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How Human Psychology Holds Back Climate Change Action
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Cass R. Sunstein writes at Bloomberg that an understanding of human psychology — specifically, what human beings fear and what they do not — helps to explain why nations haven't insisted on more significant emissions reductions even as scientists warn that if the world continues on its current course, we will face exceedingly serious losses and threats including a significant rise in sea levels by century's end. First, people tend to be especially focused on risks or hazards that have an identifiable perpetrator, and for that reason produce outrage. 'Warmer temperatures are a product not of any particular human being or group, but the interaction between nature and countless decisions by countless people. There are no obvious devils or demons — no individuals who intend to create the harms associated with climate change.' The second obstacle is that people tend to evaluate risks by way of 'the availability heuristic,' which leads them to assess the probability of harm by asking whether a readily available example comes to mind. For example, an act of terrorism is likely to be both available and salient, and hence makes people fear that another such event will occur. A recent crime or accident can activate attention and significantly inflate people's assessment of risk. Finally, human beings are far more attentive to immediate threats than to long-term ones. They may neglect the future, seeing it as a kind of foreign country, one they may not ever visit. For this reason, they might fail to save for retirement, or they might engage in risk-taking behavior such as smoking or unhealthy eating that will harm their future selves. 'All the obstacles are daunting skepticism about the science, economic self-interest, and the difficulties of designing cost-effective approaches and obtaining an international agreement,' concludes Sunstein, 'But the world is unlikely to make much progress on climate change until the barrier of human psychology is squarely addressed.'"
This is the same guy that thinks animals should have a right to sue people:
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/cass-sunstein-proposes-that-animals-should-have-legal-right-to-sue
Nothing this guy says should be taken seriously.
News at 11!
helped me get laid. In the 90s I saved the rainforest and it helped me get laid. Now I am out to save the planet. So please get angry about the Chinese polluting the environment beacuse it will have a big impact on their behavior.
Because there must be something psychologically invalid about the people who do not 'believe' as you do...it could not be, I don't know, that you have not made a strong argument for the position you are taking.
I am John Hurt.
Maybe Cass can use the same explanation to explain our $16 Trillion debt.
When you use hacks like Cass Sunstein, you risk weakening good arguments.
I simply feel apathetic about the situation. Changing my behavior won't change everyone else's behavior. Why should I stop driving my big SUV when everyone else still gets to go out and have fun in their SUVs? The apathy view of the situation is what stops most people from actively changing their behavior.
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
You know what holds ME back?
I work hard. I worry about retirement, about having kids. I can't AFFORD to spend "extra" to go green. I will do what is cheapest. If, in the long run, a 30 mpg car helps my pocketbook over a 50 mpg car, I'll get it. I make no apologies.
Until it's actually CHEAPER to go green, why the hell would people, who are generally underpaid and overworked by Multi-Corp Corporatoin, go green. They can't AFFORD to. If it was cheaper for me to buy a Prius (without contemplating how green the batteries are but purely looking at it from a MPG view), I would. When you see the people in North America driving around with their inefficient pickups in this day and age of impending doom, you realize that we as a species are generally screwed anyways. You want small business to go green? It has to be in their best financial interest.
Westerners want cheap goods. They simply DO NOT CARE about the environmental footprint involved in making those goods in third world countries. They might even SAY they would pay more to get them made Green... but they're generally full of shit. Me going green doesn't make one shit tonne of difference to the world, especially when I see the absolute insane amount of waste of people around me. I could write a whole post about the shit I see on a daily basis that just makes me shake my head. What's holding people back, you ask? They don't care. Try telling some third world person shitting in a river trying to make ends meet on a daily basis that he has to go green.
We are at the top of the population graph, or will be very soon.... and it's all downhill from there. I have absolutely no faith that we can come through this, unless we get somebody who makes the decisions who isn't paid by Multi-Corp Corporation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union
Have gnu, will travel.
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1892858/pg1
Yes, any excuse will work really. Human Psychology, Or perhaps the richest banking family in the history of Earth?
Stop posting this 99 excuses but a Rothchild and one HORSE SHIT on slashdot, you fucktard editors with no idea about anything.
Yeah, so...
...people are smart enough to look at a graph of temperatures over the last 100 years and see that things aren't that clear. And however many statistical methods are applied to that same data, perhaps people conclude that a lot still isn't known. Perhaps people's psychologies view taking 'significant' action against carbon emissions in a similar way to taking 'significant' action against Syria. In other words, we doubt whether the 'experts' know what the hell they are talking about.
What is the action then? What will be the end result if the action is taken? How costly is the action in terms of human life and money? Who benefits and who suffers if the action is taken?
On the other hand, what will be the end result if no action is taken? How costly is inaction in terms of human life and money? Who benefits and who suffers if no action is taken?
My understanding is that no effective action plan has been put forward. Instead, politicians have at times put forward ineffective schemes that sound somewhat plausible. Reality check: it can be taken for granted that all fossil fuels that can be extracted will be extracted and will return to the carbon cycle. Whatever action plan is presented, it will have to start from that premise.
If you believe what the alarmists have been saying, then even if Earth's nations DID insist on more significant emissions reductions it would make a barely noticeable difference. Sure, try to work on cutting emissions, especially those that are toxic or directly harmful (e.g. particulate emissions, sulfur dioxide etc), but put if you're going to spend a significant fraction of the GDP of multiple countries trying to avoid climate change while spending little or none on PREPARING for what is going to happen anyway, you're all idiots.
--Your friendly neighborhood alien.
Or maybe a lot of people realize that any fast, dramatic climate change is largely nonsense.
Even a person who sees all this can not ignore the game theoretic conclusion: That ignoring climate change is the more profitable stance. There may be a Nash equilibrium where everybody ends up in a better position, but only if everybody participates, which is practically impossible to achieve. For all other plays, the ones who ignore climate change come out ahead. And that, not any cognitive barrier, is why dealing with the results of climate change, not preventing them, is the only viable strategy.
Is this the same fear as not being able to find legit reasons for keeping the climate change doubters out of peer reviewed journals?
Or the same fear that we won't be able to "hide the decline" in global temperatures?
Or that someone could FOIA the taxpayer-funded information from the universities that show the temperatures not going up?
1. First, people tend to be especially focused on risks or hazards that have an identifiable perpetrator, and for that reason produce outrage
2. The second obstacle is that people tend to evaluate risks by way of 'the availability heuristic,' which leads them to assess the probability of harm by asking whether a readily available example comes to mind.
And for anyone that has taken Psych 101:
3. Finally, human beings are far more attentive to immediate threats than to long-term ones.
#3 is one of the reasons people continue to smoke, drink too much, and do other things that have long-term consequences. Also, it's a reason why many people don't save money.
On another note, it's a shame that Ad hominem attacks are still a gateway to karma here on Slashdot. So, he has an opinion that animals should have a "right to sue: because of cruel treatment that you disagree with. If he said that smoking was bad for you, would you discount his opinion on that too?
...the burning of witches in the modern world; ...basing economic activity on astrological predictions; ...basing economic activity on predictions of apocalypse.
Maybe the problem isn't with human psychology...
About 1/4 of all CO2 emitted by humans is emitted by China. Show me a reduction plan that doesn't omit China and we'll talk. Till then there is no point. Whatever costly reductions we enforce on ourselves will just perpetuate more industrial evacuation to China and elsewhere and the net "reduction" will be negative. An increase, in other words.
We'll need World Government to enforce such things, you say? Bring on the warming; that doom is more survivable that some uber-government ruling the entire species.
Never attribute to an availability heuristic that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
"I'm gonna get my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames."
-Jim Morrison
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Climate change is probably gonna end up getting handled like the dust bowl did. Everyone will ignore that it's happening until everything goes to hell and people are losing their money and their lives.
In other words: "People aren't sufficiently scared, so we'll have to do what Stephen Schneider told us to do."
Fear. The tool of every dictatorial tyrant. Sigh.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
"Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes Cass R. Sunstein writes ."
How many secondary references do these article posts need?
Also, is Hugh Pickens, or his site, in any way associated with /.?
Might be petty, but I don't really care who submitted the article here. Getting really damn close to leaving this site for good.
Well this human being has a fear of Cass Sunstein in any sort of authoritative position, that's for sure.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
That number keeps cropping up. I'm pretty sure all those studies didn't refer to 'accelerating' climate change.
The reason for the inaction is more simple than anything else. Lack of accountability. Everybody tries to deny things, because they say someone else will profit/benefit and/or exploit from it. It has become a crutch now to the point where it leans towards the ridiculous. Now, here's the thing. Common sense. Let's go with that. Obviously maybe not all of our actions are related to climate change, but surely, being responsible for our pollutants, reducing our carbon footprint, cleaning up our waters, taking care of wildlife, I mean, c'mon.. does it have to be for a reason? can't we think of our Earth as an extension of our home and ourselves? But in the name of profit, people will skew issues, whether its right or wrong. People don't like change and right now, those with money would have to change their ways, which would cost them and well, that's not good for business. See the logic and think about it.
It's money.
There's simply no immediate financial incentive to preventing disastrous climate change and rather large financial implications to actively trying to do something about it for the organizations with the ability to do so... such as, say, creating a firm ban on the internal combustion engine, and legislating that absolutely *NO* new vehicles made after this year can use gasoline. The economic implications of such a regulation would be enormous, probably cause total financial ruin for no small number of people, and it's not the least bit surprising that measures such as that, which might actually make some kind of difference are not being taken.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Usually when it is a climate change item comes up, it always blames the people.
However, this is a lot like how where I live, the locals are pressured to save water, let 40+ year old trees die... and the water saved is all for naught because it isn't the residences that are the ones that tax the aquifers, it is the nearby golf courses and other industries.
Same with the auto industry. Get a Prius to 70 MPG from 50, whoop-de-do (you saved six gallons in 1000 miles.) Get a Peterbilt from 8MPG to 20MPG, and you are saving 83 gallons per 1000 miles. The focus should be on refining diesel engines so they can accept other fuels, such as the diesel/gasoline/propane/alcohol engine mentioned on /. a few months ago. That way, things like WVO and WMO can be reused.
Even better, focus on diesel engines. A TDI Jetta gets Prius-level MPG, and it has absolutely nothing "magical" about it. Mercedes is offering a four-banger diesel for their US Sprinters which easily gets low to mid 20s for MPG, and a Sprinter is a pretty big vehicle. The hybrid stuff is nice, but focus on getting high MPG diesels into cars since this is a lot easier to engineer than two drivetrains.
The focus needs to not be pennywise/pound foolish, but actual solutions.
Of course, there are things that people can do. People snickered at Germany that they could go without nuclear power plants or be dependent on Russian natural gas. With the massive deployment of solar across the Fatherland, this is proving the critics wrong. If a house/building has panels, it might not completely handle the peak electricity usage, but it will take the edge off. It also allows places to go completely off-grid.
I know around I live, I can spend $10,000/mile having the utility company string a power cable, or I can spend $40,000 on an extremely good solar and battery setup that would allow for a very comfortable house that has no grid ties whatsoever... and after the money is spent with the utility company, I'd still have an electric bill. With the off-grid setup and proper battery chargers, I'd still have to replace batteries every 10 years, but everything else will keep going, due to being solid state with no moving parts (unless I wanted an active multi-axis tracking system.) Solar panels have a very long useful life, so the money spent will still be accruing returns decades later.
We already figured out it wasn't because people were being smart and rational.
People in general seem to be motivated. They're sufficiently obsessed with driving a car that gets 31 mpg instead of 29, or weatherizing their homes to cut a few pennies off their electric bill. The real problem is that people don't understand how irrelevant all of that is. We can only fix the problem if we drastically change our transportation and energy infrastructure. It's a lack of intelligence rather than a lack of motivation.
1.) What is the societal cost of cutting energy usage. How much does this cost in comparison to warming.
2.) Explain how using less carbonaceous fuel here will prevent it from being burned there.
Please invent some psychobabble to explain common sense.
love is just extroverted narcissism
A better reason why there has been little "action" on climate change is that it is all based on bad science with no reliable predictions and constant falsification.
What about fear as a motivator for denial? On an emotional level I WANT the deniers to be right. I think many people deny it because it is such a huge problem and it is easy to feel powerless about it.
People naturally avoid scams and cons. It is the same psychology used in identifying liars, thieves, and cheats.
And I mean that literally. The CAGW folks are saying we must take drastic steps to prevent disaster: shut down coal plants even if it means blackouts on the Eastern Seaboard, capture all the emissions from smokestacks and pump the CO2 underground, spend and/or lose trillions of dollars on the projects. The problem with this is that people don't think the alleged threat of CAGW is worth that level of pain.
People will buy a Prius, and feel good about it. But that is a rational decision, since a Prius costs less to feed than other cars. People will not, in general, sell their cars and start bicycling to work to Save The Planet, because that's a pain and they don't take the threat seriously.
I personally am a Climate Change Denier (oh no!). I don't think the CAGW guys have proven their case to the level required for me to take it seriously.
The "hockey stick" turns out to be much less robust than originally claimed. And the "hockey stick" model can make an alarming hockey stick graph out of random input data.
There are serious questions that the CAGW folks have not adequately answered, such as "CO2 levels are higher than ever so why is the warming flat?" "CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but we have had enough for decades and additional CO2 does little, so why should additional CO2 matter?" "Where is the hot spot?"
And the ClimateGate emails showed collusion to tamper with or suppress evidence the CAGW guys didn't like, collusion to keep skeptical papers out of the peer-reviewed journals and then point at those papers and say "Hah, those were never published in the peer-reviewed journals", "Mike's Nature trick" to "hide the decline".
Worst of all, some of the top CAGW guys massaged and massaged the data, and destroyed the original data making it impossible to fact-check.
Extraordinary propositions require extraordinary proof. I don't think the CAGW idea has been proven to the level that I am comfortable with the extreme measures that have been proposed to fight it.
There's the issue of what to do. At the moment, there seems to be a lot of division and non-answers on that. If climate models are correct, a leveling off or small reduction in emissions won't do anything to help. Even massive cuts might not do the trick. Ok well going back to the pre-industrial era isn't an option, though some green groups do like the idea. That would entail a massive loss of life and loss of quality of life. So no go there.
Likewise carbon credits, carbon exchanges, that kind of shit won't do anything. Playing money games and shuffling things around on spreadsheets does not enact any kind of real change. While economic incentives can help move things in certain directions, this won't really do that much and mostly will serve to enrich those that play the exchanges (see Wall Street).
Ok so, we'll need something else. Some geoengineering to change what is happening, or we'll need to do R&D on solutions not to change what is happening, but to survive and adapt to the changes that are going to happen. So what are those then? What are the proposals, what do they cost, what are the risks, the benefits, etc, etc? Also where are the green groups pushing for them, advocating for it?
Right now, it seems to be not just that there are people who do not believe that climate change is real, or is a problem (or a big enough problem to warrant large scale action), but there seems to be little in the way of solutions from those that do believe. "Just cut emissions," does not seem to be a solution that will be useful. "Cap and trade," seems to just maintain the status quo, while funneling money around to poorer countries. None of the popular solution with the climate change advocates seem to be one that would actually deal with the issue.
Is it such a surprise then that politicians don't seem to want to act on it?
I mean suppose I tell you that you have a real problem with your house, it is slowly deteriorating towards a collapse. I am able to prove this to your satisfaction, and I am able to show you that the reason is related to water use. Any time you run water though your pipes, it moves things further along. Also, as best as I can tell, even if you stopped running water entirely, you are already past the point where you can save it, it WILL collapse, all you can do is slow it.
However as solutions, I propose you just try and use less water. Maybe crap in a bucket and dump it outside instead of using your toilet. I also propose you "cap and trade" your usage, you don't actually have to decrease the amount you use, but you just pay your neighbours when you use over a certain amount. None of my solutions involve fixing the problem, or rebuilding, or reinforcing, just trying to prolong things and/or shuffling funds around.
Are you going to do what I suggest? Or are you going to ignore me?
That's one of the real problems I see is that the solutions climate change advocates seem to put forward aren't useful solutions by their own models. If we are already past a tipping point where even drastic emissions cuts won't help, well then we need to stop worrying about emissions and start worrying about either how to geoengineer a change, or how to simply deal with the changes that are coming.
It's not psychology. It's not economics. It's that global warming is total bullshit. Statistics is not science. A computer model is not physics. Anthropogenic signal is not discernible from random walk noise. A trace change in a trace gas will not cause exponential changes. It never has and it never will.
We don't know what we think we know.
I’m always stunned by the hostility and ignorance displayed on /. in regard to climate change. The preponderance of scientific data indicates that human activity is accelerating global climate change. That shouldn’t be a debate within an educated community like this.
The question is, of course, what to do about it? I agree that only systemic change and a dose of directed technology can address the issue; reducing one’s individual footprint, though admirable, is inconsequential. Sadly it has far more impact on one’s ego than the environment. That being said, I’m baffled by the ‘ahhh f*#$ it’ attitude. I’m especially baffled by the hostile FI attitude. I have my theories, but that’s not important.
What is important is that public attitudes change significantly enough that governments and corporations (perhaps forced by governments) begin to change. The FI attitude maintains the status quo. Sure, China and India are huge problems, but saying ‘FI, we aren’t even going to try here until they start trying there’ is simply entering into a suicide pact with those nations. If we change the way our governments, corporations and consumers act, we might have a chance to exert pressure, on multiple fronts, on other nations. It’s the only way to get the ball rolling.
About one half of our country is listening to the corporate line; fed to them through a filter of spurious skepticism of a stance about as close to absolute certainty as you see in the scientific community.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Deny the religious impulse, and it comes squirting out in other directions. Analyze that!
Homer: That's future Homer's problem. Man, I sure don't envy that guy!
I live in a country that will greatly benefit from global warming in terms of agricultural output, tourism, and available land. Additionally, I have no children and want no children and hence don't see any value in making efforts to change a world in which I'm burried.
I also believe that these kinds of struggles are good to have -- pushing civilization into space exploration.
I also believe that first-world countries should explore the true depth of a problem (by growing that problem), in order to encourage and eventually force solutions before the much larger third-world countries encounter the problem. Reducing whatever by 10% in north america means nothing when India gradually adds a billion people to the problem.
You live your way. I won't stop you. But I probably have zero interest in your ways. I don't intend to follow them. Most call this democracy.
Global warming was proven as a money making hoax, businesses use the "green initiative" to look good, and the current understanding about climate change is at its infancy with no evidence that suggests human involvement with radical climate changes. So it's no surprise that people are skeptical, but more importantly the government bankrupted the country and we can't afford these "energy efficient" things. It's not a psychology thing, it's just simple logic.
Take DDT for example. It's basically harmless to humans, and it's broad application eliminates insect-born illnesses like malaria. Yet the adverse effects it has on birds made it the catalyst for the formation of the EPA, the Endangered Species Act, Environmental Protection Act, and pretty much all modern environmental law.
All that had to happen is someone had to write a book that explained the logical conclusion of the use of this and other harmful chemicals.
So the claim that it environmental damage needs to have a clear victim and a clear perpetrator is absurd, and actually contradicts history. No one who knows anything about this would ever agree with Sunstein's conclusion, or what you've said here.
people tend to be especially focused on risks or hazards that have an identifiable perpetrator
Okay, I didn't want to have to do it this way, but I guess I have no choice now.
I AM CLI-MATT! I will spread TERROR, SUFFERING, AND DEATH through the burning of CARBON-BASED FUELS if your world governments do not IMMEDIATELY deliver ONE TRILLION USD to my secure account!
NO ONE CAN STOP ME; NO ONE IS SAFE! ALL WHO DECREASE THEIR ANNUAL CONSUMPTION OF ENERGY SHALL BE DESTROYED!
100 years from now will be far more different than now is from 1913. Keep technological progress in high gear. That yields far greater results than everything else put together.
They would have worried about stuff we find trivial or irrelevant. Wherefore crush the economy if in 50 years robots can move everything trivially, or giant vats of bacteria can produce fossil fuels, so to speak, pulling it out of the air, making the use neutral again?
Not only do not worry (too much) about it, the usual command and control solutions will slow this tech growth, leaving us worse off, not better. 2013 tech in 2013 is way better for quality of life than 1973 tech in 2013 -- or 1953.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I like how it's now called Climate Change. How can you argue with that? Is the climate changing? Yes! Let's have our governments do something about that because it's never changed before!
Remember when it was called an ice age? Maybe you're too young. Recently it was call global warming. What it is is a political movement designed to take money away from the citizens and give it to friends of politicians.
Why don't we focus on things that we can agree on, like pollution? When did exhaling become a crime? Better watch your carbon footprint!
Subject says it all, I'll add a little more though...
Where is the F*#$ing Hockey Stick, Michael? 16 F*#$ing years of no warming, preponderance of scientific data my A$$!
Prove the fsck otherwise.
2 digits for Year is enough, it'll last till 1999 and I'll retired by then anyway.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Couldn't we just pick some arbitrary group to blame? Republicans or Vikings or Buddhists or whatever?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
...the fossil fuel industry.
It has been well-documented that the vast majority of the literature against the scientific consensus on global warming is directly related to conservative think tanks who get a good fraction of their funding from the fossil fuel industry. See here:
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2013/06/manufacturing-uncertainty-conservative-think-tanks-and-climate-change-denial-books/
And it's no so much that they really want climate change to occur, but that they profit greatly from doing things that cause climate change (and other forms of environmental destruction).
That means we'd be down to around 45% of current levels by 2050. That's a big reduction. Now probably doable and worth trying, but you'd want to be fairly certain that it would, indeed, fix the problem if you are going to make the tradeoffs necessary to do so. You wouldn't want to spend a bunch on a big change to make all this happen only to find out no, sorry, but that isn't in fact going to help.
This is the kind of suggestion that can only appeal to those with an entrenched position.
In reality, there are at least the following explanations:
1. Those who disagree on action find the argument wanting.
2. Those who disagree on action find the evidence wanting.
3. Those who disagree on action find the remedial policy wanting.
4. Those who disagree on action have some psychological problem.
If you are pro-action and adopt position number 4 then you're essentially acknowledging that your argument isn't compelling (which is also when people stoop to nonsense appeals to consensus, appeals to authority, and so forth). To quote Thomas Cromwell, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
Break out those tin foil hats folks, apparently there are still some conspiracy nuts out there that think man is responsible for climate change. Completely laughable. Why is this dreck even on Slashdot?
This fictional garbage belongs in National Enquirer. Not Slashdot.
So, the old Marxist dirtbag Sunstein, who Obama brought into his admin to "nudge" the American people away from their history and traditions etc is resorting to the old Marxist idea that opponents of Marxism are psychologically damaged/inferior, eh? [begin sarcasm]Who'd a seen that one coming??? [end sarcasm]
It's one of the oldest plays in the playbook... when you cannot defeat your opponents with facts and reason, simply declare that they are irrational and in need of "re-education" or "drug therapy" or are "dangerous" and then whisk them off to the "re-education" camps. Happily, our founders designed the US to be so tough to manage that a tyrant would not be able to manage it... therefore there's little danger of actual camps here, but that's not stopping the left from trying the basic tactic over and over and over again. Seems like every week there's another "study" by some leftist that says, essentially, "everybody who disagrees with a leftist is stupid, mentally retarded, psychologically-damaged, etc. Every band of leftist thugs in history has tried this (The Soviets, The Nazis, the Chinese, etc), so there's very little shock value in seeing Cass push the "psychology" button - and the fact that he does it on DoomBorg is just frosting on the cupcake.
Good old Cass and his ideas of letting lawyers represent trees in lawsuits against home- and business-owners etc and setting energy policies designed to make energy too expensive for all the little people in fly-over country (so they'll need to beg for government help getting energy and become dependent upon government handouts and politicians... thus becoming docile and "governable") fits hand-in-glove with Obama science guy Holdren who wanted to slip drugs into the water supply to sterilize all the commoners... You could not make a movie about an administration this evil because nobody would believe these guys were anything but cartoon bad guys
Hello?, Slashdotters? ... this is the guy who ran Obama's "Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs" (aka the propaganda department). Wake UP!
In the 1960's young people were so very active in opposing "the man" and "the establishment" etc... Not the current generation of young people... nope, they've been propagandized in union-dominated K-12 government education into believing all the warped things that have ruined other societies, while rejecting all the things that made this country great; having been so totally mis-guided by teachers who owed them the TRUTH, they cannot even comprehend why the "the system" is not working for them and cannot see a way to fix it. Hint: When you run a system contrary to its design (as-in: the U.S. being run contrary to the Constitution by men like Bush43 and Obama) it CANNOT function optimally... and no amount of additionally-wrong "reform", no matter how "comprehensive", can fix it. This economy will not properly recover (and NO, 1% growth is NOT a recovery) as long as Obama and these jokers he relies upon are gone. Good luck getting the jobs you need to repay your student loans.
Of course it depends on the location and conditions, but in general if someone really lost 100lbs and spends 2-3 hours per day exercising 5 days a week the likely increased lifespan blows away any costs in terms of net increased utility.
I would rather live 20% longer at 50% less (purchased) consumption (as long as I am still above subsistence), and so would any rational actor, because the 20% additional life is extraordinarily hard to purchase at any cost (on average).
It does require actual work (the aformentioned exercise and weight loss.), thus the laziness comment.
The problem, as always in economic arguments, is confusing short-term with long term, and ignoring externalities (positive and negative.)
Is that somebody will have a bright idea that we can deliberately prolong the status quo.
They then convince a bunch of idiots w/ money and power (aka politicians) that their "solution" will somehow save the planet.
Humans will do what humans do best: We will adapt.
The climate is changing. Let it change. Go with the flow.
>With respect to the science of climate change, many experts regard the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as the world’s authoritative institution.
>A draft summary of its forthcoming report was leaked last week.
I have lower respect for documents made behind closed doors, by the people who twisted the graph on the WMO 1999 report, and are still unapologetic.
First, "required changes" are only required when the requirement is proven, not when propagandists serving big governments and funded by those big governments magically arrive at the conclusion that there is an emergency that requires big government to grow bigger and more powerful (all just by coincidence, of course...) The fact that a few leftists scream "the sky is falling! give us all your liberty and money!" does not establish either that the sky is indeed falling or that the surrender of freedom and money would solve anything other than their unquenchable thirst for power
Second, I do not fear the impact of the changes IF they are properly applied. For example, everybody who opposes fossil fuels should be banned from getting ANY benefit of them (this would cut down on emissions AND the tons of plastics going into landfills... probably enough to let the rest of us keep using the stuff while still "saving the planet"). We *could* cut the federal government down to JUST the functions our founders said it should perform... the results would easily reduce all pollution to acceptable limits, given that the US Govt is the largest consumer of many things in the US economy... and given that it has no concern for "the bottom line" the government is often the dirtiest and least-efficient consumer. We *could* strip the federal government of its lands... the Federal forest lands going decades without dead-wood being cleaned-out combined with under-funded, neglected Federal fire fighting capability leads to massive fires like the blazes burning all throughout Federal lands in the western US every summer that emit FAR more carbon into the atmosphere than all the new emissions controls that idiots like Cass want could remove
Are you referring to the Phelps clan of Democrat lawyers who have attended Democrat conventions as delegates but are usually depicted on TV as gay haters? (who conveniently protest at lots of places where gays are NOT, like the funerals of average soldiers) Sorry, but you fail if you are trying to equate these people with any actual religion or religious people.
The more-interesting comparison is between the so-called "scientists" involved with the UN and the IPCC activity. They love to poll each other to make sure they all agree (most of those polled not being actual, you know, scientists) and then put out PR bits about "most climate scientists" agreeing on AGW... sort of like most Catholic Cardinals agreeing the Pope's a great guy and Catholicism is right. Those climate guys are a real hoot! they even copy the cardinals in hanging their arguments on "consensus", instead of science, banning any contradictory opinions, hiding the sacred scrolls so than anybody not approved may not read them...
Still hasn't made appearance #2, and people are getting tired of waiting. Maybe breaking a few things will make it happen more quickly.
"... the resulting unfolding disasters ..."
What "unfolding disasters" are you speaking of? Most of these processes unfold at a literally glacial pace. And those that don't (e.g., "South East Asian floods", "South Asian droughts") occur so quickly that they leave only a fraction of the population alive, which is simply a perfect solution, albeit not the one you apparently desire.
If you really want a solution, I suggest you cut canals so the "South East Asian Floods" can be routed into the region of the "South Asian droughts", thus turning two bads into goods..
You're not too far off the truth, but it's only a half truth. The global warming/climate change cultists are getting their money from big-govenment sources that have at least as vested an interest in producing results that can be used to argue for increasing government authorities and funding as the oil companies have in the dissenting research. This is a common fact of life in academic research - funding sources are never perfect.
Ethical researchers will not compromise their results, and take what funding they can get as a result. They may go from one source to another frequently in order to keep working, and typically run on a shoe-string.
Unethical researchers find a good titty and make sure their results always line up with that prominences interests without needing to be told. Whatever their other problems, they tend to do very well at keeping the funds flowing and that counts for more than any of us really want to admit.
The people that are best at funding in climate research decided years ago that anyone who denied their faith in 'global warming' were not to be reasoned with but rather to be excommunicated, shunned. They have turned their departments into churches, and away from science. You cant even get a passing grade, let alone a degree, without mouthing the creed obediently. If you manage to get a degree before you start doubting them, you still wont get funding from anyone except the fossil energy companies, so it wouldnt be any surprise at all that they are funding virtually all of the real science that's going on in the field today.
And sad as it is (they are figuratively fossils themselves, and need to die) it's still better this way than if they were not doing this and NO ONE would fund climate science anymore, period.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
"I am afraid your people will soon no longer be wild and free."
-- Greg Bear, which is to say a character in one of his novels
Oh hello, most used climate myth #59 again! They really ought to rank that on higher.
Is that it is just one of shuffling around who produces what. Now this may well work, if all we need to do is maintain our level of emissions or decrease them. However if we are past a tipping point, where nothing short of a massive reduction (and perhaps not even that) in emissions will stop the warming then it does no good.
What I was talking about with proposals and so on was things outside of "emit less CO2" or "here are way to try and emit less CO2". The reason is this is assuming that we are indeed past a tipping point, as some climate researchers claim. In that case, the issue of emissions is not one to concentrate on, but rather on how to either prevent the change via other means, prepare ourselves to deal with the change, or some of both.
Isn't this kind of obvious?
I mean this is the whole reason why our advancement in any field is ridiculously slow.
We still drive cars with inefficient combustion engines burning away precious resources for what? Because it's easy to sell something that you use up instead of selling something once that lasts an lifetime.
We still drive cars, humans suck at driving cars and are the cause of traffic congestion costing tons of money, wasting millions of fuel and pumping poisonous gasses into our atmosphere. We have to breath that stuff, yet we don't care.
We still throw away the majority of our used resources. There are billions of dollars worth of gold, silver, lithium and other rare earth materials dumped in 3rd world countries all because it's easier to just make something new. Instead of investing in technologies to re-use those resources.
We still believe that if you work hard you do well and that everyone should work even if that means you're doing something you hate, is simply degrading and can easily be replaced by a machine that can do it faster, work 24/7 and produce a higher quality product. All that for the simple reason that 'society' considers this to be a better option then leaving people jobless.
Our society is stuck in limbo worshiping money and the people that have it at the cost of everyone's well-being and happiness all that while destroying our planet, our home for the sake of those beliefs.
Godwin's law is for situations where somebody calls somebody/something a NAZI or likens something to a NAZI something where it does not apply as a tactic to kill debate... a nasty form of name calling
In this particular instance, we are discussing a well-known progressive who has spent many years pushing the same sort of "early twentieth century progressive" policies that took-off in the west in the early 1900's and which infected a certain upstart political movement in post WWI Germany... policies that suppress, oppress, and even lead to deaths of individuals for the benefit of society. We learned where these policies actually lead (the 1930's and 1940's made this VERY clear) which is why the term "progressive" disappeared from the US political scene for DECADES. Cass Sunstein and friends believe in many of the exact same ideas and policies as the NAZIs did in Germany (not, probably the anti-Jewish stuff... but then again I've never heard him address that subject so it's an open question). He's a big supporter of national socialism, using as much government force as needed to manipulate the population, using government education to divorce children from the beliefs of their parents, convincing citizens to report on each other in to government, having government decide the value of the lives of citizens and then decide who lives and who dies, etc.
Sorry, but the invocation of Godwin's Law in any discussion of Cass Sunstein or that other pet-fascist of Obama, John Holdren, is itself an invalid act. There's nothing wrong about calling a kettle a kettle when it really is a kettle
When new technologies replace old ones it is generally because they are superior; they do the same thing better, or for less energy, or cheaper, or faster, etc. When this happens, the new replaces the old painlessly as free people freely choose the better product. You are simply being a smart consumer.
This is very confusing to people with a religious commitment to the inferior. To a leftist who worships the Earth and for whom "green energy" is a religious sacrament none of this makes sense. These people do not recognize the obvious thing your tale illustrates: most "green" stuff is inferior. Their solution is not to face the truth about their religion but rather to try to use pain to force you to comply with their religious convictions. You want to drive your reasonably affordable safe efficient car? They'll just artificially raise the price of gas and bump-up the regulations and taxes on your car..... it's for the greater good... they're SAVING THE PLANET!!! Oh, in their religious crusade, there will be a few regrettable casualties (like you and your family) you may end up with no money for retirement after paying for all their "green" stuff but don't worry... when you are over 70 they will decide you are not going to live much longer and they will withhold some health care options for the greater good... problem solved! Oh, and when "green" inefficiencies are too inconvenient for the leftist elite, like Al Gore, they just create completely artificial things "offsets" and "credits" and buy and sell these "things" in exactly the same way that rich people in old Europe bought "indulgences" from the Catholic church (get-out-of-hell-free cards that gave the rich a pass to sin in ways the poor masses could not) Actually, the new "offsets" are worse given that some of these greenies formed their own offset companies and are therefor "buying" their offsets from themselves before they shamelessly board their private yachts and jets
We will all know that "green" stuff is mature and efficient when free people freely choose it without lefties putting the giant boot of fascism on the scale
The temperature globally has changed every day. Hell, every minute. It's moved up and down and even on an annual scale, it's changed, with all the smoothing that summation and averaging creates.
E.g 2012 was 0.06C warmer than 2011.
So you're 100% wrong. It's not been flat for 200 months.
If you want to say that it's trend INCLUDES 0C, then fair enough, but that's one HELL of a cherry-pick, since the trend ALSO includes +2C per century, ABOVE the trend prediction of the IPCC and the models they used.
People who use the roads ARE paying for them!!!!!!
The gas taxes are for that very purpose and in many places, like California, are so high that the government makes more money from each gallon of gas sold than the oil companies do!!!!! The problem is that many states rob this money to pay kick-backs to the state unionized workers and their pension funds (who kick some back into the elections of those same politicians) and then they whine that they need higher taxes and new bonds to finance road maintenance... it's become quite a scam. Money is fungible. Every time the taxpayers approve a new tax with the promise it will be dedicated to something particular, the politicians just re-arrange the accounts and shift other funds to what they want. When voters add a new tax to fund schools, politicians shift current school funding to other accounts and back-fill the school accounts with the new revenue (and the public sees no improvement in the schools). When the voters approve new taxes for roads, the politicians just shift current roads funds to other accounts and back-fill the roads accounts from the new revenue (with no net improvement in the roads). California is the poster child for this. The Democrats control the state by more than 2-to-1 ratios and are completely unrestrained in their corruption; they pour BILLIONS into the state worker unions and the state worker unions are the top funders in all state elections... it's a circular flow of cash pumped by a continual infusion of tax money
Are caught red-handed in the act of blocking the publication of all opposing papers.
The current crop of so-called "climate scientists" have only themselves to blame for the fact that for many people they have less credibility than the Scientologists who are busily building alien spacecraft landing pads. Once you are caught completely manipulating BOTH the peer-review process AND the scientific paper publishing process (as they were) you have no credibility in denouncing your opponents for not having enough peer-reviewed and published papers. After you have spent years denouncing your opponents by claiming that the sources of their funding make their position and their studies invalid (as they have done with scientists who were in some part funded by people with fossil fuel interests), then you have no right to complain when they turn the tables and point out that your government funding makes your results (which neatly suggest that government grow and grab more power) exactly as suspect and invalid. As a general rule, when somebody manipulates an argument (as the proponents of AGW have been repeatedly caught doing) it's because they do not have the honest and true position... when the objective facts are on your side you do not need to manipulate the data or the debate.
Further, the "scientists" cited in those "97% agree" claims were mostly not actual scientists...U.N. staffers are NOT scientists no matter how many papers they manipulate and no matter how many scientific claims they make.
Hansen's 1988 paper predicted a climate sensitivity of 3.4C per doubling CO2e. It has since been seen to follow 3.2C per doubling.
That's DAMN CLOSE.
So, we've waited. We let the clock run. It agreed with the models.
So, now you will change, yes?
No, you won't. You'll wail about how it was absolutely wrong, but you'll be repeating a lie by Christy.
Read the actual stuff, not the cherry pick (pick the most extreme scenario and pretend it was the ONLY scenario, and pick a date that it was on spot-value most wrong, but trend-value was fine)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/02/2012-updates-to-model-observation-comparions/
Maybe if for Global Warming (what 'climate Change' was called before the people pushing the believers in the unproven theory figured out most people could see it was an ourright lie)
Andyway if Manmade Global Warming didnt have as its greatest proponent a scientific moron like Algore (remember "the debate is over" - one of the stupidest statements made in the last century) who had set up a speculation system where he would make hundreds of millions or even billions in profits (the carbon credit exchange...) if most of the actions the hoaxers demanded as 'fixes' were carried out....
Besides the backing of the 'happy bandwagon' of 'scientists' most of whom were NOT qualified to offer an authoritive opinion on the subject and numerous global weather scientists (real ones) disagreed with the MMGW theories (like that little discounting of Solar activity cycles which never quite made it into the contrived and falsified caculations) and the many studies never providing their data/analysis method/data collection methods (or when they were ignored standard scientific methods and pushed them forward as 'proof' anyway) and some even destroying their data when questioned (yeah thats what 'science is all about...)
Maybe the ordinary people arent as stupid as the elitist academics and their leftist agenda allowed for.
GIGO
The whole 'climate change' culture exists so that the lonely academics can be hip and cool with their huge NSF grants and invites to Al Gore's latest shindig. God help you if you use your education and position to do critical analysis. No party with Bono for you!
Depending on the data set you choose we have now gone 17 to 23 years with no statistically significant warming despite CO2 levels increasing 8-10% during that same time period.
Maybe people don't trust BROKEN models as much as the scientists lining up for funding do?
By the way the USA has gone DOWN in CO2 emissions because of the switch to natural gas it is all China and India who are increasing the human based contributions.
The term is "global warming". Only a concerted effort by deniers has managed to foist climate change into the vernacular over the last decade.
the fact that supposed critics and commentators now use the revisionists' preferred term, is probably an indication that the battle of ideas is already lost.
Everything else is just an excuse to pollute and make other people pay for your trash.
Adapt. Because the oceanic heat sinks are turning acidic and 500 year events are happening every 2-3 years NOW.
Nobody cares about your excuses.
Ford - yes, the private company I used to own shares in - quadrupled sales of electric vehicles this last quarter.
Adapt. Or die.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
This idea has been around for a very long time to the point that it is basically common sense.
People tend to be more attuned to the "here and now" than to some nebulous "future state".
There was a similar study not all that long ago, that offered people on the street 20$ right now, or like 100$ in a month. Almost all subjects took the 20$.
This is probably hardwired to our lizard brain regarding survival instincts. Grab what you can, while you can, etc...
It appears some people still haven't read the climate change memo. Global warming debunked: NASA report verifies carbon dioxide actually cools atmosphere
Practically everything you have been told by the mainstream scientific community and the media about the alleged detriments of greenhouse gases, and particularly carbon dioxide, appears to be false, according to new data compiled by NASA's Langley Research Center. As it turns out, all those atmospheric greenhouse gases that Al Gore and all the other global warming hoaxers have long claimed are overheating and destroying our planet are actually cooling it, based on the latest evidence.
As reported by Principia Scientific International (PSI), Martin Mlynczak and his colleagues over at NASA tracked infrared emissions from the earth's upper atmosphere during and following a recent solar storm that took place between March 8-10. What they found was that the vast majority of energy released from the sun during this immense coronal mass ejection (CME) was reflected back up into space rather than deposited into earth's lower atmosphere.
The result was an overall cooling effect that completely contradicts claims made by NASA's own climatology division that greenhouse gases are a cause of global warming. As illustrated by data collected using Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER), both carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), which are abundant in the earth's upper atmosphere, greenhouse gases reflect heating energy rather than absorb it.
"Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats," says James Russell from Hampton University, who was one of the lead investigators for the groundbreaking SABER study. "When the upper atmosphere (or 'thermosphere') heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space."
Almost all 'heating' radiation generated by sun is blocked from entering lower atmosphere by CO2
According to the data, up to 95 percent of solar radiation is literally bounced back into space by both CO2 and NO in the upper atmosphere. Without these necessary elements, in other words, the earth would be capable of absorbing potentially devastating amounts of solar energy that would truly melt the polar ice caps and destroy the planet.
"The shock revelation starkly contradicts the core proposition of the so-called greenhouse gas theory which claims that more CO2 means more warming for our planet," write H. Schreuder and J. O'Sullivan for PSI. "[T]his compelling new NASA data disproves that notion and is a huge embarrassment for NASA's chief climatologist, Dr. James Hansen and his team over at NASA's GISS."
Dr. Hansen, of course, is an outspoken global warming activist who helped spark man-made climate change hysteria in the U.S. back in 1988. Just after the release of the new SABER study, however, Dr. Hansen conveniently retired from his career as a climatologist at NASA, and reportedly now plans to spend his time "on science," and on "drawing attention to [its] implications for young people."
Sources for this article include: Be sure to read this one... http://principia-scientific.org/ http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/22mar_saber/
We're still burning all that coal in power plants because the omni-obstructionists have spent over 40 years blocking the alternative.
The alternatives are (1) coal, (2) nuclear, (3) get rid of most of the population of the planet and condemn the survivors to impoverished squalor. All else is arithmetic denialism.
It's basically useless. Anything less obvious than a charging tiger just doesn't register.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
"How Human Psychology Holds Back Climate Change Action"?
Simple. There are like $5 trillion of fossil fuels still underground. And human psychology cannot let that $5 trillion stay underground.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
A few decades should be enough time to provide the evidence it'll need.
The issue isn't the paucity of evidence. The issue is how people are able to ignore the overwhelming evidence available.
It'll also be enough time for your emotions to cool and you to get some perspective on this debate.
My emotions are ice cold. I'm an analytical type (I've been described as an android ... and that's my friends!). As far as perspective, mine is clear: In a field where I lack the expertise to form an opinion, I accept the best available science as it changes from day to day. BUT ... to re-iterate this discussion is not about climate science.
So when are these psychologists going to study your preference for a good story over science?
Since I don't, I guess never. A nice example of projection though.
When such research gimmicks are blatantly biased against one side of a crucial debate such as this, something is going on other than scientific research.
Sides? Debate? Something other going on? Now that's the "good story" version of science.
It's amusing, this tendency of yours to indulge in the very behaviours you criticise even as you are criticising them. I guess you honestly can't see it though.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
BUT ... to re-iterate this discussion is not about climate science.
Sure, it's about a political hack playing pop psychology on his opposition. That discussion is fundamentally a joke.
The issue isn't the paucity of evidence. The issue is how people are able to ignore the overwhelming evidence available.
It's a great illusion, isn't it? But there are several obvious problems with the claim. First, we don't know key properties of climate to the accuracy desired such as temperature sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of CO2. It's worth noting here that the typical figure used (which bounced around between 2C and 4C per doubling of CO2) has not actually been observed because it allegedly takes centuries for temperature changes to settled down.
What we can observe is transient sensitivity which is much lower (recent research claims around 1.3-1.8C right now). That's the observation of short term change of temperature to the small increase of CO2 over the past century or two.
Note the games played here. This is supposedly the most reliable part of the AGW theory, but we have both huge error bars and a result reported in a way that will take centuries to verify.
Second, let us consider what data is actually out there over the time frames we need. We have roughly 35 years of satellite data. That's the only way currently to directly measure a global mean temperature. That's our sole high quality data for the AGW theory. Then there's around a century and a half of weather station data. And then temperature proxy ("paleoclimate") data stretching out hundreds of thousands of years (with some shaky geological data going back hundreds of millions of years).
That's your "overwhelming data". It's not.
Third problem is the gatekeepers of this data. The key bottleneck is the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the 1990s and 2000s. While there are several holders of paleoclimate data, the more I read of this period the more I'm struck by how dominant the CRU was over this time.
They had access to station data for most nations of the world which no one else had (crucial data for bridging temperature proxy data to modern satellite data) and their interpretations of this data were taken by many researchers wholesale. They along with allied researchers decided what was the effect of phenomena like urban heat islands, the extent and characteristics of the notorious Medieval Warm Period, tree ring data, etc and their resulting aggregation of data was used to vet climate models.
And they were heavily biased in favor of the AGW theory, even to the point of breaking UK law in order to deny data to critics.
So this is why I will wait for supporting evidence rather than merely assume that the current "overwhelming evidence" is accurate and trustworthy.
gosgog:
Oh come on, climate is and has changed many places, both in the U.S. & the rest of the world. Its is to some extent a normal Natural part of our Universe.....but, In the last two centuries, plus our current one, we have gone from an Agricultural world to a combination AgricBUSINESS and Manufacturing world, adding a tremendous amount of pollution & carbon to the atmosphere, causing a much more rapid change than has really been envisioned. And because in many many cases, the environment has been ignored versus Profit. Today across
Asia, in terms of agriculture...pesticides and fertilizers are manufactured and used they drain off into both Fresh water & Oceanic systems, creating problems and wrecking coral & fish food. Power...electrical, transportation etc add to poor air quality, plastics cause all kinds of problems.
What strops environmental improvement for the most part?? FINANCIAL POWER which controls Politicians and political action.
The solution...staring us in the face, but going nowhere!
35 years of satellite data ...[is] our sole high quality data
If you discount the 150 year instrumental record, and all the various proxies, then sure the evidence isn't overwhelming. The question here is what the motivation (as opposed to the rationalisations) for ignoring evidence is.
Uncertainty is hardly an argument against risk management.
And the story you tell about CRU is laughable.
[T]hey were heavily biased in favor of the AGW theory, even to the point of breaking UK law in order to deny data to critics.
Oh please!
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke