Dear Adaptation Mavens,

I’m pretty sure I believe climate change is happening and that I should be doing something about it. I manage a boreal forest reserve and things sure seem different. But then I read the polls that say that some people aren’t sure it’s real and maybe it’s all the talk of dishonest scientists. Am I a dupe to believe its real? Should I actually do anything or wait to see how it pans out?

Sincerely,

Idle Hands

Dear Idling,

There are so many uncertainties in life. It starts at conception—will you be a boy or a girl? Your chromosomes know but your parents don’t. Then it plagues you through grade school (Will you get picked for the kick-ball team?) and high school (Will you get a prom date?). Every day decisions are rife with uncertainty (Should you bring a raincoat? Will the neighbor’s dog attack you as you begin biking to work?), as are bigger life decisions (Should you marry that person? Buy a house?). Rene Descartes famously struggled with his uncertainty about so grand an issue as the existence of God. He built a logic diagram that went roughly like this:

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