I was struck by a comment that followed my latest piece on cutting disaster risks, reacting to this line: “Only direct experience seems to trigger change.”
Yeah. It seems Homo S “Sapiens” at large needs to first get hit by the wall before changing path. There will be always someone debating (denying) the science (evidence) of walls and bricks. We can’t falsify the theory about that wall ahead, so it’s no science, blah, blah, blah, … bang. — Florifulgurator (Dadaist, Germany)
David P. RopeikThis characterization of the human habit of dawdling in the face of looming risks reminded me of earlier contributions here on global warming by David Ropeik, a former journalist and longtime student of risk communication. [UPDATE, 8/4: Some people have concerns about his affiliations with industry.] His book (with George Gray), “Risk: A Practical Guide for Deciding What’s Really Safe and What’s Really Dangerous in the World Around You (Houghton Mifflin, 2002), is a clear-eyed guide to why we often get in harm’s way and also fear the wrong things. (Here’s a 2002 Times interview with Mr. Ropeik on the “fear factor.”)
I think it’s worth considering his comments as a group here, and opening a conversation about whether we have the capacity to shift from our sprint of the past couple of centuries to a more reasoned marathon pace good for the long haul. Should there be an Intergovernmental Panel on Human Nature?
Here’s one of David’s posts, deconstructing why the psychology of climate makes it such a hard fit for the political arena:
Talking, rather than acting, remains a political option because the electorates on which the pols rely for their jobs are not sufficiently threatened by climate change, personally, to make it an issue on which politicians have to act. The psychological literature on the perception of risk has shown that we fear, and demand protection from, risks that can happen to us, not to polar bears or ice caps.
We say in surveys that we are concerned about climate change, the way we have always said in surveys that we are concerned about the environment. But the environment has never been much of a voting issue, nor will climate change become one, until we as individuals truly feel that something bad might happen to us. Which makes McCain sound perceptive, because long term issues like climate change do not portend tangible imminent threat. And without a sense of being personally threatened, we don’t act much more than those yakking Senators do.
Until a majority of us feel personally threatened by specific and significant negative impacts of climate change, we’re just not going to be concerned enough to act. It’s frustrating, since the discipline of risk communication is available to the climate change communicators, but they don’t appear to be paying attention to what it has to offer.
More on this at onrisk.blogspot.com.
The science of human behavior, particularly the psychology of risk perception, robustly shows that we use two systems to make judgments about risk; reason and affect, facts and feelings. It is simply naïve to disregard this inescapable truth and presume that reason and intellect alone will carry the day. That’s just not how the human animal behaves. Even as potentially catastrophic as climate change might be, if people don’t sense climate change as a direct personal threat, reason alone won’t convince them that the costs of action are worth it.
There are still too few scientists and policy leaders describing the potential impacts of climate change on a local level. This is an admittedly dicey business because it’s hard to know specifically what changing the climate of the planet is going to do to Denver or Delhi or Dusseldorf. But there is plenty of scientific evidence of the harm climate change might do at the local level. These potential local risks need to be emphasized, in the concrete terms that will give people more of an idea of what climate change might do to them.
My concern about the last paragraph above is related to the high level of uncertainty in regional climate predictions. Note how the word “might” has to be used to stay true to the science, which would immediately deflate the concreteness that David says is necessary to trigger action. Does this mean it’s an impossible task?
Here’s another comment by David providing a pretty sobering assessment of whether reason can ever dominate deeper human traits, including tribalism and what might be called “now-ism,” as societies weigh choices in the next few decades:
The very concept of sustainability is predicated on reason…that humans can see the collective harms their behaviors are doing, and, as rational actors, correct those behaviors. But there is overwhelming evidence from all sorts of fields that our behaviors are not so much a product of reason as they are the result of our overpowering animal instinct to survive. Nearly all of your stories are evidence of the consequences that arise from the fact that we are still human ANIMALS, doing what evolution has programmed us to do…acquire the resources that improve our chances of survival (and procreation).
Even the argument that “Behaving the way we are now is destructive, and hurts our chances for survival” is an argument based on reason. It requires individuals to think rationally and act in the name of the greater common good rather than instinctively in their own self-interests. We’re just not programmed that way.
As Garret Hardin wrote in his famous essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons” (Science, 162(1968):1243-1248), “Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.”
So here we are in a globalized world of 6 billion individuals instinctively seeking what they can get from the commons we’re all a part of, going to at least at least 8 billion before a predicted population crest, each one of us contributing to the mess about which you report, and our hopes rest on behaving more rationally, when the evidence says that’s not how we behave.
Kind of a bummer. But I think this fundamental truth has to be considered in the whole discussion about the damage we’re doing to our future and the hopes for finding some better way. This isn’t an argument, just an observation which I offer for consideration in your future thinking and reporting.
Finally, here’s a snippet from David’s latest comment, reacting to my piece on the whiplash effect in climate science and journalism:
The psychology of risk perception also confronts us with the reality that issues like climate change just don’t ring our alarm bells. We use a dual process of reason and affect to gauge the threats we face. Intellectually, climate change is threatening, sure. Majorities say so in nearly every survey. But emotionally, climate change is distant…an idea…not a threat that individuals feel is going to directly impact them. You see this in surveys too. Ask a few friends “Name one way that climate change will significantly negatively impact you in the next 10 or 20 years.” Most of the people I know struggle with that one. Which is why, while majorities say they are concerned about climate change, they shrink to minorities when asked to support carbon taxes or higher energy prices or, God forbid, changing personal lifestyles. Without feeling personally threatened, people just don’t respond to risks urgently at all. It’s just the way it is.
I don’t suggest we’re trapped in these realities. There is hope here. It strikes me that all these insights are potential tools for thinking about how to reach the public with the information necessary to motivate the behavioral and political changes we need to get our arms around this threat.
So can we grow past our basic nature? Jesse Ausubel at Rockefeller University has written that “because the human brain does not change, technology must.”
Or is there something deeper than technology that must change? Interestingly enough, Jesse’s brother, Kenny Ausubel, the founder of Bioneers, is pursuing social and ethical evolution framing choices around nature’s bounty, and limits.
Interesting family, interesting questions.
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I’m tellin’ ya’, this debate will straighten out a lot, and become a lot more sane, once the error of exquisite climate sensitivity to CO2 is revealed and fossil fuels can stop being stigmatized. To speak of ‘energy footprint’ instead of ‘carbon footprint’ alone will sanitize debate. For one thing, you’ll have all we climate skeptics off your back. Sure, let the market find alternatives, yeah, even so-called ’sustainable’ ones. It would be for the good of us all.
— kim=================================
Very interesting, Andrew — and thanks for pointing to Ropeik’s work, with which I wasn’t familiar. Please bear with a couple of observations that may be obvious.
Part of the immediate challenge, I think, is to reframe the discussion in a way that does bring it home for people in the political sphere. This may mean doing a bit of rhetorical violence to the carefully shaded “mights” of the scientific world — but that’s what must happen if we’re to make hay among the polity.
It’s worth noting that activism like this *can* make a difference over the medium term. Consider the nationwide support of civil rights that grew in the 1950s and 1960s, especially among groups of people (e.g. northern whites) who weren’t especially touched by racial issues — or at least not as much as Southerners were. But at last there was *enough* perception of trouble that the national political sense could swing into line behind charismatic non-politicians (King et al.) and dogged politicians (LBJ et al.).
We don’t have to convince everybody all the way — we need to convince *enough* people *enough* of the way.
— Tim WalkerDear David Ropeik and Kenny Ausubel,
If presented with a forced choice, which do you think would collapse first: The Manmade Economy or God’s Creation?
Never in human history has so much wealth been concentrated in the hands of so few people. A tiny minority of people in the human family have accumulated a gigantic portion of the world’s wealth. What could be wrong with this picture?
At least to me, a pyramid-like scheme is not a satisfactory system for organizing the human family’s world economy or for distributing the world’s wealth because such a “trickle down economy” is unfair, grossly inequitable and soon to become patently unsustainable. The limited resources and frangible ecosystem services of Earth cannot sustain much longer the way the global political economy is currently grown without regard to biophysical limits to its seemingly endless growth.
After all, the air, land and seas are being relentlessly polluted with human waste products; fresh water, fish stocks, food reserves, fossil fuels, and wetlands are being depleted at an alarming rate; the catastrophic effects of massive over-consumption and unrestrained hoarding of resources cannot be sustained much longer by our small, finite, fragile planetary home.
If the environment is being irreversibly degraded and natural resources are being dissipated recklessly, how can human civilization, life as we know it and the integrity of Earth as a fit for human habitation be maintained much longer?
Something new and different needs to be done. The wealthy and powerful leaders among us have unwelcome responsibilities to assume and duties to perform. If these leaders continue to adamantly insist that we keep producing endlessly as we are doing now and if we keep getting what we are likely to keep getting by overproducing as we are now, then the unbridled growth of the global economy, in all likelihood, will soon precipitate a colossal ecological wreckage unless, of course, the ever expanding global economy proceeds like a runaway train, barreling headlong into a sharp ‘turn’ called “unsustainability” where the manmade global economy crashes and destructs before rampant economic globalization destroys the Creation.
In the preceding paragraph I make reference to “unwelcome responsibilities to assume and duties to perform.”
Those “unwelcome” responsibilities and duties are only unwelcome to people who are idolaters of the global economy, who count its many material ‘blessings’ first, last and always. And what are these ‘blessings’ but products of avarice borne of greediness for personal gain and riches.
Leaders of human civilization have spoken loudly, clearly and often with one voice through human history about eschewing the insatiable passion for acquiring, consuming and/or hoarding every object of personal desire.
All this is to say that what is “unwelcome” in choosing to live differently is only apparently unwelcome…..not really unwelcome. Necessary behavior change is actually something to be welcome, I believe, because making needed changes in behavior is somehow the right thing to do. At least to me, it appears the leaders of human civilization have harmoniously exemplified for all of us how to live well…..in a way that is somehow right.
Perhaps there is another way, a better way to communicate what I am trying to say here.
It is the Creation that is being overwhelmed by the unrestrained over-consumption, unbridled overproduction and unrestricted overpopulation activities of the human species, which can be seen so clearly overspreading the surface of Earth in these early years of Century XXI.
In our time, sacrificing the Creation on the altar of the seemingly endless, distinctly human-driven expansion of economic globalization is what concerns me.
How can the human economy exist without the Creation? Surely we can agree that the Creation will likely go on long after the last idolaters of the global political economy have somehow determined to end their pursuit of a fool’s errand: dominion of the Earth and everything we derive from it.
Sincerely,
Steve Salmony
— Steven Earl SalmonyWhile there are quite a number of individuals active and interested in this area and, more generally, the social sciences aspects of global change, developing funding for significant research in this area and an associated effort to build a community of researchers has proven problematic. One problem is that the physical, chemical, and ecological researchers have been able to propose major types of activities (satellite observations, field programs, and modeling—the order being based on amount of funding allocated during the 1990s by the US Global Change Research Program), whereas efforts to outline comparably visionary and far-reaching efforts in the social science area have really struggled. Within the government effort, a challenge has been to find an agency that would be the champion of such efforts. As one example of what has been tried, the Subcommittee on Global Change Research (SGCR) sought funding for social science research in its initiative for the fiscal year (FY) 1995 budget. Eventually, an increment of something like $7.5 million was added to the Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences budget within the National Science Foundation for grants to universities as a start to getting studies going and to expand the relatively small group of researchers. The money indeed got awarded that year, starting a number of several year efforts. But, by FY 1996, the increment to the budget for global change research got diverted to what the NSF Division felt was a more important priority, namely stemming the increase of teenage pregnancies—the lesson was that building a community focused on long-term change would constantly face the challenge of maintaining funding against more immediate issues.
Basically, the problem that the SGCR faced was that there does not seem to be an agency with the mission and expertise to be pushing for and guiding advancement of social sciences dealing with sustainability and long-term climate change. Dave Slade had tried to add social sciences to the Department of Energy global change budget in 1980, but the incoming DOE secretary for the Reagan Administration (president of a dentistry school from South Carolina, as I recall) stopped that (why would DOE be studying the potato famine in Ireland as an analog for the impacts of climate change on countries)) and shifted responsibility for the climate change research effort away from Dave Slade and the Office of Health and Environmental Research to the Office of Basic Energy Sciences—so focus on the hard sciences was the lesson. Certainly, risk research is supported across government, but in relatively small pockets and tied generally to particular, nearer-term missions of government. There are those in universities and think tanks (often supported by interested foundations) working in the area, and there already is an International Human Dimensions Programme that brings together researchers in the area, but there is precious little government funding and push for such efforts (support for the CCSP’s present decision support research activity is very modest, once one discounts the satellite observation funding that NASA counts as relevant because of the data bases on environmental conditions that are gathered and made available).
A key challenge for the incoming Administration, from my limited perspective as a physical scientist and my involvement with the Office of the US Global Change Research Program from 1993-2002, is figuring out how to build up the needed social science capabilities and community. While it may seem like it should be easy as it might not take much funding, I am not sure that that community should be thinking so small (as it was at a research planning meeting a few months ago convened by the National Research Council)—keeping a small program going can sometimes be harder than keeping attention a bigger issue and program. One idea suggested has been to associate the social science studies with the products and assessments of the physical sciences research (e.g., having an area like sea level rise extend from issues pertaining to glaciers to issues concerning dislocation of people on coastlines), so social sciences becomes a small part of all physical science programs. The likely problem is that getting together the key government research managers across such a wide range of disciplines is very difficult—it is very hard for them to find the time and sustain their interest and efforts in creating such broad-based programs given their responsibilities to make much larger, narrower efforts work.
While we clearly need an expanded social science program, we will really need some creative ideas and thoughtful and persistent leadership on all of this to make it happen.
— Mike MacCrackenOne of the reasons that people don’t feel threatened is that the threat level is difficult to determine. Perhaps a straight reading of the science would make determining the threat simpler, but where can you find that? Everyone that is blowing the whistle, from Gore to Hansen, appears to have a political agenda. Do we really think that climate scientists suddenly realized in 2000 that the situation was much more dire than it was in 1999? There wasn’t much criticizing going on before that.
Or, perhaps, scientists are projecting what they think might happen and then, when they get in front of a camera, not wanting to sound wishy-washy, make statements that sound absolute.
I think that the suppression of scientific evidence to the contrary, and the subsequent ruining of scientific careers, does not go unnoticed by the general public.
— LudwigActually,Andy, there is a boomerang aspect to your argument. If I remember my game theory, the optimum strategy is to not seek the best possible outcome but an optimum one that allows you to avoid the worst possible outcome. Accordingly, we can admit that there is increased carbon and that this is problematic while at the same time say that not enough is known about the possible outcomes of this development. Accordingly we should adopt strategies to reduce carbon but not “bet” on radical changes that would subvert our economy or our lifestyles. So…the people intuitively are doing risk analysis.
— PeterCBefore we go any further lets establish something. The human race is not clay to be shaped according to the wishes of what some feel appropriate. I say this because I sense from reading this topic an effort to shift what people think of as human nature. Of course culture and norms modify and change over time, but that’s not what is being talked about and any attempt to mold the human race will end up a disaster.
— robert verdiInteresting that the very first comment is from someone who thinks the whole thing is hoo-ha. Let me be clear that Kim et al. are in my view denying reality and failing to comprehend how real science works. And spare me the small rotating parade of “experts” claimed to be the only “true” scientists; the whole denial thing reminds me: you can fool all the the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but …
An excellent example of time revealing failed false premises is the failure of Republicans such as Rove and DeLay to create a permanent Republican majority. Much of Bush’s suppression and editing of science was based on the idea that politics trumped reality, and this is all coming home to roost.
Our fixation on reducing taxes at all costs fits the discussion above; we prefer to use magic thinking to pretend we are not saddling future generations with massive debt. But in the meanwhile relief from disasters such as floods, fires, disease, and failing infrastructure are not solving but adding to these costs.
I have no answers but a plea to all to consider the consequences to the race of continuing to pretend that actions don’t have consequences.
— SusanMr. Ropeik claims “But there is plenty of scientific evidence of the harm climate change might do at the local level.”
Is there? Really? Having done a lot reading on the topic, I can’t find a single threat to my community or to me personally. Everything seems to boil down to the belief that our winters will be a tad warmer. Where I live, most are excited by that prospect.
This lack of identified threats is the crux of what many of us so-called deniers get wound up about. We hear stories of sea levels rising a couple of feet, and then learn that the only people it will affect are those who already live in a coastal floodplain and are in more immediate danger from regular storms.
We hear stories of longer growing seasons and wonder how that can be bad. Yes, stories of droughts, but also of more preicipation (depending on locale). In short, we hear stories of change and how change must be bad…but no evidence to support that.
I have spent my entire career fighting to protect natural habitat for the sake of non-humans. And I understand how habitats will change with warming. But I also know the threats of deforestation and ocean pollution as being greater threats by an order of magnitude.
We humans have a general tendency to want everything to always stay the same, and panic when we hear about change. Even if if there is nothing that suggests the current situation is optimal.
So, yes, please conduct some science showing how changes will be bad to specific human populations and specific ecosystems. And then demonstrate why those populations/ecosystems will be incapable of adapting to those changes. And then demonstrate why those changes are even remotely as threatening as other impacts.
And then, you’ll have my ear and my support.
— BrianBud Ward of the Yale Climate Media Forum just reminded me of his recent piece on the social sciences and climate, focused on the work of Baruch Fischoff. It’s well worth reading.
— Andrew C. RevkinIt’s deliciously ironic that a cult that relies so heavily on over-the-top emotional appeals about “saving the planet” would decry the inability of others to evaluate risks rationally. We’re facing more immediate and serious threats than a hypothetical few degrees of warming in the second half of this century, and everyone but the cultists is starting to focus on that.
Presently,we have a severe energy crisis caused by our failure to develop our oil and gas resources, a once-a century financial crisis caused by reckless mortgage lending and wild housing inflation backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Congress, and a serious geo-political threat from a soon-to-be nuclear Iran, a rising China, and an aggressive, revanchist Russia. Not to mention two uncompleted wars and al Qaeda, which is down but not out. Also, the international trading system that has produced unprecedented global prosperity is under attack from selfish interests and know-nothings and is threatened by the collapse of the Doha trade negotiations.
Unless we can surmount each of these challenges, we’re facing some very difficult times. AGW, without the hype, is a legitimate concern but well down any rational ranking of priorities.
— E. O’NealRe: #1
— ErikOne trick pony, one trick pony -
substitute habitat destruction, energy security, energy scarcity, air and ocean pollution, depletion of ground water, even your coming ice age – you miss the point of this piece in your ongoing devotion to denying climate change in every thread of DotEarth, regardless of the actual topic of Andy’s post. This takes climate change as the example, sure, but it’s about the human propensity to ignore or deny evidence until it hits them in the face – not unlike you, actually.
Important article about jellyfish today at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/science/earth/03jellyfish.html. Although I doubt that people who would maintain that the oceans are in decline are stung by the evidence. People who are trying to relax by vactioning or trying to make a living by fishing on both sides of the Atlantic need no convincing that something smells fishy.
The evidence is cited by the National Science Foundation, and also Dr. Josep-María Gili, a leading jellyfish expert, who has studied them at the Institute of Marine Sciences of the Spanish National Research Council in Barcelona for more than 20 years.
Some people read evidence and feel nothing. Others feel the evidence when it bites them. I invite everyone to take a dip in today’s evidence. The paper is fine.
You can’t argue with jellyfish. They’re all over the place. They propel themselves with their mouths.
This November, vote against the coelenterate party and vote for chordates. Let’s make it party time for fish.
— SpencerRe post #7. I think that is a large part of the problem, really, in convincing people of the need to “change.” Most people are trying to be good and do not consider using energy or driving a large car as a bad thing to do. They are reasonable to feel a bit churlish when someone suggests they are acting immorally and need to change.
Perhaps a better approach is to allow for people to act the way people tend to do, but design systems such that people have their own ecological niche, which, through good design, allows them to behave in self-interested ways that benefit the common good.
— bobbyForgot to include this in my last; an earlier link within a link from DotEarth via RealClimate: a detailed and amazingly patient response to some of the pseudoscience involved in the denial argument. I read it and the associated comments with great interest to the end, though it was over my head so I had to accept some of the math conclusions.
http://duoquartuncia.blogspot.com/2008/07/aps-and-global-warming-what-were-they.html
It illustrates a continuing problem; no amount of proof will prevent repetition of the same stale proven-wrong arguments ad nauseam. As long as the public is convinced that science is a matter of faith rather than patient accumulation of facts, observations, and adjustment of theories and models, they will prefer to head to the lemming cliffs.
— SusanDear All,
Some months ago, I came across the work of Bob Altemeyer, a Canadian psychologist, who has written a book titled “The Psychology of Authoritarians and Why It Is a Danger to Democracy” that explains in large part the reasons for our press being so cowed by industry. It is an explanation for the success of the neo-cons in shaping the discourse and shutting down divergent opinions.
It is a real page-turner and highly entertaining to read.
Link to pdf file (size, 1.32 Mbytes), you will need to cut and paste the 3 pieces of the link, or use the tinyurl below:
http://members.shaw.ca/
jeanaltemeyer/drbob/
TheAuthoritarians.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/2nr6t3
— Tenney NaumerInteresting article, since the late 80’s I have often wondered how to communicate to the average citizen the risks of global warming. I found that generally people behave just as described in this article and gave up on the idea of trying to communicate the risks. I concluded that once the adverse effects became intolerable the general public would react. It appears that is beginning to happen now. I do not recall seeing the amount of sustained media coverage on global warming in the past as I have seen in just the past year. I hope we can react before we reach the tipping point.
I often wonder how so many people can not believe what many scientists report about global warming. Has the general public has been mislead by elected officials so often that they have become desensitized to any reports of “facts” from anyone? I would like to remind people that most scientists do not make their living by twisting or misrepresenting the truth, but many politicians and self serving businessmen do.
I believe, despite the temptation to do otherwise, that humans are above animals. I point to the laws, reward and punishment mechanisms that we have created to guide human behavior. Its unfortunate we humans will have to react to Mother Nature’s “reward and punishment mechanisms” before we change our behavior.
— Dr FunkenstienSusan, someone needs to defend the much-maligned lemmings, so I’ll step into the breach: Lemmings do not voluntarily run off cliffs — that was a staged scene in a 1950s Disney film. A few lemmings were chased over a cliff and filmed from various angles. The film editor made it look like an entire herd, though lemmings, unlike bison, are not herd animals.
— E. O’NealeFascinating post, fascinating snippets and links. This is my August learning curve!
RE: “Should there be an Intergovernmental Panel on Human Nature?” [IPHN]
Maybe not needed, but the IPCC should definitely have a committee looking into these questions, and questions of adaptation strategies, too, should all else fail to solve the problems facing us — an IPHN subcommittee of the IPCC.
As for the WALL, I think that poster was correct, we don’t/won’t change until we hit the wall. It will take a climate tsunami of untold proportions to wake people up to the trouble we are in, and by then it may very well be too late, as Lovelock and others would argue, i.e., it is ALREADY too late.
But let’s dare to be optimistic and believe we can maybe solve all these problems step by step.
The very survival of the human species is at stake, if anyone cares about that — not just the survival of the postmodern American lifestyle and other similar lifestyles around the world. But are we wire to to care enough about this very important test we are being put through?
I am not sure, I am not sure.
— Danny BloomWhy try and change human nature?
— BaoTangBack to carrying capacity!
Dear Ludwig (#5),
You report,
” Everyone that is blowing the whistle, from Gore to Hansen, appears to have a political agenda.”
The global challenges looming ominously before the family of humanity are larger and more forbidding than any individual’s political agenda. Political agendas, national allegiances, racial/religious/gender differences pale in the face of rampant degradation of global ecosystems, reckless dissipation of our planetary home’s finite resources, and dwindling biodiversity worldwide. These challenges call out to leaders and followers in the human community to examine unwelcome and, for many, unforeseen threats to human wellbeing, environmental health and Earth’s body in these early years of Century XXI.
Sincerely,
Steve
— Steven Earl SalmonyIn spite of certain blog comments, among many things I admire Former Vice President Gore about is his sense of humor when facing serious challenges.
Appropriate to the current topic of:
“Are We Stuck With Blah, Blah, Blah….Bang?” is Mr. Gore’s often stated remark:
“Denial is not just a river in Egypt.”
— JREARTH MATTERS
Substitute, “Name one way that a result of human activity negatively impacts you today.” for “Name one way that climate change will significantly negatively impact you in the next 10 or 20 years.”
The list of impacts becomes tangible and extensive.
With huge respect for the pain and suffering of daily human life across the earth, humans are aggressivley engaged with the greatest challenges of human history. Our armies, battleships, nuclear missles and superior aircraft cannot win this battle. Preemptive attacks against foreign lands are pointless. Prisons and torture will not reveal the enemies plans. More of the same will only bring us to ruin. Everything that we love is at risk.
I open the NYTimes seeking news from the frontlines. Ads for insurance, a magazine, a shipping company, an insomnia drug flash on the front page. Afer a successful campaign, the oil industry is conspicuous by its abscense. News headlines include the usual small matters. I check other magazines and newspapers. I search the internet for news of the latest battle and find small hope on page 73 of a document by an embattled government operation called the “ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY”.
Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act
I. Introduction
Climate change is a serious global challenge. As detailed in section V of this notice, it is widely recognized that greenhouse gases (GHGs) have a climatic warming effect by trapping heat in the atmosphere that would otherwise escape to space. Current atmospheric concentrations of GHGs are significantly higher than pre-industrial levels as
a result of human activities. Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now
evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures,
widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level. Observational
evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases. Future projections show that, for most scenarios assuming no additional GHG emission
reduction policies, atmospheric concentrations of GHGs are expected to continue climbing for most if not all of the remainder of this century, with associated increases in average temperature. Overall risk to human health, society and the environment increases with increases in both the rate and magnitude of climate change.
Truth at last, good people know the truth and more are speaking out in public everyday.
Far from idle, we are busy, protecting our homes, family, jobs and credit ratings. Our government asks us to consume and we are spending money to the best of our ability.
Americans will meet the challenge once the truth is revealed.
— CoolPlanetIt’s worth comparing this problem with the threat of nuclear war, which strongly aroused the public to effective political action in the 1960s and again in the 1990s. What made the biggest difference, I am convinced (from years of study, actually) was media productions — movies and TV mainly — depicting what would happen to a normal, modern family in the event of a serious nuclear war.
Hard to do anything quite so spectacular for climate change without veering into science-fiction so preposterous that it evokes disbelief (although studies of the effects of “The Day After Tomorrow” showed it did change opinions — references
— Spencerhere). Fictional productions set in the near-future showing Katrina-like flooding, environmental refugees, drought and/or forest fires would certainly help.
Again I call attention to moving forward on a number of crises by using pyrolysis on organic wastes. I have spelled out how we could even make some money by pyrolysis of organic wastes in comment 13 in Revkin’s “Generation E?” posting on July 27. And we would greatly reduce future costs for maintaining dumps, stop unneeded reemitting of GHGs from those wastes getting biodegraded, and greatly reduce water pollution and attendant health problems.
— Dr. James SingmasterWhy doesn’t anyone here get on the G-8 inaction of seeing no connection between world health problems and the organic waste mess? The never-ending, ever-growing organic waste mess is soon going to be an “IN YOUR FACE” mess if we don’t start action to control the mess very soon. Dr. J. Singmaster