Clear Horizons may create a storm

Public debates often stall not because people reject evidence, but because evidence gets pressed into service of a worldview before it has earned that authority. History offers a cautionary tale: When early thinkers (Aristarchus 3 BCE, Copernicus 1543 A.D.) proposed that Earth might move around the sun, the idea wasn’t rejected because it was absurd — it was rejected because it disrupted deeply held assumptions about how the world had to work. The lesson isn’t that skeptics were fools or that institutions were evil; it’s that certainty arrived long before understanding did. Science eventually resolved the question, but only after better tools, better data and a willingness to tolerate disagreement.

Today’s climate debate risks repeating that mistake — not by studying climate, which we should absolutely do, but by insisting that one set of models justifies sweeping, irreversible policy choices right now. Climate systems are extraordinarily complex, involving oceans, clouds, solar cycles, land use and human activity interacting in ways we still struggle to measure precisely. Treating uncertainty as moral failure, or skepticism as malice, doesn’t strengthen science — it weakens public trust in it. Good science welcomes challenge; good policy respects limits.

A wiser path is humility paired with resilience. Instead of framing the issue as belief in climate change versus denial of climate change, we should focus on policies that perform well even if predictions are imperfect: investing in innovation, strengthening infrastructure, expanding energy options, and protecting communities from real-world risks regardless of their cause. History suggests that progress comes not from enforcing consensus, but from allowing evidence to mature and solutions to compete. That approach doesn’t belong to the left or the right — it belongs to anyone who wants decisions grounded in realism, restraint and long-term common sense.

The Clear Horizons Act is an attempt to codify sweeping policy changes when the science is still imperfect. Real science is never “settled,” and we , as legislators, should be humble enough to admit that to ourselves.

Sen. Ant Thornton, Ph.D. represents the East Mountains of Albuquerque’s District 19 and sits on the NM Conservation Committee.