What Motivates The Experts?

Reading the first few lines excerpted from Making Sense of the Climate Issue (via Mark Thoma), something jumps out at me:

What really bothers the climate worrywarts the most isn’t global warming at all. It’s the possibility that Smart People might not get their way on something.

It’s not the climate science at all. In fact most climate worrywarts don’t know jack diddly squat about climate science. And yet, armed with knowing precisely nada about climate science, they are nevertheless convinced that it’s highly important for the government to do something about global warming, and anyone who disagrees is an evil moron. More to the point, what seems to really dwell on their mind horribly is less the supposed effects of climate change per se than the simple fact that experts might not be able to get the government to do something.

The Experts might not rule! The Smart People might not be able to move the masses!

This is the stuff of nightmares – to Smart People.

That’s why you’ll see articles like this that make no attempt whatsoever to apprehend, grapple with, let alone defend the climate science behind the supposed urgent call for action. Instead what articles like this are all about are all the evil reasons why The Experts have been thwarted. What dark forces have thwarted The Experts here? What sinister special interests have prevented The Experts from dictating? This is what’s important, you see! We must figure out what has prevented the government from doing exactly what The Experts say!

This consideration is why an issue like climate-change-stoppage has gained such a zombielike cult following among the intelligentsia (not merely climate scientists). They all seem to instinctively perceive – perhaps correctly – that this is a battle over whether The Experts will dictate and thus that anyone who considers himself an ‘Expert’ – in something, anything – has an interest in that outcome.

What this is not about is the actual substance of the actual issue. It’s more like a test case: can The Experts get the masses to spend a bajillion dollars on something, merely on their say-so? The issue on which The Experts have rested their hopes happens to be climate-change. But really, it could have been just about anything. The important thing here – the thing which really motivates so many commentators – is to make sure The Experts can dictate – or if they still can’t, to analyze why not so that unhappy fact can be changed. Actual rational defense of the Experts’ position on the issue in question is clearly secondary to making sure the will of The Experts is the one that triumphs.