May 12, 2008
Asking the right questions
by Sylvia S Tognetti
So, are cyclones that strike densely populated coastal areas that are losing their wetlands sent by God as punishment for sin? Or are they the consequences of human induced global warming? And did Al Gore really say that? (no) Can the media, get anyone to pay attention to them, or to anything important, without a smoking gun? and will they always find one even if it has to be fabricated? Which, of course, provides a smoking gun for the blogs, this one included.
Or perhaps this all just nonsense, intentionally generated to distract the public from the incapacity and even in some cases unwillingness of some governments to respond to extreme events? Which is the very definition of a disaster and, supposedly, the reason we form governments. And I'm not just talking about Nargis. (For more on Nargis see this NYT article- thankfully, aid does slowly seem to be trickling in, and there are organizations that have somehow managed to have a presence. And this one by Andrew Revkin about the dangers of living in a Delta and why people do it anyway, and lack of preparation.)
The real stories about the so called "climate skeptics, or Katrina or Nargis, are much more complex than a "who dunnit" tale, with many shades, not necessarily all grey. Ben Wisner has written some reflections on attention to disasters, in context of the response to Nargis and other kinds of calamities that are all around us, in which he makes a case for the need to better understand such nuances, if we are to respond more effectively. We can talk about restoring mangroves later.
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December 27, 2007
irrational discourse
by Sylvia S Tognetti
No need to waste time going over all of the "Over 400 prominent scientists" that the U.S. Senate U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Ranking Minority Member Senator Inhofe Report Inhofe Report claims "Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007." You don't have to poke far beneath the headline to find quite a few of these who did not actually dispute the science of global warming, which should cast doubt on the credibility of the entire report. I just looked at one, which does no such thing:
Gwyn Prins of the London School of Economics and Steve Rayner of Oxford authored a report prominently featured in the UK journal Nature in October 2007 calling on the UN to "radically rethink climate policy," and they cautioned against a "bigger" version of Kyoto with even more draconian provisions. Prins and Rayner's report in the influential journal bluntly declared "... as an instrument for achieving emissions reductions [Kyoto] has failed. It has produced no demonstrable reduction in emissions or even in anticipated emissions growth." Their report was titled "Time to Ditch Kyoto" and was highlighted in an October 24, 2007 National Post article. "But as an instrument for achieving emissions reductions it has failed. It has produced no demonstrable reduction in emissions or even in anticipated emissions growth. And it pays no more than token attention to the needs of societies to adapt to existing climate change." The report also noted, "Kyoto's supporters often blame non-signatory governments, especially the United States and Australia, for its woes." The report continued, "But the Kyoto Protocol was always the wrong tool for the nature of the job." Prins and Rayner instead urged investment in new technologies and adaptation as the most promising method to deal with climate change. (LINK)
Deliberate confusion of scientific disagreement with disagreement over whether Kyoto is the right approach or not is no surprise coming from Inhofe and has even become predictable. Unfortunately, and much more insidious - it is also becoming predictable that this would be reported as a legitimate scientific disagreement by Andrew Revkin, at the New York Times - who usually does credible reporting and does not himself question whether or not the fundamentals of global warming are scientifically established. From his Dot Earth blog:
But when you sift through the studies, what emerges (to me at any rate) is not so much the shattering of a consensus as a portrait of one corner of the absolutely normal, and combative, arena in which scientific ideas emerge and either thrive or fade.
Revkin is confusing the normal combative scientific arena with the science for policy arena in which anything goes, and where journalists are supposedly paid to detect precisely this kind of BS or, at the very least check the facts and know the difference between spin and legitimate scientific processes of review. When they don't, BS becomes a normal part of our post-normal public discourse, which has become tedious and distracting, but still indicative of a need for greater public appreciation of the process of science - as well as for scientists to appreciate the nature of the political process.... Since rebutting denialists is what seems to draw traffic, I'll use it a a hook to talk about what is normal - a question often asked, given the name of this blog.
My working definition of normal is a situation we accept as impossible to change - once upon a time that included slavery. In a previous more thoughtful post, Revkin discusses this point himself, citing the sociologist Robert Brulle:
Basically, I read it that we become used to the environment we live in. Since most of the population has very limited or no access to a relatively unpolluted environment, they take it as normal that you can’t eat the fish in the river, that the air is always dirty, etc.
The same applies to public discourse. With limited or no access to an unpolluted public sphere in which claims can be validated, there is little hope for protecting the rest of it. Since Revkin is seeking suggestions, and, (as does PNT) aims to promote information exchange and learning, one suggestion I have is that he read some of the papers posted to Brulle's site, such as this one (pdf), which reviews the basics of Habermas Theory of Communicative Action and its implications for environmental policy. Here Brulle points out that, "the claims of the speaker must be validated for discourse to be rational" - open and rational discourse being the basis for the formation of legitimate laws in post-metaphysical conditions, i.e., a pluralist modern society in which laws can no longer be legitimated with metaphysical arguments. This principle is what provides the basis for the ideal of a constitutional democracy with separation of powers, which relies on the existence of a strong public sphere for deliberation that can hold its own against money and administrative power. Presumably, that is (or was) the reason journalists enjoy certain privileges. But see also this one (pdf) in which he discusses the role the media plays as gatekeepers of what gets into the public discourse. It is not the first time the media has served to impede progress.
Again, welcome to Post-Normal Times - and I'm not just referring to this blog. My brief working definition of Post-Normal Times being times of rapid change, as we enter into uncharted territory, when not just the presence of glaciers, but even basic social norms can no longer be taken for granted, and what remains of the public sphere seems to be held together by the blogosphere. More detailed analysis of the rest of the 400 from Romm, Desmog, Maribo, and the Rabett, - who found that one of the 400 or so is a gardener.
A second suggestion for Revkin is that he provide a review of the book by Eric Lambin, The Middle Path: Avoiding Environmental Catastrophe
And now for my year-end pitch. Unlike Revkin, this blogger doesn't get paid, and doesn't post often enough to ask for donations, but if more readers used the book links, and the Amazon search box in the side-bar for whatever else, we might even be able to recover site hosting fees. Thank you and happy new year to the modest but regular readership of the Post-Normal Times and those of you who have linked to the site.
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November 8, 2007
Required reading
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Is the press trying to instigate a fight among Democrats? This is going somewhat off topic for this blog to the broader context of science and policy but I'm afraid this will get buried when it needs to instead be nipped in the bud. Via Media Matters, read what Bill Clinton said (in a speech to the American Postal Workers Union), and you tell me if he said or even implied that Hillary was getting "swiftboated" by other Democrats - which is how it was widely reported. Then read it again, for what he actually said:
PRESIDENT CLINTON: [T]he point I'm here to make to you is whoever you're for, this is a really big election. We saw what happened the last seven years when we made decisions in elections based on trivial matters. When we listened to people make snide comments about whether Vice President [Al] Gore was too stiff. When they made dishonest claims about the things that he said that he'd done in his life. When that scandalous Swift boat ad was run against Senator [John] Kerry [D-MA].
When there was an ad that defeated [former Sen.] Max Cleland [D] in Georgia -- a man that left half his body in Vietnam. And a guy that had several deferments ran an ad with Max Cleland's picture with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, because he dared to vote against the president's version of the Homeland Security bill.
Most Americans still don't know the truth. The president was against the Homeland Security bill for eight and a half months. And [former White House senior adviser] Karl Rove told him they were going to lose the 2002 elections unless the American people were scared about terror again. So, they decided to be for a bill they'd opposed -- and they put a poison pill in it.
That bill was designed by the president to take the job rights away from 170,000 federal employees that had no access to secure information, no access to secure technology, no business being treated like CIA agents. Look, we need to be able to fire CIA agents without going through a long process in the public, right? ... But we don't need to treat secretaries at FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] that way. I mean, the whole thing was a scam.
So Max Cleland said, "I didn't go to Vietnam and leave one arm and two legs to come home and hold my job by stripping the job rights from 170,000 good, hard-working Americans. I won't do it. So they put an ad on comparing him to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
Why am I saying this?
Because, I had the feeling, at the end of that last debate, we were about to get into cutesy land again. "Ya'll raise your hand if you're for illegal immigrants getting driver's licenses." So, we'll then let the Republicans run an ad saying, "All the Democrats are against the rule of law."
I don't -- look, I think it's fine to discuss immigration. We should. Illegal immigration needs to be discussed, and it's fine for Hillary and all these other guys to be asked about Governor Spitzer's plan -- but not in 30 seconds, yes, no, raise your hand. This is a complicated issue. This is a complicated issue.
So, do I hope you'll vote for my wife? You bet I do. It'd be good for America and good for the world. But, more than that, I came here to tell you today: Don't you dare let them take this election away from you. This belongs to you and to your children -- and to the future of America.
Don't be diverted. Don't be divided. Our best days are still ahead, claim them. Thank you.
Then go to Media Matters and read the whole post. To his credit, even Bill O'Reilly didn't believe it and didn't report it because he couldn't find where Bill said such a thing. Nonetheless, asked to respond to Bill Clinton's "charge" that they had engaged in "swiftboating," Obama was stunned. Dodd was outraged. Democrats: please, please, please, question such questions before answering them.
To bring this back to science and policy, consider what is at stake in the next election. It may be the blogs that take back our post-normal public discourse.
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October 24, 2007
Convenient excuses
by Sylvia S Tognetti
More background on the situation in Atlanta in this NYT article. As I suspected, the release of water for endangered species is a convenient excuse for failure to conserve water, even after a drought has been declared:
With a public anxious over the possibility of running out of water, the corps has not been the only entity to shoulder blame.
On Oct. 1, Stone Mountain Park began to make snow for a winter mountain, hoping to attract children who had not seen the real thing. The mountain was planned during the very wet summer of 2005, and the state and local governments were duly informed, said Christine Parker, a spokeswoman for the park.
The state announced a Level 4 drought response on a Friday and, after park officials reviewed the list of exceptions for businesses, snow-blowing began the following Monday, before much of the public had fully grasped the severity of the situation. After the project was ridiculed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the park shut it down. Ms. Parker said that only then did the park hear from state environmental authorities.
And as I suspected, a cover up for a more complex state of affairs. Via watercrunch - Alabama begs to differ on the amount of water and sees other motives:
Georgia has repeatedly framed its request as a contest between people in the Atlanta area and endangered mussels in Florida. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality the action that Georgia seeks will have dire consequences on people and their livelihoods downstream in Alabama.
Georgia ignores the fact that the Farley Nuclear Plant sits on the banks of the Chattahoochee River and requires cooling water from the Chattahoochee...The lack of adequate cooling water could require a shutdown of the plant, putting the reliability of the electric power grid in the region at risk....
What the State of Georgia is seeking from you is a unilateral transfer of decision-making authority over the water in the federal reservoir at Lake Lanier from federal to Georgia control. that reservoir was built with federal taxpayer dollars for certain congressionally authorized purposes, which did not include the Atlanta area water supply. While Alabama understands the needs of residents in Atlanta, we cannot stand idly by and allow Georgia to take control of the water in that reservoir to the detriment of the people who live and work downstream in Alabama...
...Alabama is not willing to cede unilateral control of waters in the Chattahoochee River Basin to the State of Georgia.
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October 9, 2007
Between a hoax and a catastrophe
by Sylvia S Tognetti
The Lomborg, now brought to you by the Washington Post, still claims to be in the mythical middle ground, somewhere in between claims of climate change as catastrophe and hoax where he is looking to have "a sensible conversation" with honesty "about the shortcomings and costs of climate policies, as well as benefits." He could start by making honest and sensible arguments himself and perhaps by acknowledging and responding to his critics, but then he might not get space on the front page of the Outlook section in the Sunday Post - or on the Colbert Report. But at least Stephen nailed him (video link) - as much as could be done in the few minutes in which he appeared on the show. Meanwhile the Post continues to demonstrate why we should all be more skeptical about what we read in the papers.
I just took another look at details about expected sea level rise in the IPCC report, which Lomborg clearly misrepresents, but see this post by Joseph Romm, who has already taken the time to sort it out - in that and in 3 earlier posts he links to. It would be nice if Lomborg included references for statements that seem like they are pulled either out of context or out of thin air itself, i.e., on what basis does he make the claim that the dramatic increase in Greenland's melting seems transitory? And who exactly is "scoffing" that the IPCC severely underestimated the rate at which glaciers are melting? But even suppose Lomborg were right in selecting an average value for expected mean sea level rise from what is clearly a conservative estimate for reasons that have to do with the scientific process - such as a reluctance to quantify processes not yet sufficiently understood, like the speed of ice flow at outlet glaciers and ice streams that have changed more rapidly than expected. What is of concern from a policy perspective are the impacts of Sea Level Rise for which average values aren't very helpful because they are driven by extreme but normally occurring events. As stated in the IPCC Technical Summary:
The greatest climate- and weather-related impacts of sea level are due to extremes on time scales of days and hours, associated with tropical cyclones and mid-latitude storms. Low atmospheric pressure and high winds produce large local sea level excursions called 'storm surges,' which are especially serious when they occur with high tide. Changes in the frequency of occurrence of these extreme sea levels are affected both by changes in mean sea level and in the meteorological phenomena causing the extremes.
For more on scientific reticence, see this paper (pdf) by James Hansen and stay tuned for my review of Chris Mooney's book, Stormworld.
What I find particularly annoying are Lomborg's repeated accusations and mischaracterizations of the views of unnamed environmental groups or just plain "people." Environmental organizations and individual advocates, and scientists who also "want to put out the fire" are quite a diverse bunch who, unlike Lomborg - or Luntz, or even Nordhaus and Shellenburger, can disagree with each other in a number of ways without setting themselves apart from and attacking all "environmental groups" and who have been trying to have an honest and sensible conversation about how best to address the climate crisis in time to avoid a catastrophe. This conversation is hardly limited to the costs and benefits of the Kyoto Protocol. Addressed in a smart way, investments in reducing carbon emissions could have numerous other benefits - e.g., see: Barack Obama's energy plan, or Al Gore's call for a Global Marshall Plan (UN webcast - Al Gore's remarks don't start until approximately minute 35) which calls for addressing the climate crisis in ways that also fight poverty. Regarding costs and benefits, see also this post here on PNT by Paul Baer on The worth of an Ice Sheet - which makes the case that to determine what an ice-sheet is worth, we have to first determine what will be required to actually save it and what the trade-offs would actually be. Thanks to the Lomborgs and the Luntzs of the world, that conversation has barely begun. Given that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet is beyond anyone's practical experience, any insistence that the costs are large relative to the benefits is pure hubris.
Update: Joe Romm dug up another paper and provides more details on the increase in ice discharge from Greenland outlet glaciers and changes in ice flow speed that have been observed. It also appears to be the paper Lomborg relied on to claim that "the Kangerlussuaq glacier is inconveniently growing." But that is hardly what the paper says. But go read Joe Romm's post. The Washington Post needs to publish some corrections.
2nd update: The Washington Post has not published corrections but they did publish an excellent rebuttal by Judith Curry, which should have been on the front page of the Sunday Outlook section, but at least it's in print. Hat tip again to Joe Romm.
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September 12, 2007
The Lomborg - nailed
by Sylvia S Tognetti
I had access to a high speed connection today so, in follow-up to the last post, here is the video clip of Stephen Colbert nailing The Lomborg:
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September 11, 2007
The Lomborg continued etc
by Sylvia S Tognetti
I'm blogging from a location where I can't get Comedy Central, and only have a dial-up connection, so I haven't been able to watch Stephen Colbert put The Lomborg in his place yet - but see David Roberts post, or go straight to Comedy Central. I may have more comments after I see it, in follow-up to this previous post. In related news that I can read, Michael Tobis has comments on a New York Times article that ponders whether Lomborg should be taken seriously. No. While it is news to me that he advocates a carbon tax, limiting coastal development and expanding wetlands, those aren't the reasons he has been given a megaphone. Even supposing he were intellectually serious and honest, and has a few of his lines right, if he doesn't understand the complexity, why is he getting the attention? For the moment, I'm not going to go there.
In unrelated news, in Italy (where I came to attend a family wedding etc....), Saturday was "V-day", short for "Vaffanculo Day," when, in response to a call from the comedian Beppe Grillo, using only his blog since he doesn't get on television much anymore, 300,000 people came to selected town squares to sign a petition for a law that would prohibit convicted criminals from being elected to public office, set term limits, and allow people to vote for the actual members of parliament instead of just for the party. Apparently there are about 25 former convicts now in office, cronies of the former prime minister, who also appeared on TV that evening, saying it is imperative that this government fail so there can be another election in the spring... He still has not accepted defeat. From Pisa, this is Sylvia "Not Poggioli" reporting....
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September 4, 2007
A lesson learned - by Chris Matthews
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Vanity Fair has an excellent article by Evgenia Peretz that reviews the fiasco that was the media coverage of the 2000 campaign, made possible in part by the meticulous chronicles of Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler, who has tirelessly tracked and documented the fabrication of fairy tales about Al Gore. But it also includes some comments from Al Gore and some of the reporters who took part in this pollution of public discourse. And it features some lessons learned. Chris Matthews has indeed learned something:
The last six years have been a powerful bit of evidence that we have to judge candidates for president on their preparation for the office with the same relish that we assess their personalities.
And he gets paid? If it takes a disaster for the media to figure out what their job is, no telling what it will take to deal with the consequences of this failure. Not that the media is known for being accurate with assessment of personalities:
Maureen Dowd boiled the choice between Gore and Bush down to that between the "pious smarty-pants" and the "amiable idler," and made it perfectly clear which of the presidential candidates had a better chance of getting a date. "Al Gore is desperate to get chicks," she said in her column. "Married chicks. Single chicks. Old chicks. Young chicks. If he doesn't stop turning off women, he'll never be president.""I bet he is in a room somewhere right now playing Barry White CDs and struggling to get mellow," she wrote in another.
Meanwhile, though Dowd certainly questioned Bush's intellect in some columns, she seemed to be charmed by him one of the "bad boys," "rascals," and a "rapscallion." She shared with the world a charged moment between them. "'You're so much more mature now,' I remarked to the Texas Governor. 'So are you,' he replied saucily." And in another column: "You don't often get to see a Presidential candidate bloom right before your eyes."
I'm not laughing. And I hope Bob Somerby is also getting paid.
addendum: This post was picked up by Alternet, adding in the following quotes from Gore that, had I been less rushed, I might have included to begin with - but of course, you should read the whole article.
More from Gore:"Modern politics seems to require and reward some capacities that I don't think I have in abundance," says Gore, "such as a tolerance for ... spin rather than an honest discussion of substance.... Apparently, it comes easily for some people, but not for me."
"The sighs, the sighs, the sighs," says Gore, of the debate coverage. "Within 18 hours, they had turned perception around to where the entire story was about me sighing. And that's scary. That's scary."
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August 29, 2007
The Lomborg
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Call me a skeptic - of anyone trying to claim the Middle Ground, right or left, journalist or politician. The extreme and illustrative case is what I now call The Lomborg which is essentially a variation of The Luntz, the end result of which is to drive book sales - or other forms of fame and fortune - though, as explained here, I'm not convinced that it will still work for winning elections - sometimes the rules of the game can be changed.
I have not read Lomborg's new book, Cool It (or the last one) - in this case, the narrative or "frame" speaks for itself. According to a review in Salon by Eban Goodstein, without offering any justification, and ignoring the potential range of variability and uncertainty, Lomborg prefers the "moderate" IPCC scenario, and, in an interview by Kevin Berger, says he is just trying to claim the Middle Ground. Paraphrasing: "Left wingers say yada yada, right wingers say yada yada, science [cherry-picked and taken out of context] says whatever supports my argument..." As director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center Lomborg is in the business of manufacturing consensus.
Not that I deny the fact that policy often requires some sort of a consensus and compromise but first you have to be clear about the trade-offs, about which Lomborg is clearly clueless even though tradeoffs form the core of his argument (see Goodstein). Otherwise, "consensus" is just a cover up for unresolved conflicts, and a way to position oneself above the fray, or in that narrow space in which cherry-picked conflicting views overlap - supposedly. Note also, The Luntz and The Lomborg reinforce each other - Luntz also now preaches consensus and labels those who advocate a change as hysterical. Lomborg uses the label doomsayers, and says their argument is one that says, "Hey, I'm much more important than everything else." It must be lucrative.
To Lomborg's credit, he does advocate public investments in clean energy technologies. Maybe that will make it harder for Inhofe to continue calling global warming a great hoax, or maybe Inhofe will just make Lomborg look reasonable. Meanwhile, Lomborg congratulates Gore for "getting the issue on the agenda and taking it away from the people who say it's a hoax" in the same breath in which he says Gore is exaggerating and is an alarmist. But Lomborg steers clear of supporting a cap or any other form of financial incentive that would create a demand for clean technologies, by raising the price of carbon emissions.There is indeed a trade-off here - his book sales come at the expense of the ability to respond to this dire threat, by undermining integrity in public discourse, as well as public trust in the hard-earned consensus found the hard way, in real scientific assessments.
As for trade-offs, PZ notes:
He also has a bad argument about relative spending: he suggests that spending on climate change would reduce spending on other pressing issues, like the fight against malaria. It's a bad choice. Malaria research is already underfunded — it's a third-world disease, don't you know, one that mainly affects those tropical countries, so the wealthy western nations typically don't prioritize it very highly. We don't take our big pots of money and allocate it into aliquots appropriate to the world's needs already, so for an economist to sit there and pretend that climate research is a drain on tropical disease research is comical. Especially since he seems unaware of how one feeds into the other. Hey, if the world warms up, tropical diseases will creep northward into Europe and North America, and then we'll be fighting the economic effects of both direct effects of climate change and new diseases.
But Lomborg is not an economist. His credentials for preaching the gospel of Cost-Benefit Analysis? Statistics and political science. I'm not an economist either but have been told that geography is a hunting license, and have learned enough economics to know that CBA is too easily and often misused - it only works when there is agreement about the policy objective, i.e., in the absence of value conflicts. I have nothing against the method per se, but roll my eyes when it is suggested that CBA, or The Market, should determine policy objectives (which is what Lomborg advocates - even though he denies this and says he is just offering a price list so the public can decide). When there are conflicting values and interests, to say, for example, that Kyoto is too costly, you have to be more specific, i.e., to who? Lomborg doesn't say - again, he just picks a middle figure from "main academic" macro-economic models, without questioning their assumptions. Perhaps those decreasing numbers of people who stand to gain from the status quo, value cheap labor, and believe this will somehow automatically create greater future prosperity?
Depending on what policies are adopted to reduce emissions and how it is done, the economy could, perhaps, be transformed into one that actually works by actually meeting human needs, which would make everyone better off. I may be delusional and am admittedly speculating a bit about the possibility of achieving that. But Goodstein cites a review by Robert Repetto, which concluded that energy efficiency could spur economic growth. To get beyond the cherry picking, we need to get more specific and start comparing actual scenarios that provide a more honest accounting for trade-offs between policy options, to find pathways from here to where we want to go, but will need some sort of consensus on where that is. That should also knock out the floor boards that sustain the wobbly frame on which Lomborg and Luntz are perched.
More at Island of Doubt
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June 15, 2007
What goes around...
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Denialism blog blogs an article in Harpers Magazine by Ken Silverstein (available only by subscription) who reports on the strategies of major lobbying and public relations firms - based on information he apparently learned first hand by posing as a businessman with interests in improving the image of Turkmenistan, and who represents a front company that has some influence on the direction of oil revenues. Among the tactics proposed by APCO, winner of the PR Agency of the Year award from PRWeek magazine: organize campaigns against "biased" news stories and hold forums for journalists academics and politicians hosted by a third party. They also link to an earlier article in the Boston Globe about academic consultants being hired "to change the public conversation" about their client, against whom several charges had been filed by Eliot Spitzer, in part by raising doubt about the effectiveness of the legal and regulatory environment. But if these tactics are legal, we do indeed have an ineffective legal and regulatory environment.
In other news, a couple of Yes Men turn the tables on this tactic when, posing as representatives of ExxonMobil and the National Petroleum Council, they presented the keynote speech at the Go-Expo Conference in Alberta Canada, where they were expected to deliver the long-awaited conclusions of a study commissioned by US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. In the speech, "Shepard Wolff" (aka, Andy Bichlbaum) announced that:
current U.S. and Canadian energy policies (notably the massive, carbon-intensive exploitation of Alberta's oil sands, and the development of liquid coal) are increasing the chances of huge global calamities. But he reassured the audience that in the worst case scenario, the oil industry could "keep fuel flowing" by transforming the billions of people who die into oil.
He went on to describe a technology for turning human flesh into a new product called Vivoleum, using 3-D animations. "Exxon rep" "Florian Osenberg" (aka, Mike Bonanno) added that "With more fossil fuels comes a greater chance of disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel will continue to flow for those of us left." Members of the audience even lit candles made of the stuff, to commemorate an "Exxon janitor" who dies after cleaning up a toxic spill, before become aware of the hoax when... oh just go read the press release. It reads like a modified soylent green scenario, which I sometimes point to as an example of the economic concept of substitutability between natural, manufactured and human capital. There may be substitutes for everything but whether they are acceptable or anyone would freely choose such substitutes is another matter.
The company that organized the event had them dragged away from reporters and detained by private security guards but they were released by the Calgary Policy as no laws were violated.
But hey, its legal...
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March 20, 2007
Is science getting framed?
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Today is Climate Crisis Action Day. I stopped by the rally at the Capitol just in time to hear Sen. Barbara Boxer, followed by some native people from Alaska the the Yukon, who are literally on the front lines of climate change impacts. Among them was Lorraine Peter who talked about changes they are witnessing first hand, which has led to close collaboration with scientists. She was followed by Bob Corell, who chaired the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Among other things, he encouraged blogging! Unfortunately I missed the earlier speakers, which included Rep. Waxman, Sen. Kerry and Sen. Sanders. I also neglected to bring a pen so I can't provide much more detail.
If you haven't yet, go here to become a Citizen Co-Sponsor of the Sanders/Boxer Global Warming bill, and here to sign a card Boxer will present tomorrow to Al Gore to thank him for his leadership, and here, to sign a message that Al Gore will present to the Congress tomorrow. As you probably know, in the morning, at 9:30, he is scheduled to testify before 2 subcommittees of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce - back to back with Bjorn Lomborg. In the afternoon, at 2:30, before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chaired by Senator Boxer - where he will also be questioned by Sen. Inhofe.
Predictably, Inhofe, who previously relied on Michael Crichton's fiction, is now using the New York Times article hit piece on Al Gore as a prop - to make the case that his case is closed and that "we are all skeptics now." For background on that case, see the previous PNT post and links therein, and this additional post about it by Bob Somerby at The Daily Howler, who directs his scorn this time at liberals who have kept their mouths shut about this media assault - and he isn't just referring to the two bloggers quoted in the NYT. I'm really glad RWOS got widespread attention but it is only part of the story. Mooney's reactions to the New York Times narrative about the new middle stance (here and here and here)
have had me wondering lately if he is trying too hard to position himself in this fabricated middle ground. And then there is Matthew Nisbet, at Framing Science, who edited his post, which originally referred to "Bill Broad's excellent NYT article"- now it says provocative.... He also lists Broad as a "framesetter" in his blogroll - which only helps Broad to get away with this dishonest and irresponsible journalism that is indeed setting a frame. Now I appreciate information brought to my attention on the blogs of Pielke Jr, Kevin Vranes, Chris Mooney, and Matthew Nisbet. But if they are serious at all about improving science communication and constructive framing - the subject of which they preach, they would take on Inhofe's media enablers - which we all need to do more earnestly. Without integrity and good faith negotiation, there is no middle ground. I'm going to refrain from further comment until after the hearings. Here is the C-Span link.
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The news that didn't fit - into the Broadly misleading NYT article
by Sylvia S Tognetti
There is a reason journalism is unraveling. And there is a reason discussions about An Inconvenient Truth can, sometimes,"very quickly turn from the issue to the person, and become a referendum on Al Gore" as Roger Pielke Jr. is quoted saying, in last week's Broadly misleading New York Times article hit piece, and why Gore has become a "very polarizing figure," but, in the science community????? I would like to know which "science community" Roger was referring to. As the article also states, Al Gore received "a reception fit for a rock star" at the last AGU conference, which is where most of the climate science community meets, and is always spoken of admiringly among scientists I know. And even though I am not in academia, as a long time science and policy wonk, I know a lot of them.
The reason Al Gore has become a polarizing figure is not for any of the reasons given by Broad, who makes a crude attempt to paint him as an alarmist, but because of the kind of media invented tales found in the article itself, which is among the most irresponsible pieces of journalism I have seen. Lest Broad be unfairly singled out at what is considered "the newspaper of record" let us not forget that this report is "sadly typical of the work the New York Times has done on Gore for the past dozen years" and why, as Bob Somerby asks, "does a dimwit sit in the White House:"
we all have lived in the Land of Bamboozlement since the earlier 1990s. Our politics has run on bogus stories... which are widely believed by bamboozled citizens. Such bogus stories drove the politics of the Clinton years... And in 1999 and 2000, these bogus stories finally changed the world's history. Two years worth of invented tales about Gore finally sent George Bush to the White House... From The Daily Howler, 3-16-07
This is well documented in the incomparable archives of The Daily Howler, where, in a recent two part series on "Global Dumbing," Somerby digs up the beginnings of the fabrication of narrative about Al Gore at the NYT during the 1999-2000 campaign, reserving particular scorn for Maureen Dowd, who just a few weeks ago, gave us a reminder in the"Ozone
Man Sequel" - now saying:
Surely the Goracle, an aficionado of futurism, must stew about all the time and money and good will that has been wasted with a Vietnam replay and a scolding social policy designed to expunge the Age of Aquarius.When he's finished Web surfing, tweaking his PowerPoint and BlackBerrying, what goes through his head? Does he blame himself? Does he blame the voting machines? Ralph Nader? Robert Shrum? Naomi Wolf? How about Bush Inc. and Clinton Inc.?
Failing of course to admit her own role and that of the media. Somerby also makes a good case, with links, that "Dowd and Coulter have the same message. They just send it to two different groups." But don't take my word for it - go read all of it! And make sure to click the link to this Tom Toles cartoon. She isn't the only one who made a joke out of Gore during the 2000 campaign - there was also Richard Cohen, who now says "his colleagues" did it, and Arianna Huffington, who repeated many of those tall tales but now says she could support Gore because she believes in political redemption. And several others. To which I would add, those who believed enough of them but should have known better, i.e., the environmentalists, who were disappointed that, as vice president, Gore did not live up to the expectations he had created in his first book, Earth in the Balance. But lets not forget the climate created by Republican spun media narratives, and that, as Vice President, he was not the one setting the agenda, and did not have the power of the bully pulpit, as he does now. I swear I was saying this in 1999-2000 to my colleagues- if blogs existed then, I hadn't yet heard of them. But I heard of Gore when he was a congressman in the late 1970s, and have wanted to see him in the White House ever since. As far as I'm concerned, his mistake was putting Lieberman on the ticket but if I'll forgive him for that if he will accept a draft, to be the Democratic nominee.
Coming back to the NYT article, Somerby also has 4 posts on that so far, with more on the way (Daily Howler 3/14, 3/15, 3/16, and 3/19). See also: RealClimate/Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann, Gristmill/David Roberts and Andrew Dessler, Deltoid/Tim Lambert, Environmental Journalism Now/Tom Yulsman,and Rockridge Nation. Most of the experts Broad cites have opinions that have been reviewed and rejected by the scientific community, based on scientific criteria, or are total crackpots, like Benny Peiser. I'm surprised none of the critiques said much about Benny, who sticks to his conclusion even after finally conceding to errors in how he reached it, and who continues to get quoted to cast doubt that there is a scientific consensus - now even in the NYT! And now that the NYT has picked this up, it will undoubtedly take on a life of its own, providing reinforcement for that parallel universe. (Perhaps this is what Baudrillard meant when he proclaimed the death of the real?). Peiser's so-called study, was even quoted to me by someone sitting across from me at the dinner table last Thanksgiving! In case you need a reminder, Peiser is someone who can't tell the difference between uncertainty about whether or not humans are changing the climate, and uncertainty about impacts, and policy uncertainty, not to mention several other kinds.... In his "study, any mention of uncertainty in anÿ of the abstracts he reviewed skimmed was used as a basis for his conclusion, that there is no scientific consensus about the first kind "- that humans are changing the climate. Those who cite him aren't going beyond skimming "news" headlines. I would have expected Broad to, at the very least, ask Peiser to give an example - that hasn't been discredited.
As for the quote by Kevin Vranes, also quoted in the NYT, he makes a valid point about the possible overselling of certainty but in the wrong context (more fully explained here and commented on by me here). Gore did stick to the science. There will always be differences in nuance, and uncertainty about details, even with general agreement on the basics. Assessments by the IPCC and the NAS are conservative in that they represent what can be agreed upon by scientists, based on a broad process of scientific review. There is a difference between sounding an alarm, and being alarmist. The estimated 20 foot rise in sea level that would occur if the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheet were to melt would be in addition to the IPCC estimate of sea level rise of 23 inches that is expected to occur regardless, as a result of current melting and warming trends.
There is however legitimate argument about whether a presentation of the science alone is sufficient to motivate changes in policy and behavior. A study conducted for the AGU in 1999 found that most of the American public is in fact aware of global warming but is skeptical that there is a solution or that there is anything they can do about it. Articles such as this NYT piece serve only to paralyze and prevent policy debate about options, through obfuscation and by creating confusion. There are many more reasons that people fail to act on climate information - I just received a copy of an excellent new book I will be reviewing shortly, Creating a Climate for Change: Communicating Climate Change and Facilitating Social Change
edited by Susanne Moser and Lisa Dilling which has an impressive collection of papers, some of which I have been waiting to read since hearing about the 2004 workshop it is based on.
Now I realize that journalists need a hook to tell a story, and that conflict and conflicting opinions provide it ready made. They might look instead to areas of legitimate disagreement, i.e., the unsettled issues that could not be agreed upon within the IPCC, playing by the rules of science. Explaining those would actually provide a public service. Crackpots still make an amusing story as a political conflict - the post in which I spotted Benny Peiser's admission of error may be the one that has drawn the most traffic on this blog, and it continues to do so... And while newspapers decline, writing about the use of crackpot science to further political agendas has even propelled some bloggers to stardom.
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Getting kids interested in children's experiments early on, whether through a well crafted science lesson plan or just sheer positive motivation, is a good way to get children interested in science early enough that they actually might be interested in science projects on their own, which can help them to learn faster.
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February 18, 2007
That elusive middle ground
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Why would anyone pay $10,000 for an essay about the weaknesses of climate models for policy purposes when all they need to do is get a couple of modelers in the same room, each trying to demonstrate that their model is bigger, better and more policy relevant than the other one or anything else out there? One does not need to be skeptical or in denial of the science that supports the findings of the IPCC to have concerns about whether or which Global Climate Models are relevant and useful for policy purposes. However, "normal" skepticism and disagreements within the scientific community, which are inherent in the process of science, tend to be downplayed in the policy arena where consensus based on information available at the time of decision-making is necessary to inform policy - the reason for having bodies such as the IPCC, to conduct a more extended process of peer review. A second reason for downplaying normal skepticism and uncertainty is fear that it will be exploited and distorted by denialists of human induced climate change, whose main purpose is to foment doubt and confusion, by challenging scientific findings in the media, thereby circumventing the IPCC review process - (a topic addressed also in this previous post).
I was going to write a longer piece about the Guardian story "Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study - that received almost as much if not more commentary than the release of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, but David Roberts and Andrew Dessler have just done that in an excellent post at Gristmill that explains why "bashing climate denialists still makes good copy but is increasingly beside the point." Since they have nicely summarized all of the background information and I wholeheartedly agree with their argument, I'll just add a few points. But read their article - and also comments on it by Ken Green from AEI, who, with Steve Hayward, made the offer on behalf of AEI.
What is upsetting is not so much the amount offered - ok, $10,000 is more than I usually get to write a review paper but is not exorbitant by standards of pay for journalists, and it is no surprise that the generation of empty soundbites and predictable narratives are more highly valued than substance...Or even the critique of models. The real problem is the way AEI is expected to use the critiques they solicited. But intended or expected use isn't news. Even less fitting into news narratives is a problematic assumption inherent in the wording of the original request, that scientific models are some sort of a crystal ball:
we are looking for . . . a well-supported but accessible discussion of which elements of climate modeling have demonstrated predictive value that might make them policy-relevant and which elements of climate modeling have less levels of predictive utility, and hence, less utility in developing climate policy.
Although AEI does appear from its list of climate-related publications to engage at least some credible scholars, some of whom even support a carbon tax, Green's and Hayward's intent can be inferred from the title of another website where they posted a personal rebuttal, The Great Global Warming Myth, subtitled Consensus does not = science. The site also prominently features a picture that ridicules Al Gore. So their claimed motive, made in a second letter, about wanting to "break out of the straightjacket" in which debate about climate policy is framed as being "between so-called 'skeptics' and so-called 'alarmists' doesn't pass the laugh test:
First, in the public mind at least (which is to say, the news media) climate change has tended to be caught in a straightjacket between so-called “skeptics” and so-called “alarmists,” with seemingly little room left in the middle for people who may have reasonable doubts or heterodox views about the range of policy prescriptions that should be considered for climate change of uncertain dimension. This perception is mistaken, of course, as Andrew Revkin’s recent New York Times article on “an emerging middle ground” on climate change made evident. Nonetheless, we would like to attempt to break out of this straightjacket and see if it is possible to create a space for an identifiable “third way” of thinking about the problem that is similar to the various “third way” approaches to other social policy problems that were popular in the 1990s.
The original letters, and the response of AEI president Chris De Muth can be found here.
Regarding the use of models in policy - I would gladly accept even just $5,000 from AEI to write an essay on the utility or not of mega-models for purposes of informing policy and on what kind of information is most useful for decision-making. But with a caveat: they would have to convince me that they intend to engage in "good faith" negotiations of climate policy, and make arguments on their scientific merits. They could start by actually disavowing the "so-called" skeptics, cease and desist from labeling Al Gore, or anyone presenting well established scientific evidence as "alarmists." Ken Green and Steve Hayward could also start by withdrawing their post from The Great Global Warming Myth website.
Bashing denialists is not simply beside the point but is not an effective way to respond to Global Dumbing - which does nonetheless need to be responded to. To learn more about sources of Global Dumbing, see this Special Report by Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler. For more on the consequences, stay tuned.
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October 30, 2006
Peiser again
by Sylvia S Tognetti
You may recall Benny Peiser, who once tried to dispute the conclusion of Naomi Oreskes that there is a scientific consensus that recent global warming is primarily caused by humans. Her conclusion was based on a review of abstracts of 928 papers that came up in a search. Using slight differences in search terms, Peiser came up with an additional 34 abstracts for papers that he claimed contradicted her findings, and made a splash in the headlines. These were all posted and reviewed on Tim Lambert's blog about a year and a half ago - my comments on a few of them are here. The only one that questioned the consensus was a non-peer reviewed article published by the Association of American Petroleum Geologists. It took awhile before Peiser conceded he was wrong - I first spotted an admission of error in a comment he made on the Prometheus blog but see Tim Lambert's most recent post for a full chronology with all of the relevant links. Apparently, a few weeks ago, in response to an inquiry from MediaWatch, Peiser conceded that only the one paper identified in the blog review supported the conclusion in his so-called "study" and claimed to "no longer maintain this particular criticism."
But Peiser still maintains the belief that "the majority consensus is far from unanimous" in spite of having conceded that his "study" was 97% wrong, Another remark in his letter to Media Watch demonstrates that he lacks the capacity to distinguish uncertainty that pertains to whether global warming is human induced, from uncertainty about the possible impacts. There is a big difference between understanding changes in average temperature, and understanding how these changes are experienced in different places, which involve interaction among site specific conditions and randomly timed events as well as human decisions and behavior - reality-based or not - all of which increases the uncertainties not in the scientific literature but in our daily lives. None of this has stopped it from being cited in yet another newspaper column to question this well-established scientific consensus - this time by Andrew Bolt - who dismisses all of this as criticism of a nuance, and makes several other errors of fact with reference to Gore, all debunked by Lambert.
The only reason anyone falls for this is an image of science as a crystal ball that provides certainty about the future. When scientists, journalists and even bloggers avoid discussion of unavoidable uncertainties to avoid confusing people, we create more of it, and to borrow the words of Andrew Revkin, are "handing red meat" to the so-called skeptics. In a talk given at a conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists, he concluded:
When new findings are offered, he says, the tendency of journalists has been to seize on "every one of those little punctuation marks and make it into God's truth." However, the plural of anecdote is not data.
"[T]he mousetrap is all ready for us to screw up," Revkin warns the audience. It is "very important" for good environmental journalists to also be global warming skeptics of a sort.... If they want readers to take them seriously, they should report on the clashes and conflicts that make science so entertaining.
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May 8, 2006
Repeat after me:
by Sylvia S Tognetti
"There are so many causes, and there is no simple solution to it - I just do not feel that they should bear the burden of that" - this time, referring not to cigarette smoking or climate change, but.... to the destruction of the Louisiana Wetlands - they being, "the oil and gas companies that is." This is the same line of argument that was made in the film "Thank you for smoking" but the quote is from Jim Porter, head of the main lobbying group of the Louisiana oil and gas industry, speaking to Daniel Zwerdling, who produced an NPR radio story on this that aired Saturday morning. Porter maintains that the damage caused by oil and gas operations to the wetlands is less than 10%. Gene Turner, a scientist from Louisiana State University who has been investigating the loss of the Louisiana wetlands - since the 1970s - says that oil and gas operations are responsible for 30-60% of the damage. State officials are unwilling to "play the blame game," arguing that, when those canals were dug through the wetlands in the 1960s and 70s, it was legal, and nobody knew of their importance - not only for seafood, but for protecting the oil and gas pipelines that are buried in them. Instead, they have joined with industry and environmental groups to launch a campaign to convince taxpayers to foot the bill for wetland restoration - without which New Orleans might as well be abandoned.
But Zwerdling finds that history is also more complex than this story line would have it. First of all, dredging of those more than 8,000 miles of canals through the wetlands, and piling dirt along the banks was legal in the 1970s only because every time a regulation was proposed that would have required a modification of industry practices, the industry, from which the state was getting 40% of its budget, threatened to go elsewhere, threatening loss of revenue and jobs. The piling up of dirt along the banks creates a wall that prevents water from flowing in and out of the marshes. The vegetation then dies, and the soil disintegrates and is replaced by open water. Now they argue that regulation will hurt oil supplies, and that they are already doing their fair share by financing the ad campaign. Zwerdling quotes from an Army Corps of Engineers Environmental Impact Statement dated 1973 which warns that oil and gas activities threatened seafood and wildlife, and also said that damage could be reduced through a change in practices, which the industry refused to do.
I heard a presentation by Gene Turner in 1989 or so, when he had just completed some of the first studies that actually quantified some of these impacts, and from several other researchers who investigated the socioeconomic impacts of offshore oil and gas operations. At the time I was a research assistant for a National Academy of Sciences Committee that was evaluating the Outer Continental Shelf Environmental Studies Program, supposedly done to support decisions of the Minerals Management Service with respect to oil and gas leases. The whole Committee met in the region and was taken on a tour of the coast, in the van of the "Ragin' Cajuns" football team. As I recall, this was one of the few studies sponsored by that program that said anything conclusive. According to Don Boesch, who at the time was head of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and who had helped to arrange the committee visit to the region, just getting those studies to be done at all took considerable pressure from the scientific community. When I paid a visit to the MMS offices in New Orleans to get documents and maps, I also vividly recall an informal remark from the person in charge of producing Environmental Impact Statements - that if we had another oil crisis, it would no longer be necessary to write those things because people would "just want the oil." I don't know if he expected anything like Katrina.
But there is another reason this story made me choke. In my current day job, I write about land and water issues, and about some of the complexities associated with attempts to implement the concept of "payments for watershed services" and the "myth of simple solutions." And so I have made similar remarks about the difficulty of linking multiple causes and effects of watershed degradation which are separated across large scales of space and time. This is necessary to link management practices of particular land users, to their outcomes and to those who benefit from them - or not. There is, of course, a big difference between my arguments and the standard industry line, but you wouldn't know it from the soundbites. First of all, I say such things not to excuse anyone from responsibility, but to argue for a learning approach, in which adjustments are made along the way in light of new information - as it becomes available. If the oil and gas industry had their way, no studies would have even been done. Furthermore, in the case of the Louisiana wetlands, we aren't talking about distant offsite impacts but about dredging operations that have occurred on-site. But even when impacts have distant causes, there is much that science can tell us. If you don't do the science, or don't ask questions in a useful way, you will never find out. And sometimes judgments and decisions have to be made with incomplete information.
I could go on and on about this subject and about differences, but for now, if you are interested, you can find more in the Flows bulletin I write, which is archived at www.flowsonline.net, and in several papers that can be found on my personal website.
[5-15-06 - edited to correct typos. Apologies for the delay - I wrote this one in a hurry as I was preparing for a trip I will probably blog about next.]
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April 18, 2006
But how do we know that the answer is forty two?
by Sylvia S Tognetti
I was about to blog an op-ed by David Michaels about the new film Thank you for Smoking* and about further developments in the Data Quality Act saga - I see that Chris Mooney beat me to it, and notes that many of the Bush administration science games are happening under the radar - like at OMB - where, as I have noted, political appointees have a lot more power than public relations officers at NASA. (i.e., George Deutsch). I hadn't quite gotten around to blogging about the DQA because, how we insure data quality is a topic that merits some serious and substantive discussion - and it takes time to deconstruct misleading and malicious soundbites in the length of a blog post. In case you haven't noticed, the use of misleading and malicious orwellian soundbites as titles to legislation is a pattern.
The DQA, a bill that was passed without debate as a "midnight rider" to the 2001 appropriations bill, would in effect institutionalize the manufacture of uncertainty and doubt, and also its abuse, to support arbitrary and capricious behavior by those entrusted to make policy decisions. In other words, instead of being merely a public relations strategy of big tobacco and big oil companies, it would become government policy, to use science to make a case that there is not enough information to make what is essentially a value judgment. In a new development, according to Michaels, "Now, with its risk assessment proposal, the Bush administration is interpreting the DQA as a license to override the Clean Air Act and laws meant to protect the public's health and environment." I haven't entirely read the new proposed risk assessment guidelines but I'll take his word for it. (see footnote for a digression)
The only reason this strategy of manufacturing doubt and uncertainty works at all is because of the rampant Low Tolerance for Ambiguity that seems to be endemic to our culture. This is not so much an issue of public myth-understanding of science, but of how policy issues are framed. A narrow technical framing of social problems - and of how risk assessments are conducted, implies that we just need to get the science and the prices right, usually leaves out most of what people who are affected care about, like fairness and actually having clean air and water, i.e., values, which then become merely obstacles to be overcome in the implementation phase. This also creates false and unrealistic expectations of what science can tell us, and essentially becomes a one-way flow of information from scientists to policy makers. Ultimately it polarizes and paralyzes the whole process of making a decision - which seems to be the whole point of the DQA and the proposed risk assessment guidelines.
* I may have more comments after I see the film - If you are in the DC area, you should make sure to see the film at the recently restored AFI Silver theater in Silver Spring which, if you haven't been to yet, is awesome, and not just for the decor.
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Footnote digression: Another pattern that goes back at least as long as I have been around as a witness to all of this nonsense is to strangle outnumbered public interest lawyers and advocates with technical documents to respond to. Its just a trap. In the early '80s I worked as an assistant to a lawyer who was intervening in the licensing hearings for the restart of the other Three Mile Island facility, that had been down for maintenance at the time the other one melted down (btw, TMI stands for "They Melted It"). Finally, after the company was criminally convicted for behavior that led to the accident, she went after the license on grounds that the conviction demonstrated "bad character" and that we shouldn't allow criminals to be running nuclear plants - we do, and btw, NRC stands for "Nobody Really Cares" but I digress.... ok, back to the present. The lesson seems to have been learned - that the only rational way to answer the climate denialists is to play bingo and move on.
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April 13, 2006
Hiding behind locked doors
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Jeez - I'm glad that there are Republicans who are looking for common ground on environmental issues. But giving MD Governor Erlich credit for making MD the 8th state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative? Sorry - this doesn't pass the laugh test. The RGGI is a provision of the new MD Healthy Air Act which Ehrlich vehemently opposed and fully intended to veto. Knowing that a veto would be promptly overridden, his office door was locked at 4:30 on the Friday it was brought to him, so he could say he didn't receive it until Monday. Since he is given 6 days to act on a bill, and since there was one week to go until the end of the legislative session, this would have allowed him to veto it at the end of the last day of the session, thereby removing any opportunity for an override. According to the Washington Post, that bill and about a dozen others were slipped under his locked door by Senate aides at 4:50. After a barrage of e-mails and phone calls from irate citizens like myself, and an opinion of the MD Assistant Attorney General for the Legislature. Robert A. Zaranoch, that "unreasonable office hours may not be set to frustrate presentment" and (citing a 1982 Alabama Supreme Court decision) that the governor was required to act by Friday, Ehrlich caved and signed the bill. This was done in secret - presumably to avoid giving any credit to those who fought for its passage. For more info see the MD League of Conservation Voters. (Hat Tip: Environmental Economics blog.)
Full disclosure: I am also a precinct official for the Montgomery County MD, Blue Crab Democrats who are known as:
Luminaries of the Maryland Political Ecosystem. Blue Crab Democrats are the most loyal, tenacious and hardworking enthusiasts of the Maryland Democratic Party. Unbowed by attacks from the radical right, they are fierce defenders of individual liberty and freedom. They work hard to strengthen Maryland communities and are revered for their industry, especially when cleaning up after Republicans.
We used to have a moderate Republican representing our Congressional district, who was great on environmental issues too, i.e., Connie Morella. Unfortunately, by helping to give the Republicans a majority, she undermined everything she stood for, so we replaced her with Chris Van Hollen. Until the so-called moderate Republicans are willing to break with their party on issues that they say they stand for, I have a hard time taking them seriously. Especially the ones in Takoma Park who I have witnessed in elections past actively campaigning for a Green Party candidate as a way to split the Democratic vote for delegates to the state house of representatives.... Once they are willing to stand their ground on environmental issues within their own party, and play by the rules of the game, we can talk about common ground, and also about important differences of perspective that at the moment seem, well, trivial. Unless we can agree on the rules of the game, democracy will soon become a figment of the imagination.
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February 8, 2006
Infested swamp
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Digby raises the issue that scientific agencies are undoubtedly infested with pests like George Deutsch, "not only in pr but in positions that require serious decision-making." He calls them mosquitos. I think of it more as a hydra-infested swamp - that will require a Herculean effort to eradicate (DC was built on a wetland...) Just a hunch but, somebody who has time or gets paid to investigate such things might take start by taking a look at the qualifications of political appointees at the Office of Management and Budget - which has an awful lot of power over what the science agencies do. As Digby also says:
Let's be clear about this. This is the kind of incompetent behavior that right wing ideologues, obsessed with ideology and appearance over reality, repeat again and again and again. And it has consequences.... Bush's wholesale trashing of US science policy -climate change research is just one area- has the potential to lead to serious threats to our national security.Addendum: On second thought - lest we forget New Orleans, it already has. As I have blogged in earlier posts - both before and after Katrina, there was no lack of scientific early warnings - or even plans for coastal restoration or proposals for funding mechanisms - years in advance. I saw Mary Landrieu on CSPAN last week - still asking for a share of revenue from offshore oil and gas receipts to fund the restoration plan - as she did long before Katrina. How about we hear it from some non-Louisiana senators and representatives? Maybe we need a Mardi Gras parade through the halls of congress or something....
[Correction: I think the above was not from Digby but from "Tristero" posting on Digby's blog, Hullabaloo.]
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February 7, 2006
Swaggering idiots
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Nick Anthis, who graduated from Texas A&M, finds out that George Deutsch did not. He did attend, and was an opinion editor for the student newspaper The Battalion, but left without graduating. Apparently the offer of a position with the Bush campaign was just too good of an opportunity to turn down. I wonder what his resume says - surely, he had a background check before being confirmed as a politically appointed public affairs officer at NASA? The power must have really gone to his head. I'll bet he swaggers too.
Update 1/8/06: Andy Revkin/NYT confirms, Deutsch lied on his resumé and has also now resigned from NASA. Perhaps he will follow in Brownie's footsteps and start a consulting firm - to counsel public affairs officers on what not to do or say when communicating science... As with Brownie, the real issue is, who put him up to this? As Dr. Hansen said, he is only a bit player - important only as an indicator of a bigger problem, of the political control of scientific information, which is a threat to what is left of our democracy.
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December 9, 2005
Untapped frontiers
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Addendum to the last post: More details on this in the Guardian where "professional sceptic" Chris Horner, in an e-mail from last January, refers to Europe as an "untapped frontier," compares himself to Neil Armstrong, and justifies his proposal by saying "US companies need someone they can trust, and it's just a den of thieves over there." No, I think the den of thieves emanates from the Foggy Bottom - (for non-Washingtonians, a former swamp area near the White House that has been infested by the Lernaean Hydra).
Thanks for the last link to DeSmogBlog - a new blog by public relations professional, Jim Hoggan, who is infuriated and disgusted by the use of PR talent to spread disinformation about climate, in what he calls a "triumph of disinformation." He goes on to explain the fundamentals of ethical and unethical PR - this is required reading. Its about time the PR industry started to police its own profession - another untapped frontier.
Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 11:22 AM
November 30, 2005
Lorax attends the COP
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Earlier today, the Lorax made an appearance in Montreal at the COP 11 climate meetings, to speak for the trees. In case you missed it, a few months ago I posted an ode to the Lorax by Jesse Ribot. I now have a video version that features the full set of illustrations that I will post as soon as I can figure out how to get it to a manageable size for downloading.
I have been to frantic to write any substantive posts and will be for at least a few more days but, for some live reporting from COP 11, and to find out who won the fossil of the day award this time, see the daily Climate Action Network newsletter . And, of course, the Earth Negotiations Bulletin. Meanwhile, at the new blog launched by EcoEquity, Paul Baer challenges factually challenged reporters. I nominate CNN, MSNBC, and any other media source that spread the incomplete version of the AP story in which "[US Negotiator Harlan] Watson said... that Bush had committed to cutting greenhouses gases some 18 percent by 2012" for a fossil of the day award. As Paul points out, the full story also quoted Alden Meyer from UCS, who corrected that assertion.
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September 29, 2005
Category 5 Spin
by Sylvia S Tognetti
[Update: after you read this, see Category 5 Wingnuttery, at Sadly No, to find out Who is really behind soaring oil prices. And note that, since we will undoubtedly be hearing more of this, the title of this post is now also a category. Feel free to contribute and/or send links. And start stockpiling those bullshit protectors.]
Tuesday, at a House hearing on federal state and local responses to Katrina, Mike Brown (aka, "Brownie") - now a FEMA consultant, admitted to "a few specific mistakes":
First, I failed initially to set up a series of regular briefings to the media about what FEMA was doing throughout the Gulf Coast region. And instead, I became tied to the news shows, going on the news shows early in the morning and late at night, and that was just a mistake. We should have been feeding that information to the press and in the manner and in the time that we wanted to, instead of letting the press drive us.
Second, I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences and work together. I just couldn't pull that off.
[And later added:] "My biggest mistake was not recognizing, by Saturday, that Louisiana was dysfunctional."
He also blamed the Department of Homeland Security for removing a request for communication equipment from the budget, but, when asked "what he and the agency he led should have done to evacuate New Orleans, restore order in the city and improve communication among law enforcement agencies" Brown said: "Those are not FEMA roles. FEMA doesn't evacuate communities. FEMA does not do law enforcement. FEMA does not do communications." No wonder the request for communication equipment was removed. I guess he was just following orders. An Independent Commission, should we get one, might ask about those.
A full transcript can be found here. More at The Progress Report. If you need to restore lost memory, see Josh Marshall's Katrina timeline and ongoing thread on Brownie's Lies.
Meanwhile, fueled by the winds of Katrina, just as Katrina was fueled by the heat of the loop current, House Republicans wasted no time in introducing legislation that would permit wholesale looting of public assets by: lifting moratoriums on offshore oil development elsewhere in the country, open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, sell public lands including parks to recover costs, ease environmental restrictions on the expansion, development and siting of oil refineries, and provide "government funded risk insurance against regulatory delays" to refinery construction. Never mind that revenue from offshore oil and gas is suppose to be used to finance the Land and Water Conservation Fund so as to expand public land holdings.
On the Senate side, things were kept a bit more simple. Senators Inhofe and Vitter introduced a 1 page bill (SB 1711) that would just give the EPA administrator unprecedented power to waive any federal or state laws and regulations - including state criminal laws, anywhere in the country, in any way related to Katrina, regardless of whether it has anything to do with the environment, as long as it is determined to be "in the public interest." What it does not do, is require that anyone be held accountable for injuries that might result, e.g., from poisoned drinking water. According to an analysis by the NRDC, "not even during the Civil War, World War II, or the aftermath of September 11 has any one person had that power."
In older news, in case you missed it, an article in the National Review blames environmental groups for EVERYTHING. To properly respond to that one, I would have to look at the specifics of the examples given but, the point is, the specifics matter. The article is based on gross generalizations about environmental opposition to Army Corps of Engineers levee projects and delays in such projects associated with the need to conduct environmental impact studies. That the example cited is an entirely different set of levees from the ones that failed, and that what was opposed was not the fortifying and heightening of levees, but that it would be done with fill material removed from wetlands - will not even be noticed by those who will just read the headlines and conclusions to reinforce their preconceived notions. No mention of the fact that levees and offshore oil development are the main culprits in the loss of coastal wetlands, which made the Louisiana coast more vulnerable to hurricanes to begin with. If you read one of my previous posts, you know that forthcoming attempts to use Katrina as a pretext for waiving requirements to do environmental impact studies will come as no surprise. There are people who have been waiting for this moment for a long time. An Independent Commission, should examine this response pattern as well. And next time, we need to be prepared to distribute BS protectors - along with food and water.
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