Among the many depressing aspects of our current political discourse is the proudly anti-science stance adopted by one of our major political parties. When it comes to climate change, in particular, Republicans are increasingly united against the scientific consensus. What’s interesting is that this is not simply an example of a conservative/liberal split; elsewhere in the world, conservatives are not so willing to ignore the findings of scientists.
Republicans are alone among major parties in Western democracies in denying the reality of climate change, a phenomenon that even puzzles many American conservatives. Denialism is growing among the rank and file, and the phenomenon is especially strong among those with college degrees. So it doesn’t seem to be a matter of lack of information, so much as active disinformation. Republican politicians are going along willingly, as they increasingly promote anti-scientific views on the environment. After the recent elections, GOP leaders are disbanding the House Select Committee on Global Warming.
What makes American conservatives different from other right-wing parties around the world? Note that it wasn’t always this way — there was a time when Republicans wouldn’t have attacked science so openly. I have a theory: it’s Al Gore’s fault.
Actually it’s not my theory, it comes from Randy Olson. For a while now Randy has been vocally skeptical about An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s critically-acclaimed documentary about global warming. I was initially unconvinced. Surely the positive effects of informing so many people about the dangers of climate change outweigh the political damage of annoying some conservatives? But Randy’s point, which I’m coming around to, was that for all the good the movie did at spreading information about climate change, it did equal or greater harm by politicizing it.
By most measures, Al Gore has had a pretty successful career. Vice-President during an administration characterized by peace and prosperity, winner of the popular vote total during his Presidential run, co-founder of Current TV, winner of an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Nobel Prize. But to Republicans, he’s a punchline. It’s an inevitable outcome of the current system: Al Gore was the Democratic nominee for President; therefore, he must be demonized. It’s not enough that their candidate is preferable; the other candidate must be humiliated, made into a laughingstock. (Ask John Kerry, whose service in Vietnam was somehow used as evidence of his cowardice.) The conclusion is inevitable: if Al Gore becomes attached to some cause, that cause must be fought against.
Here is some evidence. You may think of Jay Leno as a completely vanilla and inoffensive late-night talk-show host. But he’s a savvy guy, and he knows his audience. Which is mostly older, white, suburban middle-class folks. Which political party does that sound like? Between January and September of 2010, Jay Leno made more jokes about Al Gore than about Sarah Palin. You read that right. This is while Palin was promoting books, making TV specials, stumping for candidates, and basically in the news every day, while Gore was — doing what exactly?
Once Al Gore became the unofficial spokesperson for concern about climate change, it was increasingly inevitable that Republicans would deny it on principle. This isn’t the only reason, not by a long shot (there’s something in there about vested interests willing to pour money into resisting energy policies that are unfriendly to fossil fuels), but it’s a big part. Too many Republicans have reached a point where devotion to “the truth” takes a distant back seat to a devotion to “pissing off liberals.” With often nasty implications.
What the United States does about climate change will be very important to the world. And what the U.S. does will be heavily affected by what Republicans permit. And Republicans’ views on climate change are largely colored by its association with Al Gore. As much as I hate to admit it, the net real impact of An Inconvenient Truth could turn out to be very negative.
Gore himself doesn’t deserve blame here. Using one’s celebrity to bring attention to an issue of pressing concern, and running for office in order to implement good policies, are two legitimate ways a person can help try to make the world a better place. In a healthy culture of discussion, they shouldn’t necessarily interfere; if any issue qualifies as “bipartisan,” saving the planet should be it. But in our current climate, no discussion of political import can take place without first passing through the lens of partisan advantage. Too bad for us.
Al Gore admitted he pushed ethenol for political reasons in part to win over his home state in the 2000 election, which not only he lost, but his home state did not vote for him. Shows a lot about someone when your home state says no. Maybe they remembered the Pigeon River scandal, were Gore was bought by lobbists to allow factory dumping in the River, Gore cared more about money and political power then, and he does now. He does not care for anyone. Al Gore continued to take political profits from tobacco farmers after his sister died from lung cancer related to using tobacco. He didn’t stop until it was reported in the news. Also funny how his wife left him after the Portland, Oregon scandal?
It truthfully it hurts to pull someones name through the mud, even if it is Al Gore. He’s human, and I feel bad for him, he is just someone who got caught in greed and the bright lights of fame. But it just shows a little more that Gore has been all about himself, money, and power, and cares nothing about anything or anyone else.
I mean, for f*ck’s sake, folks, never mind the hockey stick graph and all the foofaraw over it: the CO2 concentration on Earth was 300 ppm for 650000 years until we made it jump above 385 ppm.
#77,
You are, of course, aware that the Earth has existed for considerably longer than 650,000 years?
@58. Scott B,
Regarding “You don’t do that by all of the sudden making all energy expensive.”
I don’t think I agree with you here. The thing is, this is EXACTLY what the right should be proposing as a solution. Adam Smith, the invisible hand, and so on. Simply make carbon-based fuels more expensive and everything else automatically becomes more attractive. Rather than the government picking winners, allow the market to do so.
What do you do with the tax revenue (I’m assuming you make carbon-based fuels more expensive with taxes)? Do what Europe did. Build an incredible high speed rail system. Don’t like that? Build a long-distance DC electrical transmission system. Don’t like that? Identify some other strategic capital intensive system, something that isn’t getting enough funding/attention. Pour the money into that. Just make sure that it is part of the energy solution of the future.
Since the right isn’t prepared to do that, it seems to me that they have decided to play “I’m with stupid” and are simply acting as a blocking force. They oppose everything that messes with the status quo. And it isn’t difficult to figure out why; the funding of politicians is an open wound on the body politic. Not that the left is innocent but it seems to me that the right never met a Benjamin they didn’t like.
#78,
You are, of course, aware that Homo sapiens has existed for considerably less than 650,000 years?
I think the Jay Leno bit says more about Mr. Leno and his current audience than about Al Gore. But there is a real point here. Far too many in the denialist camp seem satisfied that all that’s necessary to disprove something is to laugh at it.
Brian Too@79 wrote:
Simply make carbon-based fuels more expensive and everything else automatically becomes more attractive
Whenever someone says Simply do X… I know the result is going to be unanticipated and disastrous.
They oppose everything that messes with the status quo.
Yes. That is a wonderfully succinct definition of “Conservative.” Congratulations.
And it isn’t difficult to figure out why…
Is it because they might be… “Conservative?” Wow. Who’d have guessed?
the funding of politicians is an open wound on the body politic. Not that the left is innocent but it seems to me that the right never met a Benjamin they didn’t like.
It’s always about the Benjamins. Conservatives have Benjamins and don’t want to loose them. Therefore they back policies that maintain the status quo that enabled them to make and keep all of those Benjamins. Liberals want to change the system because they don’t have many Benjamins and want to get their hands on some. Or they have lots of Benjamins but feel guilty because they didn’t really earn them but inherited them from their grandparents and so think that everyone else should just get Benjamins to alleviate their guilt.
Politicians just want to get elected so they can take Benjamins from everyone and shower them on their friends who will, in turn, give Benjamins to their campaign so that they can stay elected and spend government Benjamins on boondoggles to tropical islands and so forth.
I blame that on Al Gore.
Brian Too@79 wrote:
What do you do with the tax revenue (I’m assuming you make carbon-based fuels more expensive with taxes)?
Why must we always do something with the tax revenue. If stopping AGW is so important, why not propose something that has a chance of convincing conservatives to accept it. Propose to use the carbon tax revenue to offset income tax revenue; i.e make it revenue neutral. The left gets a real method to slow carbon emissions. The right gets something closer to the flat tax that they want (a tax on consumption coupled with a smaller income tax). Not progressive enough for you; add some energy tax credits for the poor and a smaller income tax reduction at the very high end or something similar. Both sides lose. Even better, congress gets less Benjamins to play with. I’d call that a lose-lose-lose = win for everyone.
Even Al Gore.
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You are, of course, aware that Homo sapiens has existed for considerably less than 650,000 years?
Why yes. Yes, I am.
My point is that the climate didn’t get screwed up until the Industrial Revolution.
You are, of course, aware that the Earth has existed for considerably longer than 650,000 years?
Why yes. But the cycles regarding CO2 and climate are on the order of maybe 100000-200000 years per cycle.
@79 Simply make carbon-based fuels more expensive and everything else automatically becomes more attractive
The problem is that there are ~3 billion people in India and China alone that will not be affected by our higher energy prices. This causes two issues.
1. Your solution amounts to throwing a bucket of water on a forest fire.
2. We are putting another burden on our already disappearing manufacturing industry.
However, If we keep fossil fuels at the present value, then we will be forced to find green/sustainable energy sources that can compete with fossil fuels in the open market. At that point we’ll have something we can sell to China and India to get them off of fossil fuels.
Fixing the problem in the US only is merely sticking your head in the sand.
Sorry, but blaming AGW scepticism on personalities or political groupings misses the mark. It is the intertwining of several broad cultural myths that is at the heart of the scepticism.
1. Our cognitive powers have made us the master of nature so we are entitled to do as we like. This is reflected in Genesis which says “…and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth”. This myth profoundly influences all our actions.
2. A related myth is based on our experience of natural disasters. Nature is awesomely big and powerful, making any damage we do small in the bigger scheme of things.
3. Nature is irrepressibly fecund. This myth suggests that any damage is short term because nature has such powers of recovery.
4. Nature is limitless in its extent. This myth is rooted in 50,000 years of experience when we started migrating out of East Africa to colonize the world. We are at heart still frontiersmen and need time to absorb the fact that we have reached the limits of this natural world.
5. The changes are so small as to be nearly invisible. We experience daily and seasonal temperature variations much larger than than the global shift so it is easy to discount the shift in mean temperature.
These myths have shaped the general perceptions in society. Then we have the multiplicative effect of lobbying groups employed by the carbon based energy industries which exploits these perceptions. Then add to that political needs for campaign financing, exploited by energy groups, and we have the perfect storm.
Sadly, I have concluded that effective change will only take place when a real leader emerges to change these perceptions or extensive disasters force our perceptions to change. I am hoping for the former but betting on the latter.
“the last time the planet warmed up 55 million years ago due to a volcanic eruption”
hm, i think i heard something about ice ages and warm periods in school and i seem to faintly remember that all this was less than a million years ago.
but as you are such an expert in all matters climate, i’ll just blindly take your word for it.
@85 Please define “screwed up”
In 1991 Mount Pinatubo “screwed up” the environment by dropping global temperatures 1 degree Fahrenheit in a single year.
This is equal to the amount we’ve “screwed up” global temperatures in 100 years. Yet nature adapted and life continued as normal. Certainly a gradual change can’t have a greater affect than a sudden one.
Sean, you’re a great scientist, but I have to say your political opinions are, like anyone elses, just opinions.
You’re dismayed that one comedian doesn’t endlessly mock Sarah Palin? Basically every other pundit is mocking her, perhaps as you point out, Leno wants to tickle his own viewership.
Do you really think it matters what the U.S. does about “climate change”? Even presuming the phenomenon to be real and anthropogenic, it’s still a tough sell. Many people have the expectation that the U.S. economy, as a percentage of world gross product, will be falling as the 21st century progresses. Many of the “developing” nations such as Brazil, India and China (as opposed to African nations which are mistakenly called “developing” rather than “undeveloping”) will be embarking on massive construction projects all over their world and their own respective investments abroad, and hence contributing even more to the “climate change”. Isn’t it a bit eurocentric (as in “the only pollution that matters is that of white people”) to presume that it will matter what the U.S. does?
#86,
“Why yes. But the cycles regarding CO2 and climate are on the order of maybe 100000-200000 years per cycle.”
There are also climate cycles on 60 year time scales (AMO/PDO) and on 1500 year timescales (Dansgaard-Oeschger events and Bond events).
But that’s a side note. The main observation here is of the way you’re avoiding the point. You used the number 650,000 years because you knew that CO2 had been higher than at present prior to that – up to 20 times higher – and that when considered over longer intervals the current CO2 level is unusually low. Had you used a term like “pre-industrial level” I might have thought that you didn’t know about the geological history of CO2. But the use of the number indicates that you (or whoever you got the factoid from) picked it deliberately, and deliberately chose not to mention the more normal state of affairs over most of the Earth’s history.
This selectivity with the truth is something both sides do. That’s fair enough in a debate – you are assured of hearing the other parts of the truth because all sides get to have their say, and somebody will point it out. But if you try to avoid having a debate by declaring it to be already over, and that any dissent is unscientific and irrational and not to be broadcast too widely in the public arena, then you have to be especially careful to be impartial, accurate, and comprehensive with the science.
Otherwise, as I said above, it sets the science up for a fall.
There’s a few problems with the arguments of even the most reasonable so-called “skeptics,” much of which I see above.
1) The assumption that increasing the price of fossil fuels will do vast damage to the economy. Let’s try to apply a modicum of skepticism to this assertion. Consider any commercial or industrial process in the economy that includes energy as an input (which is just about everything). Obviously, there are a lot of other inputs besides energy, and the limit on output for any process is set by whatever input is the most expensive per unit produced. So when a business tries to become more profitable, it works on getting more out of whatever is the most expensive input per unit of production.
But energy is almost never the most expensive input per unit of production, so it hasn’t been profitable to businesses to try to improve energy efficiency. And it should be obvious to anyone with even a little bit of scientific education that much of the energy used in the first world is wasted. Just to take a particularly heinous example, we could all be driving around in 800 lb 3-cylinder diesels that get 100 mpg if it weren’t for the marketing and engineering research for American car companies focusing on power instead of efficiency. America wastes a ridiculous amount of energy just because they don’t want to drive “girl cars.”
The average American uses something like 25 times as much energy as the average Chinese person, largely because they don’t want to drive “girl cars,” because they want their houses to be 80 degrees in the winter and 60 degrees in the summer, and then they whine about how Americans can’t do anything about these problems without the third world signing on. Nothing reveals the confirmation at bias at work in these “skeptics” as much as this particular bit of arrogance.
Just generally, the assumption seems to be that the first world economy is completely inelastic with respect to the price of fuel — this coming from the most passionate advocate of markets as solutions to problems of scarcity. Bullshit. There’s a lot of slack and until the price of fossil fuels is increased, we’ll never know how much. Not to mention the fact that basic research into energy efficiency and retrofitting the thousands of commercial and industrial processes to be more efficient is itself a huge growth industry that makes money by making other industries more profitable.
2) The (usually implicit) assertion that because wind and solar don’t constitute total solutions, they can’t even be considered as partial solutions. When you calculate how much solar panel needs to be laid to produce all the energy used on earth, it’s surprisingly small. Even if it was all laid down in one path, you probably couldn’t see it from space. Yes, such a scenario isn’t a realistic picture of any sort of future energy technology; the point is just that all the energy we need is already bouncing off the earth in the form of sunlight. Capturing, storing, and transporting it are engineering problems. Big ones, but pessimists about the capacity of human ingenuity to solve engineering problems are invited to reflect on LCD technology. In the 80s it gave us Casio wrist watches. Now it gives us 65″ high definition displays.
But even if these “skeptics” didn’t have a huge blind spot regarding the actual amount of potential solar energy available, this would still be an incredibly dishonest argument (probably why it’s usually made implicitly). Yeah, it’s night sometimes. Yeah, it’s not always windy. These technologies might not ever be able to supplant fossil fuels 100% — but what if they can do so by 80%? If we can increase energy efficiency and increase renewable outputs to the point where we only need 20% of our energy produced by fossil fuels? And since this is working under the assumption that we’re improving efficiency, it’s 20% of a smaller share of total energy. Haven’t we essentially solved the problem at that point?
I’m not offering these numbers as realistic at all, just trying to show that there are hypothetical situations in which wind and solar really are solutions. If your best argument against the possibilities of wind and solar to constitute at least partial solutions is that you’ll never be able to power your Escalade with a wind turbine, then you’re not really being skeptical.
3) Ignoring other petroleum products. It’s not just energy, buddy. Next time you’re in the hospital, try to count all the petroleum products that you touch or that touch you. Or look around the office. Look at the amount of petroleum fertilizer used in industrial agriculture — those are fuel calories being turned into food calories…much of the food we eat is in some sense a petroleum product.
There are other sources of energy besides fossil fuels. So far, we haven’t found any other sources of plastics. If you want to see a damaged economy, make manufacturers choose between buying plastic and buying fuel. If we were to increase the price of fossil fuels without corresponding increases on other petroleum products, supply and demand would tend to make those other ubiquitous petroleum products cheaper. Every barrel of oil burned for fuel is a bunch of plastic we won’t be able to use at some point in the future.
4) Standards of living. First worlders get hostile when I even suggest that AC is only a life-saving device in exceptional conditions, that it’s usually a luxury. These are usually the same people saying either there’s no global warming or that there’s nothing we can do about it. The sense of entitlement is astounding. The people saying carbon neutrality is a pipe dream are the same people who move to AZ for the sunshine and yet spend all day watching TV with the climate control cranked.
Would you really be less happy reading a book than watching TV, thus consuming about 0% of the fossil fuels? Would you really be less happy if it was 85 degrees in your bedroom instead of 75 degrees? You’d care for maybe about an hour before you got used to it (which you’d already know if you ever bothered to check how easy it is for the human body to adjust to a new temperature). A ridiculous amount of energy is consumed just to allow whiny, spoiled, bratty Americans to maintain the wasteful, vapid, soulless (in a metaphorical sense) lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed.
And they get offended if you suggest that they’re better than that. Go figure. The more I think about it, the better emigration looks. See you in hell, my fellow Merkins.
@92:
The main observation here is of the way you’re avoiding the point. You used the number 650,000 years because you knew that CO2 had been higher than at present prior to that – up to 20 times higher – and that when considered over longer intervals the current CO2 level is unusually low.
Citation please?
Also, the point stands that since our species is less than 650,000 years old, it’s unlikely to be very well adapted to climatic conditions predating that age.
@93 I agree with most of what you said. My disagreement is “problems with the arguments of even the most reasonable so-called “skeptics””
I think most skeptics understand that there is a problem that should to be dealt with, the issue with most skeptics is the pace at which we need to move towards carbon neutral and sustainable energy. (differentiating between skeptics and deniers is key)
I’ve heard the term “cold turkey” thrown out there when referring to removal of fossil fuels as an energy source (not on this thread, but there is some similar sentiment). I would hope you agree that any “cold turkey” solution is as idiotic as maintaining status quo. The answer is somewhere in between. As you stated with your LCD watch/TV analogy, the technology will improve. We have only been putting significant resources towards green tech for a short period of time. We should not jump at solutions but work towards improving our options.
This is why we need to get away from the politics, the “my side is the only one with valid points” attitude so we can start down the path towards a realistic solution.
#94,
First, can you tell me why you didn’t ask for a citation for the original claim? Because that appears to be another excellent example of what I’m talking about: either you already knew one half of the truth and not the other, or only one side of the debate has to produce evidence for everything it says and not the other. Either way, it’s not a good sign.
I find your remark about the adaptation of humans to differing climates to be quite remarkable. Yes, it’s true that Homo Sapiens split off from other Homo species ~250,000 years ago. But one of the most outstanding features of Homo Sapiens is that it has spread to inhabit every climate, from the Eskimo to the desert nomads. And our adaptability has expanded exponentially with the advent of modern technology (especially, it has to be said, cheap energy). Had you named another more specialised species, I might have understood the reasoning better.
But it’s probably worth noting that while CO2 has (very probably) not been higher in the last 650,000 years, the same cannot be said of temperature. For example, during the Eemian interglacial about 120,000 years ago, there were forests in Finland and the North Cape in Norway, and hippopotamus swam in the Rhine and the Thames. (And sea level was a lot higher.) That’s certainly well within the ambit of Homo Sapiens. There are even more recent periods too, such as the Holocene Climate Optimum.
There are many things about our modern world that we never evolved for. But not only are we sufficiently adaptable to survive them, we often seek out such changes, to our great benefit.
@95:
Agreed. Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell the reasoned criticisms from the false equivalencies, concern trolling, and gratuitous hippy punching sometimes. The notion of quitting fossil fuels “cold turkey” is so laughable I’m not sure I even realized it had any currency on either side.
I tried to highlight the classes of “skepticism” in my post above that I think are really forms of denialism — the argument that the problem is just too big (it isn’t), the argument that you can’t change people’s behavior (they’re usually really trying to say “I don’t want/i> to change my behavior”), the argument that the US can’t do it alone (we could probably make a significant dent with an Apollo-size efficiency program — not that I’d recommend such a thing), the notion that we just need to wait until technology saves us (the technology will only get developed when there’s an economic incentive; I’d rather not wait to see if catastrophic failure happens before that).
These all strike me as things one might say if one wanted to seem reasonable on the subject but still not have to do anything about it.
On the other hand, greenies often present the arguments for fossil fuel mitigation as if there were no downsides. Of course there are downsides, there are always downsides. There are always unintended consequences. The real argument here is that the unintended consequences of burning fossil fuels are much worse than the unintended consequences of not burning them.
#97,
Agreed. And that real argument is one that needs to be made and argued out, the same way we make all the other economic policy decisions on which people disagree.
Well knock me down with a feather.. it seems that NASA have decided that even if CO2 doubles, the temp rise will be 1.64 C. That should spoil the Carbon Cults parties 😀
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/08/new_model_doubled_co2_sub_2_degrees_warming/
@97 I disagree with “the technology will only get developed when there’s an economic incentive”
There was no economic incentive in going to the moon. There is no economic incentive to going to Mars (a cause most conservatives are behind as I understand it).
The only motivation to those efforts were/are doing it first and proving it could/can be done. I think we can find the motivation to move towards sustainable/green energy as well. I would hope the image of oil sheiks having to auction off their gold plated Ferraris would be enough to motivate anyone!
There is one of-the-shelf solution to the most glaring issue, that being carbon based electricity production, Nuclear power. The fact that this is still being fought against, primarily by the people that say the planet is about to catch fire, is a big reason for denialism. While it’s not sustainable long term, it is certainly a stop gap that can be implement within decades. That can buy us the time to find and phase in a sustainable option…