Politicizing science is a serious problem that's been allowed to do real damage. As we have seen with COVID-19, scientific facts really don't care whether you believe them or not. You can tell yourself you can walk on air all your want, gravity is still going to have the final say.
However, when decisions are being made without considering these facts, we end up making problems worse. The world's leading bad-example, Donald Trump, is demonstrating this rule of thumb with outstanding effect.
But politicizing science, especially with issues like climate change, is a very real problem in Canada as well.
Certainly, buzzwords like "Green New Deal" were popularized by Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but the idea is informed by scientific facts. It also follows the same methodology that opened up economic opportunities throughout history, from the fur trade to the oil and gas industry.
Recently Alberta Premier Jason Kenney scolded a news reporter for asking about the same concept, saying developing renewable energy infrastructure to help reboot the economy was "pie in the sky ideology."
If accepting facts that were determined by the scientific method — where you do dozens to hundreds of the same exact sequence to ensure your results are accurate, then someone else does the same thing to eliminate any bias you may have had — is an ideology now, what exactly is willingly not accepting those facts? A cult?
This is the environment COVID-19 was given to play in. The same factors which enabled politicians to build entire careers fighting scientists over climate change are now enabling politicians fighting scientists over disease prevention. The results speak for themselves.
Scientific facts are not political. Scientific facts are scientific facts.
Climate change is happening fast and it's being energized by greenhouse gases produced by human activity. This is a fact. All debating that fact has done is waste precious time and money that could have been used to solve the problem. Now we're having to figure out how to evacuate flood, storm and wildfire victims while not spreading a life-threatening virus amidst a global economic collapse.
COVID-19 is a global pandemic that is carried by living organisms. By limiting our contact with each other, especially in closed spaces, and minimizing how much we spread the virus, we can alleviate the pressure on the system to be able to help save lives. This is all information acquired through centuries of the aforementioned scientific method.
All debating and ignoring these facts is going to do is make the problem worse, as we're seeing happen in the United States. The Spanish Flu killed more people on the second wave when everyone let down their guard than it did on its first trip around the planet.
But sadly, with Trump floating his own theory of medicine to his personal army of true believers, and a few politicians up here still following his example for some reason, it seems the "You can't trust experts" school of politics will at least be a factor in our lives until the U.S. election in the fall.
More people didn't vote in 2016 than voted for either Trump or Clinton. It's a surreal feeling when you realize the fate of the world hinges on just how many of those 50 million Americans are fed up with the current situation.