Pascal’s wager details one rationality for faith: The threat of nonbelief is a significantly larger risk than belief. For if one believes, and there is truly nothing, one sacrifices limited pleasures. But if one does not believe, and this is something, one misses the opportunity for eternal good and instead faces an eternity of something less desirable.
Why can’t this be applied to climate change? We stand to gain promises of a home that would face less flooding and lower hurricane probability and guarantee its existence. By refusing the wager, we face the possibility of destruction for the benefit of what exactly? Continuing on the same road that leads to its own demise seems counterintuitive.
What makes this wager less risky is the amount of information we already have. Unlike Pascal who, in theory, had limited if any knowledge of eternal damnation or heaven, we have an idea of what may come.
While the environment, religion and science have been lost to political perversion, I would hope the will to preserve our home hasn’t. But the longer the debate is suspended by the conflict between industry and the academy, the more attractive accepting the wager should become.
JACOB BLAIS
Metairie
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