Category: Environment

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

Continue reading “The Denialist Penitentiary”

Some Sort-of Good News on Endangered Species

Amid the deluge of sickening environmental news in the U.S., there are a few somewhat bright spots from abroad

On Tigers: Cautious Optimism in Thailand: Tigers here

China’s Move toward Shutting Down Ivory Trade:  Chinese crackdown on ivory trade

Environmental Impacts of Chinese Looting of Resources Worldwide

China Resource Grabs

More “charismatic” animals such as elephants could slow Chinese resource exploitation around the world.  The sad and not-so-sad reality is that elephants are easy to love, and their killers easy to hate. Most of the endangered species on Earth do not have an equivalent “poster child” to represent them, and they are quietly being crushed under the bulldozer of economic “progress.”  In a world where celebrity tweets get more of our attention than trees and rivers, there’s little standing in the way.

 

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.

Continue reading “Get the Cold Shoulder: Speak Out Against Climate Change Denial”

The Consolation of Big Numbers: The Long View

[Let’s back away a few trillion steps from our world’s tragedies, comedies, inspirations, follies, triumphs, losses, meaningless accidents and meaningful enterprises, to muse upon the otherworldly. It gives me some tranquility at a time when tranquility is hard to come by. To do so, I will have to venture far into Nerdland.  If big numbers leave you cold, stop right here.]

Zillions of Planets Akin to Ours?

While here on our own planet things are lurching from bad to worse, I was comforted to hear the news of nonzero odds for the habitability of  several planets in the “nearby” solar system TRAPPIST-1.  Located a mere 40 light years from us, these planets are rocky, not too big and not too small, not too heavy, not too light, and at a distance from their sun that liquid water could exist on them, and harbor Earthlike life forms. Their distance from their sun is smaller than the orbit of Mercury around ours, but the star is so cool—an “ultra cool dwarf”—that three of them are evidently situated in the “Goldilocks Zone” amenable, with the presence of water, to life as we know it.

Continue reading “The Consolation of Big Numbers: The Long View”

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

Continue reading “How to Slow Global Warming, for Real”

Not So Fast with Public Lands Sell-Off: Sportsmen’s Hornets’ Nest

Jason Chaffetz Runs from Army of Hornets

Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz unleashed a storm of protest from sportsmen left and right when he introduced a bill that would direct the Bureau of Land Management to sell off 3.3 million acres of federally owned land.

The CEO of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, Land Tawney, warned: “Mr. Chaffetz, you’ve kicked the hornets’ nest, and the army is amassing. . . . The only thing you can do to make this right is to pull those bills back.” He was joined by the National Wild Turkey Federation, Pheasants Forever, Trout Unlimited, Remington Arms, as well as the National Wildlife Federation, who joined to circulate a petition that quickly gathered 46,000 signatures.

Continue reading “Not So Fast with Public Lands Sell-Off: Sportsmen’s Hornets’ Nest”

Holy Coal

Who would have known that fossil fuels are a special gift to humanity from the Divine?

Fred Palmer, that’s who. The Heartland Institute’s holy warrior senior fellow has revealed his elegant chain of reasoning: “Because it’s easy to get to, it’s here and more people live better and longer for it,” therefore “fossil fuels [are] part of a divine plan.”.

This is a guy who says that global warming science is “sophistry. It’s an agenda driven by lawyers who make their own facts. . . . ”

I ought to note here that if you are a Deist—which is the most minimal religious belief this side of atheism—of course all Creation is divine by definition. No argument here. But that’s not the sense in which Palmer makes claims about fossil fuels. He means to elevate fossil fuels above other objects of Creation, special gifts to humankind. Which seems to me a bit dismissive of stuff like oxygen (without which, incidentally, coal, oil, and gas would not burn; oh, but oxygen is used by other animals, so it’s not so special).

Continue reading “Holy Coal”

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

Giving up on Natural: Do We Need Intelligent (Human) Design?

A ‘State of Nature’ Has Been Lost Forever

[Source for this essay is a Washington Post article by Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis in June 2016: see here.]

“‘Let’s get back to that natural environment with humans out of the picture. . .’—that’s a chimera, a false hope. . . it’s too late for that,” declares Melinda Zeder. co-author of a paper published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper, stuffed with anthropological, paleoecological and archaeological evidence, establishes that humans have been modifying the natural environment for many tens of thousands of years. Well, we knew that. . .  and we’ve also been exposed to this line of thinking, if not for tens of thousands of years, for long enough to have drummed into our heads the idea that returning significant portions of the Earth to Nature is a doomed hope.

Continue reading “Giving up on Natural: Do We Need Intelligent (Human) Design?”

Trump Nominees’ Climate Playbook

Fossil Fuel Advancement Playbook Employs the “Climate Change is Real” Admission

In the current week of Senate hearings for Trump’s nominations to head  the EPA, the Department of Interior, and the Department of Energy, we have heard variations on a seemingly surprising theme, to wit: Climate Change is real and human activity has something to do with it. Surprising coming from them anyway—Scott Pruitt (EPA), Ryan Zinke (Interior), and Rick Perry (Energy)—all of whom had not so long ago belonged to the Climate Change Denial faction of the Republican Party.

The three are following the same playbook, a series of moves that lead us from the concern that fossil fuels might be messing up our climate, to the conclusion that fossil fuels are the remedy for the potential ills of climate change.  Something along the lines of fighting fire with fire, a kind of global homeopathy. Here’s the play:

(1) Admit Climate Change science is not a hoax,

(2) Acknowledge Climate Change may actually be occurring.

(3) Acknowledge, that human activity might contribute in some way to Climate Change.

(4) Question whether the change is happening as quickly as most climate scientists fear.

(5) Question whether, even if it is happening quickly, is it all that dire.

– here between (5) and (6) is the move from hypotheses into policy –

(6) (a) if it is not dire, then other priorities such as economic development with fossil fuels should take precedence over costly efforts to minimize emissions; or (b) if it is dire, then we should move forward on adaptation, for which we will need the economic development made possible by fossil fuels.

Continue reading “Trump Nominees’ Climate Playbook”