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beautifulduckweedNote: I started this a few weeks ago, when Jay posted this entry about the carbon dioxide ads from the Competitive Enterprise Institute; I just never got around to finishing it. However, after watching An Inconvenient Truth last night, I feel inspired to finally complete and post this.
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theotherjay brought to my attention a series of commercials made by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, all of which note that carbon dioxide = LIFE, and look at those evil, evil people trying to lower carbon dioxide emissions, they must be anti-LIFE or summat, those monsters.
The issue of anthropogenic sources of air pollution--specifically, trying to deny that it impacts the environment, especially with regards to climate change--makes me see red. In a lot of ways, the global warming debate reminds me of the way Intelligent Design has been handled: science is quite clearly on our side, but enough scientifically illiterate people have been bamboozled by misinterpreted and misrepresented data that they'll chirrup back information that's quite clearly wrong, but that has gained cachet simply because it's been repeated so many times.
Here my two favorite misconceptions about global warming, and what it means for us:
1. Although surface temperatures have been steadily rising in the past few decades, satellite and weather balloon data indicate a cooling trend. Because satellite and weather balloon measurements are more accurate and less subject to the vagaries of terrestrial temperature taking (e.g. spuriously high temperatures recorded near highly reflective surfaces, etc.), this must mean that our world isn’t warming up, our earth is cooling.
This bit of business drove me mad for years, because I knew that the discrepancy could be resolved somehow; there's just no way we could be pumping out as much carbon dioxide as we do and cause global cooling, that shit just don't make sense. And then last year, I read about orbital decay, or downward drift.
See, satellites don't remain at the same altitude; the drag caused by the Earth's atmosphere causes them to orbit lower and lower. They start out at about 850 km above the earth, and drop about 1 km per year. This downward drift is known as orbital decay.
Now here's a quirky bit of information for you: contrary to popular wisdom, the higher regions of our atmosphere aren’t necessarily colder than the lower regions. It really depends on the atmospheric layer in question, and in the upper layers, the temperature actually starts rising with increased altitudes, especially above 275 km or so, as this nifty chart shows.
Previous interpretations of data didn’t account for orbital decay, and once the that was corrected for, some scientists (specifically, Frank Wentz and Matthias Schabel) found a very clear warming trend, one that matched the information from surface stations.
But then along came somebody else to debunk Wentz and Schabel’s calculations, namely the people who had originally published the uncorrected satellite data. Using more sophisticated adjustments, Spencer and Christy showed that even adjusting for orbital decay, according to the satellites, the earth was still on a slight cooling trend.
Then in last year's August issue of Science magazine, three articles in a row showed that:
There's really little doubt that we're seeing a warming trend. Scientists have known this for years. Let me repeat: science is on our side. The media, however, aren't--various special interests, especially the oil lobbies, have enough clout to disseminate just enough bullshit to muddy the discourse. Certain names come up over and over again, such as Roy Spencer--yes, the same Spencer I've mentioned previously, and who, incidentally, has ties with the George C. Marshall Institute, a think-tank devoted to debunking global warming that's received tens of thousands of dollars from Exxon Mobil. (Spencer is also a proponent of Intelligent fucking Design theory, of all things.) You can read more about the climate scientists and follow the money trail in this interesting Media Matters report, and The Washington Post provides a detailed and fascinating look at the politics and personalities of the global warming skeptics.
But enough on that one point. Here's another red herring that crops up over and over in the discussion over global warming:
2. Making changes is too hard. In fact, the proposed changes for reducing emissions are impractical and economically ruinous--potentially more ruinous than any of the so-called catastrophic changes that could be brought about by global warming.
Extra-special bonus hysterical variation: "You're trying to restrict our choices and put us out of work. You're being anti-business! And if you're anti-business, you're anti-American! So if you believe in global warming, you must be anti-American. QED. Why do you hippie global warming alarmists hate America?"
There's a lot to unpack in this particular point. First of all, there's the idea that people who advocate for green technology and tighter environmental regulations are somehow out to deprive Joe Schmoe out of his job at the auto factory. That's a very neat bit of trickery, there, because it sets up a false dichotomy. Look, we're not Luddites. We're not proposing to go around burning factories and launching rockets at big vehicles with blingy rims that get less than 20 mpg, tempting though the idea may be. We'll still need people to research, design and build the components for new technology; in fact, tighter regulations can force innovation, and that's a good thing, kids. Instead of bitching and moaning about having to comply with standards, companies have a chance to grasp this opportunity to grow. There are a lot of people with a whole lot of disposable income who are willing to pay extra for greener technology.
But then, there's also a certain amount of conflation between being "anti-business" and "anti-big oil." For evidence that working with green technology and exceeding government standards doesn't automatically mean death for a corporation, you just need to look at car companies like Toyota. Hybrids like the Prius are selling so fast, car dealers can barely keep them on the lot--in fact, most dealerships have long waiting lists. The only business that will truly be put out of business if we adopt the common (and not-so-common) sense measures to reduce pollution will be the big oil companies--and that's assuming that they're so stupid, they don't attempt to diversify their holdings.
Framing this particular debate as an us-vs.-them, environment-vs.-business issue is such effective rhetoric because it plays on some very powerful stereotypes: the trustafarian neo-hippie environmentalist, effete and fresh out of college, thinking he knows how to run the world, vs. the honest, hard-working blue-collar type who knows how it really works. Basically, we're telling the world "We know better than you, and we want you to do this for your own good." That's never a popular position. People generally don't like being inconvenienced, even when the inconveniences are beneficial--and I'm talking save-the-world beneficial, not spares-you-from-split-ends beneficial.
Ultimately, it's this sort of blinkered attitude that's predisposing people to believe that global warming isn't that big a deal after all. Widespread and deliberately-orchestrated misinformation plays a role, to be sure, but people want to believe that nothing is too terribly wrong because we really, really don't want to face the fact that we done fucked up, and fucked up but good.
theotherjay brought to my attention a series of commercials made by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, all of which note that carbon dioxide = LIFE, and look at those evil, evil people trying to lower carbon dioxide emissions, they must be anti-LIFE or summat, those monsters. The issue of anthropogenic sources of air pollution--specifically, trying to deny that it impacts the environment, especially with regards to climate change--makes me see red. In a lot of ways, the global warming debate reminds me of the way Intelligent Design has been handled: science is quite clearly on our side, but enough scientifically illiterate people have been bamboozled by misinterpreted and misrepresented data that they'll chirrup back information that's quite clearly wrong, but that has gained cachet simply because it's been repeated so many times.
Here my two favorite misconceptions about global warming, and what it means for us:
1. Although surface temperatures have been steadily rising in the past few decades, satellite and weather balloon data indicate a cooling trend. Because satellite and weather balloon measurements are more accurate and less subject to the vagaries of terrestrial temperature taking (e.g. spuriously high temperatures recorded near highly reflective surfaces, etc.), this must mean that our world isn’t warming up, our earth is cooling.
This bit of business drove me mad for years, because I knew that the discrepancy could be resolved somehow; there's just no way we could be pumping out as much carbon dioxide as we do and cause global cooling, that shit just don't make sense. And then last year, I read about orbital decay, or downward drift.
See, satellites don't remain at the same altitude; the drag caused by the Earth's atmosphere causes them to orbit lower and lower. They start out at about 850 km above the earth, and drop about 1 km per year. This downward drift is known as orbital decay.
Now here's a quirky bit of information for you: contrary to popular wisdom, the higher regions of our atmosphere aren’t necessarily colder than the lower regions. It really depends on the atmospheric layer in question, and in the upper layers, the temperature actually starts rising with increased altitudes, especially above 275 km or so, as this nifty chart shows.
Previous interpretations of data didn’t account for orbital decay, and once the that was corrected for, some scientists (specifically, Frank Wentz and Matthias Schabel) found a very clear warming trend, one that matched the information from surface stations.
But then along came somebody else to debunk Wentz and Schabel’s calculations, namely the people who had originally published the uncorrected satellite data. Using more sophisticated adjustments, Spencer and Christy showed that even adjusting for orbital decay, according to the satellites, the earth was still on a slight cooling trend.
Then in last year's August issue of Science magazine, three articles in a row showed that:
- Spencer and Christy made an error in their diurnal corrections.
- Temperature data from the 70s collected from weather balloons (radioisondes) may have been skewed towards the high end because the instruments weren't properly insulated, thus making them more susceptible to solar heating.
- OK, this one I don’t understand too well, but basically, monthly variability of temperatures in the tropics as recorded on the earth’s surface tend to be exaggerated in the troposphere, but this amplification effect seems to disappear or even be inverted once the data are analyzed over a timescale of decades, and scientists speculate that this is because there are still errors uncorrected for.
There's really little doubt that we're seeing a warming trend. Scientists have known this for years. Let me repeat: science is on our side. The media, however, aren't--various special interests, especially the oil lobbies, have enough clout to disseminate just enough bullshit to muddy the discourse. Certain names come up over and over again, such as Roy Spencer--yes, the same Spencer I've mentioned previously, and who, incidentally, has ties with the George C. Marshall Institute, a think-tank devoted to debunking global warming that's received tens of thousands of dollars from Exxon Mobil. (Spencer is also a proponent of Intelligent fucking Design theory, of all things.) You can read more about the climate scientists and follow the money trail in this interesting Media Matters report, and The Washington Post provides a detailed and fascinating look at the politics and personalities of the global warming skeptics.
But enough on that one point. Here's another red herring that crops up over and over in the discussion over global warming:
2. Making changes is too hard. In fact, the proposed changes for reducing emissions are impractical and economically ruinous--potentially more ruinous than any of the so-called catastrophic changes that could be brought about by global warming.
Extra-special bonus hysterical variation: "You're trying to restrict our choices and put us out of work. You're being anti-business! And if you're anti-business, you're anti-American! So if you believe in global warming, you must be anti-American. QED. Why do you hippie global warming alarmists hate America?"
There's a lot to unpack in this particular point. First of all, there's the idea that people who advocate for green technology and tighter environmental regulations are somehow out to deprive Joe Schmoe out of his job at the auto factory. That's a very neat bit of trickery, there, because it sets up a false dichotomy. Look, we're not Luddites. We're not proposing to go around burning factories and launching rockets at big vehicles with blingy rims that get less than 20 mpg, tempting though the idea may be. We'll still need people to research, design and build the components for new technology; in fact, tighter regulations can force innovation, and that's a good thing, kids. Instead of bitching and moaning about having to comply with standards, companies have a chance to grasp this opportunity to grow. There are a lot of people with a whole lot of disposable income who are willing to pay extra for greener technology.
But then, there's also a certain amount of conflation between being "anti-business" and "anti-big oil." For evidence that working with green technology and exceeding government standards doesn't automatically mean death for a corporation, you just need to look at car companies like Toyota. Hybrids like the Prius are selling so fast, car dealers can barely keep them on the lot--in fact, most dealerships have long waiting lists. The only business that will truly be put out of business if we adopt the common (and not-so-common) sense measures to reduce pollution will be the big oil companies--and that's assuming that they're so stupid, they don't attempt to diversify their holdings.
Framing this particular debate as an us-vs.-them, environment-vs.-business issue is such effective rhetoric because it plays on some very powerful stereotypes: the trustafarian neo-hippie environmentalist, effete and fresh out of college, thinking he knows how to run the world, vs. the honest, hard-working blue-collar type who knows how it really works. Basically, we're telling the world "We know better than you, and we want you to do this for your own good." That's never a popular position. People generally don't like being inconvenienced, even when the inconveniences are beneficial--and I'm talking save-the-world beneficial, not spares-you-from-split-ends beneficial.
Ultimately, it's this sort of blinkered attitude that's predisposing people to believe that global warming isn't that big a deal after all. Widespread and deliberately-orchestrated misinformation plays a role, to be sure, but people want to believe that nothing is too terribly wrong because we really, really don't want to face the fact that we done fucked up, and fucked up but good.
