Why climate activists have been failing and how they can succeed?

I'm a big believer in the premise that people who want to effect real change can't just tell people to say no. You have to offer them something to say yes to. In politics, something, no matter how awful, nearly always beats nothing: witness Trump vs Hillary. The nihilistic Republicans vs the corporate Democrats.

I've been thinking about this is relation to denial of the reality that climate change has been massively accelerated by human activity.

 I think that most climate change denialism is not really based in actual belief that there is no human component. Most don't reject the science because they actually disbelieve it. They do so because accepting the science would imply action... action that might well be, in the short term, nothing less than self-harm. Climate change activists given little thought to addressing this narrative.

Such denialism is largely based on the belief that getting rid of - or at least shrinking the fossil fuel industry -  will cause major economic damage, given the absence of other jobs to take their place. This is not, in fact, an irrational fear. 

I feel that one of the areas that climate change activists have failed is in developing alternative economic opportunities for people who work in fossil fuel industries or who live in regions whose economies are dominated by said industry. Or rather, in pushing politicians to do the above. This is indispensable to softening opposition to needed environmental actions. Instead, climate change activists have largely opted for the tactic of shame and that's clearly not enough.

People aren't going to voluntarily abandon their way of life and their often already meager wages for the vague promise that maybe some unknown alternative economic sector might be realized at some indeterminate point in the future. 

They see how the deindustrialized northeast and midwest have largely been left to rot.  And it's wholly irrational to expect them to do so. And wholly counterproductive to shame them for not doing so.

Climate change activists need to recognize that those affected by their desired shrinking of the fossil fuel economy are real people with real bills to pay and that if they want those people to go along with serious action to repair the climate crisis, activists have to ensure they have some other way to feed their families.

Climate change denialists will flip flop

I predict that within 5 or 6 years, conservative ideology will drop its Flat Earther denial of climate change. Instead, they will start saying, “There’s nothing we can do to reverse it (because they’ve stonewalled for 20 years) so let’s benefit while we can.” 

Here’s why.

A good barometer of reality is to look at how big business invests large sums of money. Big business is amoral. It is not burdened by ethics - except when it makes for good PR and thus good for the overall bottom line - or by ideology. It does not wear rose-colored glasses. Its primary objective is to make money. Everything else is based toward that goal.

As such, it make decisions on how to make that money based on a cold-hearted unsentimental analysis of reality. I’m not saying it’s bad or good. It’s just how they do things. 

If big energy companies are investing hugesums of money in exploiting the areas of the Arctic, it is because they are adapting to the reality that the ice is melting and what’s underneath is more easily accessible. 

If they’re adapting to the reality, maybe we should start doing so as well.

Hydofracking worse for environment than coal?

Hydraulic fracturing (know as 'fracking') is the controversial natural gas extraction process that's being proposed for much of central and southern New York. It's been controversial because the fracking represents a serious threat to safe drinking water. 


However, The Cornell Daily Sun reports on other major side effects of the extraction process. A university study concluded that hydrofracking may harm the environment even more than the mining of coal and will exacerbate the effects of climate change. This is significant because natural gas has long been touted as the cleanest fossil fuel.


“We looked at the greenhouse gas in comparison to conventional natural gas,” [Cornell Prof. Robert] Howarth said. “Our research showed that carbon dioxide is only part of the problem, and natural gas, which is mostly methane, is far more potent. Even small leakages have a large footprint, leading to our conclusion that natural gas actually has a bigger impact on global warming.”

Climate change undermines roads... literally

In NCPR's In Box blog, reporter Brian Mann linked to two piecces relating to climate change.

A column in the Albany Times-Union asked if extreme weather is the new normal.

The article in the Glens Falls Post-Star explained how climate change may alter the way highways and rural roads are constructed. It noted that the region had seen a rash of so-called "100 year events" (extreme weather that normally happens only once in a lifetime) this year alone.

Jon Alexander's piece noted:

"The books we've always used to design culverts, you can throw them all out," Dave Wick, district manager of the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District, recently said. "What was once called a 100-year event is now a 50-year event, and a 50-year event has become a 25-year event."

Wick said that precipitation that once fell as snow is now reaching Earth as highly localized super-rainstorms, overwhelming culverts designed using potentially outdated pre-construction models.

For years, scientists have been tracking an increase in global temperatures. They predict the warming trend will generally lead to warmer, wetter weather in the Northeast's boreal forests, while desertification will continue to see places like the Sahara expand outward.

Locally ecologists are already seeing changes.

Ultimately, people who understand the threat of climate change need to just ignore those rejectionists who oppose it for ideological reasons that have zero to do with real science.

Rejectionists don't accept science, not merely climate science specifics but science in general (unless of course they're sick and need medicine) and they do so for ideological reasons. If you say 2+2=4, they will reject it not for any scientific or mathematical reason but solely because they fear the imagined POLITICAL consequences of the sum equalling four.

People who understand the threat of climate change ought to stop using scientific jargon to convince ordinary people and start referencing more practical issues. 350 is not something people can easily latch on to (sorry Bill McKibben), but they sure understand road collapses and damaging flooding.

Folks in the North Country may be of conservative temperament but they are also practical. And as pragmatic people, collapsing roads and flooding lakes in our own backyard, as well as the financial costs of such disasters, are things they can grasp much more easily.

Rejectionists blithely dismiss climate science as hooey. "The Earth's climate is always changing," they say, as though the world's pre-eminent climate scientists aren't aware of that. And they are right, even as human behavior is distorting this wildly; natural climate changes occur over centuries and millennia, not decades.

The threat of man-inflicted climate change is less to the planet itself. As rejectionists point out, the climate has changed before and will change again. But with such UNNATURAL climate change, the planet will survive, but it's an open question whether the human race would do the same.

Africa has been affected by climate change for a few decades. Hunger 'emergencies' have become regular staples of life in the African Sahel, a border between the expanding Sahara Desert to the north and the coastal rain forest to the south that stretches across the continent.

Africans don't need to argue about climate change's existence. They aren't twiddling their thumbs, letting themselves be hijacked by ideology. They see and experience it directly. They aren't wasting their time arguing about settled science. They have more important things to do, such as adapting to the reality they're already being forced to live.

People may not understand the number 350. But they do understand numbers like $1.5 million and $7 million.

The former is the annual budget for the Warren County town of Thurman. The latter is the amount of damage to roads and bridges caused by recent flooding. The number of severe flooding incidents in Warren County has significantly increased in the last few years. If flooding damage that amounts to more the six times a town's annual budget becomes more than a once in a lifetime event, will the ideology of climate change rejectionists still hold water?

Climate change is real and destructive and those who understand this can't be paralyzed by the rejectionists who refuse to be engaged in any rational way. We have real world consequences to deal with and, hopefully, prevent. It's these real world consequences we should be using to try to educate the open-minded part of the public and encourage to live in a more sustainable fashion.

Godwin's Law, climate corollary

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.


I know efforts to slow the stupidification of society may seem a lost cause but it's still worth pursuing...

Last year, I learned about something called Godwin's Law. It's a phenomenon I'd observed for a while but never knew had a name.

It goes: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches."

A generally accepted follow up is that anyone who invokes Hitler or the Nazis automatically loses the debate.

I think a corollary should be added.

Anyone who claims that an unseasonably cold day/week/month/year "proves" that climate change is bogus or otherwise discredits the widely accepted scientific consensus should automatically be disqualified from any discussion related not only to climate change but science in general.

The ban shall remain in place until the violator learns all of the following:

1) The difference between climate and weather;

2) The difference between an outlier and a trend;

3) The rudiments of statistical analysis and the scientific method.

Otherwise, I have the right to say that my recent $7 win in the scratch off lottery (thus increasing my gross income by about 10% as compared to the previous day) proves that the economy is booming.

Climate change awareness march in Saratoga on Saturday.

Sat. Oct. 25th at 11:00 am

The Saratoga Greens and Saratoga Healthy Transportation Network are sponsoring this action at High Rock Park in Saratoga Springs. There will be a speaker or two, then a brief march down Broadway to Congress Park where a photo will be taken to help 350.org catalog our collective actions to help our congressional representatives understand that global warming is a serious problem that cannot just be debated or ignored any longer.

For more information, contact Barb Tryptaluk @ (518) 583-4487

A lie is half way around the world before...

This piece from North Country Public Radio talks about how opponents of the climate change bill in Congress are quoting statistics from an MIT professor.

Problem is that according to that professor, the numbers they're using are wrong.

The disinformation being peddled by Republicans, libertarians and other opponents of the bill is almost 10 times higher than what the MIT professor being misquoted actually found.

The academic told Republicans they were using an inaccurate figure but they continue to do so.

Maybe global warming is exacerbated by the hot air spewed by some of its Deniers.



Note: Interestingly this piece followed another story in which a citizen that she "[has] to listen to conservative radio to get facts." Not sure if facts should be put in 'air quotes.'

Tales of the Apocalypse

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

According to Morality in Media [sic], one of the battalions in the Theocracy Brigade, the fact that Iowa Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage occurred on the same day as the deadly shooting spree in Binghamton was no coincidence.

According to another always reasonable conservative Ann Coulter, any problem in society, including rape and murder, can actually be traced back to single moms.

Thus... getting married causes mass murder. Not getting married causes mass murder. Getting divorced causes even more mass murder.

I think I'll remain a bachelor!

Though it did give me an idea. I know many conservatives deny the reality of climate change and its human component. But I think many of them could be persuaded if told that climate change was actually caused by gay marriage!

We already know that gays caused Hurricane Katrina. So blaming them for broader climate change isn't much of a leap.

Coverage of the Adirondack Climate Conference

Today and tomorrow, John over at Adirondack Almanack is providing live blogging coverage from the climate change conference being held at Tupper Lake's Wild Center. Check it out!

Bush’s new climate change policy

“Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter” –Pres. Bush (source)


I suppose the only saving grace is that the rest of the world takes him about as seriously as most Americans don’t.

Climate change threatens melt the chocolate industry

The impact of global climate change as accelerated by human activity was the topic of recent scientific conference in the small northern New York village of Tupper Lake.

While scientists discussed how to address this serious problem, lame duck President Bush travelled abroad to pooh-pooh the issue yet again.

Bush re-stated his obstructionism that he believes fighting climate change is a great idea, but nobody should do anything until every nation agrees on every last detail. The US won't cut its emissions until Vanautu and Lesotho do the same.

He also framed the argument in a typical false dichotomy between environmental sanity and economic growth.

Non-ideologues around the world, people who actually have to make a living on their own, know that there is no contradiction between the two. They know that if the environment is degraded, making a living is much more difficult. Living itself is more difficult.

The current climate change crisis has rapidly increased desertification in Africa in the last few decades. The decrease in rainfall and resulting desertification has significantly reduced the amount of farmland available in the West African Sahel region. Not surprisingly, nearly the food emergencies in Africa caused by 'natural' phenomena are in the Sahel.

The unnaturally rapid climate change has also caused a major increase in deforestation on the continent. This causes erosion and other physical damage which makes growing crops more difficult. It also eliminates food sources like fruit-bearing trees and meat from the animals that live in the forest.

But if you think climate change's impact comes no closer than the African jungle, you're mistaken.

Warmer winters are already starting to hinder maple production in upstate New York and Vermont. It also risks hurting winter tourism. These are two of the most important motors in the economic of those rural regions.

And if none of this convinces you, then consider this.

According to the corporations themselves (whose only rigid ideology is that of self-interest), one of the greatest threats to global cocoa corps and to the chocolate industry itself is none other than the unnaturally rapid rate of climate change.

The effects of climate change and pollution

I read with interest the top 100 science stories of 2007, as ranked by Discover magazine. I was struck by just how many stories involving climate change and pollution made the list.

Many people would rather fiddle while the Earth burns. But at the end of the day, tackling these serious global challenges is infinitely more important than whining about Al Gore's mansion.

Their #1 story explained the huge impact of China's unrestrained economic growth. And not just on China itself.

The country will soon surpass the United States as the world's largest polluter (in raw terms; the US will remain at the top... er bottom... of that list per capita). China's coal-fired power plants emit the world’s highest levels of sulfur dioxide (a major element of acid rain) and mercury, both of which rise high into the atmosphere and hitch a ride on air currents circling the globe.

Furthermore, a study found that three-quarters of the black carbon pollution in the atmosphere over the western United States originates in Asia. It is estimated that as much as 35 percent of all the mercury pollution in the western United States comes from abroad, and China is most likely the main culprit. According to the World Wildlife Fund, untreated waste has turned China’s Yangtze River basin into the single largest polluter of the Pacific Ocean.

Man-aggravated climate change is already hitting hard in many countries, including Australia. The Land Down Under is suffering through its worst drought in a milenmium.

"Australia is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to the impact of climate change on water resources,” says Ross Young, executive director of the Water Services Association of Australia. “Many people thought there would be adequate time to adapt to less water. The lesson from Australia is that the shift has been very dramatic and has occurred in a very short period."



Some other climate change and pollution related stories in Discover's top 100...

-Soot Began Harming Arctic A Century Ago

-Quantifying Global Warming

-Acid Rain Intensifies Threat To Marine Life. Those of us who live in or near the Adirondacks already know the devastating ecological impact of acid rain caused by pollution from far away.

-Wastewater Decimates Minnows

The importance of critical reading

The explosion of anonymous and semi-anonymous blogs and other non-traditional outlets makes critical reading skills even more key. But even with "mainstream" news outlets, this skill remains important.

For example, take this story from Bloomberg.

Government officials and activists flying to Bali, Indonesia, for the United Nations meeting on climate change will cause as much pollution as 20,000 cars in a year.

Conservative bloggers have jumped all over this, citing it as 'proof' of the hypocrisy of climate change activists, jaunting around the world, sipping their chardonnay. They're probably French too!

20,000 cars sounds like a huge amount of pollution if you have no frame of reference. And this 'objective' news article provided no frame of reference.

20,000 cars represents less than 0.01 percent of all the motor vehicles in the United States alone. This means American-owned cars will cause more pollution in 8 hours than this conference.

Another fact: there are over 20,000 cars in Essex County, one of the most rural, least populous counties in New York state.

This conference climate is going tackling planet-wide issues of climate change, problems that could cause havoc across the globe. The pollution equivalent to that produced by cars in one small US county is a mere drop in the bucket if some of these planetary issues can be addressed.

That is the real perspective needed.

Climate change in Cape Verde

This essay is part of a (more or less) weekly feature on this blog that presents interesting stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, Israel, Iraq, North Korea and Iran.

National Public Radio has a pair of stories on a place little reported on in both the western and African medias: the West African island nation of Cape Verde.

All Things Considered had a piece on a community of refugees from Cape Verde in the USA, who'd fled the archipelago because of drought.

Morning Edition had a story on its own story on how climate change is affecting Cape Verde and how residents are coping.

For something that supposedly is a figment of Al Gore's imagination, climate change is already having a big impact... most severely in countries whose greenhouse gas production is negligible.