Collide-a-scape

There’s much that intrigues me about this recently published study, but let’s start with the University of Utah press release, titled, “Is Global Warming Unstoppable?”

In case that didn’t catch your eye, here’s the dek: “Theory also says energy conservation doesn’t help.”

Now let’s go to the first three concise graphs of the release, which, like the headline, grabs you by the throat:

In a provocative new study, a University of Utah scientist argues that rising carbon dioxide emissions – the major cause of global warming – cannot be stabilized unless the world’s economy collapses or society builds the equivalent of one new nuclear power plant each day.

“It looks unlikely that there will be any substantial near-term departure from recently observed acceleration in carbon dioxide emission rates,” says the new paper by Tim Garrett, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences.

Garrett’s study was panned by some economists and rejected by several journals before acceptance by Climatic Change, a journal edited by renowned Stanford University climate scientist Stephen Schneider. The study will be published online this week.

Who ever wrote this copy had to have previously worked in journalism. And when was the last time you saw a press release provide that kind of a back story to a study? (Hey, this research was panned and rejected well before it found a publisher.) It’s just brilliant stuff. And so is the rest of the release, which lucidly lays out the study’s methodology, key findings, and implications. There’s even a colorful bit on the researcher’s own “green” lifestyle, set up by this exchange:

So is Garrett arguing that conserving energy doesn’t matter?

“I’m just saying it’s not really possible to conserve energy in a meaningful way because the current rate of energy consumption is determined by the unchangeable past of economic production. If it feels good to conserve energy, that is fine, but there shouldn’t be any pretense that it will make a difference.”

Yet, Garrett says his findings contradict his own previously held beliefs about conservation, and he continues to ride a bike or bus to work, line dry family clothing and use a push lawnmower.

The only thing missing, if this were a typical newspaper story, are the obligatory quotes from fellow scientists applauding and trashing the study.

So allowing that this study is indeed “provocative” and credible, since it found a home in the journal Climatic Change, why hasn’t it gotten greater pick up in the science media or the blogosphere? After googling the researcher, Tim Garrett, I see that ScienceDaily distributed the University of Utah release and that a few bloggers and local journos noted the study. Beyond that, however, pretty much a black hole. No way you can fault the PR release. It all but screamed, LOOK AT ME. So what gives?

If Garrett is on to something here, then shouldn’t his study be getting more attention?

H/T: Michael Tobis

UPDATE: My hunch was correct. Lee Siegel, the writer of the press release, is a former reporter of 25 years–12 spent with the AP. He also has a flair for headlines and sizzling copy. Check out this one, which gained worldwide notice.

You want another reason why American newspapers are knocking at death’s door? They won’t take a stand on climate change. This according to media maven Michael Wolff, who notes that only one U.S. paper (the Miami Herald) signed on to that special Copenhagen editorial written by the Guardian and carried by 56 papers in 45 countries.

Wolff wonders if the U.S. press lords were skittish about signing on to a perceived “liberal” issue. He also believes Americans are put off by the preachy nature of climate change advocacy. “But mostly,” he says,

I think US newspapers have not grabbed this easy opportunity to rally readers and stand up and be counted because they have no fight left in them.

It’s our evolutionary brain.

When will climate advocates get this? Bill McKibben, perhaps the most eloquent climate change communicator, is at his wit’s end. Like James Hansen, it’s become obvious to McKibben that, Copenhagen notwithstanding, politicians are treating climate change as “just another political problem.” That’s the real impediment, he insists. Thus, facing down man-made climate change, McKibben asserts, demands extraordinary, timely action, on the order of how the U.S faced down fascism:

The best human analog to the role physics is playing here may be fascism in the middle of the last century. There was no appeasing it, no making a normal political issue out of it. You had to decide to go all in, to transform the industrial base of the country to fight it, to put other things on hold, to demand sacrifice. Yet it’s all too obvious that we’re not dealing with it that way.

Bill, that’s because the danger was in front of people’s eyes. The unfolding horror was self-evident. That’s not the case right now with climate change. It’s greatest impacts aren’t slated to be truly evident for decades. As Jon Gertner, the writer of that essential NYT magazine piece, writes:

Cognitive psychologists now broadly accept that we have different systems for processing risks. One system works analytically, often involving a careful consideration of costs and benefits. The other experiences risk as a feeling: a primitive and urgent reaction to danger, usually based on a personal experience, that can prove invaluable when (for example) we wake at night to the smell of smoke.There are some unfortunate implications here. In analytical mode, we are not always adept at long-term thinking; experiments have shown a frequent dislike for delayed benefits, so we undervalue promised future outcomes…Almost certainly, we underestimate the danger of rising sea levels or epic droughts or other events that we’ve never experienced and seem far away in time and place.

Bill, when are you going to face up to this impediment in our lizard brains? So I respectfully argue that the logic of your historical analog doesn’t wash.

In the wake of climategate, some observers have suggested that long-term solutions will not happen so long as the combustible combination of politics and climate science is the main driver of this debate. On that note, in a recent WSJ op-ed, Mike Hulme, a  professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia, wrote that

we endow analyses about the economics of climate change with too much scientific authority. Yes, we know there is a cascade of costs involved in mitigating, adapting to or ignoring climate change, but many of these costs are heavily influenced by ethical judgements about how we value things, now and in the future. These are judgments that science cannot prescribe.

In that NYT mag story, Gertner points out that

the United States scientific community, where nearly all dollars for climate investigation are directed toward physical or biological projects, the notion that vital environmental solutions will be attained through social-science research — instead of improved climate models or innovative technologies — is an aggressively insurgent view.

So maybe it’s time advocates like McKibben started paying greater attention to what social science says about global warming, and not just climate science.

One of the more amusing (and popular) voices in the the enviro/peak oil doom-o-sphere is James Howard Kunstler, perhaps best known for his book, The Geography of Nowhere. Once a week, he issues a rambling missive on all issues related to society’s imminent collapse from his profanely titled blog, Clusterfuck Nation. People seem to eat it up. This week, his curmudgeonly schtick is about the biggest climate story of the year (pre-Copenhagen):

Against a greater welter and flow of incoherence jerking the nation this way and that way en route to collapse comes “ClimateGate,” the latest excuse for screaming knuckleheads to defend what has already been lost.

Chalk Kunstler up as someone who definitely thinks it’s a piddling story. But that’s mainly because he believes the train to societal ruination has already left the station:

My guess is that the undertow of entropy is now too great to provoke any meaningful unified change in behavior.  The collapse of the US economy is too close to the horizon, and the so-called developing nations will have problems equally severe.  In the meantime, it is unlikely that any of the major players will burn less coal and oil, or not cheat on each other even if they pledge to burn less.  People who are not knuckleheads will make the practical arrangements that they can. These will, by definition, be localized, small-scale, and non-global communities, doing what they would have to do anyway.

Practical arrangements? I don’t even have a key to get into the local community garden. Fuckin a, I’m stocking up on Coco Krispies, Yoo-hoo’s, and devil dogs. That’s what I was fed as a kid (okay, ring dings, too) and I’m still standing. That seems the perfect diet to survive a post-apocalypse landscape, no?

The seething anger directed at Andy Revkin (and the NYT)  from climate scientists and climate advocates continues to amaze me. On Saturday, Eric Steig at Real Climate vented through gritted teeth. On Sunday, Joe Romm got back in touch with his old self and let it rip.

That same day, we saw the, ahem, unauthorized disclosure of an email from Michael Schlesinger, who warned Revkin that he was in danger of being shunned by climate scientists for his “gutter reportage.”

One of Andy’s supposed transgressions is that he’s been quoting too much from Pielke Sr. and Pielke Jr. of late. So if that’s really it, which is quite an incredible charge, then I can only imagine the paroxysms triggered by today’s NYT story co-authored by Andy. The piece not only dares to again reference a Pielke, but it also dares to suggest that “climateagate” may complicate the Copenhagen talks. I have a feeling that this story will gall some especially for its timing–it comes on the summit’s opening day.

I’ve become increasingly fascinated with the “collapse” meme in environmental and energy circles. It’s really become the secular equivalent of End-Times. I don’t say that to denigrate the peak oil crowd or climate change advocates, because I happen to think the energy/climate intersection is quite serious and may well lead to widespread socio-political turmoil.

Still, I can’t help but be amused by how the debate sometimes plays out on intellectual and pop culture levels. For example, here’s a recent post over at the Oil drum, in which the writer shares a common refrain of her friends, who work in environmental NGO’s:

In brief, many now admit openly that human overshoot has gone way too far and that the programs they run are like band aids when the wound calls for a tourniquet. They lament the rise of expectations for a narrowly defined version of progress that will only deepen our predicament.

Evidently, the writer’s friends are starting to “turn inward” and get in touch with their inner survivalist. Hey, might as well make provisions for that collapse, right? Sounds like a good idea if you think it’s just around the corner and nobody else sees it coming.

So the Oil Drum writer wonders if anyone else is getting the same vibe in their doomer circles and asks six questions to ponder, of which this is tops:

Are you noticing similar conversations, where well-educated and generally well off people are worried about the security of very basic needs, such as food and water.

I gotta admit, that one hasn’t come up yet in my own privileged circle. But I do love this comment in the SF Chronicle, which is in response to a review of a new movie called,  “Collapse: A documentary about our scary fate”:

Our whole house of cards is falling, and I believe this version of civilization is about to collapse. That said, I don’t waste any time or energy complaining about it – how would that change anything?

Have a cocktail, smoke a big fatty. Sit back and relax. Keep your shotgun handy and loaded, and maybe you’ll sneak through to see what rises from the ashes. And then again, maybe you won’t. It’s out of our hands.

Hot damn, if that isn’t Northern California fatalism at its finest!

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Michael Tobis is among the most thoughtful climate bloggers out there. To really appreciate him, you have to see how his arguments unfold in the comment threads of his posts.

His latest post and related thread is a perfect example. I am certain some of his most loyal readers are utterly dismayed by it. Which is why I find Tobis so fascinating. So in this latest thread he gets into an eye-opening exchange on science bias with one regular reader, who seems to be trying to steer Michael back to a politically correct (climate advocate) position for political reasons:

But I do encourage you to clarify your thoughts as much as possible. You never know when someone will quote you to the effect that you think there is a strong case Mann and Jones suffered from “unconscious bias”, which is a possible, even plausible, interpretation of what you said. So please fix or clarify that, before Morano gets hold of it.

Tobis doesn’t oblige:

I think that walking on eggshells to avoid giving ammunition to the bad guys is a corrupting influence. In the end plays into their hands more than inadvertently giving them the juicy quotes to beat you up with.

In that very same comment, Tobis also offers this gem about the CRU hacker affair:

Scientific speech and political speech are very different beasts. The current situation tangles them up. I am trying to figure out how to disentangle them. I am not sure how.

That’s what I love about his blog. Sure, he’s got his convictions on climate change (especially what he regards as the moral imperative to act), which he is unafraid to convey. But he also struggles with the complexities of the science and the best way to communicate them, which he often articulates with refreshing candor.

Many of the people he admires are shrugging off “climategate” (yes, I don’t like the term either) as “a tempest in a teapot” or an “artificial” scandal. Not Tobis. He recognizes it’s much more than that, and to his credit, he’s trying to figure out how to engage it.

UPDATE 1: In an update to his own post, Tobis says I have misunderstood the meaning of his post.

UPDATE 2: In a comment below, Tom Yulsman takes up the gist of Michael’s post more thoroughly than I have, and is inclined to agree that I’m reading too much into Michael’s words.

My Friday post at Nature’s Climate Feedback is up. The conference starts next week, obviously, and will be covered in detail by Nature’s staff.

That’s what Geoffrey Lean suggests is needed to counter what he calls the “swiftboating” of climate science in the wake of Climategate. He argues that “environmentalists must bear a fair share of the responsibility” for the rising number of people who don’t believe in global warming (according to recent polls). He partly blames the “backlash” on Al Gore’s Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth, because of “the film’s polemicism and exaggerations.”

But Lean also argues:

Environmental groups, once brilliant at swaying public opinion, have lost their touch. They have progressively become part of the establishment, while the skeptics have taken the insurgent role that environmentalists once exploited so well. As they became more and more involved in the process of formulating agreements and legislation to tackle global warming, talking to governments and attending negotiating conferences, leaders of the environmental movement have increasingly appeared to take public opinion for granted.

The problem with Lean’s logic is in that first sentence: environmental groups were “once brilliant at swaying public opinion” precisely because of scare tactics that prophesized eco-doom if immediate attention wasn’t paid to the environment. Exaggeration was enviro stock in trade. That was how mainstream green groups like the Sierra Club traditionally swelled membership rolls, by selling imminent eco-collapse.

And you know what, when a river catches on fire and oil is spilled off the coast of Santa Barbara and industrial toxic waste is leaching into groundwater, that doom and gloom campaign sells itself for a few years. After all,  you can see the unfolding disaster yourself. It’s visceral. But after a while, thanks to this green awakening in the public body, which spurs reform and new oversight institutions, the environment improves and not every new disaster suddenly feels like the end of the world.

But to keep those membership rolls inflated, green groups stayed with that numbing narrative of eco-catastrophe. At some point (early 1990s?), Americans became inured to the bad news drumbeat, be it about endangered species, old growth forests, or industrial runoff pollution.

There’s reasonable speculation by social scientists that the same thing might be happening again with respect to the incessant scaremongering by climate change advocates. So is Lean suggesting that Greens go back to those old tactics and double down on scaring the besjesus out of everyone? I don’t know. He just says Greens need to get a War Room so the planet doesn’t end up like John Kerry’s 2004 Presidential campaign.

All that pirate action in Somalia has created a booming “stock market” of sorts. Foreign Policy thinks this might help shine a necessary spotlight on the Big Fish behind all the hostage-taking. Elsewhere, these masterminds are referred to as “a few deep-pocketed financiers.”  And who would they be?