Category: Climate Change

The Ultimate Externalized Cost

They conned the public, and will never pay for it

I know this is obvious, but not to take it off our radar screens for a second: climate chickens coming home to roost, and who’s going to take care of them? Not the fossil fuel companies.

The U.S. Congress is presently debating, how much should the government provide for disaster relief and recovery due to hurricanes—around Houston, in Florida, in the Virgin Islands, and most disastrously, Puerto Rico.  The Congress is reluctant, because a precedent for paying now points the way to astronomical payments to come. They know that named hurricanes are just the tip of the climatic disaster iceberg (sorry for the incongruous metaphor) .

Anyone who has, with an open and analytical mind, paid attention to   Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) and Climate Change, has connected the dots between profligate burning of fossil fuels and catastrophic weather events.

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The Denialist Penitentiary

Republicans Who Know Climate Truth Are in Lockdown.

A convert to climate activism describes the dilemma of ambivalent Republicans as being in a “denialist penitentiary”—whose unforgiving  jailers are the Tea Party.

An interview of onetime denier Jerry Taylor by Sharon Lerner in The Intercept explains the path by which he became converted. As a conservative, he frames his case to “conservative elites” in terms of gambling.  In the face of dangerous uncertainty, the smart money hedges its bets. “We don’t know exactly what will happen. Given that fact, shouldn’t we hedge?” He emphasizes speaking in a “dispassionate” way to get his points across, and eschews talk about needing fundamental economic change—”to most conservatives, that’s just nails on a chalkboard.”

For interview of Taylor see How Jerry Taylor reversed course on climate

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Get the Cold Shoulder: Speak Out Against Climate Change Denial

Cautionary Advice on Opposing Climate Change Denial

Confronting climate change denial carries a social cost. That’s the finding of a study done by University of Exeter, as reported by Adam Corner in The Guardian:  Social Cost of Speaking Out

Just think of the social cost in the 19th Century for speaking out against slavery, or against denying women the vote. Or, in 1938 Germany, speaking out against oppression of Jews?  From the findings of this survey, you can be pretty sure the cost was high.  Adam Corner speaks of the importance of “potential collateral damage caused by challenging climate denial. . . ” He warns against losing the climate opinion war by engaging in battles that may degrade your social acceptability and thus your influence. “Being right,” he maintains, “is not the same thing as being persuasive.”

At What Cost Speaking Your Mind?

I’m not sure whether Adam Corner’s mindset reflects a British bias toward politeness, or a pragmatism that could prove useful in changing public opinion. If the latter, then just how his prescription for “emphasizing positive social norms” could be carried out is pretty vague. You also have to take into account Corner’s using the outworn metaphor, “collateral damage,” to refer to a psychological condition.  If “positive social norms” sounds jargony, and the use of “collateral damage” sounds tone-deaf, then you have to wonder about Corner’s analytic edge.

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How to Slow Global Warming, for Real

Failure and More Failure: Time to Get Real

If you are a typical reader of this blog, much of what you’ll see below is not news . But my hope is to frame questions about climate change and its remedies in a coherent way. . . and also to make the argument that. . . you’ll see.

As much as climate change believers have attempted to rein in the combustion of fossil fuels to reduce CO2 emissions, they have largely failed. It doesn’t matter what accord or protocol we’re talking about—Paris, Copenhagen, Kyoto—economic considerations (especially in India and China), and the slow development of zero carbon technologies are preventing us from meeting the goals.

That’s even without the worsening of U.S. emissions we can expect for the next four years—at least.

The good news is that CO2 emissions worldwide have ceased growing—we may be at a plateau with some promise of  reduction.

Slowing CO2 Emissions

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Another Disrupter: Prince Charles

British officials are all in a sweat about Prince Charles possibly confronting Trump over Climate Change when the latter visits UK.  White House is telling UK that Prince Charles raising the issue would be “counterproductive.”

Counterproductive!?! Isn’t Climate Change counterproductive enough already without trying to sweep it under the diplomatic rug?

See http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/trump-and-charles-in-climate-row-d2qwb7962