Subject: [Global Change: 1424] Re: Denial of Reality - msg#00045

Previous Message by Date: click to view message preview

[Global Change: 1423] Re: What are they thinking?

----- Original Message ----- From: "James Annan" <james.annan@xxxxxxxxx> Newsgroups: gmane.science.general.global-change To: <globalchange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2007 5:27 PM Subject: [Global Change: 1393] Re: What are they thinking? > > Don Libby wrote: >> >> The emissions scenarios in the TAR agree on a consensus of sorts: >> stabilization by 2100 cannot be achieved without at least six times more >> nuclear power plants than exist today. That seems to me to be more than >> "a >> small part" of the answer, although I quite agree that it is not the >> whole >> answer: it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for stabilization. > > While I'm not saying the conclusion is necessarily wrong, note the SRES > did not attempt to consider stabilisation scenarios, or indeed any > direct CO2 mitigation effort at all (IMO a very disappointing decision > which I hope they overturn for the next set of scenarios). So deliberate > efforts to curb demand growth and promote renewables might achieve > more than is suggested in the scenarios. > > James True, the scenarios do not represent deliberate policies to achieve stabilization. Never the less, some of the scenarios do achieve stabilization by 2100. Those that do are distinguished from those that do not by the extent to which nuclear power production increases (among other things). You and Gerhaus are correct to point out that the scenarios do not exhaust all possible future emission trajectories. The SAR had an interesting "coal intensive" stabilization scenario that relied entirely on permanent sequestration of GHG emissions. Voluntary deprivation (or involuntary) could reduce fossil fuel consumption too. Some scenarios are more reasonable than others: "least cost" and "cost-effective" numbering among the more reasonable in my opinion. The SRES scenarios have reasonable assumptions about population and economic growth trends. Given those boundary assumptions, the substitution of nuclear power for coal power is a key stabilizing factor. Today's headline: "TXU Sheds Coal Plan, Charts Nuclear Path" _Wall Street Journal_ April 10, 2007. Now that's what I call a "tipping point"! -dl

Next Message by Date: click to view message preview

[Global Change: 1425] Re: Denial of Reality

I don't know exactly how to write this in a way that will not seem overly abrasive, but it seems to me that the intense resistance to the idea of global warming is partly being fed by institutions and maybe social movements that find in the science a very serious threat to their interests.    In some cases -- in the instance of the big fossil fuel companies, joined by the governments of many oil-dependent nations -- those interests in the economic sense are almost overwhelming, literally amounting to trillions of dollars.  It therefore seems unsurprising to me that some of the threatened interests will fight very, very hard against AGW findings that indicate that fossil fuel production, for example, is an environmental  problem or a threat to climate stability.    And since the corporations and gove rnments with an economic stake in fossil fuel production really do have trillions of dollars invested, they have ample financial resources available to carry on a very skillful and determined public relations campaign that promotes what many people in this group would consider "denial of reality."   This means that AGW researchers are simply going to encounter quite a lot of "denial of reality," doesn't it?   There's also a fairly powerful and quite well-funded set of organizations and interests that has been agitating for some time against what they consider "environmental extremism," more or less apart from the question of what this environmental extremism might mean for energy companies in particular.    I recall a book called "The Green Backlash" that appeared around a decade ago, outlining how in the American West in particular, corporations and individuals associated with the major extractive industries had invested quite heavily in educational and organizational efforts to discredit environmentalists as supposedly representing an illegitimate and excessively left-leaning political agenda, and how these "anti-green" interests were working to mobilize ordinary citizens in many western towns and rural areas to stop the "liberal" or "socialist" green threat.    This "anti-green backlash," I think, represents another entire network of different economic and political interests, some only loosely connected to the fossil fuel producers, who have an interest in trying to minimize the significance of any AGW effect.  And they too have considerable amounts of money and established networks for spending that money to influence public opinion.   This situation virtually guarantees that many seemingly intelligent people are going to be quite skeptical of the IPCC findings an d other pronouncements by AGW researchers, I think.    This is quite apart from what many of us in here would consider "legitimate" or "honest" skepticism about anthropogenic climate change.  There are people with scientific backgrounds, some of them in this group, who have genuine doubts about some of the pronouncements made by Hansen, say.  But there also are quite rational people working for the energy industry and other large extractive industries who feel they have excellent instrumental  reasons for combatting the IPCC's findings, regardless of whether these scientific findings  are trustworthy.  And given the intensity of their opposition to the IPCC and the extent of their financial resources, it's inevitable that this will have some effect on public debates and discussions of climate issues.   How scientists like Jim should go about trying to cope with this problem is unclear, but it seems essential to recognize that it exists.Raymond Arritt <rwarritt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Jim Torson wrote:> It has been clear for a long time that some people on that list> think global warming is just hysteria invented by scientists so> they can get research funding. I.e., basically, the vast majority> of climate scientists around the world are lying and falsifying> data for their own personal short-term gain. I have to say that> that is certainly some whopper of a conspiracy theory!Man, does that sound familiar.At the moment the Wikipedia article on Global warming is under heavyassault from people who want to, uh, "broaden the article's scope"precisely so that such allegations can be included. Sucker-punch spam with award-winning protection. Try the free Yahoo! Mail Beta.

Previous Message by Thread: click to view message preview

[Global Change: 1441] Re: Denial of Reality

fwmb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > > With respect to what is being discussed here, the question I would ask > is; how does a field of human endeavour which has at its foundation a > profound belief in the value of reason go about addressing an audience > which, for a variety of reasons, has a large proportion of members > whose response to the issues is irrational and who do not value reason > in the same way, instead apparently preferring an almost pre-rational, > mythic narrative and its associated value system? Hi Fergus, Firstly, I'm assuming there's no real need to address this audience except in cases where there are democratic decisions to be made: for example, cosmologists and string theorists can just ignore them, broadly speaking. With that in mind, I think the Pielkian (Jr) answer is to redefine the problem in such a way that the denialists can swallow an acceptable solution, the Mooney and Nisbet answer is to dress it up in language that might disarm their objections, and the scientists' answer is to wait for them to die out. James

Next Message by Thread: click to view message preview

[Global Change: 1425] Re: Denial of Reality

I don't know exactly how to write this in a way that will not seem overly abrasive, but it seems to me that the intense resistance to the idea of global warming is partly being fed by institutions and maybe social movements that find in the science a very serious threat to their interests.    In some cases -- in the instance of the big fossil fuel companies, joined by the governments of many oil-dependent nations -- those interests in the economic sense are almost overwhelming, literally amounting to trillions of dollars.  It therefore seems unsurprising to me that some of the threatened interests will fight very, very hard against AGW findings that indicate that fossil fuel production, for example, is an environmental  problem or a threat to climate stability.    And since the corporations and gove rnments with an economic stake in fossil fuel production really do have trillions of dollars invested, they have ample financial resources available to carry on a very skillful and determined public relations campaign that promotes what many people in this group would consider "denial of reality."   This means that AGW researchers are simply going to encounter quite a lot of "denial of reality," doesn't it?   There's also a fairly powerful and quite well-funded set of organizations and interests that has been agitating for some time against what they consider "environmental extremism," more or less apart from the question of what this environmental extremism might mean for energy companies in particular.    I recall a book called "The Green Backlash" that appeared around a decade ago, outlining how in the American West in particular, corporations and individuals associated with the major extractive industries had invested quite heavily in educational and organizational efforts to discredit environmentalists as supposedly representing an illegitimate and excessively left-leaning political agenda, and how these "anti-green" interests were working to mobilize ordinary citizens in many western towns and rural areas to stop the "liberal" or "socialist" green threat.    This "anti-green backlash," I think, represents another entire network of different economic and political interests, some only loosely connected to the fossil fuel producers, who have an interest in trying to minimize the significance of any AGW effect.  And they too have considerable amounts of money and established networks for spending that money to influence public opinion.   This situation virtually guarantees that many seemingly intelligent people are going to be quite skeptical of the IPCC findings an d other pronouncements by AGW researchers, I think.    This is quite apart from what many of us in here would consider "legitimate" or "honest" skepticism about anthropogenic climate change.  There are people with scientific backgrounds, some of them in this group, who have genuine doubts about some of the pronouncements made by Hansen, say.  But there also are quite rational people working for the energy industry and other large extractive industries who feel they have excellent instrumental  reasons for combatting the IPCC's findings, regardless of whether these scientific findings  are trustworthy.  And given the intensity of their opposition to the IPCC and the extent of their financial resources, it's inevitable that this will have some effect on public debates and discussions of climate issues.   How scientists like Jim should go about trying to cope with this problem is unclear, but it seems essential to recognize that it exists.Raymond Arritt <rwarritt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Jim Torson wrote:> It has been clear for a long time that some people on that list> think global warming is just hysteria invented by scientists so> they can get research funding. I.e., basically, the vast majority> of climate scientists around the world are lying and falsifying> data for their own personal short-term gain. I have to say that> that is certainly some whopper of a conspiracy theory!Man, does that sound familiar.At the moment the Wikipedia article on Global warming is under heavyassault from people who want to, uh, "broaden the article's scope"precisely so that such allegations can be included. Sucker-punch spam with award-winning protection. Try the free Yahoo! Mail Beta.