Climate and energy

CEP has been informed that Kansas legislators – all? some? don’t know, hopefully a reporter or two will pick up on this and then ask around – received a very interesting book in their box yesterday – Fred Singer, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years.

Singer is well known as a climate change skeptic. He and a small handful of others are making a pretty good living writing books that contradict the established science that states climate change is influenced by human actions, such as the burning of fossil fuels that release excess carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus contributing to global warming and climate change.

(Side note: I think that might be the same Fred Singer who years ago said that second hand cigarette smoke did not cause cancer, while he was supposedly being paid by Philip Morris, but I can’t confirm it.)

This incident brings up a great question. How do you talk to people about the science of climate change? How do you help them distinguish between science and pseudo-science, between all the competing claims and facts that are being slung around like weapons right now?

Smarter brains than mine have answered this. My very favorite resource comes from the New Scientist – Climate Change: A Guide for the Perplexed. Also one from Grist – How to Talk to a Climate Change Skeptic.

However, I don’t think the KS legislature is being asked – or should be asked – to sort through the evidence of a complicated scientific discussion. No policymakers, at any level, are being asked to debate the science. They’re not scientists. That’s not their job.

What they are being asked to do, though, is to make smart decisions about the risks of climate change, the risks that scientists have discovered. This is the legislators’ job. Frankly, on this topic I come down hard on the side of the military leaders who put together the CNA Corporation report on climate change and national security. (I also posted the video a few days ago.) These guys understand how to manage risk. A few quotes I especially liked:

“As military leaders, we know we cannot wait for certainty. Failure to act because a warning isn’t precise enough is unacceptable.”

“We will pay for this one way or another. We will have to pay for greenhouse gas emissions today, and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives.” – General Anthony C. Zinni, USMC (Ret.)

“We never have 100% certainty. We never have it. If you wait until something is 100% certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.” – General Gordon R. Sullivan, USA (Ret.), Former Chief of Staff, U.S. Army

Risks matter. Regardless of whether you understand or accept all of the science regarding how human activities play a role in climate change, there is just too much at stake to gamble. It’s not worth the risk to our national security, it’s not worth the risk to our economic prosperity – do we tweak and adjust a few things now, or do we really go through heck later? Worse, do our children go through it because we couldn’t face it ourselves?

All that said. I have a horrible confession to make. I have a soft spot in my heart for climate change skeptics. I realize that many of them are just in it for the money, and I realize that lots of their work is also horrendously misused and misinterpreted by business special interests who have zero interest in the scientific discussion at all, and just want to keep making money the same way they always have.

Still. I have always liked contrarians. Not that all skeptics are contrarians, not by a long shot – but when I say contrarians, I mean the people who want to remind us that groupthink on any issue is dangerous. You can’t be reminded of that enough. While we now understand that the risks of climate change are extremely high and that human actions certainly play a role in how it works – this understanding will continue to evolve over decades, hopefully even centuries.

Knowledge grows and changes, just like humans do (ideally). What I appreciate about contrarians is that they remind us to keep an open mind.

You can do this and still be smart about how you manage risk. That’s practical, that’s pragmatic, and I hope to heaven that that is darn near the heart of what it means to be a Kansan.

— Maril Hazlett

Want to learn more about climate and energy issues in the Midwest? Check out www.climateandenergy.org.