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The environmental muddle as a morality play.
With only the short term view of economic necessity on one side and the long term view of shielding nature from humanity on the other, the political clash over the environment becomes a morality play, the black hats and the green hats fighting over a stretch of sea. This is the way things are, but not the way they should be. . .This is another word fog: the music is good, the ideas aren't jarring, the sentiments seems admirable, but they are false. Consensus is not desirable. That's merely a way to implment policies that fail reality tests, a response to the "something must be done" sort of intellectual bankruptcy.That we should reach a point where economic freedom and prosperity is viewed as an opponent of the environment — in opposition to the lessons of history, the facts of today, and a basic understanding of what type of citizen will be able to have the luxury of restraining themselves from overuse — says something about the political dominance of opposition to moderation on environmental policy.
For those on the left, it’s worth considering the state of things in the Czech Republic when it comes to the dangers of extremism on this point. Vaclav Havel’s rival and eventual replacement, Vaclav Klaus, is today a fierce global warming skeptic whose words on the subject have overwhelmingly convinced the people of the Czech Republic that man-made global warming is nothing more than a dangerous myth, the old scourge of socialism returning disguised as science. In a Gallup Poll released last month, 41% of Americans believe that the seriousness of global warming is exaggerated — a record high after 11 years of polling; at a recent New York conference gathering deniers of global warming, Klaus reported poll data showing that a mere 11% of Czech citizens believe in it. Staking everything as a movement on climate change policy has consequences that are far-reaching, and if the American people come to believe that they must pit difficult, uncertain, and expensive steps to lessen global warming against cheap, efficient sources of energy, no amount of rebranding cap and trade will alter their choice.
It’s time to restore the long range view. Pragmatic conservationists, regardless of political stripe, must recognize their responsibility to build consensus in favor of moderate, pro-environment, pro-efficiency policies that balance the energy needs of humanity with the duty to preserve and protect the gifts of nature for future generations. Principled stewardship starts with finding this balance, recognizing that it may leave both business and the environmentalists displeased — and it doesn’t overpromise, but focuses on the real and achieveable. And it doesn’t claim that the solution to America’s energy problems are carried on the winds.
The article began with the insights of the Velvet Revolution period of Czech history, the "crisis of human integrity" that socialism represented, as evidenced by the environmental destruction that followed in its wake. But the idea that it is a "tug of war between the short and the long term views of mankind and nature" assumes that there exists a long term view that could be implemented as policy. This is ludicrous. If that was possible there is no reason to believe that socialism - in one of its historical flavors - would not have had at least a longish term view that would have somehow been environmentally benign.
There may be some long term view that an omniscient observer outside reality might hold, but no human knows what it is. The best humans can do is to bloviate about speculative transcendental notions. This can be entertaining, but it has no pragmatic implications, no policy guidance.
This understanding is what can help formulate improved policy. We don't know what to do, though we can know some of the things that should not be done. Apply Taleb's Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world to environmental policy as welll as financial policy.
I'm looking for someone of influence to say the following:
Yes, the climate is changing. Climate change is natural and inevitable. Because of the myriad influences which cause climate change it is impossible to predict the exact way it will happen and the exact effects it will have. It may be wise to do some things to ameliorate the effects, such as looking at areas of the world which will eventually flood because of polar ice cap melt and beginning to put some sort of ban on building in those areas (read New Orleans).
But even at that, since science is unable to pinpoint the way climate is going to change, those measures should be, well measured.
We need to realize that we are just temporary guests on this planet. There is no guarantee that the conditions for our way or ways of life are sustainable ad infinitum.
Climate change is always happening. We just haven't experienced, in the last ten thousand years, change which was capable of seriously infringing on our lives and until fairly recently we as a race were able to move and adapt more easily than is possible today.
Posted by: alice at April 10, 2009 10:08 AMRoger Pielke Jr. et. al. at Prometheus say things that might satisfy your requirements. And, his dad, Sr., adds a lot of detail about the various causes of change.
Note that they do not doubt that climate is changing or that it is significantly a result of human activity, including GHG emissions, but they dispute CO2 monomania and exaggeration, and they do the math on adaptation etc. that you value too.
I lack the expertise to properly evaluate any of this, but as a generalist with some understanding of science and how it is done I find much to admire in their work.
Posted by: back40 at April 10, 2009 10:32 AMYes, I've seen this fellow's site before.
I'm thinking more of someone to replace Michael Crichton. Someone (and more than one) with pop culture cache who can't be dismissed as a right wing nut case.
That's the only way, in our world, to stem the madness.
Posted by: alice at April 13, 2009 04:59 PMFreeman Dyson, IMV, is the most convincing skeptic since he reasons from evidence and like the good scientist that he is admits that he may be proven to be wrong when we get evidence that is currently missing. He's been right so often, and done such good work in general, that only fools will dismiss him outright though they may disagree usefully if they engage his arguments. Worth a listen no matter what your current views.
Posted by: back40 at April 13, 2009 06:21 PMYou might find Dave's blog to be congenial. He just posted RE: Beware the climate of conformity
Posted by: back40 at April 13, 2009 10:07 PMHeaven And Earth is a brilliantly argued book by someone not intimidated by hostile majorities or intellectual fashions.
The book's 500 pages and 230,000 words and 2311 footnotes are the product of 40 years' research and a depth and breadth of scholarship. As Plimer writes: "An understanding of climate requires an amalgamation of astronomy, solar physics, geology, geochronology, geochemistry, sedimentology, tectonics, palaeontology, palaeoecology, glaciology, climatology, meteorology, oceanography, ecology, archaeology and history."
The most important point to remember about Plimer is that he is Australia's most eminent geologist. As such, he thinks about time very differently from most of us. He takes the long, long view. He looks at climate over geological, archaeological, historical and modern time. He writes: "Past climate changes, sea-level changes and catastrophes are written in stone."
Much of what we have read about climate change, he argues, is rubbish, especially the computer modelling on which much current scientific opinion is based, which he describes as "primitive". Errors and distortions in computer modelling will be exposed in time. (As if on cue, the United Nations' peak scientific body on climate change was obliged to make an embarrassing admission last week that some of its computers models were wrong.)
Plimer does not dispute the dramatic flux of climate change - and this column is not about Australia's water debate - but he fundamentally disputes most of the assumptions and projections being made about the current causes, mostly led by atmospheric scientists, who have a different perspective on time. "It is little wonder that catastrophist views of the future of the planet fall on fertile pastures. The history of time shows us that depopulation, social disruption, extinctions, disease and catastrophic droughts take place in cold times … and life blossoms and economies boom in warm times. Planet Earth is dynamic. It always changes and evolves. It is currently in an ice age." . . .
The hypothesis that human activity can create global warming is extraordinary because it is contrary to validated knowledge from solar physics, astronomy, history, archaeology and geology. "But evidence no longer matters. And any contrary work published in peer-reviewed journals is just ignored. We are told that the science on human-induced global warming is settled. Yet the claim by some scientists that the threat of human-induced global warming is 90 per cent certain (or even 99 per cent) is a figure of speech. It has no mathematical or evidential basis."
Observations in nature differ markedly from the results generated by nearly two dozen computer-generated climate models. These climate models exaggerate the effects of human CO2 emissions into the atmosphere because few of the natural variables are considered. Natural systems are far more complex than computer models.