In for a Penny or In for a Pound?
Scott: Okay, so, a little while ago you wrote a pair of posts stirring the climate change pot a bit. It might be easy for some folks to see your writing as simple rabble rousing for the sake of rabble rousing, calling an overwhelming consensus into question because, well, it is important to question our overwhelming consensuses from time to time, to question our underlying assumptions. But it strikes me that you were doing more than that with your critiques of the so-called “green movement” and, more specifically, Al Gore’s (in)famous chart.
Engaging in a bit of a distilling exercise, what is at the core of your unease with what is an increasingly broad movement around addressing environmental issues and, specifically, climate change?
Erik: I think that for years – decades really – the green movement was in shambles. It had its isolated victories (Clean Air Act) but was really a ramshackle bunch of disparate causes with no unifying theme beyond some vague notion that we should treat the earth, or animals, or fish, or water, or air, etc. better. It was largely a fringe movement because it was largely a movement about activism. Now, with global warming the green movement has become an actual movement rather than an assortment of activist groups, and it’s entered the mainstream. Indeed, it’s become the new conventional wisdom, and those who may disagree with it or with the proposed solutions to it have become the fringe.
What leaves me feeling a bit disquieted about the whole thing is the speed at which the science, which isn’t that old in terms of science, has become accepted as fact, and really as belief. If you disagree either with the theory or the proposed solutions to that theory, you’re angrily written off as a “denialist” and given a scarlet letter to wear around town. But this is science we’re talking about, and science is something that should be discussed openly and with skepticism. Especially when the science in question has major policy implications with very real economic ramifications. The “Climategate” emails simply reinforce many people’s fears that the whole story isn’t being told, something that I’ve worried about for a long time. My post about Al Gore’s misleading chart was just one piece of the worry I have over this whole global warming thing. The limitations of cap & trade is another.
Scott: But what would be the threshold for you in terms of accepting the science? I mean, it is relatively striking how broad the consensus amongst a disparate cross-section of scientists is on this issue. And, as you mention, it’s not as though those scientists were at the forefront of driving the nascent stages of the “environmental” or “green” movement, it was, again, as you mention, primarily an activist oriented movement for many years (with, of course, some scientists involved, but not the degree of involvement now seen).
Doesn’t the chronology of that evolution in environmentalism as an item of social consciousness suggest a certain neutral bias that lends support to the science? And doesn’t it also strike you that it is rarely the scientists themselves and more often the activists of the green movement that lash out at “non-believers” in the angry fashion you describe? Should the science in question be tarred by the actions of activists who have, to be fair, endured years of ridicule and dismissive posturing?
Erik: That’s a good question. My first answer is to say that the science really should have more time to mature. In the 1970’s we were talking about the global cooling crisis. Now we’re talking global warming. So let’s let the science become a little harder, and let’s make the whole thing much more transparent and then go from there. I wouldn’t worry as much if there weren’t such huge policy decisions at stake. Climate change legislation could have very real, potentially harmful and extremely costly effects on the economy. I think this would disproportionately effect poor people and the working class. This is why climate change isn’t like the debate surrounding evolution. Not only is evolution a much more solid theory, its acceptance has nowhere near the same effect on policy that accepting anthropogenic climate change does. Nobody is suggesting we restructure our economy around the Theory of Evolution.
I’m also skeptical to claims that the consensus in the scientific community is what people say it is, and the recent Climategate emails harden that suspicion. To me this looks like environmentalists wielding science as a weapon more than the other way around.
Scott: That isn’t, though, a full-throated rejection of environmentalism is it? I mean, there is a degree — a large degree, in fact — to which the kind of semi-localism, community focused Tory-esque politics that you’ve embraced of late dove tail with an “environmentalist” perspective on modern life, particularly in terms of a critique on mindless consumerism, chronic consumption, materialistic fetishization of quality of life, and an overt focus on rampant individualism.
So the core critique of modern life whether you are a green movement environmentalist or a community focused American Tory aren’t, really, all that different. The approach to the issue seems to be where the difference lies. And yet, it is hard to ignore the fact that those entities that contribute most virulently to environmental degradation — even where that degradation is quite apart from global warming, CO2 emissions, and climate change — are so large and powerful that to really do require the kind of broad policy implementation of which you are weary to do anything other than tinker ineffectively at the edges.
Is there a way in which the above stated critique might be able to work with and temper the efforts of environmental activists in a way that gets at the root problems that both they and someone of your ilk (assuming I’ve accurately described your current trajectory) identify without invigorating the concerns you’ve expressed?
Erik: I am very much an advocate of keeping the earth healthy and reining in the worst abuses in environmental degradation. If a community wants to outlaw plastic bags or plastic water bottles, I would support them (though I would not support the federal government in such a ban.) Making people aware of things they can do to help the environment is also good. I think there are also nudges that can be used to make people more likely to reduce their contribution to pollution and waste. Certainly, any time we can save people money if they choose a more “green” approach to living is good, and in the end it will be the economic factors that have the most impact on change. When gas prices naturally rise to higher levels, people will shift over to more fuel-efficient vehicles and mass-transit and so forth. This will happen as fossil fuels become more scarce. There is no need for the government to artificially create higher costs to woo us away from fossil fuels.
The thing that worries me is that the broad approach that an entity like the federal government will take will have averse effects on people’s economic well-being. I favor nudges and investment in infrastructure before punitive measures like higher taxes on fossil fuels. Again, people who already are in possession of mass transit or who live in nice, walkable communities will see much less of an economic impact than people living in rural areas or in parts of the country where driving is more essential – which is a large part of the country.
So this really isn’t about materialism or individualism, it’s just looking at the impact on the bottom line that things like cap and trade might have on ordinary Americans and asking “Is there a better way?” I think there is.
You also mention the power of the lobbies involved in all of this. Well that’s also a fair concern but I would just spin it around and say that these lobbies won’t be effected that much by any foreseeable federal legislation. Our legislative process is too subject to capture. The Waxman-Markey bill is little more than a big, nicely-wrapped package to the energy industry, and if it ever got through the Senate it would be even worse.
Scott: Well it certainly seems as though a majority of Americans agree with you. But, of course, there is the rebuttal that, at the end of the day, people aren’t paying the “real cost” of things precisely because the environmental impacts of their various consumer decisions aren’t reflected in those prices. So, one might argue that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure later on down the line.
Of course, you might respond by saying that you are skeptical about the need for a cure later down the line and that an incremental approach will, over the long haul, serve us just fine. But there are not insignificant numbers of people who suggest that an incremental approach simply doesn’t tackle the issue nearly strongly enough to have a serious impact. And so even taking a skeptical or uncertain approach to the science, one, I think, has to acknowledge that the concerns voiced by environmental activists of varying stripes aren’t simply fabrications, there are some reasons to be concerned, whether or not one finds those reasons compelling. And so we find ourselves in a sort of environmental prisoner’s dilemma about whether or not we have the ability to take an incremental approach. Given the potential stakes involved, are you really willing to wager on the side of incrementalism based on the potential for some additional costs?
And while you may have a point about Waxman-Markey, does that by necessity mean we give up on all broad reforms, especially vis-a-vis the argument above?
Erik: I don’t think the concerns expressed by environmentalists are invalid, but I do think that much of the time they’re overblown or incoherent or ignore the human cost involved in their proposed solutions. That being said, I do think there are things that can be done to improve the environment that are less intrusive into peoples lives. Investment in green technology makes sense as a long-term strategy, and so does investment in infrastructure. If we’re going to pass broad legislation that is also punitive then we should pass legislation that isn’t riddled with loopholes for special interests.
A simple carbon tax makes more sense than cap and trade if only because cap and trade in practice is so different than cap and trade in theory. I would also argue for lifting many of the rules and regulations that make nuclear power prohibitively expensive. The fear over nuclear power is entirely irrational weighed against its potential economic and environmental benefits. Other energy sources, like tidal energy, should also be explored. And I think the government and private enterprise should work together to bring our electric grid into the 21st century, allowing more people an economic incentive to produce their own green energy with wind farms and solar power.
I think the strength in the incremental approach is it avoids the really major blunders that big federal legislation can inadvertently cause, especially when the science is not entirely foolproof at this point, and the proposed solutions even less foolproof.
Scott: The key here, I think, is to get into a truly proactive frame when talking about addressing these issues. Not to just look at what problems we face right now, but what problems we might face in the future and not get stuck applying the solutions of now to the solutions of the future. I also think you’re right that investment in green technologies makes a lot of sense, especially in terms of seeing this issue not just as a problem to solve, but also as an indicator of watershed opportunities to be taken advantage of. The green technology angle is one that somewhat controversial figure Bjorn Lomborg has really emphasized of late.
At the end of the day, I think where I actually fall is a very blended approach that looks into both regulation and investment, sees the issue as both problem and opportunity. Humans are not inherently inclined towards change without some tangible repercussions, but they also respond to incentives. In this regard, I personally want to make sure that a review and critique of the very ways we conceive of and live our lives doesn’t get lost in the mix. Moving away from a focus on materialistic quality and a “more-more” attitude, towards a greater embrace of the subjective aspects of quality of life stands to make a big different and is, in a lot of ways, the foundational shift we need in order to make any changes that are implemented ultimately sustainable in an attitudinal and enacted-in-the-world sense.
Where I think I really line up with you is to say that there is no silver bullet, our approach to environmental stewardship is inherently scatter shot and that is precisely how it seems that it should be. In that regard, I’m disinclined to see a broad regulatory approach as the only important plank in our plan, but neither am I willing to dismiss it altogether. For all rancor over what to do vis-a-vis environmental issues, I think that the cacophony of disagreement speaks to the strength that we bring to the table, rather than a weakness and our real challenge is to find a way of not letting the diversity of our understanding create gridlock because of our own perceived “stakes” in the process.
Erik: I think you’re right that this does present an opportunity. I hesitate to comment much on the “materialistic quality…more more attitude” because while I think materialism is a poor substitute for really meaningful things, I also cringe at the idea of the state imposing rules to somehow limit our materialistic impulses. I worry about granting the state that sort of power, which is why I have written against overly relying on sin taxes. I also think that the hidden side-effects of policy that works toward curbing materialism would also work toward curbing job growth and the ability of normal every-day Americans to make ends meet.
This is also why investing in walkable communities and mass transit is important to me. I think it nudges people toward placing more value in things close to them, things local: families, neighbors, local businesses, and so forth without having to use punitive methods beyond a normal, healthy rate of taxation. However I do favor a Value Added Tax, which is a consumption tax.
In any case, this has been fun. I think that one way or the other, I remain in the cautious and skeptical camp. I prefer nudges to mandates and a slow and incremental approach to broad-based reform. I also think cap and trade pretty much has a snowball’s chance in Hades to actually make it through the Senate, so I’m not exactly worried at the moment that we’ll see any major changes on that front. Rising gasoline prices will do more, in the short and long term, to reduce carbon emissions anyways.
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45 comments
Specific scientists have placed themselves in the position of Gods. Having used their influence granted through more than $40-million from the tax payers, they have abused the trust afforded to them placing a dark cloud over the scientific community as a whole. Surely, science will recover from this event as time heals all wounds.
‘Truth is the daughter of time’ was forgotten by this specific Scientific Fiefdom, but acknowledgment of other traditional philosophies which built science to the current respect also have been ignored, such as “Science has no place in politics, religion, entertainment, fame and wealth”. Often, however, such important socially advancing fields as science need set backs and thus force both current and potential abusers to fall back to traditional thinking. This is the nature in the evolution of human thought and growth.
The hubris of denial by these abusers of social trust, along with their followers, of the devastating magnitude of their deceptive and deviant activity, while trying to maintain their stature in civilization, is incomprehensible. This denial will continue dragging the entire scientific community into the pit. Unfortunately, a self awakened reality of their misdeeds likely will not appear until admission followed by humility becomes obvious to society. Forgiveness is the divinity of our civilization but forgetting never can be allowed.
jeffersonstarship
December 3rd, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Dear ehmoran:
Please stop pasting this crap all over the Internet. Thanks.
The Politics of Science?
OMG, call Obama, we got us a crisis!
Of the several ages we might inhabit, we surely live in the Age of Sheer Numbers (a website). This also applies to science and global warming. Consider the following from Michelle Malkin’s column today on Yahoo.
“(climate czar Carol Browner) is now leading the “science is settled” stonewalling in the wake of Climategate. “I’m sticking with the 2,500 scientists,” she said. “These people have been studying this issue for a very long time and agree this problem is real.”
In any case, (writes Michelle) last year, more than 31,000 scientists — including 9,021 Ph.D.s — signed a petition sponsored by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine rejecting claims of human-caused global warming.”
Now, you might not like Michelle, but I find her facts to be pretty reliable. So, for the sake of agreement, let’s say that we have 2.500 scientists for global warming and 31,000 scientists against. What do we do with statistics of this magnitude?
Is it possible that we have enumerated ourselves beyond the world where individual talents—really big geniuses—don’t matter much anymore? Would it matter if an Einstein, say, were to write a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt warning of the potential of the atom bomb, considering that it might get lost in a pile of thousands of emails in the president’s inbox? It might matter to the world, but who would know? Who would blow the whistle in time: “Hey, look over here!”
Are we now living in a world where such numbers of scientists, no less, can no longer agree on anything in science, or anything else, and therefore become little more than contending armies poised on opposing slopes, ready to charge, lances tilted forward, into the Valley of Confusion?
Clockwork Buddha
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Reasonably faithful reader, first-time commenter. Just wanted to provide an important counterpoint to Hudson.
The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine letter has been thoroughly debunked. It’s interesting that it still pops up from time to time. Here’s an PDF analysis that could prove useful:
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/file-uploads/Comment_on_Robinson_et_al-2007R.pdf
Also, to Erik’s early point of “They were predicting global cooling in the 70s”, much has been written in regards to the lack of consensus then as compared to the consensus now. Here is a collection of linked articles from RealClimate (www.realclimate.org):
http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=They_predicted_global_cooling_in_the_1970s
Thanks for the consistently top-notch discussions, Gentlemen. They are very much appreciated.
BCChase
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Okay, question answered. Thanks.
E.D. Kain
December 4th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Clockwork Buddha – thanks for commenting!
BCChase
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Myself, I’d like to know what jobs the scientists Malkin mentions without PhD’s hold that qualify them on the topic. Most academic scientists aren’t taken seriously without the graduate degree. And that’s 2/3 of the people she’s siting.
BCChase
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:58 pm
*citing.
C.B., Sorry, I don’t have time to read the pdf. What is the nature of the debunkment, and who has done the debunking? Do these 31,000 scientists not exist or has their position not been stated correctly?
Clockwork Buddha
December 3rd, 2009 at 4:09 pm
This particular PDF is from Michael MacCracken of the Climate Institute. It goes point-by-point through the OISM paper. The 2007 version of the OISM paper is actually an attempt to revitalize the heavily-discredited version from 1998. The problems with the signatures are:
1) There is little followup on who has changed his/her mind over the last decade
2) There is a pretty vast array of disciplines (not all related to climate science)
3) The petition has a history of fake/false names (the Spice Girls signed it, for example – though I believe they were later removed
Overall, it’s been fairly well discredited and, as far as I know, is rarely held up as a serious entry in favor of the skeptics.
This was quite the interesting discussion. I think many scientists share your skepticism about their own predictions, but draw the opposite conclusion based on that skepticism. In the past, climate models (for all their limitations and faults, yes) have underpredicted the actual changes in the Earth’s climate that happened. This uncertainty worries many scientists, who, realizing the limitations of their own work and the work of their colleagues, call for some policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid possible disastrous scenarios for the Earth’s climate. Unfortunately, some scientists can be driven by ideology or ego just as much as anyone else (which can be seen by some of the leaked emails). They take a conclusion driven by uncertainty and wrap it in the guise of certainty to drive forward political action. It’s understandable in a way, given the way misinformation has been spread about this issue. However, it has the unfortunate result of reducing public trust in scientific institutions, as you have talked about in your blog, Erik.
Incidentily, the Economist has a good overview of the current policy options on climate change in their special issue on climate change. http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14994818 They seem to share your opinion of a carbon tax as the most effective and simple policy.
Global warming/environmentalism is big business, so it will be difficult sifting opportunism and profit potential from the real science. What we might want to do, before we waste billions trying to solve a problem we’re not sure is a problem, is find the best 12 scientists in the world who have been vetted to determine bias or conflict of interest, then give them each $2,000,000, and give them 6 months to give us a summary on the best science so far.
“In the 1970’s we were talking about the global cooling crisis. Now we’re talking global warming.”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm
The only folks talking about global cooling back then were members of the media reacting to a handful of studies that suggested a cooling planet. In this decade, the studies showing warming dwarf those from that decade, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Alas, improvements in media coverage has not advanced the way science has since the Nixon era. People from all parts of the political spectrum would agree with that observation.
Jaybird
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:58 pm
I don’t know about that last part.
I think that it was a lot easier to bury a story back then.
Brian
December 3rd, 2009 at 4:10 pm
yeah that’s true. I guess i meant MSM coverage. the blogs have done great things in the online medium in ways that weren’t possible back then.
I know this is the blogosphere, so we tend to ignore anything that happened longer ago than last week, but the idea that the environemental movement was, until recently, some kind of fringe phenomenon with no major impact on American life is really kind of bizarre. Toxic waste, acid rain, the ozone layer, the rainforests, biodiversity, nuclear power, endangered species, etc. were all pretty high-profile causes as I recall with plenty of real-world impact in terms of law and regulation, not to mention the establishment of an entire federal agency to address environemental issues.
Thanks, Clockwork Buddha. So the 31,000 signatures could be whittled down by quite a bit. Still, I find it interesting and disturbing that both Browner and Malkin base the credibility on their argument on sheer numbers, one scientist army against another.
Thanks for the bit about nuclear E.D. I think your reasoning over all is sound but the nuclear shout out made me see sparkles like Rich Lowry at a Palin convention.
E.D. Kain
December 4th, 2009 at 10:06 am
I think people will have no choice but to come around on that issue eventually. Hey, if the French can do it…
Nob Akimoto
December 5th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
As much as I love ragging on the French, in the area of nuclear power they’ve made a very firm state-centered commitment to remain in front, something which the US will have a lot of trouble replicating in any form. They’ve committed just about the most resources for ITER as well as their fission research and they basically set up a gigantic state sponsored monopoly for the sake of building new plants. NOw as much as I would love for something on that scale to happen in the US, given how many huge screams of socialism come from just trying to set up a national healthcare exchange…yeah…I’m not seeing it.
“My first answer is to say that the science really should have more time to mature. In the 1970’s we were talking about the global cooling crisis. Now we’re talking global warming. So let’s let the science become a little harder, and let’s make the whole thing much more transparent and then go from there.”
But this isn’t really a neutral position. Setting aside for a moment what the actual level of consensus is on AGW, the current models suggest that we have an extremely limited time horizon in which to make large reductions in our carbon emissions if we want to forestall catastrophe. Waiting for more confirmation is itself a decision that assumes AGW to be overblown to some degree or another.
What is the justification for such a presumption? We know, in a completely uncontroversial way, that global temperature is increasing dramatically, that atmospheric CO2 levels are increasing dramatically due to human activity, and that atmospheric CO2 has a warming effect on the climate. It’s not such a big jump from those premises to an assertion of causality, and a similarly short jump from causality to some dire predictions about the consequences of our behavior. Given the completely uncontroversial nature of these things, and the high degree of consensus within the scientific community, what basis do you have for this radical skepticism?
In the 1970’s — back in the day when folks were worrying about global cooling, I was busy growing up on a farm that hugged a mile of shoreline on the Androscoggin River in Maine. Now this wasn’t just any old river, it was one of the top-ten most polluted rivers in the US. The only one of those top-ten rivers that didn’t pass through a major city. But it did pass through Rumford, ME, where Sen. Ed Muskie — author of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts — breathed his first breath.
My riverside child hood had few of the hallmarks one would expect from reading Tom Sawyer. No boating, no swimming, no fishing. Sometimes, during low water, our cattle would wade across to an island just off shore; I’d have to wade across and drive them back. Then I’d shower for an hour, scrubbing my feet until they were raw. The river stank of rotten eggs, and had clods and mats of brown foam floating on it that caught in the shallows. River mammals on the shore often had a strange green cast to their fur, which was often spotty.
I moved to Boston in 1978; leaving my river behind, except for the occasional visit. While I was gone, industries and communities spent a total of about $6 billion (figure given to me by the Maine Dept. of Environmental Protection for a 2005 story on the Androscoggin) to bring their processes into line with the requirements of the Clean Water Act. The biggest costs were to the paper industry, which had to install many water-recycling and treatment measures and switch to non-chlorine bleaching, and communities which had to cease dumping raw sewage and build waste-water treatment facilities. For many of these small towns, with only a few-hundred people, the cost would never be affordable without substantial help from the federal government.
Today, the Androscoggin has gone from one of the dirtiest rivers in the US to one safe enough to swim in, until about 40 miles from it’s mouth. Then, the problem is e coli bacteria from Combined Sewage Overflows (CSO’s), which happen when old sewer systems are overwhelmed with heavy rain. I never dreamed, in my lifetime, that the river that was a poisonous cesspool would revive. Yet it has. There are eagles, beaver, bass, turtles, and long, lovely canoe treks through what seems live a wilderness. Yes, the paper industry isn’t thriving now, but if you want to know why, go look at the thinness of Vogue, not the cost of the river.
When talking about serious environmental gains and their costs, no one predicted that by 1996 — a mere thirty years after initially passing the clean water act — you would be able to swim in the Androscoggin. And I’ve reported on the river enough to know that the science developed hand-in-hand with the clean up; it’s on ongoing process.
So your suggestion that the clean air and water acts are the only victories for the environmental movement just don’t ring true to me. Those are the national victories, perhaps. But the real wins are small, incremental changes in the fine tuning of regulation (always subject to regulatory capture) and the changes in grade of water quality that show a living river instead of a dead river. It’s the removal of a fish dam here, building a fish ladder next to a dam there, improving a waste-water treatment to lower phosphates today, and lower discharge temperatures tomorrow. It’s removing storm drains on older houses from the city’s waste-water system in urban areas. These are small battles; each important to the health of the river as a whole. And the total success is beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.
When I think of that $6b price tag, I’m staggered. Yet I don’t think anyone who’s lived on the Androscoggin would say it’s too much. And most people would say we should go further; strive for more. Because they don’t want to see their children and grandchildren grow up, like I did, without a river to canoe on or fish in.
The science wasn’t in, wasn’t firmed up, it wasn’t definitive when the investment to stop pollution began. It developed hand-in-hand with meeting targets called for by the regulation. I fail to see how atmospheric/climate science will be any different. And waiting may mean we wait too long; that our opportunity for renewal is lost. Just because it’s expensive and difficult doesn’t mean there won’t be rewards for the investment. They may come in slowed heating; they may come in cleaner air and water, and they’ll certainly come in faster scientific understanding. Undoubtedly, they’ll come in new industries, just as the clean Water and Air acts spawned the whole environmental engineering industries, and less reliance on fossil fuels to power our future.
E.D. Kain
December 4th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Hey, I’m all for local efforts to clean up polluted rivers and so forth. And national efforts to make the air cleaner, and so forth. I’m just skeptical about this panacaea that is limiting carbon emissions and about the cap and trade scheme and about the global warming problem in sum. I am totally behind efforts to clean up dirty rivers, though.
zic
December 4th, 2009 at 10:40 am
You miss the important.
1. Curbing emissions is, ultimately, a ‘local’ effort;
2. Science to address environmental issues generally progresses hand-in-hand with regulation, science that progresses without regulation is typically a response to understanding a problem that already exists;
3. There are unanticipated benefits from curbing pollution in both the environmental responses and growth of new industries.
I told my story not to change the subject from global warming, but to illustrate the benefit of acting now instead of dithering.
I do struggle with the terms of discussion. Man-made emissions are pollution; climate change discussions would benefit from that distinction, which seems at risk being lost because most green-house gases occur naturally.
First, a thousand thank yous for a reasoned, civil debate on this subject. Too many other places resort to ad homenim virtually from the get go, and it makes my head spin.
Several points to consider. First, many sscientists working on climate change and related issues do, indeed, lack Ph.D.s but are none the less vital to the study. Many of them are employed by government agencies (As am I), and most work on issues like fisheries management, coastal habitat restoration, water pollution, or atmospheric chemistry. They publish regularly in peer-reviewed scientific literature, give talks to scientific societies, and do real, solid, scientific work. So to imply that lack of a Ph.D. renders one incapable of being a scientist is, frankly, to insult many thousands of my colleagues. It also diminishes what science can be. And it smacks of university academic elitism.
Second, the impacts of AGW are being documented all the time in fields other then climate science. THus when a scientist or science policy expert talks about the consensus, they are talking about more then just what a vast majority of climate scientists have concluded based on published information. Rather, they are talking about the already visible changes to marine ecosystems, and the loss of marine communities to oceans that are more acid, warmer, and gradually growing higher. They are referencing the increased distance that great whales have to migrate in the Arctic ocean each summer to fatten up fro the return to tropical lattitudes to give birth. They are also describing the drastic increase in regional drought, and the decreases in reliable snowpack which when melted feeds major western US watersheds. All these impacts are real, all are well documented, and none of them have absolutely anything to do with climate models.
Third, you are correct that the policy implications have enormous economic impacts, and too few scientists do, indeed recognize those impacts explicitly. From a policy stand point, here’s the rub – if the climate models have underpredicted impacts thus far, and they re predicting some dire impacts over the next 20-50 years, at what point do we, as a nation, make policy decisions to address and (hopefully) head off those potential impacts? I do not believe we can afford to wait until we can point to the exact hour and day of the tipping point – to do that means we will be well past it, and thus not able to anything but hang on for the ride.
Let me close with this – on NPR last week there was a segment about how the Chinese have accelerated their carbon capture and sequestration R&D. They expect to have viable commercial scale appliations for this technology in 3 to 5 years. If they succeed, then much of what goes up the stack now as greenhouse gasses will be divertable, and thus emissions will be lower. Why, then, are the Chinese doing this R&D and getting the pattents? Why is it that the U.S., for all its scientific prowess and business acumen, isn’t leading that effort? How many billions of dollars will we have to pay the Chinese for the rights to license and install their technology in the U.S? And how many American jobs will be lost because we, as a nation, keep hiding under the bed instead of leading the change?
E.D. Kain
December 4th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Can’t we just counterfeit their technology? Tit for tat style? That’s a very good point, though. Again, I’m all for positive measures here. Let’s fund carbon capture technology, sure. Let’s fund green technology R & D.
zic
December 4th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Do you mean government funding?
It typically goes hand-in-hand with regulation that sets goals for things like carbon-capture technology.
I’m curious, ED, about the basis for your belief that the environmental movement has been “in shambles”. Who have you spoken to? What have you read? From where I sit, as a land use/water lawyer, the environmental movement is powerful and vibrant. Here is a link to the laws that the US EPA enforces. Many of these laws have a private right of action, so when EPA refused to act, as it frequently did during Bush II, the environmental community was successful in going to court and forcing EPA to act in accordance with the law.
And EPA is only one of the federal agencies charged with environmental management. Others include US Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA, BLM, Department of Agriculture (national forests are managed by Ag.), Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation. In addition, most states have their own suite of environmental laws, and their own local environmental organizations ensuring that the laws are followed.
Shambles? The simple truth of the matter is that every single industrial user of land, air, water is always looking for an edge and externalizing some portion of the cost of managing its waste stream. Republican administrations have been far too willing to help. It is only through persistent and ongoing oversight by the environmental community that further rollbacks have been prevented. Yes, many laws are poorly written and have perverse incentives, but the inability to rewrite those laws to reflect 30+ years of experience is due almost entirely to the Republican party. (Again, the environmental movement bears some of the blame during the Clinton admin for failing to agree to some needed changes, but given the willingness of Republican administrations to simply ignore the laws, a certain amount of intransigence can be understood.)
The successes of the environmental movement are broad and sweeping. Air quality is much better across most of the nation than it was in the 70s, despite incredible growth in energy consumption. The nation’s rivers and near ocean environment are much cleaner. Clean up has at least started on virtually all of the toxic waste sites. Industry is much better at cradle-to-grave analysis and management of waste streams. And on, and on, and on.
As to global warming, claiming that the science is new is just wrong. The effect of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) on the atmosphere has been known for over 100 years. The global cooling hype of the 70’s was based on a concern that the discharge of aerosols (like SO2) to the atmosphere would outweigh the impact of the discharge of greenhouse gases.
What is new is our ability to build global climate models. And from what I’ve read (see the links at realclimate.org for several sources), the biggest current problem with GCMs is that they’re all still too conservative. How will the rise of greenhouse gases affect forests? Here in the US, we’re experiencing massive forest die-offs. Are there forests elsewhere in the world that are growing more rapidly due to increased greenhouse gases? Tough to model. What’s even tougher to model is the human-caused changes in land use. The possible ranges in outcome are so wide that the consensus documents generated by the IPCC do not include them. Or another issue — what is the expected impact on permafrost? How about rates of discharge from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets?
But as the GCM scientists continue to review their earlier work and continue to refine their models, they are continually finding that their earlier analyses have been too conservative. As might be expected, given the history of this planet being covered in ice sheets, our climate is actually quite sensitive.
Given that our climate is sensitive, what is the true conservative course of action? Continuing to dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, or reining in that process. You claim: “There is no need for the government to artificially create higher costs to woo us away from fossil fuels.”
Are you sure? How many lives are you willing to bet?
I don’t doubt for a minute that smokestack emissions and other pollutants and other forms of human activity are adversely affecting climate and quality of life for man, plants and animals on the planet. I don’t doubt that large chunks of ice are parting from the Ross Ice Shelf, or that glaciers are retreating, or that deserts are growing in certain regions of the globe. I think that human activities are causing an increase in violent weather around the world. What I wonder about is global warming per se as a man made phenomenon.
‘
Global Warming, Inc. says that at some point certain, Earth began warming steadily, year by year, and irreversibly due to human activities, unless those activities are stopped or strongly mitigated; and that furthermore, human-caused global warming will cancel out any natural cooling in the future—otherwise, what would the alarm be? Remember, I’m talking temperature only here not whether smokestack emissions are harmful in themselves, which they are.
Thus described, GW could not have occurred in the 50s-60s era of cooling in the Northeast U.S., where I have lived most of my life. It snowed in Delaware, a borderline Southern state, every winter for years. It wasn’t exceptionally cold; it just snowed a lot. In NYC, where I have lived more recently, I have experienced great blizzards and terrible heat waves, not in the same year and not in this decade. This past summer was mild, with only one or two days over 90 degrees F. This baseball post-season, I watched pitchers blowing on their hands and fans huddled in heavy coats in the stands, in October. The Colorado Rockies had to reschedule one game because of snow at Coors Field.
People live mainly by their senses: what they can see, hear and smell. Our senses have served us well for eons of evolution. So it does no good for High Science to preach fire and brimstone on global warming when it flies in the face of sensory experience over a life time. Maybe warming is not global; and maybe it’s not all man made, and maybe it would be better to sell cleanup efforts and green technology (which I support), by metrics more closely tied to the harmful effects of pollution in themselves, as in zic’s well told tale of the Androscoggin River.
Zeke
December 4th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Is the fact that it frequently snowed in Deleware seriously one of the data points in your case against the science supporting AGW? Deleware!? It’s snowed almost every winter in North Carolina since I’ve been around (i.e. from the late 80′2 to the present). How is regular snow in Delaware indicative of cooler climate than the norm? Beyond that, argument about long-term climate trends that rely in any way upon anecdotal evidence are always and everywhere absurd. We’re talking about a long-term trend for the global climate; it is inevitable that there will be a huge amount of statistical noise that doesn’t feel like statistical noise on a human scale. That’s why we have large-scale mechanisms for measuring these things in a scientific way, and those mechanisms and the people running them all agree that the earth is warming dramatically, and will almost certainly continue to warm dramatically, as a result of human activity.
“Global Warming, Inc. says that at some point certain, Earth began warming steadily, year by year, and irreversibly due to human activities”
that’s (a) a commonly held belief; and (b) not correct. AGW theory says that against the background noise of natural variability, we are adding a warming signal. It further says that the size of the signal is, likely, about 2 degrees centigrade per doubling of CO2. Where things get really hard is figuring out what the planet will look like once it has stabilized around the increase. That’s where GCMs get used. It looks like drought (in some places), flooding (in others) and crop failure will all be more likely. But given the size of annual variability, determining precisely where and when the environmental impacts will occur is, for now, not possible.
Gentlemen: Thank you for a civil discussion. The fact that so few have been civil around these issues hardens my suspicions about what is really at heart for many. One thing that is almost continually missed in these discussions is the difference between the ‘findings’ (not facts, but likelihoods) and social policy (what, if anything, to do about the findings). Scientists are no more qualified to decide this than anyone else, who is also registered to vote. We need more civil discussion about the choices and trade-offs than the rampant name-calling – even by scientists who have foregone that honored title to merely become advocates.
During the 1930s, the industrial nations ramped up production of war materials in heavy industries in preparation for war. War had already broken out in China, Spain and Ethiopia, invaded by Italy. After Sept., 1939, the factories of the world were going full blast 24/7 to turn out fantastic quantities of weapons of all kinds, with little or no regard for pollution or the safety of workers—I have been in a steel mill when the ore is poured and the air sparkles with silica dust. To give you a small idea of this production, the U.S. made more copies of some aircraft models in the 1940s than exist in the inventories of all the air forces today.
To put it differently, if the world had held a contest to pollute the planet as quickly and thoroughly as possible, you could not have topped the efforts of World War II. And yet, what was the “warming signal” from all of this smoke? Nothing that I can remember. If fact, thereabouts, we were in a cooling pattern, as described in my earlier post. If it requires doubling of the world’s CO2 emissions to produce an increase in mean temperature of 2C, and CO2 is the main warming culprit, then we are safe, because that would be extremely difficult to accomplish today, financially and politically.
Surely, there must be more to global warming than that.
Barry
December 9th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
“If fact, thereabouts, we were in a cooling pattern, as described in my earlier post. ”
No, we are not.
Barry
December 9th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Sorry, I should have read better. There was a cooling pattern in (IIRC) the 50’s and 60’s. This was due to soot.
I don’t know why but this made me think of Alice and Wonderland:
“the different branches of Arithmetic– Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.’”
Erik, it’s disheartening that you don’t really seem to have read up on the science of climate change before reaching a decision. It’s not at all conservative to “wait a while and see” what happens — CO2 stays in the atmosphere for centuries, so every year of high production means many, many years of greenhouse-effect warming to come.
If we decide in 2039 that, whoops, the sea is rising and there’s massive drought, global warming is real — it will be too late to act. We’ll be stuck with a greenhouse world and ever-rising temperatures. That’s why people are making a big deal of this, not “scientific fascism” or Green lust for power.
Seriously — ignore Al Gore, ignore everything that comes out of East Anglia. There’s still plenty of data and science there that is very, very scary.
I think you guys are giving Kain ENTIRELY too much credit for not foaming at the mouth. Our standards for judging conservatives in debates has become so low that not spouting Glenn Beck/Birther nonsense is seen as a sign of wisdom.
Kain is attempting to address an issue that he’s only engaged in the most superficial intellectual sense. Neither he nor his interlocutor seem to understand that “Global Warming” is not a single entity/package to be proven all true or all false, and this has to be addressed in any sensible discussion of the issue; it is a series of related observations/hypotheses of varying certainty/documentation/believability. There is no reason we cannot attempt to address the better documented/predictable claims with public policy first.
There is the observation the Earth is warming. This is pretty incontrovertible, unless you just blatantly deny the validity of temperature measurements and statistics. There is the observation that carbon dioxide exerts an insulating effect on the atmosphere; this is again, pretty incontrovertible. There is the observation that we have released relatively large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the last 100 years–again, as certain as you can get. The question is whether there is a causal relationship between the last and the rise in temperature (and climatologists have addressed this pretty convincingly I think using sun radiation calculations and the historical CO2/temperature record), but even if our release of CO2 (by some bizzarre eventuality) is not the sole cause of the warming trend it is ABSOLUTELY CLEAR IT IS NOT HELPING. The other cause for debate is the magnitude of predicted future temperature changes; this is perhaps the least certain aspect fo the science except that almost all the temperature predictions are considered conservative estimates and indeed past predictions using similar models have been shown to under-estimate future global temperatures.
Kain wants the science to be “more firm and certain” before policy action is taken–yet he has no criteria for what constitutes “firm and certain” other than public agreement, apparently. If we can’t act on an issue when the experts in the field predominantly agree, I’m not sure when we can–and considering the blatantly antagonistic attitude of a segment of the Republican base I doubt we can ever reach the sort of public consensus he deems necessary. His attitude also betrays an ignorance of the use of science in public policy as seldom are scientific hypotheses/predictions incontrovertible when acted upon–you make policy with the data you have, not the data you wish to have.
Kyle
December 5th, 2009 at 1:07 am
“you make policy with the data you have, not the data you wish to have.”
hah.
ED, as much as I love your work and your generally reasonable opinions, I’m going to have to say I continually find this focus on “the human costs of environmental solutions” to be baffling and frankly absurd. The human costs? I’m sorry, but most of those human costs will come from developed countries that have significantly greater standard of living than most of the countries that will suffer from not taking proposed remedies. Is a 15% reduction in per capita income devastating for people in the US? Yes. But how does that compare to the gap in real incomes and standards of living between people in the US (who have plenty of mitigation strategies) and people in the Moldives? Bangladesh?
The human cost of inaction will be vastly greater and shouldered by people who can least afford it, relative to the people who have the money and are being asked to give up some trinkets and baubles. Moreover insofar as there will be human costs in developed nations like the US, that will be more from the fact that there are inadequate safety nets for the people at the lowest rungs of society who are adversely affected by climate change mitigation, not so much the mitigation itself.
At some point there will be a bill that comes due for the vast disparities in global wealth. The question is whether we pay for it with money or with blood.
So let’s let the science become a little harder
I’ve seen this before. “I’m not like a denialist or anything, but let’s give it X more years. These are important decisions!”
Seems to me that to make that argument, you’re obligated to answer some questions:
1) Who gets to decide how definitive the science is, and how?
By tossing out the IPCC conclusions, you imply that the scientists with relevant expertise aren’t the arbiters of this. So who, in their place, will make the call?
2) If the researchers can’t be trusted, how would giving them more time for research help us?
Waiting for more data makes no sense if the people collecting and publishing the data are engaging in a massive campaign of jiggery-pokery. If we can trust them, then let’s trust them. If we can’t, then extending their deadlines won’t help.