[UPDATE #2: In the comments Peter Gleick responds.][UPDATE: Andy Revkin has a thoughtful take on the letter, and points to the editorial that accompanies the letter as having some useful advice. I agree.]
In Science today 255 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences sign on to a letter objecting to the "McCarthy-like" accusations and behavior of climate change deniers and use the occasion to advocate for action on climate change:
Society has two choices: we can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively.So we have only two choices -- do what the scientists say or ignore the science. But wait. Lead author of the letter Peter Gleick says in The Huffington Post that we actually have three choices:
In the end, we have only three choices: we can act to mitigate the risks of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we can expand efforts to adapt to a changing climate, or we can suffer the consequences of doing nothing. The only real question is, what is the balance among these three options.And here in a nutshell you can see what is wrong in the climate change debate. These "choices" -- whether the two or the three or a balance among them -- are not really policy choices. They are more aptly described as philosophical orientations or ideological standpoints. There are no actual decisions being made among these choices -- they are instead cartoonish caricatures of a highly politicized debate over science. It is the metaphorical equivalent of demanding that your political opponents "say uncle."
In the real world there are countless decisions already being made about mitigation, about adaptation and about the consequences of policy shortfalls. These choices are being made irrespective of the debate over climate science and the attacks by one side on another. Gleick ignores the implications of his statement that:
Are the climate deniers going to go away? No. Nothing will convince them, since science hasn't.If they are not going away, then they are to be lived with as part of the political ecosystem.
I'll explain in The Climate Fix that public opinion is already plenty strong for effective action to occur. Worldwide support for mitigation runs from 70% support and higher. The war for public opinion has been won by those advocating action, yet they are still obsessed with the minority of those who oppose action and reject aspects of climate science. As Gleick suggests, 100% uniformity of opinion is not in the cards so why obsess about "deniers"? The important questions of climate policy involve designing specific policies that reflect the realities of public opinion, and can make progress on decarbonizing the economy and improving societal resilience to climate, rather than trying to win an unwinnable debate.
The poverty of the very public debate over climate science as refelcted in the sign-on letter is that it rarely, if ever, descends from the stratosphere to engage the actual decisions being made on the ground. Having a debate about sticking our heads in the sand or whether to mitigate or adapt or ignore would be good fun in a pub or a college classroom, but does absolutely nothing to advance actual policy making. For instance, the failures at Copenhagen have nothing to do with what anyone believes about climate science or "Climategate."
That is why the sign-on letter will be discussed a bit today and then forgotten tomorrow. Unless the climate science community helps to open up a safe space for discussion of of a much wider range of policy options than has conventionally been discussed, it will paradoxically be helping to sustain the gridlock and politicization that have come to characterize the debate.
26 comments:
The letter is hardly policy prescriptive!
Good public policy would start from assessing what we know of the facts. Then we can have a semi-rational discussion of how to act and whether to act based on current and future costs and benefits (even if highly uncertain in some cases)
Bad public policy is likely to come about if the focus is on denying or obfuscating the facts as they are known. That is what the letter (rightly) attacks.
" Worldwide support for mitigation runs from 70% support and higher. The war for public opinion has been won by those advocating action, yet they are still obsessed with the minority of those who oppose action and reject aspects of climate science."
In Britain, only the 26% most gullible individuals who cannot recognise an avalanche of propaganda when they see one, believe in AGW.
***
And only 26% of those asked believed climate change was happening and "now established as largely man-made".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8500443.stm
Hi Roger,
I don't see the letter as being fundamentally in conflict with the ability to discuss a wider range of policy options. It was centrally focused on the attacks on the science, and it concludes that there is a significant risk involved if we don't take action. But it doesn't make any reference to what the best course of action would be, which seems like a good thing coming from scientists given that it's not the job of the climate science community to determine the range of policy options on the table. Policy options and decisions, while informed by the science, should be left to the policy makers, advocacy groups, and the broader public, and this letter doesn't appear to preclude that from happening moving forward.
Thanks,
Dan
-1-caveat emptor
Yes, the battle over facts is over, or perhaps more accurately, it is what it is.
-2-eric144
Acceptance of this or that science is not the same as support for mitigation policies
-3-Dan C
It would have been better had it been centrally focused on the attacks on science, rather than using that as the basis for empty political advocacy.
Roger, Since you mention me several times, I must respond. Scientists get criticized for talking to the public to defend climate science, and for NOT talking to the public. And while you say that "public opinion is already plenty strong for effective action" to take place, it isn't, because the "small minority" is, first of all, not so small, and second, unduly influential among policy makers. Hence, the push-back by the 255 signers of this letter (not "Peter Gleick" -- please).
Also, you're playing games with the issue of societal "choices" as though we can't tell the difference between two and three. These are apples and oranges and they are not "philosophical" or "ideological."
-5-Peter
Thanks for dropping by ...
There is no criticism in this post for scientists either talking to the public or not talking to the public, my concerns are substantive.
You will have to do better on your arguments about public opinion. Is the failure of European climate policy due to a lack of public opinion? Australia? Britain? No, of course not.
The facts are -- and you can see and argue with them when my book comes out -- that public opinion in support of action on climate change in the US is as strong or stronger than that which existed when action took place on other major environmental and non-environmental policy issues. Trying to compel action by getting everyone to think alike is just not how action occurs in a democracy.
The two and three choices that you and the 255 present are not choices, they are orientations to the issue. Again the focus is on shaping how people think, not how they act, and this in my view is inevitably going to fail.
Thanks again ...
The fundamental problem with the AGW debate.
Scientists/supports -
AGW will have an uncertain negative impact on future quality of life. Something must be done today regardless of the impact on current quality of life.
Others/Deniers/Whatever one wants to call them -
Starving to death today surely solves the problem of potentially starving to death tomorrow, no thanks, I'll take my chances with the future.
Actual Public Opinion - action should be taken now if reasonably cost effective alternatives are available. If reasonably cost effective alternatives aren't available we should spend on research to find a reasonably cost effective alternative.
I was reading Andrew Revkin today, surely someone with impeccable environmental credentials, he mentioned in passing that he opted not to install geo-thermal heating in his home due to the 5 figure price tag. So we have the case of one of the nations leading environmentalists unwilling to 'save the planet at any cost'.
-7-Harrywr2
Seems obvious, doesn't it? ;-)
"I'll explain in The Climate Fix that public opinion is already plenty strong for effective action to occur. Worldwide support for mitigation runs from 70% support and higher."
I hope your book can demonstrate this. I don't recall seeing a single poll that shows this, during the last year or so.
-9-jae
Pre-Copenhagen/pre-Climategate:
http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2010/01_climate_rabe_borick.aspx
-10-Roger
your link doesn't reflect world-wide support, only US support. Not to mention that one country's mitigation is another country's b.s. (so to speak). Case in point, I'm not sure the Chinese or Indians are quite seeing the mitigation strategy the West is choosing as warranting much support. Nor do I imagine, in China at least, that 1.3 billion people have been really polled on the question in any meaningful way.
Thanks Roger. Lotsa info. there. The overwhelming message, however, seems to be that the public is changing its mind, as it learns more. I was quite interested and amused to see that fully 1/3 of "true believers" think the media are exaggerating the issues.
Roger,
The AGW promoters are obsessed with the skeptics and heretics for many reeasons, and few of them are rational.
You are hated because you focus on the actions and their costs. AGW beleivers do not care about costs. They seem to believe that the climate can be managed into a proper state by managing CO2.
Skeptics are hated because they decline to believe the apocalypse is at hand.
Neither the heretics or skeptics are properly guilt-driven to merit respect from believers.
As to this 'open' letter, it is an insult to intelligence, the scientific process and to actually solving any problems.
The this latest effort to win by intimidation is going to backfire massively is only cream for the coffee.
Yet another petition drive led by a left-wing activist pawning off his political agenda under the mantle of science. Of course, it contains the inevitable threadbare McCarthy reference and attempt to capitalize on the well-grounded factual basis of evolution.
Yawn.
Nice use of faked photo to accompany the letter in Science Journal. So it's just a propaganda piece afterall!
http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2010/05/fake-photo-used-in-science-article.html
So according to these NAS members all skeptics are Inquisitorial Flat-Earth Creationist Deniers.
To escape such a sweeping charge you have to believe in all the science, even the bits that are wrong.
Malcolm,
You well stated:
"So according to these NAS members all skeptics are Inquisitorial Flat-Earth Creationist Deniers.
To escape such a sweeping charge you have to believe in all the science, even the bits that are wrong."
What else would you expect from a pseudo-religious belief system?
After all, it is clear that Christy, Pielke Sr. & Jr., Spencer, Lindzen, Curry, etc. etc. etc. are just phonies and not really scientists. Real scientists know that the science is settled and that any discrepancies are due to a lack of faith.
oger
From a layman's point of view, I can't see non AGW decarbonisation flying on the basis of public opinion, anywhere near the scale that was proposed for global warming. Where is the fear ? How many people are going to wade through Mike Hulme's flowery New Age justifications to decide upon something is appallingly mundane as energy policy ?
Frontiers of Faith and Science
It is incredible how many scientists are really bad liars. Here is a man who thought he could tell childish lies using his status as a weapon. How pathetic does he look ?
I can assure you, says Prof Watson of UAE on live television !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALVx_NYsS_M
The days of kow towing to status are well and truly gone. The current British election was fought on the basis of who you despise slightly less. Blair is a pariah who wisely played almost no part in the proceedings.
Roger
I thought you would be interested to know that in the UK election, the Green Party's share of the vote actually went down 0.1% to 1%. In terms of vote share, the BNP (1.9%) and UKIP (3.1%) both did better than the Greens. Nearly twice as many voted BNP as did Green, while three times more people backed UKIP.
The BNP is the Neo Nazi party that wants to repatriate all immigrants, and the UKIP is a single issue party that promotes secession from the EU. The extreme right wing BNP describes itself as the 'true green party' for reasons I have discussed before, and had more radical policies while rejecting AGW is a capitalist scam.
The Green Party did achieve its first MP on the back of countless millions of pounds of state and corporate propaganda that we were in immediate danger of permanently damaging the planet.
Long ago I learned a general life lesson - people will accuse you of doing the very thing they are doing to you. In this case, note the McCarthyism accusation. AGW advocates live by ad hominem and smear, so of course they accuse others of their very own sin.
Warning: if your wife tells you that you don't trust her, she's probably already cheating on you.
People want mitigation if it's free. What happen to the 4th choice geoengineering?
Mr Gleick
This letter rehashes content from your Congress testimony in 2007. How is that your perspective hasn't changed one bit post-Climategate?
Do you believe all skeptics are bashing on climate scientists simply because it snowed in Washington?
You say errors in the 'massive' IPCC reports are 'corrected' as they are pointed out. How come, the egregious errors about malarial transmission were retained in the WG2, in the face of pointed criticism? Why was attention not paid to the glacier error despite being pointed out much, much before Nov 2009?
You use the phrase 'unprecedented speed' w.r.t to climate change in modern times, in your letter. I wish to bring to your kind attention that the IPCC AR4 itself restrains itself in this manner admirably.
Are you not aware, that it is the scientists themselves who have brought these 'vicious attacks' upon themselves trying to overstate the level of confidence and certainty attainable from their underlying data?
Regards
PG- You said
"Also, you're playing games with the issue of societal "choices" as though we can't tell the difference between two and three. These are apples and oranges and they are not "philosophical" or "ideological.""
I don't know what your background is.. but every day we are, in fact, adapting to climate; millions of farmers, engineers, water providers, plant breeders, community planners; the perhaps unsung heroes of all this. In fact, almost everyone is mitigating and adapting and accepting what they cannot change (with apologies to the Serenity Prayer). So the scientists signed a letter making a knowledge claim that there are two paths.. if we can’t trust them about easily verifiable knowledge claims, why should we trust them with complex computer models (which, without empirical verification, are essentially quantification of assumptions)?
Roger, I have to echo Eric144's comment, only from this side of the Atlantic. Pew says only about a third of the American public thinks that climate change is a serious problem. Even worse (or better, depending on your viewpoint), climate change was dead last our of 20 as a policy priority for Republicans and Independents, and 16th out of 20 for Democrats.
And this was before ClimateGate.
I know, I know - you can get a poll to give you any numbers you like. But I just can't see 70% of the country supporting anything other than the most watered down (i.e. cheap) policy on climate change.
"Why obsess with the deniers?"
The core supporters of the "consensus" (aka The Team in McIntyre parlance) are not much worried by deniers. What they are desperately trying to supress is relevant and well funded questions about particular details of their science, such as the historical instrumental record, the proxy reconstructions of the past, the actual role of clouds in GW, the procedural protocols in the IPCC process, and the like. They do not worry much if someone says it's all caused by solar spots or malevolent aliens, but they do worry about MacIntyre asking about the Yamal tree-rings and the actual merits of dendrochronology as an indicator of temperatures, or some Pielke guy questioning the increasing impact of hurricanes, or Ridley suggesting that Greenland would take millennia to melt, if it ever does, or Guilyardi failing to produce a persistent (or more severe) El Niño state as a result of higher CO2 concentrations. These questions do not deny anything, they are also demanding specific answers to specific issues, and demanding also more transparency and neutrality in the IPCC process. That's really nasty, isn't it?
Soprry, in my third line I meant "relevant and well founded", not "well funded".
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