Contributors

Friday, April 22, 2011

Earth Day

Being that it is Earth Day today, I thought I would point out a few interesting pieces I've seen over the last few weeks about climate change. In many ways, Dick Lugar was right.  President Obama's energy message has failed and it's largely due to political reality. The right has been very successful at shifting the message from "It's happening" to "It's a hoax" and they've done it with no facts or science whatsoever. They've succeeded in portraying leading scientists as a doomsday cult of true believers. Attack your opponent with what is, in fact, your greatest weakness...surprise, surprise...

So where are we at on this Earth Day 2011?

1. Glacier National Park once had 125 glaciers. It now has 20.

2. A shipping lane has now opened through the Arctic.

3. 400 coal-fired plants around the United States emit an average of 366,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants per year -- mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide. These kill an average of 15,000 people per year.

These three items are absolute facts. If you still are in doubt (and I know some of you are), go ask your local science teacher to show you how a greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide) warms the atmosphere. It's actually pretty cool to see first hand.

What's been interesting of late is to see how some energy companies have been changing their tune.

Richard Kelly, CEO of XCel Energy, is now saying that a $20 per ton carbon tax would translate into an extra 5 bucks on a 100 dollar a month bill. He's also saying that Xcel could find a way to conserve more energy and admits they waste quite a bit. This way the extra tax wouldn't be passed on to the customers. He, along with other energy leaders, see the future.

So what is it and why are they saying all of this? Because climate change is a security threat. I've put up articles from the DoD detailing that they are moving forward regardless of what the knee jerk debunkers think. In 2010, the human species burned 6 billion tons of coal. Energy demand is expected to rise by 30 percent by 2030, which means burning roughly 8 billion tons per year. From the article:

If climate change continues unchecked, we will see millions of people displaced globally, countries destabilized and U.S. troops mobilized to address these new threats.

The Defense Department calls climate change a destabilizing influence and “threat multiplier.” There is no better example of climate change as a destabilizing force than what happened in Pakistan last year. More than one-fifth of Pakistan was flooded by torrential rains and insurgents have pounced on the chaos-created opportunity to turn Pakistan into a breeding ground and safe haven for terrorist activity.

This is very, very serious folks.

So, why don't Americans believe in global warming? The Economist nailed it and offered an excellent solution.

A somewhat constructivist approach to building public concern would be to build up the issue-linkage between climate change and the search for renewable-energy sources. This would help mitigate the economic and psychological concerns (the latter because it's easier to accept a problem exists if you have a way of addressing it.) And renewable energy doesn't have the political or epistemological baggage of climate change. As my colleague said yesterday, "The idea that sustainable-resource use and renewable energy is some kind of socialist hippy hobby is incredibly naive and frivolous, and extremely damaging to the American economy.

I completely agree. Let's focus on the renewable energy as a tool to mitigate security concerns and bolster our economy.

Yet, we also need to call out the fact free science crowd and revel them for what they are: bullies.  They don't like to lose and they will do everything in their power to win. As with most of these debates, the only way victory is achieved is through money.

If Americans can see that they stand to lose money as a result of carbon emissions and stand to reap huge rewards for renewable energy, we can wave bye bye to the professional debunking of climate change.

Time to get out the spectacles!

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are right again Mark. Right wing fat-cats just want to line their pockets while the workers get stuck with catastrophes that have ALREADY happened!

“The water problem is so severe for Adelaide that it may run out of water by early 2009.”
-Tim Flannery

“between 30 and 40 per cent of coral on Queensland’s great Barrier Reef could die within a month”.
-Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (2006)

The North Pole will be ice-free in [insert date here]
-various

“It is now generally recognised that while Al Gore and I were ridiculed, we were right about global warming. . . It’s going to lead to more hurricanes.”
-Bill Clinton

"50 million people worldwide will be displaced by 2010 because of rising sea levels", etc...
-Larry West

Are any of you tea-bagging birther nutjobs going to argue that these predictions didn't come true?

Last in line said...

http://m.washingtontimes.com//news/2010/mar/05/scientists-plot-to-hit-back-at-critics/

So who is Paul Erlich? (The man quoted in the piece linked above).

He wrote a book on climate change called Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environment Rhetoric Threatens Our Future, a 1998 book co-authored with his wife Anne.

Ehrlich started his academic career as an entomologist, an expert on Lepidoptera – butterflies. But in 1968 he wrote one of the biggest best-sellers in the history of pseudo-scientific literature, The Population Bomb. In it, Ehrlich argued that population growth would eventually, inevitably lead mankind to three choices: Stop making new humans, stop consuming resources, or starve to death. The book started ”The battle to feed all of humanity is over … hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.” He spent much of the next decade writing other books and articles in support of his thesis in Population Bomb, adding in a later article “By 1985 enough millions will have died to reduce the earth’s population to some acceptable level, like 1.5 billion people.”

Our ecology was going to strike back at us; in a 1969 article, “Eco-Catastrophe!”, he predicted that by the end of the century the population of the US would be under 20 million, and our life expectancy would be around 40 years – due not to starvation, but to pesticides.

By the mid-seventies, though Ehrlich broadened his sights a bit, behond overpopulation and into geopolitics. In 1975′s The End of Affluence, Ehrlich predicted cataclysmic food riots in America.

I should listen to my betters at the Stanford Research department. I haven't succeeded is portraying anybody as anything...their own work is enough to do them in.

Mark Ward said...

Last, I'm afraid I don't get the correlation and isn't that a genetic fallacy? Examine the data and make your own judgment. Don't just take Erlich's view. Look at the totality of the research, and there is quite a bit, and then make a judgment. This is not a "liberal" cause so don't instantly be combative towards it. Saying that people were wrong about past predictions doesn't mean anything. Does that mean that all scientific discoveries are now wrong because science has been wrong before? Honestly, your point is ludicrous.

Last in line said...

I don't have time to examine all his data. I have been spending too much time preparing for the food riots that were supposed to have happened by now.

You made a pretty giant leap there. I never said all scientific discoveries are now wrong.

I have made my own judgement and I have concluded that there are too many questions unanswered for me to hitch my wagon to the global warming train. The discussions about global warming usually have six tenets: 1. Global warming is happening. 2. It is our (humanity's, but especially America's) fault. 3. It will continue unless we mend our ways. 4. If it continues we are in grave danger. 5. We know how to slow or even reverse the warming. 6. The benefits from doing that will far exceed the costs.

To me, only the first tenet is clearly true, and only in the sense that the Earth warmed about 0.7 degrees Celsius in the 20th century. We do not know the extent to which human activity caused this. The activity is economic growth, the wealth-creation that makes possible improved well-being — better nutrition, medicine, education, etc. How much reduction of such social goods are YOU willing to accept by slowing economic activity in order to (try to) regulate the planet's climate?

We do not know how much we must change our economic activity to produce a particular reduction of warming. And we do not know whether warming is necessarily dangerous. Over the millennia, the planet has warmed and cooled for reasons that are unclear but clearly were unrelated to SUVs. Was life better when ice a mile thick covered Chicago? Was it worse when Greenland was so warm that Vikings farmed there? Are we sure the climate at this particular moment is exactly right, and that it must be preserved, no matter the cost?

It could cost tens of trillions (in expenditures and foregone economic growth, here and in less-favored parts of the planet) to try to fine-tune the planet's temperature. We cannot know if these trillions would purchase benefits commensurate with the benefits that would have come from social wealth that was not produced.

juris imprudent said...

Last, I'm afraid I don't get the correlation and isn't that a genetic fallacy?

It ain't a genetic fallacy to point out that the man has a half century history of crackpottery.

Then you wonder why your naivete' only fuels the skepticism of the less credulous?

blk said...

Ehrlich isn't wrong about the problem of overpopulation, he's just wrong about the time scale. As countries advance technologically and socially their birthrates tend to decline, a factor which hadn't really become obvious when Ehrlich made his predictions. We also have come to rely heavily on petroleum for fertilizers, pesticides and fuel for farm machinery to grow the food to feed those people. As oil becomes scarcer food will definitely become a problem, as it is in parts of Africa. Remember: one of the factors in the downfall of Mubarak was the high price of bread.

The earth's population more than doubled from three billion in 1960 to seven billion in 2011, a span of 51 years. Even if the rate at which the population doubles slows to 100 years, in a thousand years there will be 7 trillion people on the planet. At that point there would be one person for every 15x15 foot area on dry land, with no room for any other plants or animals.

Obviously that will not happen: the earth cannot sustain even 7 billion people for the long haul. We are consuming resources that cannot be replaced at a prodigious rate. We will be out of all the easily obtained oil in the next couple of decades, and all the easily mined coal will be gone within 400 years, if not sooner. And what we've got left now isn't all that easy to get: thousands of coal miners die each year in mines up to a mile deep.

We'll never run out, of course, because it will become so outrageously expensive that solar, wind and other new technologies will become much more affordable and totally displace combustion as a source of power.

The attitude of the climate deniers really baffles me. A typical refrain is, "I don't think we tiny humans can possibly affect a system as huge as the world's climate, and even if we do we'll just adapt."

Doesn't it make more sense to adapt now, while we have the wherewithal to develop new sources of energy? While we aren't at war with every other country over ever-scarcer resources? Before the real catastrophes strike? It would be the conservative thing to do.

6Kings said...

Last nailed it. This isn't an argument about a warming trend as that is evident, however slight. It is the causes and the knee jerk calls for resolutions that we have been resisting because those haven't been conclusive nor thought out - typically liberal response. So go ahead and try to frame the argument how you want, we aren't sold on the science of the cause or whether a reaction is warranted or even feasible.

Mark Ward said...

Well, it doesn't really matter whether you are sold on the science. It's going to continue and eventually much of this BS is going to fall away. It's simply more "winning the argument" silliness and it won't really matter what you think because the world-the market-is already moving in the direction of renewable energy.

Anonymous said...

You tell 'em Mark! Their opinions and all tea-bagging nutjobs opinions don't matter.

They always seem to use facts and logic to just win the argument, instead of seeing the big picture like you and me.

juris imprudent said...

Ehrlich isn't wrong about the problem of overpopulation, he's just wrong about the time scale.

You must be a big fan of Malthus then.

Ehrlich was wrong about both, and any attempt to justify his pseudo-scientific millenarianism deserves all the ridicule that can be mustered.

Doesn't it make more sense to adapt now, while we have the wherewithal to develop new sources of energy?

Absolutely. We should be building nukes to replace coal based electric generation. Generate enough electricity to make hydrogen separation workable and use that for transportation instead of oil (which would be saved for petrochems and plastics). People should consider moving out of low coastal zones (as well as perennial flood plains). I'm not for forcing them to move, but I'm also not for rebuilding their homes every time a foreseeable natural disaster happens. Oh, and go ahead and build an off-shore wind farm off Martha's Vineyard!

6Kings said...

it won't really matter what you think because the world-the market-is already moving in the direction of renewable energy.

So... as long as the world gets to the ultimate goal of renewable energy, you are ok with whatever means necessary and however disingenuous the pseudo-scientific methods?

Look, I am all for renewable energy and reducing pollution as is almost everyone. The difference is that I don't want policy, legislation, or regulation based on unsettled science and some leftist wet dream. We have enough of that already. I see you don't care either way as long as your pet cause goes forward.

It's going to continue and eventually much of this BS is going to fall away.

The difference is, I want the BS out of the way before anything is done. You are advocating responses without even knowing what the BS is. Now you know why we don't want you or anyone like you in leadership positions. That is irresponsible.

Mark Ward said...

We should be building nukes to replace coal based electric generation.

I agree completely. It's clean energy and, while there are dangers, it's what is going to bring us to the stars.

Oh, and go ahead and build an off-shore wind farm off Martha's Vineyard!

:)

disingenuous the pseudo-scientific methods?

Yeah, that's right wing propaganda.

on unsettled science and some leftist wet dream.

Again, propaganda. Although I will stipulate the research is ongoing and I'm certain the theory will be refined and evolve.

Now you know why we don't want you or anyone like you in leadership positions.

You mean people that can think critically about climate change? This post of yours demonstrates you that you can't. You begin with "Liberals are wrong...wahhh!!" and then work backwards from there. I'm not seeing any serious analysis here...just more of the same bullying.

Anonymous said...

Marxy, How's about you address Last's comment and demonstrate your critical thinking skills. Here they are again if you missed them the first time:


The discussions about global warming usually have six tenets: 1. Global warming is happening. 2. It is our (humanity's, but especially America's) fault. 3. It will continue unless we mend our ways. 4. If it continues we are in grave danger. 5. We know how to slow or even reverse the warming. 6. The benefits from doing that will far exceed the costs.

last in line said...

Yeah, nobody answered my questions. I'm going to go over there into the corner and be sad.

last in line said...

Yeah, nobody answered my questions. I'm going to go over there into the corner and be sad.

Mark Ward said...

Marxy, How's about you address Last's comment and demonstrate your critical thinking skills. Here they are again if you missed them the first time

Hey, poster from Smallest Minority who lacks balls to reveal himself and posts anonymously, re-read my post and see if you can figure out how I already answered last's questions before he even asked them.

Anonymous said...

Nope. I re-read it, and don't see you answering anything.

I'll just pick one.

Assuming all else is true, will the benefits of reversing a potential 1 degree change outweigh the costs?

Marxydelphia said...

Oh, here you go.

Markadelphia is your real first name or real last name or what?

6Kings said...

Again, propaganda. Although I will stipulate the research is ongoing and I'm certain the theory will be refined and evolve.

Good one. It is all propaganda to want details. Stay away from the ballot box. You are dangerously ignorant and revel in that fact.

Mark Ward said...

Assuming all else is true, will the benefits of reversing a potential 1 degree change outweigh the costs?

Yes. I don't think you truly understand the magnitude of the problem as it relates to international security. That cost has the potential to be much greater.

And the example of Richard Kelly shows that the cost may not be as great as the knee jerk debunkers think.

Markadelphia is your real first name or real last name or what?

It's not my first name but there are far too many anonymi posting here so I'd like to know who I am addressing. Even if it is a screen name, it's still taking ownership of your words.

It is all propaganda to want details. Stay away from the ballot box. You are dangerously ignorant and revel in that fact.

There are plenty of details regarding climate change. How can you dispute that greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere? It's a scientific fact that you can see with your own eyes in an 8th grade science lab.

You refuse to look at them which makes your statement another classic case of attacking with what is, in fact, your greatest weakness. Although, I would never discourage anyone to vote. One of my chief goals in life is to see at least 80 percent voter turnout at every election in every state. I know it's a pipe dream but our country would be much better off.

GuardDuck said...

How can you dispute that greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere? It's a scientific fact that you can see with your own eyes in an 8th grade science lab.

Yes, and a bunch of concentrated oxygen makes things burn better too. People need water to survive but too much will kill you.

Take the experiment out of the 8th grade lab and add the proper concentrations of other gasses, the heat sink capacity of h2o, the cyclical heating and cooling seasons, the non-homogenated atmosphere and it's no longer so simple nor cut and dried.

Mark Ward said...

That's just what the researchers have done, GD, but their data has been rejected. And why? Because right wing bloggers hate being wrong. They refuse to accept ANY of the science.

But none of this will really matter anyway. The people and institutions are moving forward with renewable energy.

Larry said...

You mean like: Behind the ‘green China’ myth or maybe Wind farm efficiency queried by John Muir Trust study?

Al Sharpton fan club said...

For such a reflective guy, I'm surprised that you would be convinced by an 8th grade lab experiment.

We aren't talking of hooking wires to a dry cell to light a bulb here.

Perhaps the gullible masses, who could be convinced by such a non-representative example of the entire planet's climate system, can give me a better cost analysis than you have managed.

"I don't think you truly understand the magnitude of the problem as it relates to international security."

In other words:

#11 The "You're Not Smart Enough For Me To Converse With" response.

Can you break it down for me? Just a general overview of the costs vs benefits.

sasquatch said...

He's done it a million times with a million links, al. Go back and review them yourself rather than playing games with Mark like you guys do all the time. Better yet, do your own research rather than having Mark do your homework for you.

P.U.S.H Chairman said...

Certainly you don't expect me to sort through a million links, Bigfoot. How about you just throw the data out here, will you?

Mark Ward said...

In the upper left hand column of my blog, there is search engine. Type in "climate change" and the posts regarding said topic will come up. I don't have the time to repeat myself. Pay close attention to the post entitled "Semper Fi" which will break down some costs for you.

I would also urge you to check out the DoD Going Green part of their site for the cost and security implications. Obviously, they have greater access to information than I do.

http://www.defense.gov/home/features/2010/1010_energy/

Check out the Security Forum video as well.

Anonymous said...

Thank you. I just finished 'Semper Fi', and don't see how it supports your position at all. In fact, the comments to that post told you as much.

Mark Ward said...

So, you don't think that climate change is a security threat to the world?

juris imprudent said...

In a word - no.

Santa said...

Let me see if I am understanding you correctly, juris. All of the data that Mark has provided regarding the Defense Department's assessment of security related to climate change is WRONG? I understand that you have a deep need to prove Mark wrong but now you are being completely ridiculous.

juris imprudent said...

All of the data M provided was a single link that was more plausibly read as the DoD was concerned about the economics, not environmentals, of fossil fuels. Of course, you didn't even read that, did you?