CommentsGELFAND’S WORLD--Dare we hope that the moment of realization is upon us -- that Americans who have been in denial are beginning to accept the fact that global warming is here, that it is caused by human actions, and that something big needs to be done.
The latest indication is among Kansas farmers (!) but there is also that somber report from the White House. This is the first of a two-part, year-end discussion about global warming. Today's is about the history of the political fight, the reality of the problem, and the developing politics of a new political movement.
The History and the Intellectual Gap
To chemists and physicists, it's not exactly a secret that carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation. For those of a technical frame of mind, you can see a summary of the chemistry in this class assignment taken off the internet. I would suggest that readers of a less technical bent skip it or at most, maybe glance at the page.
The take home lesson is to be found a bit down the page in Figure 6, which indicates that Carbon Dioxide absorbs energy from infrared radiation that would otherwise escape into space. In other words, heat energy that would otherwise be lost from the atmosphere is trapped in the region above the earth's surface. Just like other heat energy, it will be passed along and ultimately some of it will end up warming the ocean, the rest of the atmosphere, and the earth's surface.
I put this technical material here right at the start because it is a clue to the gap between those who understand the underlying basis for global warming and those who deny global warming out of financial or political reasons. To the scientist, it is impossible to ignore the fact that atmospheric CO2 is at least a potential agent for trapping heat energy close to the surface of the earth. The rest of the discussion among scientists has merely to do with the existence of other factors and the complexity of atmospheric dynamics. (Could CO2 be getting dissolved at a high enough level in the oceans to reduce the effect? Could plant growth suck up enough CO2 to reduce the overall warming effect? After a lot of careful observation, it is now obvious that the warming is going on, whether or not it is a little less bad than it might have been.)
There is one other major point that isn't really much of a question to the working scientist, but has been perverted outrageously by the global warming denialist faction. Basically, it comes down to the fact that science is the search for truth. Scientists can disagree over matters of interpretation, particularly when there is a limited set of data in a developing field. But the one ultimate taboo in science is to fabricate results. We see a very few examples over the course of a year (out of the tens of thousands of working scientists) and the fabricators generally are no longer able to work in serious science.
Science is a truthful endeavor in general. The other advantage to the scientific approach is that experimental errors eventually get found out. Yes, it is not all that uncommon for scientific practitioners to over-interpret experimental data, but as other scientists try to build on others' results, they tend to notice that some claims are not borne out by later studies. This is what we mean when we say that science is self correcting.
In a controversial field such as global warming, claims get tested and retested. New technologies come on line, and they are used to test previous claims.
Here is an example of how the once-controversial topic of global warming was carefully tested by a scientifically trained skeptic. Physicist Richard Muller was a known skeptic who offered to investigate global warming in a way which would eliminate some of the potential sources of error that he claimed to identify. His report and access to climate data are presented at Berkeley Earth. As Muller makes clear, a careful analysis of 250 years of data show clearly that you can explain the rising global temperature with one main variable, namely atmospheric CO2. There is one other variable that Muller identifies -- in those years which had a major volcanic eruption, there was a short period of cooling which rapidly went away. In brief, the striking rise in global temperatures over the past couple of centuries can be entirely attributed to man-made atmospheric CO2 increases, while a few temporary cooling events can be attributed to volcanic eruptions.
Muller's group also manages to rule out the potential confounders he originally worried out, such as the urban heat island effect. He points out that this effect exists, but it does not overrule the basic finding that man-caused CO2 emissions have raised global temperatures and are continuing to do so.
There is a word that scientists use to refer to developing theories that are strong representations of reality. The word is Robust. One example of a robust theory is evolution. What began based on the observation of interrelationships among living animals was supported by fossils collected from all over the world. When it became possible to sequence DNA from different species, it turned out that the concept of evolution was a basic, explanatory element of the modern field of molecular evolution. When a theory is really true, it will be supported by data and experiments from whatever new technology you choose to apply.
Not only is global warming an increasingly robust theory, it is increasingly predictive.
How then do we explain the propensity for some of our politicians to continue to claim disbelief in human-caused global warming? When the recent federal report on global warming was released, the president simply said that he didn't believe it. There was no attempt to argue the facts or logic, just this simple exercise of denial. We have to conclude that such denials are the result of an intentional, almost reckless disregard for the idea of science itself, a denialism based on self interest or political partisanship. It is a position that is willing to ignore a significant part of human knowledge in order to defend short term goals of money and power.
We might revisit the answer that some conservatives have used when asked their position on global warming. "I'm not a scientist" is a favorite response. That answer should have been countered by reporters asking whether these politicians reject the idea of science itself. If not -- and the idea of science has to be respected -- then there is a simple reply: Ignorance is no excuse. I wonder why we haven't heard that argument in the ongoing political debates.
The Big Lie
While the real scientific argument was going on, there was another movement underway which can be characterized pretty well as the Big Lie. Individual scientists were attacked on spurious grounds, and science as a whole was denigrated as a pursuit that required its practitioners to adhere to a particular point of view in order to get grant funding. When you see these arguments (particularly when viewed by those of us who have a background in the practice of science), you are likely to figure out something interesting. Those arguments are pure projection. The people who are the least honest will project their own lack of integrity onto their opponents. And to these dishonest people, any honest scientist is an opponent.
The reality of global warming becomes more accepted
It's becoming increasingly obvious to most sane people that something is happening. Recent years have been among the hottest on record. The sudden appearance of monster storms along our southern border over the past few years has been remarkable. And now we have a group who would not ordinarily be included among those who buy into that "liberal hoax" of global warming -- Kansas and Missouri farmers.
The story has appeared in The Guardian, among other sources, and is told clearly by Kevin Drum: For a geographical region that is associated with support for conservative politics, we suddenly have farmers who are suffering because the climate is changing. You can find the details of how sharply increased rainfall is affecting farming in the Guardian story.
The story quotes farmer Richard Oswald regarding the increase in the magnitude of rainfall within short periods of time, and how this is damaging his ability to farm. Drum remarks: "Still, Oswald believes that denial is in retreat. Where farmers, including him, were once skeptical they now see the change with their own eyes."
I'm going to quote from a comment to the Kevin Drum column because it bears on the last section of this piece:
"If I'm a Kansas farmer right now, I raise cows and corn - that's my livelihood. I put in a lot of work and take a lot of risk to run my farm. The environmental movement writ large (for which Sierra is a proxy) is not really coming to me saying, here's how you can succeed by doing something new. As near as I can tell they're out there, sometimes calling me dumb as a stick, saying that what I do needs to cease to exist.
"What we need is a Green New Deal that includes that farmer. Something like:
"We're going to give you a low-cost loan (no handout) to put solar and wind on your property. You can take some power for your farm equipment, your house and your car (plus you can run your power tools and backup generator right off the car), then sell the rest to your neighbors or the grid. That way you're not so dependent on unpredictable fuel prices Then you can replace some pesticides and fertilizer with ag-tech (also with incentives), increasing your yield while reducing the amount you pay for pest management. Finally, we're going to help you with some tech to manage your herd's manure and methane so it can work for you.
"There might be some grumbling about big government and who gets what handouts, but if there's a real deal on the table people will line up.
"The key will be making sure that it's better and cheaper than the deal they're getting from Exxon and Monsanto right now."
An Existential Threat and a New Politics
The acceleration of global warming effects is hard to refute. The observed losses in ice in both the arctic and antarctic regions have become the topics of the daily news. In this country, there is an eastward movement of the demarcation between the arid western side of the country and the wetter eastern side of the country. Cross country travelers will remember that driving across California, Arizona, New Mexico, the Texas panhandle, and into Oklahoma is a dry experience. Passing into eastern Missouri, Illinois, and the states east of the Mississippi is a wet experience, what with frequent rain and lush farms.
That demarcation between arid and the wet is moving, making for a larger arid west.
People are beginning to recognize that global warming is here, and it's accelerating. This is a legitimate expression of what is called an existential crisis.
Something has to be done. In the second part of this piece, I will discuss some proposed approaches, both social and technical.
A Sudden New Politics
In the span of a few days, many of us have noticed internet banner ads for something called the Green New Deal. The proponents are even pushing its initials GND as the summary for a new political movement.
The elements of the GND are not new. They include vastly decreasing use of fossil fuels, a vast increase in funding of solar (among others) technology, and a concentration on protecting the poor and vulnerable from the changes that will occur. At some level, this even includes finding jobs and incomes for displaced coal miners.
What's different about the GND is that it is here, and it is supported by a significant fraction of the newly elected Democratic members of the House of Representatives. Not the old guard by any means, but some, including a few of the newly elected rising stars including Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.
A fairly long piece by David Roberts in Vox tells the GND story in depth.
A shorter piece by Kelton, Bernal, and Carlock in the Huffington Post treats the GND idea as something that is financially possible:
"Here’s the good news: Anything that is technically feasible is financially affordable. And it won’t be a drag on the economy ― unlike the climate crisis itself, which will cause tens of billions of dollars worth of damage to American homes, communities and infrastructure each year. A Green New Deal will actually help the economy by stimulating productivity, job growth and consumer spending, as government spending has often done. (You don’t have to go back to the original New Deal for evidence of that.)"
Are we on a cusp?
Perhaps we are finally at the point where a sizable enough fraction of the American people are willing to consider doing something about global warming. There certainly are a lot of us. The only question is whether there are enough, and whether we can generate sufficient political influence. Whatever else is going on, there is certainly a difference from that time in the 1990s when Rush Limbaugh (during an interview with Dixie Lee Ray) chortled, "There's no global warming!" And then he repeated it. This time around there will be facts and people to contest such statements.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
