3.25.08
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It’s well-established that continuing to burn fossil fuels for energy is causing climate change, yet we have no way of measuring what the true consequence of climate change will be. I used to think that science was the key to so many of our problems with energy and the environment. The right breakthrough in carbon sequestration technologies could lead to zero emission coal plants. Continued improvements in battery technology could lead to a desirable electric car. Advanced manufacturing techniques could lead to economical solar panels. While these advances will be important, the challenge before us is not technical but societal. We really do not have a strong reason to change our ways. Other than how it affects our wallet, there is no consequence for driving a large SUV or being wasteful of electricity.
If we look back on some of our most daring accomplishments, a strong impetus for change always existed. The Manhattan Project was only possible in a time of war. The Apollo Program was possible because of a fear of Russian superiority in space. The War on Terror was launched after 9-11. But what great initiating event will make us fight climate change? I worry that there never will be one.
If the average temperature increases by a few degrees, how does that affect our day-to-day lives? Rising sea levels are not going to suddenly flood an area—it will be a very gradual process. Changing climate patterns are not going to immediately turn an area of the world into a desert, rather it will happen over many years. Where is the impetus for change when these problems will develop so gradually?
It is this lack of impetus that makes climate change such a difficult problem. The solutions for reducing emissions need to be enacted over many decades, which is a problem in our political system. When our government changes control on the order of every four to eight years, it becomes incredibly difficult to solve a problem that will take many decades to resolve.  How do we plan for the long term in our political system?Â
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Great post, Ben. I just started listening to a LongNow podcast (text /MP3) that has a bunch of info on climate change/power generation. While one might not agree with their position, it’s worth listening to. Time to continually elevate the conversation re: this.
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+0 | March 25, 2008 @ 10:52 am
Ben, market forces are the best way to change human behavior, because people generally are able to understand and act in their own self-interest. When gasoline costs $3 a gallon, people drive less. Compulsion doesn’t work well, certainly not in the long term.
I’ll quibble with your first sentence a bit. Fossil-fueled climate change is not “well established.” It is a well accepted hypothesis with a lot of supporting evidence–and a large body of conflicting evidence, as well.
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--1 | March 25, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
While carbon-fueled climate change is not well established in the political sphere, it is well established in the scientific one. If you know of a peer-reviewed scientific paper challenging it, please provide a link because I haven’t found one.
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+0 | March 25, 2008 @ 1:27 pm
“well established”? by who
The question should be “where is the impitus for change when none of this can be proved to be our fault”?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for alternative fuels. Not to save “mother” but to stick it to the man at the utility company. If I could go off the grid and create my own power without a huge cost, and not change one aspect of my lifestyle, I would do it in a heart beat.
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+0 | March 25, 2008 @ 1:29 pm
Foraker, I have posted and linked to conflicting data many times on this site. Given the search tools available on the Internet, if you’re not finding the conflicting data, it’s because you’re not looking for it. Not because it isn’t there.
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--2 | March 25, 2008 @ 2:58 pm
Foraker, for instance, read this: Link.
In it, one of the members of the IPCC who was awarded the Nobel Prize says this:
And this:
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--2 | March 25, 2008 @ 3:07 pm
Foraker, here’s another. Link. Daniel Botkin, who runs the Center for the Environment at UCSB, among his many credentials, has this to say:
And this:
And this:
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--1 | March 25, 2008 @ 3:14 pm
According to the Pew Research Center, only about half (55%) of the Americans surveyed reported driving less in response to the recent spike in gas prices.
The report also says:
“However, despite all these self-reported efforts to conserve, a sizable majority of the public - 71% — says that higher gas prices are too difficult a way to achieve the goal of energy conservation, while just 17% says that there is a benefit to higher gas prices because it forces people to conserve energy.”
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+0 | March 25, 2008 @ 3:39 pm
If there isn’t going to be a “great initiating event” might that not imply there isn’t a reason to change drastically? If the change is going to be slow we just adapt as it happens.
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+0 | March 25, 2008 @ 3:54 pm
what would happen if the polar bear died off? Do you think that would be enough to cause change?
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--1 | March 25, 2008 @ 5:59 pm
jjb, please read comment #7, and the article to which it is linked. Extinctions, it turns out, are very rare when climate changes gradually. The fossil record suggests that extinctions occur around cataclysms, such as when a meteor strikes the earth.
Your question is a theoretical one, like many of those raised by global warming alarmists. Contemplating the answer causes emotional turmoil, if not fear. There is little chance that logic will be able to reason with turmoil and fear, which is exactly what the two authors I have linked to are pointing out as a central problem in the discussion about climate change.
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--2 | March 25, 2008 @ 7:33 pm
Market–yeah, the word is like a warm gun. Makes me feel safe.
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+1 | March 26, 2008 @ 7:36 am
lmcshane, from the very article to which you linked: “The Cassandras always proved wrong. Each time, there were new resources to discover, new technologies to propel growth.”
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--1 | March 26, 2008 @ 9:40 am
JMurray,
Thanks for the links. But I think you missed my point, and perhaps I missed yours.
The WSJ is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal. And in those articles you cited, the authors acknowledge that climate change is happening and is caused by human activity (”Without a doubt, atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing due primarily to carbon-based energy production (with its undisputed benefits to humanity)”). They both simply disputes the consequences of global warming doomsdayers.
I think that supports the point I was trying to make, that there is a scientific consensus that human activity is causing global warming. If your point is that there is dispute over the consequences of global warming, I agree.
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+1 | March 26, 2008 @ 10:04 am
Foraker, you’re welcome. Each of the articles I linked to was written by an eminent scientist, each of whom stated that their opinions were based on their review of peer-reviewed scientific journals. You’ll have to do your own research to find the peer-reviewed articles themselves, since I don’t have the time to do it for you. But I’m sure there are many peer-reviewed articles on their personal, university, or scientific center web pages. Or you could e-mail each of those individual and ask them for the evidence on which they base their highly qualified, credible opinions. If you’re really committed to understanding, rather than to accepting the packaged politically-based beliefs of global warming alarmists, you’ll do the research and be glad for it.
I don’t think the quote you cite links atmospheric gases to climate change. It does state the obvious, which is that burning fossil fuels increases atmospheric carbon dioxide. The rest is hypothetical, ergo, that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is CAUSATIVE of climate change, not just correlated (see the other string for my views on this one). One of the quotes I cited in #6 above states this baldly: “…the coincidence that changes in carbon dioxide and global temperatures have loose similarity over time.”
There is evidence supporting this hypothesis, but there is also evidence refuting it. Global warming alarmists like Al Gore like to promote the supporting and ignore the noncomforming evidence.
So I think that you have made a speculative leap when you write “that there is a scientific consensus that human activity is causing global warming.” There is clearly not such a scientific consensus (see the other string, again, on this). There clearly is an attempt by a political grouping with an agenda to seize control of the debate and to convince us that “the science is settled.” It is not.
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--2 | March 26, 2008 @ 11:40 am
jmurray–keep reading and rereading–WSJ changes their on line articles. The isolated snippet that you quoted is elaborated upon. Based on your logic, I can assume that you live in a community with no police, no fire department and no garbage pick-up, because your behavior is so self-regulated that you and your neighbors take care of each other. Pray tell–where do you live? And, to refer back to Foraker’s sage remarks (another “daycare” Cassandra amongst us?) you won’t find peer-reviewed science disputing global warming and I don’t get paid enough to do your research for you, or, to make it up. Keep reading
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+3 | March 26, 2008 @ 12:38 pm
lmcshane, you are carrying the discussion to an extreme. This is a tactic also used by Al Gore and the global warming alarmists, but it is neither illuminating nor dispositive. I’m not sure which logic you have discerned in my writing that leads you to a discussion of public services.
The usage “peer-reviewed science disputing global warming” is your terminology, not mine. There is certainly peer-reviewed science questioning the purported causation of global warming and pointing to shortcomings in the evidence supporting the hypothesis, though the consensus politicians do everything they can to restrict funding to its authors and to suppress their research. Read my post on the other string about this subject to understand why you won’t look for or accept that evidence…
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--1 | March 26, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
jmurray–extreme is another loaded “gun” word. I am as extreme as you are extreme. We need to find something/anything to agree upon that will result in postive change for the environment. That is all that we can hope for in this crazy world.
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+1 | March 26, 2008 @ 2:53 pm
lmcshane, why do we need to “find something/anything to agree upon that will result in positive change for the environment?” I am not compelled to advocate change for its own sake, but only when there is a clear change that can be made and that, when made, will produce a clear benefit at acceptable cost.
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+0 | March 26, 2008 @ 3:21 pm
Okay–let’s try this behavioral math question and see if we can agree?
Citizen A walks 1 mile to work everyday
Citizen B drives 20 miles to work everyday.
Which citizen produces a greater cost to society? The clock is ticking? Do we agree?
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+2 | March 26, 2008 @ 3:43 pm
lmcshane, you are considering only the costs, not the contributions. The person who drives 20 miles could very easily produce more of value than the person who walks one mile, creating a greater net benefit to society. Depriving that person of the right to drive the 20 miles could be detrimental to us all. The cumulative effect of millions of these individual scenarios is of considerable import in this discussion.
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+0 | March 26, 2008 @ 7:13 pm
jmurray–I don’t agree. I think specific behaviors and decisions matter. I figured you would add contributions into the equation just as you could easily say that citizen A is a drug dealer and citizen B is an attorney. So go ahead–switch the equation-make Citizen A an attorney and Citizen B a drug dealer. Either way, citizen A is generating less pollution than Citizen B. “Contributions” is a red herring.
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--3 | March 26, 2008 @ 9:53 pm
We all need to do our best to change our individual behavior. It’s the only thing that we can control.
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+1 | March 27, 2008 @ 7:47 am
lmcshane, you’re right in #23, but wrong in #22. Contributions is not a red herring at all, though I wouldn’t choose an attorney and a drug dealer as my examples.
Let’s instead substitute a fuel cell scientist and an attorney. The fuel cell scientist is creating something from nothing, based on knowledge. He/she is likely to produce more value to society than the attorney ever will–though there is no certainty that the scientist’s work will ever bear fruit. This is the risk of entrepreneurship. Attorneys do not create anything from nothing, they just reapportion that which others have created among various parties.
However, the attorney may cost $400 per hour to use, and therefore, his/her time would be wasted, and family suffer consequences, due to the relative inefficiency of public transportation or walking compared to driving. Who would make that decision on behalf of that attorney? The government? On pain of compulsion? How, then, would we be any different from the Soviet Union, or the government in George Orwell’s Animal Farm?
It’s a complex situation; not as simple at all as you would like to make it out.
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--1 | March 27, 2008 @ 8:39 am
We can go around in circles with idle talk or we can do something. I’ll take the fuel scientist as a neighbor over an attorney any day. I guess we agree on some things.
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+1 | March 27, 2008 @ 9:31 am
Oh-just kidding. There are some good attorneys. Let’s just end this discussion here. I am sick of talk.
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+0 | March 27, 2008 @ 9:34 am
lmcshane, I get it. You’re biased towards action. I have no argument with your choosing that within your own life. But what assurances do I have that any broader action that you, or others like politicians, advocate will be the right one?
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--1 | March 27, 2008 @ 10:02 am
I think you know and I know that if I pour motor oil down the sewer drain, I am doing something bad. You can interpret your own actions in shades of grey. Don’t get me started on politicians. If you only knew.
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+0 | March 27, 2008 @ 10:12 am
Biased towards action? Is that a problem?
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+1 | March 27, 2008 @ 10:13 am
lmcshane. It can be. Here’s an example. When the railroads were being built in the late 19th century, there was a shortage of timber to use for railroad ties. Someone who was biased towards action decided to import eucalyptus trees to California because they grow fast. What that person didn’t know was that eucalyptus trees grow in a spiral and are therefore unsuitable as railroad ties, and that they are so hard that they break saws. And that eucalyptus trees, being non-native to California, would have no natural predators, would grow like weeds, and would crowd out native species. Eucalyptus trees are now considered a predatory species, and California spends millions of dollars trying to eradicate them. There’s what a bias to action can get you.
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--1 | March 27, 2008 @ 11:00 am
Your example relates to satisfying a demand/need with an inferior substitute. I can walk, ride a bus, or car pool to address my personal demand/need for transportation and such behavior/action does not have a detrimental effect on any one. This is tiresome. Live your life without regard for any one else. Isn’t that what you want me to say?
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+1 | March 27, 2008 @ 2:23 pm
I am having fun with the thumbs up and down gizmo, though. So, let’s just call a truce for today.
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+0 | March 27, 2008 @ 2:24 pm