I could easily spend all my time just responding to every single piece of silliness that appears in the mainstream media on global warming. But not only would that be unproductive and unhelpful for my readers (i.e. you), but heck I have great readers capable of doing such responses themselves.
The NY Times has just given some of its precious real estate to one of the lamest and most irrelevant op-eds ever published on climate change: ”Ben Franklin on Global Warming.” The gist of it seems to be that since weather changes over small parts of the Earth’s land were noticed by people in the 18th century and that Franklin himself apparently noticed part of what is now well understood and modeled by scientists as the heat island effect — “cleared land absorbs more heat and melts snow quicker” — that we should somehow think … well, actually, I can’t even figure out what the author is trying to say.
The piece appears to be a novel take on the “teach the controversy” strategy. The author, Ben Gelber, meteorologist at WCMH-TV in Columbus, Ohio, sort of acknowledges anthropogenic global warming science but mostly makes irrelevant connections between the past and today to imply that what’s happening now is nothing really new. If Gelber thinks we should do anything about global warming, he keeps it to himself.
Well, anthropogenic global warming is new, and it would be catastrophic or worse to do nothing about it — see, for instance, “Humans boosting CO2 14,000 times faster than nature, overwhelming slow negative feedbacks” and “Imagine a World without Fish” and “Intro to global warming impacts” and UK Met Office: Catastrophic climate change, 13-18°F over most of U.S. and 27°F in the Arctic, could happen in 50 years, but “we do have time to stop it if we cut greenhouse gas emissions soon.”
But hey, I’ve written too much already. You respond, and I’ll lift the best comments up into the main post.
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I think the post is interesting. Ben Franklin made an observation about how human actions can effect their surroundings. This happened at a time when there were only ~5 million people living in the US. Further, there were only ~500 million people in the entire world. Even then, he was able to easily witness how human actions can effect the regional climate.
Today we have 6.5 billion people living on Earth. (And there are at least that many cows.) In fact today there entire planet has an average population density of 33 people / sq mile (That includes the oceans, http://www.wolframalpha.com/ input/ ?i=world+population%2Fearth+surface+area) Every one of those people, even the very poorest, are using far more energy everyday than their ancestors did 220 years ago. Today each person in America will easily use more energy and more resources than Ben Franklin could have used in a year.
So my question to the skeptics: Knowing how many people there are, and how much each person uses in terms of energy and resources, AND knowing that even 200 years ago Ben Franklin was able to observe physical changes in the environment caused by human actions, how much more so are we effecting the environment today?
A: In more ways than you can even imagine.
Joe, I love you but this time I think you’re overreacting. You’re right that it’s irrelevant and a waste of precious op-ed real estate but this is no denialist diatribe … it’s not even an opinion piece as far as I can tell. It’s just a puff human interest short essay on some minor events and arguments among our founding fathers.
Yes, some deniers will interpret this as an argument against climate change hysteria but they manipulate everything to support their irrational world view. I doubt that anyone’s minds will be changed in either direction by this journalistic bon mot.
The final two paragraphs (repeated below) seem to me to be a mild, indirect criticism of the denialist’s refusal to honestly confront real date:
“The clearing and cultivation climate-change debate of Jefferson’s era was driven by literary and anecdotal evidence in the absence of solid data. Now we have satellites monitoring high-latitude snow cover, thinning sea ice and deep-layered atmospheric temperature increases, coupled with ground observations revealing the disappearing snows of Kilimanjaro (85 percent ice loss since 1912) and many other glaciers.
The wealth of data now at our disposal, enhanced by high-resolution computer models that pioneer climatologists would have craved, has, curiously, not turned down the thermostat on the centuries-old global climate change debate, quite likely because the stakes are so much higher.”
[JR: I think I'm accurately reacting. I don't think he's a denier nor do I accuse him of being one. That said, what is the point of this piece, if not to unclarify things?]
Regarding land clearing’s effect on microclimates, the pioneers were more tuned in to nature than we are. We have excellent data on land degradation’s many negative effects, but it continues anyway, and protests occur only on the margins.
During the summer olympics, China made a law which stated that only citizens with even-numbered car tags could drive on certain days and citizens with odd tag numbers drive on alternate days. If we did this in the U.S., we could eliminate HALF of car emissions IMMEDIATELY!
Forests are being destroyed indescriminately at amazing rates. If strict laws were made to stop this, we could save one of our 2 major sinks, and GH emissions would be reduced IMMEDIATELY.
I read (don’t know if it’s correct) that painting roofs white would have a big impact, reducing GH gases IMMEDIATELY.
Considerint the fact that the arctic could disppear in a couple years and “the entire region of the perma frost is on the verge of collapse; this is a near-term tipping point; it will overwhelm human actions to reduce CO2 emissions” etc. (From the video, ” A Really Inconvenient Truth”)… and we have in our hands the means to STOP IT IMMEDIATELY, was just wondering when we will actually do it? When it’s too late?
Where is the discussion of the flat earth?
Didn’t Ptolemy claim the Earth was the center of the universe?
Why do we have flouridation and pasturized milk?
Lets have an argument.
He is just trying to reclaim the “smart people can disagree” argument.
Which really labels him an idiot..
Cynthia, painting roofs white would increase albedo, not reduce greenhouse gasses. This is potentially a good mitigation method, but it does raise a question. What’s the carbon footprint of manufacturing/distributing all that white paint? I think the most commonly used white pigment is titanium dioxide…
Two nights ago, I watched (again) a great special on Benjamin Franklin. And, I watched another one on Thomas Jefferson.
They both loved science and respected nature. Period.
THEN, just this morning, I attended a jam-packed talk by Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) at an independent book store near Santa Cruz, CA. Because of her schedule, the talk was at 7 a.m. — yes, this morning.
Yet, the place was packed, with over 200 people, sitting in all available chairs, on book counters, along the windows, on the floor, and just about anywhere one could possibly sit or stand.
Much of the message was this: The MSM are broken and letting us down. These are my own words, but that is the essence of the matter. People gave her a long applause — even before she started speaking — and a standing ovation after she spoke. Then, they lined up for her autograph (me included).
In my view, it helps to recognize and be clear about two things. First, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson respected science and nature. They didn’t want to hear any BS. And second, the MSM are letting us down. And a growing number of people in the public deeply, deeply, deeply, understand that.
The question is, what to do about it. The answer is, get active.
Be Well,
Jeff
In reference to: “[JR: I think I'm accurately reacting. I don't think he's a denier nor do I accuse him of being one. That said, what is the point of this piece, if not to unclarify things?]”
To follow your logic: he must be a
[snip]
[JR: Sorry, it is basic rule of commenting here that you can explain what you think and you can comment on what I said, but you don't get to misrepresent what I said and comment on that. I think I was pretty clear here.]
Sable: In my opinion, the biggest issue with the white roof suggestion is not the carbon footprint of the paint, but the fact that (as you point out) it does nothing for the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, which means it does nothing for ocean acidification.
This is a guess, but my hunch is that ocean acidification will become a much bigger deal in these discussions in the next few years. All the changes we talk about traceable to climate change are indeed horrific and more than enough reason to take swift action, but ocean acidification is just as bad in terms of human impact, yet it’s still the all-but-forgotten also-ran topic.
Wood putty
O.K. Done. Now where is my Pulitzer?
The New York Times is the flagship newspaper of a controlled media.
It is a morass of irrelevant and dilatory information – deliberately so, in my opinion.
What Benjamin Franklin thought about climate change is far, far less relevant to the debate than the fact that the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are destabilizing, for example, as shown by NASA’s ICESat.
So, the author wanders around, injecting confusion into the debate for several paragraphs, then contradicts himself in the last couple of paragraphs.
Injecting confusion into the debate decreases the signal to noise ratio, and tends to drown out the signal with noise. This is a well known tactic of paid propagandists – if they can’t argue on the substance of the debate, they will just inject confusion into it.
So, like most of the other output of the NYT, is seems consistent with a campaign to confuse and distract the public, and try to confuse and blunt the message of the story of the century – that the climate is destabilizing.
>That said, what is the point of this piece, if not to unclarify things?
Writers & journalists are starving for work. Any drivel they can publish puts food on the table.
This is not to say there aren’t responsible journalists, just that the circumstances of their field are not conducive to quality control.
I was afforonted by this piece, less because it seems to support a denial of climate change or its significance but because it is utterly incoherent and incomprehensible, as you note. I have to believe the editors of the NY Times ed. page are smart enough to understand how flimsy and lame this thing is, but maybe they just didn’t read it before they printed it? I am no fan of the times coverage of cc, but this article seems to lack any merit whatsoever.
Jeff, what’s the MSM?
Painting roofs white could have some regional effect, but what percentage of Earth’s surface is covered by a roof? It’d be great if it could make up for some reflective ice loss, but that’s obviously not the only feedback of concern. So it seems like one of those solutions that could have a net benefit (perhaps including some reduction of air conditioning needs in older buildings), but a rather limited one.
Lou: absolutely, I agree. Stopping deforestation and radically cutting CO2 emissions are the best things our species could do right now. Ocean acidification is just another unpleasant surprise, a consequence I never saw mentioned in earlier warnings about global warming. I’m still hopeful the worst may be avoidable…but my sense is that this train is already off the rails.
Hmmm…. well, the weather anchor at the NBC station in Columbus has come out as a global warming denier. (Gym Ganahl – http://www.theotherpaper.com/ articles/ 2009/ 02/ 07/ front/ doc498b07c3e889d326202045.txt) Gahal’s theory is that our weather is instead controlled by sunspots. I think there’s some truth to that, but the sunspots are just a small piece in the puzzle of what controls our climate.
It’s hard to tell from this piece where Ben Gelber is on the subject. Sadly, I’m starting to think that he is on the same page as Ganahl. I find it amazing that two men who spend their life studying weather would decide that global warming’s a hoax. Just. Wow.
I find it stunning that two men who study weather/science for a living would deny global warming.
I found the quotes in Gelber’s op-ed from the old dead people interesting, but they are not relevant, because today’s concern is quite different. Today, now that it has been clear for more than twenty years that the wastes of civilization are threatening the stability and viability of the planetary life support system, our concern is why is civilization not responding to this direct threat to its existence. Back then, the concern of the types Gelber quotes from was whether American climate would be acceptable to Europeans.
The reason I would agree with Joe that Gelber’s piece is a bit, if not completely “uber-lame” is because the quote Gelber takes from the only living person mentioned in the piece is so misleading. I think the reason is that Gelber is a meteorologist, and James Fleming, the man he went to for this quote is also a meterologist. Meteorologists are not climatologists, and for some inexplicable reason, even though the national association gave Hansen their prize last year in recognition of the importance of his work, meteorologists as a group have a disturbingly large number of hard heads who refuse to step outside their own field, bone up on the science, then comment. Gelber, quoting Fleming:
“The weather historian James R. Fleming has noted that the vexing scientific challenge in the climate debate has always been “the response of a large, complex, potentially chaotic system to small changes in forcing factors.”
Jim Hansen’s assessment of the change in forcing factors goes like this: “”the natural imbalance between geologic and human sources and sinks of CO2 is of the order of one ten-thousands of a ppm each year. In a million years, that can cause a change of 100 ppm. But the human-made rate of change is today about 2 ppm per year, about ten thousand times greater than the natural rate.”
The “vexing challenge” in this debate has never been about small changes in the forcing factor. If Fleming had said “large changes in forcing factors that appear small”, he would have been on more sound ground. Greenhouse gases are trace gases, existing in tiny concentrations in the atmosphere.
It was hard for many to believe that civilization could have an effect on something as large as the Earth’s atmosphere as late as the 1970s. It was hard in the 1980s to tease out the signal from the noise to get everyone to accept that the planetary temperature was actually warming. Back then there was a more legitimate dispute as to whether it could be said that the planet was warming, and as to whether you could pin it on the wastes of civilization. That’s why Hansen’s testimony then, i.e. he said he was 99% certain, got so much attention. Its been hard to get people to accept that in fact stark evidence of climate change is all over the place, as late as the 1990s and on into this decade. But it was in the 1980s that CO2 was generally accepted as “the forcing factor”, and once that happened, no one could talk about whether there were only small changes happening to it. The Vostok core showed without doubt that much smaller changes in the CO2 level in the past than were going to occur in mere decades more now had caused tremendous changes in the climate of the Earth. The change in CO2 level relative to the preindustrial forecast by 2050 was never called “small” by anyone who understood what was being talked about.
By the way, Professor Greg McRae of MIT was on Australian radio recently responding to a lament from the show’s host that Copenhagen was not going according to plan. He responded: “…starting with your pessimism about Copenhagen, here’s another way to think about it. People are actually starting to talk about these issues. I view [what's happening] as a starting point.” So, unless Gelber is a denier still cranking it out, if he is just writing what he thinks, the op-ed is evidence that confirms McRae’s observation.
Hi Cynthia (Comment 14),
“MSM” refers to the mainstream media.
At least, in some fields it does. I’ve seen it around so much that I’ve started using it as a shorthand.
Cheers and Be Well,
Jeff
The NY Times has kept me “alive” for for decades. I hate to see it attacked for printing a historically interesting (even if written with a light hand) article that sheds some light on the confusion that has always revolved around climate and weather. Franklin was the colonies first and only scientist; he had a world-wide reputation, Jefferson was also a scientist in spirit and interest. The author shows how the variability of weather manages to confuse the logic in even thoughtful men’s writing and serious discussions about weather and climate, especially with a lack serious data and a complete lack of knowledge of the physics of our atmosphere!. The article sheds some light on the importance of weather and climate on economies even more than 200 years ago. He is definitely contrasting our modern climate models with the virtually complete lack of knowledge in the past. Nevertheless, our public seems to be as free of real knowledge about climate and the weather as the public was in Franklin’s Almanac days! Too bad, but what can you expect from ignorance?
I’ve contacted Mr. Gelber & invited him to weigh in here (or to call back & I’ll report).
Please keep in mind that the op-ed you read likely isn’t 100% his writing, there being an editor between writer and reader.
FYI, while his bio (link) says he’s done consulting for utility companies (which made my ears perk up), apparently it’s not *that* kind of consulting. (”I have not directly consulted with any utility companies. I have periodically talked to the City of Columbus and ODOT and some law enforcement agencies regarding snow and ice forecasts, conditions, and,occasionally, filling in data for a weather-related incident.” – from email)
The NY Times piece itself doesn’t seem to deny anthropogenic global warming. But you can see how it will be used by skeptics who cite any evidence of past climate change as proof that humans can’t be causing global warming now. This is wrong headed thinking and the opposite to what peer reviewed science has found. Past climate change tells us that the climate is sensitive to an energy imbalance. If the planet accumulates heat, global temperatures will go up. Currently, CO2 is imposing an energy imbalance due to the enhanced greenhouse effect. Past climate change actually provides evidence for our climate’s sensitivity to CO2.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm
Phil Eisner #20, that was well expressed, and ideally that’s what readers would get from the column. But you publish a newspaper for the readers you have, not the readers you wish you had, and I’m fairly sure the flesh-and-blood ones who read this piece will just come away with confusion and a heightened sense of “same-as-it-ever-was”-ism.
Though I could be wrong. Tell you what, let’s do an experiment: print out the story, get a well-meaning acquaintance or two to read it, then ask him/her what the take-home message was.
Then report back please.
The Times recently published an essay by Ben Gelber, a meteorologist in Columbus, Ohio, about a weather controversy of the 18th century. All the parts are there to reach some very strong and positive conclusions and say something meaningful about our current climate travails. As Mr. Gelber wrote intelligently about a fascinating historical period I anticipated excellent things.
All the parts were there. How could he not build the simple puzzle?
Either we believe in science or we don’t. I suppose there are some places in the middle but I can’t imagine what they are, exactly. It’s not about believing the conclusions of particular scientists and disbelieving others or believing everything science says, but believing in the process of science: hypothesizing, observing, testing, peer reviewing, more observing and testing, more reviewing, further hypothesizing, and so on. Benjamin Franklin believed in it—passionately, being part of a panel that debunked the claims of Franz Anton Mesmer about his discovery of “Animal Magnetism” for example, a magnetic fluid or ether which Mesmer claimed to flow in bodies and with which he “cured” many wealthy French women (mostly) in dramatic, sensual and cathartic public performances.
Also serving on the panel was Antoine Lavoisier, discoverer of oxygen, hydrogen, and the conservation of mass, co-creator of the metric system…and victim, during the French Revolution, of the guillotine, (named after Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who was also on the panel).
The citizen-scientists and farmer-framers in the long debate chronicled by Mr. Gelber were using the best science of their time: sparse data, supposition, theorizing, anecdotal evidence and discussion. This is not to criticize them but to praise them. It really was the best science of their time and they did remarkable things with it. Besides the many discoveries like Lavoisier’s, they helped establish the philosophy of science which serves to this day, and even more, confirmed a longstanding tradition of relentless observation and questioning, continuing on the path of Aristotle and Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, Tyndall, and Arrhenius, and which has continued with Rachel Carson, James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis, James Hansen and the thousands of scientists who have continued to search for, observe, catalog, explain and use to our advantage the scientific method in the fields of planetary regulatory systems and climate science (as well as the many other fields which have contributed to the massive and overwhelming evidence supporting Anthropogenic Climate Catastrophe: chemistry, physics, geology, botany, ecology, ornithology, palynology, paleontology and paleoeverythingologies, dendrology, oceanography and many others.
Understanding the hydrologic cycle for example, which Gelber mentions, is crucial to understanding the importance not only of climate but of regulatory systems like Gaia’s (to use Lovelock’s and Margulis’ understanding) and to understand destruction of all sorts wrought by deforestation, for example, which we allow at our peril, onrushing climate catastrophe aside.
Franklin, Jefferson et al undoubtedly knew also about Pascal’s Wager, which essentially says one should believe in God, because if you do and are right you’re saved; if you do and you’re wrong there’s no serious penalty, if you don’t and you’re right there’s no drastic reward or punishment, and if you don’t and you’re wrong the penalties can be—well, eternal hell.
Among the problems with it as far as God is concerned are: it assumes one is saved by belief and not deeds. Can you make yourself sincerely believe something? and is not lying to yourself and God about your belief in God risking worse punishment than not believing? Followed to its logical end, the Wager would tell you to believe in the most vile, vindictive, petty and punishing God you can find, to avoid His wrath above all less angry gods. Which may explain vast swathes of Christianity, come to think of it. So it’s not the best way to pick a religion. But it turns out it’s great for deciding what actions to take in the face of incomplete certainty. Take Anthropogenic Climate Catastrophe, even though the uncertainty is grossly overstated by people and businesses who don’t like the ramifications.
The Wager says:
If we don’t act as if Climate Catastrophe is true, that is, we continue as usual, and it turns out to be not as bad as reputed, we simply get more of what we have—increasing pollution and worsening health, resource wars, depleted soil leading to starvation for billions, increasing concentration of wealth exacerbating all of those, and so on. If we don’t act as if Climate Catastrophe is true and it turns out to be true—oops! civilization is destroyed!
If we believe in and act as if Climate Catastrophe is happening and we’re wrong, there’s no great penalty and excellent rewards, as we switch to renewables and efficiency, put organic matter back in the soil, reduce pollution from fossil fuels and the harmful chemical, industrial and agricultural processes they fuel, and generally create for the first time a truly rational, sustainable economy and post-industrial civilization. If we believe in it and are right, well, Ding! Ding! Ding! We’ve saved civilization AND gotten all those other benefits, and at very little cost! according to informed estimates.
So 4 of the 4 ways turn out to be much much better if we act as if it’s true. There’s really not much argument for acting as if Climate Catastrophe is NOT happening. Which is why I’m mystified by Mr. Gelber’s column.
In the end, it took some of the most valuable flat space in the world to reach a conclusion that…um, there’s a controversy?
Yes, we now have satellites, and redundant data sets, thousands of weather stations and tens of thousands of scientists, graduate students and government and academic institutions putting in puzzle parts and making the whole picture clear. Not just anecdotal evidence anymore, science—particularly in this case—is systematic and clear. The time for weak conclusions and wishy-washy programs is over. the time for denying and delaying is over; the time to act is here. The time for ignoring our obvious course is over, even if one believes only that the obvious course is stop arguing over whether we should and start trying to figure out how fast we can. The time to indulge in the fear of causing fear has to give way to the knowledge that if we act now we can succeed. We need to seize every chance we get to further inform citizens and leaders about the clarity of science on this issue, the compelling case for bold action and the ability of existing technologies like wind, solar and efficiency, to meet our needs—no breakthroughs or expensive and harmful fuels needed. Newspapers that still realize they can afford science reporters should be in the forefront of that effort. The New York Times should be leading that forefront. Why isn’t it?
Jefferson on The Press
It might help for the media to remind themselves of their deepest responsibilities. One good source on those is Thomas Jefferson.
Consider Jefferson’s thoughts from his letter to Edward Carrington, 16 January 1787.
In writing about the press, Jefferson wrote that the “very first object” should be to keep “the opinion of the people” “right”:
Jefferson: “The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right;…”
He also wrote that important errors in public thinking should be “reclaim[ed]” by “enlightening them”, that is, enlightening the people:
Jefferson: “Do not be too severe upon their [the public’s] errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them.”
In interpreting these comments, it also helps to keep in mind that Jefferson was a firm believer in the general necessity of good education (e.g., he founded the University of Virginia) and he was also a firm believer in the vital importance of education and understanding to the future of democracy. For example, here is another Jefferson quote, from a different letter:
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” (Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, 6 January 1816)
Back to his letter to Carrington, Jefferson wrote that it is important to “contrive” that papers should penetrate “the whole mass of the people”:
Jefferson: “The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs thro’ the channel of the public papers, and to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people.”
He also wrote that everyone should receive the papers and be capable of reading them:
Jefferson: “But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”
Let’s be clear: Jefferson did not merely believe that there should BE a press. Nor did he merely believe that it would be sufficient to have a “free press” in the sense that some people seem to use that phrase today, i.e., a press that feels no need whatsoever to convey understanding but, instead, feels perfectly “free” and fine to rid itself of conscience in favor of advertisers and profits. Instead, Jefferson felt that the very first object of the press should be to keep the opinion of the people on important matters “right”. The press should help correct errors in public thinking. The press should help enlighten the public.
Jefferson felt that “ignorance” would be fatal to democracy.
Jefferson was also a scientist, lover of nature, and careful philosopher at heart.
Of course, one doesn’t need to quote Jefferson, or appeal to him, in order to realize the vital responsibility that the press has to inform the public accurately on important matters. It is, plainly, common sense.
Does the modern press realize this? Does The New York Times realize this? It doesn’t appear so.
Be Well,
Jeff
Ok, I talked to the op-ed author, who came across as well meaning, who said there are no special interests whatsoever in his background, and who viewed the piece as providing a historical perspective on (& foreshadowing of) the current climate change controversy – which he sees as a good thing that serves to ferret out information and lead to better and more rational solutions.
He is coming at it from a meteorologist’s mindset, framed around variability and uncertainties and complexity – (”no easy answers”, “no either-or positions”, “mix of natural and human-caused”) – and a fair-and-balanced journalist’s one (”not my job to take sides”, “trying not to push any particular viewpoint”). And he has a lot of faith in the general public’s ability to use the op-ed’s info constructively, & not be misled by it.
It’s not be surprising that there are human beings at the other end of these things, many of whom are acting in good faith. IMO the more interesting Qs involve the reader & the editor – for the reader, empirically does this piece muddy the waters, and (if so) for the editor, does the less-than-ideal nature of one’s readers impose responsibilities regarding what one should print.
[JR: I guess the question for any writer and editor is -- who is to blame for lack of clarity. Again, if the author felt this was an important problem that needed to be addressed -- far different from weather discussions of the past -- it would have taken precisely one sentence to clarify.]
A Problem
When considering a piece like this, I think the writer, the editor(s), The Times as a whole, and other people considering the matter should keep in mind the large context, some of which is this:
The stakes are very high.
The public is still confused, in large part.
The paper (The Times), while it carries today’s piece, has not really lifted a finger to provide the clear straightforward story regarding many aspects of the matter that ExxonMobil muddies up, routinely, in its advertorials in The Times. And, The Times somehow forgot to even cover the recent letter by eighteen (18) leading scientific organizations to all members of the U.S. Senate. Similarly, The Times covered the recent climate day (350.org) events in a modest page-six or page-seven story that largely missed the point.
So, it is fine to talk, theoretically, about trusting that the public will be smart enough to interpret matters correctly, and it’s fine to talk about “balance” and so forth, BUT the bottom line is that the public are not being effectively informed, clearly, on the matter. Somebody is dropping a ball, and a BIG one. Certainly, that includes The Times, and thus the editors, and many of The Times’ writers. If a guest writer contributes an article/piece that supposes to provide a (somewhat unclear and potentially confusing) perspective on one aspect of the matter, on the ASSUMPTION that the rest of the story — including the larger context — has already been conveyed by The Times and is already well-understood by the public, those assumptions are clearly incorrect.
Just something for the piece’s author to consider. And, the more important point is that The Times itself should get its act together.
Be Well,
Jeff
My thought on reading it this morning was that it was basically mental masturbation, with no point at all that I could see. According to Anna above, the author seemed to think he had a point but clearly he failed to make it obvious in his written piece. As I reached the end, I expected to see his muddled thoughts tied together in a way that would make sense of the piece, but no such love was forthcoming …
My question is “why the heck did the NYT publish such a muddled, ill-thought out, piece of writing?”. It’s really far below their normal standards.
The point that I was trying to make, Lou, was that there are so many things which we could do but we are not doing and the whole thing is so upsetting! We have so little time left!
I ran it past 7 people this morning at coffee; no clear pattern emerged in their views of it though. I think, bottom line, Jeff’s right – it didn’t move public understanding forward, in the dimensions that matter; and this is because what it *did* say didn’t challenge anyone’s beliefs.
An update – I sent a followup email to Gelber earlier today, directly asking the Qs I think he answered in a roundabout way the other evening – but this time, asking for direct answers:
1) Do you accept the IPCC conclusions on climate change?
2) Do you think we need to take urgent action to curb greenhouse gas emissions?
When he sends answers, I’ll report them here.
Mr. Gelber has replied, though not with direct answers.
To “Do you accept the IPCC conclusions…” he says “There are so many aspects to the IPCC report that would require detailed answers….”
To “Do you think we need to take urgent action…” he says “We are already seeing greenhouse emissions being curbed… I am confident we are heading in the right direction…though of course there is plenty of work to be done”
Sorry for the lack of clarity.
[JR: Uber-lame.]
Paul Ehrlich has told a story about when he and [climatologist] Steve Schnieder were over at Ben Bradlee’s [former executive editor of the Washington Post] place where they “had a knock down drag out” fight with Bradlee over the way climate is reported in the media.
Ehrlich: “He [Bradlee] claimed that his reporters should be ignorant of science, so they could be neutral when they’re talking about it”
I’m trying to imagine Bradlee being logically consistent on this and expecting that his political reporters, i.e. Woodward and Bernstein, should be ignorant of Washington politics so they could be neutral as they reported it.
Ehrlich expressed his disdain this way: “And you can see the ignorance of science throughout the media with the idea that somehow the truth often has to lie in the middle. It’s always about getting both sides of the story. Show me an historic scientific controversy where the truth lay in the middle…. Do some animals evolve and others are created? Is flogiston real, or is it half-real?”
OK, my turn and then I am respectfully done. Anna interviewed me for an hour, but edited my response to a few sentences after our lengthy science discussion–coming from my perspective of a meteorologist and climatologist (M.S.) with 30 years’ experience. (She had suggested earlier that I write a few comments, and I will follow her advice.)
One of the criticisms was that the information missed the point that “the stakes are very high.” Yet, if you read my last two paragraphs below, you’ll notice that…surprise…those were actually my very words.
“The clearing and cultivation climate-change debate of Jefferson’s era was driven by literary and anecdotal evidence in the absence of solid data. Now we have satellites monitoring high-latitude snow cover, thinning sea ice and deep-layered atmospheric temperature increases, coupled with ground observations revealing the disappearing snows of Kilimanjaro (85 percent ice loss since 1912) and many other glaciers.
The wealth of data now at our disposal, enhanced by high-resolution computer models that pioneer climatologists would have craved, has, curiously, not turned down the thermostat on the centuries-old global climate change debate, quite likely because the stakes are so much higher.”
Regarding “I can’t figure out what the author is trying to say,” how about that the climate change debate developed when the country was in its infancy over agricultural and settlement, laying the groundwork for today’s discourse on the critical role of altering the environment and reducing carbon sinks.
“A century and a half later, land-use studies would confirm quantifiable relationships between clearing trees for extensive farmland and changes in soil temperature, moisture distribution and local and regional climate responses, as well as the urban heat-island effect. In our time, we have learned that tropical deforestation is linked to as much as 15 percent of the world’s global warming pollution, largely due to the release of carbon dioxide, one of several “greenhouse gases” that trap and re-radiate terrestrial heat.”
I am noting that we have control and responsibility, and that modern data clearly confirm anthropogenic influences, and the irony is that we are still having that debate.
Regarding the Ehrlich quote, “Show me an historic scientific controversy where the truth lay in the middle,” realize that to some meteorologists/climatologists (like me) it’s not the warming trend (since 1980) that is in question, or whether human activity has a played role (see “clearing and cultivation” and “deforestation” paragraphs). The science issue is that natural cycles are intrinsically embedded in both cooling and warming cycles, and this is the “middle” portion of the debate…e.g., solar fluctuations, sea-surface temperatures, ocean currents, astronomical/orbital cycles, global cloudiness, etc.). The physical evidence (glaciers, sea ice, satellite data) I described provides compelling documentation of the recent warmth, though rapid changes have occurred outside human activity in the past (ice ages and interglacials).
I have written historical weather books documenting regional climate change and done numerous stories with environmental scientists to explore and communicate the science on television to educate viewers on what we know, and my aim is to provide objective, accurate up-to-date information from the best glaciologists and scientists in my science reports.
Thanks for the feedback, and the use of “uber-” more than I have seen in a long time. It is this kind of discourse, with deep roots in American history (as I described in my article) that will eventually make the debate less muddy, not more. And I credit your attempt to collate the information through important articles.