Posts Tagged by Scripps
Global Climate Change and Apathy – Crisis Fatigue?
| May 13, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
When I was back East earlier in the week, I had the opportunity to speak with Bill Paul on a great number of interesting topics related to our renewable energy field. I happened to mention that the public attitude that surrounds global climate change is a moving target, and I speculated that I knew the essential cause: people tend to react more violently to immediate, close-to-home crises (e.g., their personal financial scene) than they do to those that are more distant — either in space (foreign wars) or in time (global climate change). “Yes,” Bill agreed, “No one has the bandwidth to watch a slow-motion train wreck.” What a good metaphor that is.
I’m reminded of my interview with the man generally credited with the discover of global warming in the early 1970s, Dr. V. Ramanathan, now teaching and conducting ongoing atmospheric research at the Scripps Institution. I asked if he agreed that fewer people believed in his theory now than two or three years ago. “Oh yes,” he replied. “People have a limited amount of space in their heads for crises; they can only hold so many terrifying ideas in place at one time.”
A related idea that I support is one I call “crisis fatigue.” I liken it to the phenomenon in which the nerve cells in our nostrils that process smell soon “tire” of a certain odor stimulus and fail to respond to it completely after a minute or two. It seems that the public — at least in the US — has become numb to the enormity of the threat posed by global climate change.
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Global Warming "Debate"
| December 1, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Science |
I thought I’d write a quick post on the “debate” over global warming. Perhaps the first thing to note here is that there really are very few informed people actually debating. Of scientists covering the issue who publish peer-reviewed papers, there are very few who question the concept that human activity is raising the concentration of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses, which have caused — and will continue to cause — a rise in the temperature at the earth’s surface. I’ve met many of these people personally, e.g., Dr. Ramanathan at Scripps, and they’re enormously convincing.
Out of fairness, here’s a rare dissenter.
I point out three things:
1) As discussed here, the oil companies have spent a fortune creating doubt in the public’s mind about the validity of concern for global warming. With a brazen lack of regard for the truth and a callous indifference to your health and safety that rivals that of the tobacco companies, they’ve funded sham “research” companies whose sole purpose is to build a cloud of uncertainly regarding global warming. There’s no debate about that.
Now is it possible that, again out of fairness, those who stand to profit from global warming mitigation are campaigning in the opposite direction? I suppose so.
2) But even if the global warming hypothesis turns out to be incorrect, no one is saying that it isn’t likely. Is it sane to risk inaction that could result in complete ecological, social, and economic catastrophe?
Here is a video that I think everyone on this planet should watch, that offers cogent reasoning that mankind should take action to deal with the possibility that most climatologists are correct in their theories.
3) Again, even if the global warming hypothesis turns out to be incorrect, even fewer scientists doubt that increased CO2 levels are lowering the pH of the oceans, causing long-term damage to the fragile ecosystems therein.
I would think that this would make it intensely difficult to argue against controlling carbon emissions. But hey, I’ve seen incredible behavior from people where money is concerned before. Why should I think it will suddenly cease now?
