One Reason We’re Doomed
- Posted by ryan on January 22nd, 2009 filed in Environment
Andy Revkin reports that voter interest in climate change as an issue has waned. That’s disappointing, but it’s not entirely surprising. One suspects that we’re sort of backtracking on the environmental Kuznets curve. The really distressing thing is that we’re getting dumber on the issue:
Forty-four percent (44%) of U.S. voters now say long-term planetary trends are the cause of global warming, compared to 41% who blame it on human activity.
Seven percent (7%) attribute global warming to some other reason, and nine percent (9%) are unsure in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democrats blame global warming on human activity, compared to 21% percent of Republicans. Two-thirds of GOP voters (67%) see long-term planetary trends as the cause versus 23% of Democrats. Voters not affiliated with either party by eight points put the blame on planetary trends.
In July 2006, 46% of voters said global warming is caused primarily by human activities, while 35% said it is due to long-term planetary trends.
This is the stuff that drives scientists mad. The science on the issue has only gotten clearer over time, and the outlook, in terms of likely temperature rise, has grown worse. I can’t believe that 41% of Democrats think humans aren’t causing warming. It’s hard enough to make the case for carbon taxes assuming voters understand the issue; if they don’t even realize the danger, then we are really and truly doomed.
Our political leaders have to see themselves as having the responsibility to educate voters on this. They have to make warming an issue. And this is why its so damaging for newspapers to believe that it’s ok to run “contrarian” takes on climate change, or to use “fake balance” — finding some wingnut denialist to counter the opinion of an actual climate scientist in the name of fairness. Opinions on the shape of the earth differ, it’s true, but we can say definitively that some are right and others wrong. If the stewards of the press can’t tell the story like it is, then I don’t know how we can hope to educate voters on the topic.
And obviously, the smart Republicans who know better but abuse this topic for political gain should be roundly pilloried. Denialism at this point is like racialism or communism — a debunked and dangerous pseudo-theory that deserve to be pushed to the fringes of the responsible political debate.
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
I don’t understand the fascination with whether or not warming is human-caused. It doesn’t matter. If it’s happening, we have to deal with it.
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Because it matters that it’s CO2 emissions that’s generating warming. If we hope to slow the process, that’s an important piece of information.
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Every estimate I’ve seen says that human beings have to _drastically_ curb emissions in order to _possibly_ affect climate change already in motion. There exists no evidence that we can accomplish such reductions. Many, if not most, signatories to the Kyoto Protocol have failed to meet their requirements. Some have even seen their emissions rise. Accomplishing the reductions “necessary” before carbon producing forms of energy are supplanted by equally cheap alternative energy sources will come at a substantial real and opportunity cost that might be well borne by some, but it will surely decrease global economic activity and push millions into crushing poverty.
Believing that human-caused global climate change can be “reversed” by simply “undoing” what we’ve done is as logically flawed as trying to put toothpaste back in the tube by “unsqueezing” it. The only way out of this mess is to provide substantial organizational support and economic incentives for development of alternative energy technology/infrastructure. Going “back” is not an option. We must move forward with deliberate haste.
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:39 pm
>Because it matters that it’s CO2 emissions that’s generating warming. If we hope to slow the process, that’s an important piece of information.
Yes that’s true. I suppose I wasn’t clear. I don’t understand the political position that assumes if it’s natural then we don’t have to do anything about it and can continue business as usual.
Even setting CO2 emissions aside, if warming goes on we will still need to invest massive amounts of money in either new defenses for all our coastal cities, or we’ll need to abandon our coastal cities and build new ones. We’ll also have to deal with species die-offs, find new farmland further from the equator, possibly contend with a shut-down Gulf Stream, etc. As far as I know, nobody on the warming-is-natural side is proposing any of these things. As far as I know, nobody is even studying them.
The warming-is-natural position does not seem to be based on determining any actual problem and finding a solution. It seems to be based strictly on sticking heads in the sand and denying there’s a problem to begin with.
In saying “I don’t understand” I’m being nice. I do understand. I’m trying to point out the hypocrisy of the position without directly attacking. Deniers are trying to deflect the big question of “what should we do about it” with whatever semantic question they can come up with, hoping to avoid any change to the status quo.
Global warming deniers are a lot like NIMBYs. They throw out any and all rhetoric they can think of and hope *something* sticks, but the rhetoric is just a mask for their true intention, which is to fearfully protect the status quo regardless of fact or need.
So yes, scientifically speaking we need to know that CO2 emissions are causing warming. But politically speaking, that’s not really at issue. It’s just an excuse.
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I think the point that leaders need to lead is also axiomatic. Clearly, a carbon tax is the best way forward and I wish that was the sound we were hearing, but I have some optimism that Barack Obama will accept CO2 as an existential challenge.
Although the banner ad in your sidebar is telling me his IQ is 121. Now I’m depressed, too.
My 100% endorsement that this B.S. about balance is media malpractice. It shouldn’t matter that 44% of Americans agree and it shouldn’t matter that one party seems committed to the lie. You shouldn’t let a real scientist with data debate a cosmetologist with web citations and call that peer review.
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:01 pm
My 100% endorsement that this B.S. about balance is media malpractice. It shouldn’t matter that 44% of Americans agree and it shouldn’t matter that one party seems committed to the lie.
“The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180)
Anyone sensible left in the The American political Right has hitched themselves to a wagon pulled by lemmings looking for a cliff.
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Good for you Ryan for acknowledging futility! I for one have never doubted that we are doomed. If there was even one example in history of people on a large scale acting in concert to address a challenge BEFORE the flood waters were palpably at their door, I might find grounds for optimism.
But alas, no such luck.
Yet even the most realistic writers on this topic convey more optimism than they feel, because let’s face it–despair isn’t particularly marketable.
So back to our regularly scheduled fight to get folks to wake up and make the changes necessary to avert catastrophe–but thanks for briefly speaking truth about how hard this is going to be.
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Andy wrote about the Pew poll.
It’s really easy to do polls wrong, and I think they did.
1) It is nontrivial for people to balance short-term and long-term issues, and short-term normally gets higher priority.
2) It is unimpressive survey design to mix items where:
a) Some are short-term, easily-understandable things that people relate to, especially when they have clear downsides. [People worry more about potential losses than potential gains, sometimes for rational reasons.]
Hence, an item like “the economy” translates for many people to: “I may lose my job, not be able to pay the mortgage, have to move, and my kids won’t be able to afford to go to college, or they’ll finish school with big debts and no jobs.” This is concrete, and most people will have had friends/relatives who’ve experienced this.
b) But “global warming”? What exactly does that mean? For some people, it means “Oh, winters will be milder?” or maybe “Bangladesh might be in trouble 50 years from now.”
In addition, the particular effects vary substantially by location. Since I came here via John Fleck, I offered an example for New Mexico:
“NM will suffer the fate of the Anasazi, as long-term megadrought settles in. Your grandchildren will certainly not be able to live here, as there won’t be enough water.”
[Same applies to much of AZ, NV, UT, some of CO, maybe SOCAL, West TX, OK.]
How about Washington DC, MD, VA:
1) You have a lot of lowlying coastline. If you live on the shore, your grandchildren/greatgrandchildren won’t.
See:
http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=38.8874,-77.0039&z=4&m=1
Try 1 meter (almost guaranteed), 2meter (possible) by 2100. Nobody knows, but 6m by 2200 is worth looking at. That map only goes to +14m [Antarctic Peninsula, + partial melt of West Antarctic & Greenland], but it’s worth seeing what VA,MD,DE lose.
Check out Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance, an actuarially-unsound scheme that really expects the Federal government will bail them out when they run out of money. By the time you (in Washington DC) get there, enough states will enough enough problems they are not going to bail you out. In fact, they may well decide Washington, DC is no longer affordable.
Your descendents will be raising dikes, but without any help from petroleum, which will be long gone. At least it’s good exercise, but they might not thank you for it.
2) It will get warmer. August in DC will *really* be fun.
3) Kudzu (which loves CO2 and is killed by coldspells() will thrive all around you. U of Toronto people think it will survive in lwoer Ontario within 20 years, so if you don’t know kudzu, learn.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Let’s hope President Obama puts his charisma and superior communication skills to work in persuading American’s to get behind a program of serious CO2 reduction. And a carbon tax is the only way to go. Further, let’s hope all the folks cheering Obama’s calls for sacrifice are up to the task when crunch time arrives.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Weird, who would have thought people would start to doubt global warming theory just because the globe stopped warming?
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Clarity (sic):
See Figure 1 of
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/ and look at the red line.
Warming has “stopped” about 9 times (by eyeball) since 1880, i.e., the noise from El Nino/La Nina & other oscillations overpowers any long-term trend in any few years, which is why climate scientists think in decades.
Likewise, Warren Buffett isn’t a day-trader.
For anyone who would like to avoid statistical innumeracy regarding noisy time series, a wonderful source is tamino’s blog Open Mind:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/