As noted in my post Tuesday, it's been very hot, and it's due to get hotter still.
And yet some doubt that Climate Change is real.
Let's call that what it is, shall we? It's gambling. High stakes gambling. Gambling with the fate of the world.
I looked around the net at guides on gambling. Almost every single one of them offers instructions that include the admonishment that one should set a limit on the amount they are prepared to lose before they play. Not doing so usually results in a shifting line that becomes deceptive, like quicksand, drawing one ever farther in without ever creating the appropriately clear moment to stop and consider how far they've fallen in a way that allows them to consider other alternatives in a rational way.
Yes, there are some people who just don't care. I don't know what to do about them. Certainly I have no interest in a political conversation with them. They are not going to behave rationally in that case. So let's presume I'm speaking to the ones who do care, and just aren't convinced Climate Change is a big deal, the ones who are willing to gamble.
Fine. What's your personal limit? By that I mean to acknowledge that if everything that has happened to date doesn't convince you that there's an issue we need to deal with, what will?
If you think that Climate Change is important, but not important enough to inconvenience people, what will it take you to realize it's at least as important as fighting a war? Wars are inconvenient, but we fight wars when the stakes are high enough.
What will it take you to realize it's important enough to pay extra to fix? Wars are expensive, but we pay to fight them when the stakes are high enough.
What will it take you to realize it's important enough to risk just being wrong. It will never be a 100% thing, after all. There's always going to be a risk you're wrong. Might the stakes ever be high enough that it was worth the risk of being embarrassed?
If you're not convinced there's a big enough problem, you're gambling that it isn't going to wipe out the planet or large parts of it. Perhaps you're gambling it just isn't going to wipe you out personally, or people you know and love. How sure are you? At what point won't you be sure?
If there were no more polar ice caps, would that convince you it was time to admit there's a real problem we have to deal with?
If more than a certain percentage of crops failed and prices rose because of scarcity, would that convince you?
If temperatures rose above a certain level in your hometown, would that convince you it was time to care?
If there are more hurricanes, more droughts, and more of other extreme weather events, will it eventually click?
If someone you knew personally fell to heat stroke, would that do it for you?
If someone starts a war because they don't have food and they want yours, will that be a problem for you?
If a major city is flooded by sea level rise, will that be enough to raise your eyebrows and make you wonder?
If there was no more snow in winter at your favorite vacation spot, or perhaps just in your back yard, would that make you finally say this was important?
If the coral reefs die and the marine ecosystem starts to fail and fish become more scarce, will that be the last straw for you?
If the power failed because too many people were running air conditioners and the power grid couldn't keep up, would that wake you up at all?
It's time to draw your personal line in the ice. Before there isn't any ice to draw lines in.
Today, now, decide what signal you're looking for so that when it happens you can say “Oh my god, it's here. I can't deny it any longer.” Because if you don't, you're likely not to see that point go by. You're likely to trick yourself into believing that by continuing to avoid drawing the line, it doesn't actually matter.
The line is there whether you point to it or not. But it needs each and every one of us to see it and to know the situation is real.
It calls for serious work by serious leaders. There may be no sure plan to succeed, but at what point are you prepared to admit that the likelihood of disaster looms if we don't start to trust some plan. Probably meager stuff like reducing emissions by 20% won't do anything. I personally doubt anything like cap and trade will work. Leaving things to private individuals to handle as they see fit won't work—that's what we've done so far, and it isn't fixing things. Serious, coordinated changes will almost certainly be needed with how our whole society needs to operate, and we have to have a constructive dialog on that without partisan political bickering poisoning it.
But, oh, right, you said you're not convinced. So all this talk of serious change sounds overblown.
Fine. You want to gamble that everything is okay. All I'm asking today is for you to say what it's going to take to convince you you're wrong. If you think things are going to just get better, tell me something that lets me know you're sure it could never get that bad. A place where the problems will peak out and then get better on their own.
That's what you think is going to happen, right? We do nothing, or perhaps only what we can afford and what we can find time for, and then things just get better anyway. How bad do you think it might get before that happens?
And for people who are convinced, find the skeptics you know and ask them this question. Find your politicians and ask them this question.
Where do you draw your personal line in the ice?
Melting ice is just one of many obvious measures that tells us there is something terribly wrong, although there are plenty of others. Here are just a few headlines from within the last few weeks:
-
Lake Superior, a Huge Natural Climate Change Gauge, Is Running a Fever
(The New York Times, 19 Jul 2010) - Visit shows Papua glacier in swift decline (The Los Angeles Times, 17 Jul 2010)
- Comparative photos of Mount Everest 'confirm ice loss' (BBC News, 16 Jul 2010)
- Jan.-June warmest first half of year on record (MSNBC, 15 Jul 2010)
- Never in Recorded History Has There Been This Little Ice in the Arctic in Early Summer (The Daily Green, 7 Jul 2010)
For the last several years, I've been collecting press clippings on this issue. I like to have links ready at hand for people who aren't convinced this is an issue. Click here to browse my collection.
If you got value from this post, please "rate" it.
Photo of Ross Sea ice in 2007 obtained from NASA.
NASA says these are generally not copyrighted.
This post is the second part of a three-part series.
The first part was The Coming Tsunami of Heat Waves.
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I will say this much: How many more disasters does it take???
The Chinese have some 65 million people without adequate drinking water and food. All so temptingly close to the Mekong River Delta.
Many so called 'rice bowls' in Asia failed last year. Africa has been a story of starvation and environmental refugees for many years.
Generating electricity from coal and the resulting world wide pollution have been disastrous for us all. The last two hundred years have been tales of woe and disaster for so many. The deny deny folks need to take a hike.
a few views of the melting polar caps would be a good place to start.
Good luck with it. I never argue with stop signs. I don't have the time....
I'm already doing what I can, but we're drops in the ocean until people really start paying attention. Thanks for your continuing efforts to wake people the f*ck up.
It gives people a specific way of speaking about the problem they can try out against naysayers.
As for choice, people have the choice to tell politicians this is a priority. So far even the supporters often have not done that. That's a big deal.
They have a choice to say they are willing to sacrifice something. So far, the killer punch against Climate Change legislation is "it might cost you or inconvenience you".
Why don't you instead of criticizing my posts, offer your own? Seriously. It feels like you have something to say, so say it. But on your own space. It doesn't help to do what you do. That consumes discussion space instead of creating discussion space. That ruins conversational momentum instead of creating it. Surely you can see that.
If a significant proportion of Americans still believe the earth is 6,000 years old and that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs, I suspect we're absolutely doomed on this issue.
But I applaud you tackling it, Kent.
Having said that, I appreciate your trying to shift a lens here and give a slightly different way of approaching the subject in order to be more clear about what you yourself think about all of this and then about what you yourself might do to move forward.
I do not feel that I have answers, but I do have questions and I am concerned. Therefore I appreciate your laying out information and ideas and offering them for discussion.
Rob, always happy to swap metaphors and analogies. I am sometimes accused of speaking entirely in them but I think they help people visualize stuff they can't otherwise. Certainly they do that for me.
Mumblety, yes, that's very related to the thing I was talking about in yesterday's post when I talked about invasive pests in the forests and crops. Same idea.
Hatchetface, I've had serious discussions with people where they suggest the “risk” of there not being Climate Change is that they will have inefficient markets, going after problems that don't exist. Sometimes it seems like the “embarrassment” issue I raised here; sometimes I think maybe it's a form of elitism. I don't know. But people definitely believe there is a risk on the other side, even for as imbalanced as that risk is...
Climate Change is not a Belief, it is scientific and hard Facts. Many simply feel and do not think.
It is certainly the case that the effects will show up there -- and ultimately, any change will inevitably be undeniably evident via such. But while it's an important component of how society will come to grips with any such phenomenon, it's extremely difficult to put any conclusions there on a scientific ground.
I think your drawing a line in the ice is an appropriate metaphor for how people's opinion changes. You can look at a 0.5 degree temperature rise, and either shrug or panic, depending on what you BELIEVE the impact is. Because ultimately, it is beliefs that will drive our societal choices, rather than the raw scientific facts.
But how SHOULD people draw the line? Just seeing "3 new heat-wave records broken" really isn't the right threshold. And yet, it is exactly the sort of evidence that people CAN believe, and ultimately will be undeniable.
It is so much simpler to make absolute statements, to draw lines in the sand (or ice). We need thresholds, to make threshold decisions. And yet, reducing things to absolute statements is misleading, and yet is a practice endemic to attempting to influence opinion, especially public opinion.
We have a complicated and important set of decisions to make as a society. What I hope is, that we don't force more to be major disruptive threshold decisions, by making early preemtive, somewhat speculative decisions now.
Every bit of conservation we can do helps -- economically and buys us time down the road, if the projections are accurate. Everything we do to help our economic systems to better support change without conflict also helps.
Get the third world on the net, give them access to technologies for clean water, and an economic base, and the ability to RESPOND to any changes.
Because one thing I can say with confidence -- climate change is inevitable. Why, how much, where, when -- those may be uncertain. But the historical record is extremely clear.
Climate changes.
We must be ready. It is not just about stopping it. We must prepare for change itself. If 1 billion people's food supply were threatened due to change -- how would we respond? How would we respond if it occurred over a century? A decade? A year?
for one thing, about thirty percent thinks global warming is the secular manifestation of the apocalypse: hell is coming soon, baddies roast while christians eat ice cream on a cloud.
No nation acts on CC without a populace that is interested and supports action. One drives the other. So it is right for Kent to give ideas to those of us who would talk with "unbelievers" like Linda Seccaspina's host.
I've been gracious in allowing you leeway, in order that I not be accused of somehow trying to hide the fact of disagreement. My willingness to allow you to make such remarks is not required. It's just something I did as a courtesy for you. And you have returned that courtesy with nothing but what I regard as ugly behavior.
At this point it's not an issue of you providing useful information. It's an issue of you grabbing the focus. You are way off topic and your tone is out of line.
I politely suggested, “Why don't you instead of criticizing my posts, offer your own?” To this you responded, “You have obviously not read my blog.”
No, in fact, there are several other possibilities that could lead me to make the remark I did. So even if it were true that I had not read your blog (and it is not true, by the way), it is most certainly not obviously true.
I could have made the remark because of faulty memory, for example. That wouldn't mean I hadn't read your blog. I could have made the remark out of kindness to give you an opening to advertise your blog in a way that was contextually motivated. In that scenario, it doesn't matter if I have or haven't read your blog.
(By the way, I certainly hope it doesn't affect your ability to discern what's “obvious” in the physics you've been discussing. I wouldn't want to think that you employ similarly faulty logic in that domain.)
The truth is that I'm aware you have a blog and I have read a number of your posts. I didn't find them to my liking and I don't plan to read more of them. (Chastising me for not having graced you with still more of my time is not likely to get me to revisit, by the way.) But my remark was not about whether I do or don't read. It was a way of hinting obliquely that you should take your remarks elsewhere.
This time I'm not politely hinting, I'm just telling you outright: What you are doing is not welcome here. I'm not bothered that you disagree, but I'm greatly bothered by your manner of doing it. I wouldn't tolerate character assassinations of others on my threads, and I'm done tolerating them of me. Hopefully you'll understand and accept that, but if not, I don't care to explain or discuss it further. It's just a fact that I'm bothered and it's a fact that it's no longer welcome.
On this thread and any others of mine, you will speak to the topic and the topic alone, in a polite and courteous way, and without hogging the forum. I ask you to do this voluntarily, but if you can't find it within you to do so, expect me to exercise the power that Open Salon gives thread authors to police their own threads. Don't expect further warnings.
In the religion I was born into it would be called the ultimate in menschlichkeit.
"We have several decades worth of useful data showing that attempting to scare Americans into a policy position with respect to climate change policy has not produced meaningful climate policy. Yet, here we are, doing it all over again and expecting a different result.
It seems pointless."
Well, you have a point -- and you miss a point.
Quite true, it hasn't done much to change *Federal Government* behavior.
However, it clearly has done a lot to change individual behavior. I see a lot of private solar installations. I have LED lighting in my home, and the only incandescent bulb is in my refrigerator. When I must drive, I drive a Prius (we have two, a 2001 and a 2003). Mostly, I use a Segway.
People here bike. We have regular "bike to school days" to encourage kids to bike to school rather than use cars. (This is only partially a global environment issue -- it's also a local traffic issue and a physical activity issue).
Office buildings routinely upgrade their efficiency, and adjust their energy management practices.
Actually, even the Federal Government does stuff like this, too.
But not Congress. Congress is pretty much in the hands of business these days, a consequence of the enormous expense of running a modern political campaign, and the corrosive influence of parties on the political process.
In Congress, they argue for political gain over opening up more oil fields -- something that will make very little difference to our oil supplies if we don't curb demand dramatically, immediately.
The oil supply issue is going to blow up much more dramatically, more quickly, and more certainly than global warming -- and yet we have no sane national energy policy.
And we get cap-and-trade. Which politicians can buy into because, well, it appears they have turned it into a tax of sorts. A mediocre idea gone bad. Even that might not be so bad, were it directed toward a meaningful energy policy. Hah.
Frankly, it looks to me like the populace has to be in such a state of panic that there's no way a politician can get votes, for the politician to take something seriously, when there's money on the other side.
I think a lot of people have come to that realization, and thus we get scare tactics on all sides of every issue, to the great detriment of our political process. Global warming is no different.
However, we have a HUGE way to go. The fundamental problem is that people -- even people with the right background in math -- simply do NOT GRASP the implications of exponential growth.
Our coal an oil consumption, and thus roughly our CO2 production, grow at about 7% a year. That doesn't sound so bad -- but that means we double every decade.
And THAT means, that every 10 years, we have to discover and exploit AS MUCH OIL AS HAS BEEN EVER CONSUMED BEFORE.
Yup, to get through the next decade, we'll have to find and pump as much oil as we have throughout all of history to date.
This is just fairly simple math, really. But our minds aren't set up to grasp it. We expect all our investments to grow. We expect our towns and companies to grow. If there's no growth, we think something is wrong, that it's dying.
That attitude has to change, fundamentally, pervasively, somehow, for us to really get a grip on the coming problems.
Population doubles, too. And thus food consumption. And energy consumption. To hold energy use constant, we would have to steadily halve our consumption at the same rate.
Growth may still be possible, for a long time. But not exponential growth. Not 7% a year, and not 1% a year either. Any growth where you maintain a certain percentage per year (or per decade) is still exponential.
The Earth itself, of course, gives no more of a damn about life than a Roquefort cheese cares about all those little guys that make the blue streaks. We are embarking on interesting times.
Could you please state, for me and for the record, exactly what disciplines you consider to qualify one as "a scientist", and the minimum training you require?
Kent is a highly-respected computer scientist, editor of a national standard in the field, and studied all the usual sciences at MIT as well.
I agree there are differences between the science in computer science than other sciences. There are also differences in social sciences than other sciences. There are differences between observational sciences and experimental sciences and theoretical sciences as well.
And I claim computer science lies somewhere between the observational, experimental, theoretical, and mathematics. Add in software engineering, and you get a fair bit of similarity to social science as well.
So what is it, EXACTLY, that lets you dismiss Kent as "not a scientist"?
And what is it, EXACTLY, that lets you dismiss anyone, merely because they are not a scientist under whatever definition you come up with?
And why should anyone buy into YOUR definition, and dismissal?
Your unverified statements that he has not (and that he cannot) read the papers are, in fact, an ad hominem attack. I assumed that was clear to both you and the other readers, but perhaps not.
Your whole approach has me convinced you have learned the wrong kind of lessons in your scientific training. We've all seen them -- the grad students who learn how to attack ideas, heckle presenters, with clever "arguments" that are designed to show how smart they are without actually having to think too deeply about what the speaker is saying.
If this behavior has become such a habit that you really can't see what you're doing wrong, let me help you.
Start with your statement that "Kent is not a scientist". Valid or not, attacking credentials has ALMOST NO PLACE in an intellectual debate. The exception? It's a last result when credentials are all you had to go on in the first place.
Citing references contradicting a position is fine. (A caveat: Citing references that you only CLAIM to contradict a position is not. I don't know if you've done this, because you lost so many credibility points with me I didn't bother. I should, but I'm borrowing time here. I urge anyone considering your points seriously to actually check -- a good practice in general. You'd be amazed at how often statements supported by references do not check out. That may in turn be true of the references you cite -- always a problem, I'm not picking on you here).
(BTW, I have checked out MANY such references on this topic. I draw the line at paying for expensive journal articles in this field. I have some issues with how information is shared within the scientific community...)
When you make unverified claims about what Kent has not read, you have crossed the line.
If you point out points that you believe Kent has missed, or misinterpreted, from those same things, you have not.
Statements that Kent is just pushing a message "because it validates an already held idea of the 'truth'" cross the line.
Pointing out a systematic bias in an opinion set, with examples, is not.
I hope this little guide helps you better conduct your future discussions on scientific topics. They are based on decades of experience conducting such discussions with scientists in a wide range of disciplines, for plasma physicists to neuroscientists. I have a pretty clear idea of how such discussions should be handled.
I'm a little confused about exactly what your position is, haven been distracted by your tactics. That tends to be a problem with arguments that primarily attack another person and his position.
We all should remember not to dismiss ideas just because we don't like their source -- or accept them just because we do.
In fact, having addressed your conduct of the debate, I will avoid comment on the content of your position, as I do not wish this to turn into an ad hominem attack on your position!
My goal is not to cut off debate, nor to stifle or dismiss your position, but to get you to focus on that position, rather than on your opinion of Kent's qualifications.
"We are not, as individuals, decreasing our consumption"
(Gad, that sounds confrontational -- I'm just trying to make the context clear. And actually, with you focusing on the issues, I'm finding your points more interesting).
Actually, I believe we are, as individuals, decreasing our consumption, slowly. But I can't support that with broad data. Electricity, yes. Transportation fuels, yes. But the energy that goes into manufactured goods is harder to track, and I really haven't seen any credible data. The best way would be to track all energy consumption and divide by population.
However, my point was behavioral -- that people do, in fact, seek to reduce consumption, and do, in fact, consume less than they otherwise would. That's what directly addresses the question of whether such discussions do have an affect.
Still, the effect would have to be 1/2 every population doubling period to balance things out. We might have that here in the US, with a relatively low population growth. Globally it's a different story.
There's hope, though -- while energy consumption follows economic growth, population growth tends to slow following economic growth.
Your last post gives me a bit clearer picture of your position. I do share some of your concerns about public reaction. However, I would argue that some of that "backlash" is actually a response to the concerted attack from various quarters, including some with major funding by fossil energy companies, and others seeking political advantage. I don't think you'd see this "backlash" without that input.
But I've expressed my concern before, that all sides on every issue seem to have learned that the way to get Congress on their side is to panic the voters. So the voters are now panicked and confused. And tired.
But it appears to me you're arguing for giving up on explaining the issues, and hoping that the easy stuff will pay off down the road, when enough disasters have happened to panic people in the right direction? Perhaps in hopes of avoiding all the downsides if the disasters don't happen?
What I'd really find interesting, is ways we can prepare society to accommodate rapid change. You point to developing technology that can later be rapidly deployed. I agree, but I don't think that's enough. (And it's a major gamble).
Population redistributions, wealth (food, water, and medicine) redistributions, employment dislocations -- how can we handle those?
There's also the unfortunate fact that the people with the most power to stop the process - are also the people most insulated from the costs of climate change. The rich will always live, eat, profit, and fuck in relative comfort - no matter what happens in the environment. Or in politics. Or at war.
Bob, on the issue of how people should make up their mind, perhaps one way to look at it is that until the line is crossed, people think they can rely on themselves. Perhaps the line represents where you need to start seeking other people who can inform your decision.
Hatchetface, regarding efficiency: I think one has to specify “efficiency at what.” The rainforest is being quite efficiently depleted. Businesses that profit off of negative externalities need to be reined in. Capitalism is an engine that will achieve efficiency but regulation is the only thing that can answer the question “at what?” ... or that can at least specify penalties for things we don't want to be too efficient. Assuming that the free market can and will appropriately set the societal goals is a dangerous plan.
Bonnie, extinction is part of nature, too. It'd be best if we didn't confuse natural with desirable. Lava is natural, but is best experienced at quite a distance.
Denise, at least some of those people who believe in the dinosaurs are just playing along because it's never occurred to them to think otherwise. Some won't change their minds but some would if a reason presented. A lot of this discussion is about creating talking points for what I guess you might call people's “personal tipping points.” People report that sometimes a certain event (a Katrina or a 9/11) changes their outlook dramatically. It's not always the event's details, sometimes it's just the reason to stop and think about mortality, vulnerability, connection, ...
Saturn, thanks for visiting. Always happy to share ideas with you on how to focus a kick off a good discussion.
o'steph, you have it right on the money as far as my goal here. So often I see people who care about something and want to know how to break the ice in a discussion and so some of the articles I write are just trying to help show them different angles to approach things from.... What do they call those? Ah, yes: ice breakers. Hmm. Gonna have to ponder whether that's the metaphor I want.
Bob, in a government-by-crisis world, it is a definite issue that anything requiring advance planning is at a disadvantage. The petty disputes over whether the White House should have solar cells, for example, shows the extremes. How on earth could Carter's decision to do that have been controversial. If EPCOT had done the same, people would have come from far and wide to see it. Of course it's political. We must, as you say, be ready.
Norman, I'm not really trying to be empiricist so much as pragmatic. If people are going to hold to their beliefs for reasons that are more emotional than logical, then I'm going to write appeals that try to reach them on their chosen terms. Thanks for reading along, though.
William, I'm not sure I disagree with those observations. Several people have raised points like you make, but I guess I stand by the answer that I just gave Norman. The question is, as o'steph notes, essentially political, not scientific. We do not give one vote to each and every citizen based on science either, after all. Some of the people with votes are anti-science. Some are just ill educated. Some know better but are spiteful. The world is complex. Emotional appeals are an important part of the political quiver.