000 years ago, and our hominid ancestors did 340,000 years ago.

These are long time periods by human standards, but a blink of the eye in geologic terms, or in the history of life on Earth.

So how am I supposed to listen to and take seriously anybody who breaks down in tears fearing a degree or two in temperature increase? They clearly have no idea of what they speak. Climate fanatics are insufferable most of all because they talk so much and know so little.

I once had a conversation with a smart gentleman who ran a nonprofit that pushed for renewable energy. He lectured me for almost an hour about the melting of the Arctic and how it would raise sea levels. After listening politely I pointed at the glass of water in which the ice had melted.

The level at which it was filled hadn’t changed. Because no water was added to the glass as the ice melted. Try it. Floating ice has the same mass as the meltwater, and adds nothing to sea levels as it melts. The melting of the Arctic sea ice is, literally, irrelevant to sea levels.

Obviously, if a glacier melts and flows from the land to the ocean that adds to the total volume, but this man lecturing me–who actually advised the legislature on energy policy and climate change–had no idea that the Arctic ice is floating and, frozen or liquid, would add nothing to sea levels. Because of physics.

Needless to say, our conversation ended there. Neither of us had changed his mind, of course. But at least I temporarily humiliated him, so it was a good day.

We are lectured to worry about climate change and devastating losses in biodiversity. I invite people to visit my state of Minnesota, which was buried under a glacier not so long ago, and then visit the equatorial rain forests.

Then come back to me and explain how I should be concerned that Minnesota’s biodiversity would decrease because of increased temperatures. I’ll wait.

Most of the biodiversity occurs where it is warmer.

I freely admit that I am ignorant of what changes the environment will see with a degree or two of increased temperature, and also admit the possibility that human activity might contribute to such an increase.

I will do so right after climate fanatics admit that reduced fossil fuel use would lead to the starvation and death of billions of human beings right here, right now. Because without fossil fuels human beings would not only be infinitely poorer, but most of us would be dead. Frozen, starving, or dead of disease, or of any number of other horrors.

In short, anybody who ignorantly but confidently yells “the Science™” while knowing almost nothing is insufferable and childish. A Minnesotan, living in a spot that was recently buried under a mile of ice, worrying about global warming is a dunce. I invite him to spend a year without gas or electricity.

That would last a day or two in our climate. There is a reason why the upper Midwest was still being settled after most of the continent was filling up.

Look at the population of Canada, please. It’s a huge country, yet everybody is clustered at the US border, and “everybody” is almost nobody because it is too cold to live there.

The population of the Northwest Territories in Canada–a HUGE chunk of land? 45,000 people.

You could dump much of Europe in it. And nobody lives there. Because it is too cold.

I take serious people seriously. But if you turn a high school dropout into a heroic symbol of your movement? You are as serious as a toddler pretending to be Spiderman.