Supreme Court Briefing from Scientists on EPA Case

This is an amicus brief from climate scientists to the Supreme Court. The scientists argue that the Environmental Protection Agency should be acting to prevent climate change. It contains a good summary of the science.

A quote:

…scientific uncertainty is a double-edged sword: outcomes may turn out better than our current prediction, but it is just as possible that they will turn out worse (as in the case of stratospheric ozone depletion cited in point 8). Thus, it is a mistake to infer that because a prediction of an undesirable outcome is uncertain, that the risk posed by that undesirable outcome is low. The absence of absolute certainty in science does not by itself provide a rational reason for avoiding policy action on a scientifically identified public risk (like global climate change), any more than the absence of absolute certainty prevents decisions or actions in other areas such as health care, financial decisions, or national security. Similarly, low probability of a potentially large harm does not by itself rationally justify inaction any more than the low probability of devastating fire rationally justifies nonpurchase of home insurance policies.

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Which Way Now? Environmentalism in 2007 and Beyond

“…when a majority of people decide they agree with you it is probably time to stop hitting them over the head with a stick and sit down and talk to them about finding solutions to our environmental problems…. It is this effort to find consensus among competing interests that has occupied my time for the past 15 years. Not all my former colleagues saw things that way…. They ushered in an era of zero tolerance and left-wing politics.”

That quote, by Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore, has been presented to me in discussions about the environment. Usually the person offering it is coming from a right wing perspective, and they are attacking the politics of the environmental issue at hand.

From their perspective, global warming accords like the Kyoto protocal are just tools to weaken the United States. CO2 emissions caps are weapons against hard working Americans and the free market. Environmentalism is just a vehicle for radical leftists to get their agenda into the debate.

But is it?

And is this what Moore is really getting at?

You can read the complete essay, “Environmentalism for the 21st Century” at his website, www.greenspirit.com.

I disagree with some of his criticisms of the environmental movement and some of his specific prescriptions, but I agree with his general conclusions. It is time to build consensus.

But we need to be careful who our friends are in this consensus.

The Death of Environmentalism

In fall of 2004, at the height of the Presidential campaign, two environmentalists released an essay titled “The Death of Environmentalism.” Their thesis: traditional environmentalism was an absolute failure in the 21st century. To survive, environmental organizations needed to develop common cause with other social movements and build a positive, progressive movement for worldwide change.

Left wing politics again.

Environmentalists have traditionally tried to stay out of politics. This attempted ‘transcendent environmentalism’ has created conflicts with the people who should be our allies. Ford and General Motors provide an excellent example.

Both major auto companies announced massive job cuts in 2006. This was due to a variety of factors:

• They kept building massive, expensive gas guzzlers while gas prices continued rise.
• They were burdened with massive healthcare costs for their millions of employees. Their competitors overseas had governments that picked up the insurance tab. Faced with this competition, a logical solution for the American companies was to fire the expensive American workers and hire cheap labor outside the US.
• Labor unions found themselves at odds with the environmentalists: why should they support higher efficiency vehicles if that increased the costs of production, thus threatening their jobs?

Back in 2004, the authors of “The Death of Environmentalism” pointed out that environmentalists could gain the support of the United Auto Workers for increased fuel efficiency if they would in turn work for a national health care system. The national health care would relieve automakers of that incredible expense.

Increased fuel efficiency might have meant higher sales of American cars. Autoworkers could well have seen their jobs saved.

As it stands, that was one alliance that never happened – and the American economy has lost tens of thousands of jobs. What might have happened if that alliance had come to pass?

Does the environment only matter to lefties?

George Lakoff (author of Don’t Think of an Elephant) thinks that environmentalism is a form of progressivism. Progressive values coincide with environmental values.

This doesn’t mean that environmentalists can’t make common cause with people who might usually vote Republican. And it doesn’t mean that all liberals/leftists have the environment as a top priority – as the example of American automakers shows, labor and the environment often find themselves at odds.

The poor and people of color are two groups that face environmental threats (who lives in the most polluted parts of your town?) but who usually see economic issues as more important to their survival.

There are also some people environmentalists will never see eye to eye with. Let’s not worry about them.

The right wing dominates America at the turn of the 21st century. The recent election of a Democratic majority to Congress is not an embrace of progressive values. It is a reaction to the failures of the right wing. And it is only the beginning of a long battle to bring progressive and environmental values back to America. We still have conservative judges sitting on the Supreme Court, a radical right winger as President, and conservative pundits dominant on the radio and television.

The Right achieved this dominance by finding common cause with each other: financial conservatives, religious and social conservatives, gun owners, all sat down and figured out what they could agree on. They also learned how to frame the debate. Environmentalism is now seen as a choice between jobs or wildlife, and environmentalists are seen as liberal elites, out of touch with mainstream America.

Global Warming Enters the Debate

The recent media furor over global warming sparked by Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” might lead environmentalists to think that we are gaining the support of the American people. But it is foolish to think that Americans will support anything that will threaten their jobs. Concern about global warming does not automatically translate into the desire or the ability to pay more for cleaner energy.

Meaningful action on global warming requires real solutions that will slow CO2 emissions, create jobs, and strengthen the economy. It also requires a powerful, positive vision that will energize the majority of Americans.

Where do we go from here?

The elections, along with global warming’s move into a central public concern, indicate the beginnings of a shift in American politics. All is not lost.

But we are only just beginning to find a way to win. We can’t repeat the mistakes we’ve made in the past 20 years.

I’ll let Patrick Moore have the last word:

“I have always shied away from strong opinions on poverty and class. But it seems unacceptable to me that so many hundreds of millions of people live at a material standard that we in the industrialized countries would not consider acceptable for a dignified life. I believe there is a great deal to be learned by exploring the relationships between ecology and politics. In some ways politics is the ecology of the human species. The two subjects have developed such completely different disciplines and terminologies that it is hard to think of them together. But I believe we must if we are to gain a truly holistic understanding of the relationship between ourselves and our society, and the Earth on which we ultimately depend.”

Links for the day

Climate Science Timeline.  A rundown of the history of Climate science.

Global warming said killing some species

Road Ecology.  Yes, that’s right:  the ecology of roads, roadkill, etc.

Global warming could doom male crocodiles.  Water temperature determines the gender of some reptiles and amphibians.

Human activities behind the recent stabilization of atmospheric methane?

Companies adjusting to Ecosystems Serving them.  Healthy ecosystems are gradually gaining recognition for their role in healthy business.

Ignore Degraded Ecosystems at Your Peril, Corporations Warned

On the Move to Outrun Climate Change.  Businesses and wildlife adapt to climate change.

Ocean waves could power the world, with no pollution

The global energy crisis can be solved by using the desert sun

A truly Bucky Fuller-esque energy solution: Concentrated Solar Power, a proven, working and simple technology that WORKS NOW.

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Firefox Extension: Fight Global Warming

This extension enables you to receive global warming alerts directly to your browser. From there its only one click to take action and join the effort to raise awareness to global warming.

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Case Against the Hydrogen Economy: 4X More Expensive Than Electron Economy

There’s a lot of hype over the “hydrogen economy”, and billions have been spent pursuing it. However, it turns out that converting energy into electricity to electrolyze water to make hydrogen just to convert the hydrogen back to electricity using a fuel cell is four times as expensive as simply using batteries; the laws of physics set the limits.

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Key Evidence for Global Warming Debunked?

If you spend a little time talking to global warming skeptics, you’ll run across some variation of this argument: the Mann Hockey Stick graph, which shows global temperatures trending dramatically upward, is flawed/faked/broken.

The so called “hockey stick” is a graph from a paper written in 1998 by Michael Mann and others (often referred to as MBH 98). It shows temperatures for the past 1000 years, with a dramatic upward swing in the 20th century. The graph attained a fair bit of notoriety when the International Panel on Climate Change featured it in its Third Assessment Report in 2001. Since then there have been several scientific papers published about it, endless websites and blog posts, and a congressional hearing, all on this single paper.

The general thrust of all this study, criticism, accusations of fraud, reworking, reexamining etc. is that there were indeed some flaws in the statistical methods used in MBH 98. However, multiple papers since then have indicated that the conclusions are valid.

Climate scientists have compared multiple datasets (called proxies) – ice samples, treerings, boreholes, historical documents, marine sediments – to get an idea of past climate variations. I’ll quote from the executive summary of the National Academy of Sciences “Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2000 Years”:

It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries….less confidence can be placed in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions for the period from AD 900 to 1600. Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since AD 900….Very little confidence can be assigned to statements concerning the hemispheric mean or global mean surface temperature prior to about AD 900….

snip

The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on icecaps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2000 years. Not all individual proxy records indicate that the recent warmth is unprecedented, although a larger fraction of geographically diverse sites experienced exceptional warmth during the late 20th century than during any other extended period from AD 900 onward.

The Wegman report, presented to Congress in 2005, was a detailed study of the statistical methods used in MBH 1998. Although it was widely hailed by climate change skeptics as a thorough debunking of Mann’s work, it is limited in scope. It’s worth some study if you want to understand the issue more fully, and a PDF can be found here. Commentary on the Wegman report here.

Other scientists have studied Mann’s conclusions and methods and found them to be robust. Some of these papers are summarized in the Wegman report.

Also take a look here.

I draw two conclusions from this:

1. There are lots of unknowns in the study of climate – both future predictions and past climate reconstructions.

2. There is substantial evidence that the current warming is unusual and goes beyond the ranges seen in the past 2000 years.

Also note that, whatever your opinion of the hockey stick graph itself, there is still strong evidence that the earth is warming and that humans are the cause.

Links for the Weekend

Don’t buy those solar panels just yet:
George Monbiot says that small scale sustainable energy is not the answer.

And apparently hydrogen is not the answer either… (pdf link)

Permapedia: like wikipedia for permaculture! Sexy.

Here’s something I came across recently: Patrick Moore, founder of Greenpeace, and his website greenspirit.com.

There are two essays he’s written that are especially worth looking at:
Environmentalism for the 21st century and Moving from Confrontation to Consensus.

Some of the things he says I don’t agree with. Others are worth thinking about. I will write a response to Environmentalism for the 21st Century over the weekend.

Until then, happy Thanksgiving.

Image by Clownfish.

Environmental News Roundup

Grandma’s Veggies May Have Been More Nutritious

Green Marketing Machine
Bob Perkowitz, founder of the green consumer organization ecoAmerica, on reinvigorating the environmental movement. By Rabia Mughal

Biodiesel from Algae – I am skeptical of ethanol and biodiesel as a cure for global warming, but these guys might be on to something.
A good rundown of a presentation by James Hansen on climate change. Dr. Hansen suggests that if we get rid of coal we can continue to burn oil and gas without reaching dangerous levels of CO2.

Seven-Year Stabilization of Methane May Slow Global Warming

A look at the economics of the environment

Image property of NASA. From The Visible Earth.

How to Talk to an Environmental Skeptic

Inspired by Coby Beck’s How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic, I’m creating this guide to help influence public debate on the environment and convince people that there is a problem. The guide will have two parts: a series called Why Nature Matters and a series on persuasive techniques and the arguments that skeptics use. This first post will cover persuasion.

Please comment if you have any suggestions for techniques or arguments, and thanks for reading.

Pick your battles

Don’t try to convince people that they are immoral for using toilet paper.

Many people who are deeply committed to the environment are comfortable giving up many things that others take for granted. I took a lower paying job so I wouldn’t have to drive as many miles. I use an electric lawnmower, I don’t eat meat or watch TV, and I can be obsessive about the amount of electricity I am using at any given time of day.

I don’t think I have gone far enough, but I still get strange looks. The first impression of “eccentric” could devolve into “freakish” or “holier than-thou” after a short conversation.

You will sooner convince your friends to spend 30 dollars on flourescent lightbulbs for their home than give up their car. Trust me.

Talk to the people who can be persuaded

Don’t spend much time arguing with people who are convinced that they are right.

An exception to this would be when other people are witnessing the debate. In this case you might win some converts in a good old fashioned argument: present the facts and expose the flaws in your opponent’s arguments.

Use jujutsu

It’s easy to become adversarial when we try to persuade people. Discussions deteriorate into an argument as each side tries to prove they are right and the other is wrong. Soon agreement is impossible because neither side wants to lose face.

Just about everyone values nature. Our differences arise from our perceptions of how big the problem is and what the best solutions are. Strip miners and loggers often believe that they are doing good for the environment – they think in terms of “mine reclamation” and “salvage logging” rather than “mountain top removal” and “clear cutting.”

Try a sort of jujutsu. When your discussion starts to turn into a debate about economic costs, point out the economic benefits of green technologies rather than pointing to the costs of environmental destruction. When faced with a debate about the benefits of industrial agriculture, talk about the promise of organic farming, local foods, and permaculture. When we talk about the costs of mitigating global warming, talk about economic benefits and easy solutions: Socolow’s stabilization wedges (pdf link), sustainable housing, or the money saving benefits of flourescent lighting.

Ask them what they think!

Ask people what they think about the issue before you launch into a heated debate. Try to identify areas you agree on, and identify what they value. Then you can frame your argument in their terms.

Ask open ended questions that don’t offer a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. For example:

• “What do you think about this new study on global warming?”
• “What do you think is a bigger threat, global warming or pollution? Why?”
• “Did you hear that the oceans will be out of fish in 50 years if we keep fishing like we do? What do you think about that?”

Know your argument

Be sure you know what you are arguing about. You may find that your friend is arguing about the economic costs of environmental regulation while you are arguing about the value of biodiversity. Or your opponent might shift the goalposts when you make a good point.

Consider the other person’s values

When you talk to fiscal conservatives, frame your position in terms that conservatives value: responsibility and economic values. When you talk to religious people, talk about the sacred nature of creation. For social conservatives, talk about responsibility and tradition.

To do this effectively, spend some time beforehand thinking about the value of the environment. How does it provide economic value? How does it promote health? How is it tied into our concept of freedom and individualism?

George Lakoff has great ideas about how to do this. This interview is a good introduction to his concept of framing, and this interview has ideas for environmentalists.

The facts are on your side, and the tide of public opinion is turning. I hope this guide will be of some use in bringing about change. Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment.