Happy Belated Earth Day
As we oldsters celebrated Earth Day yesterday, our minds went back to 1970, at the height of the U.S. protest movement, and rising dissatisfaction with the environmental abuses of the modern world. It was in this context that senator and Wisconsin governor Gaylord Nelson conceived the idea of Earth Day, explaining, “Our goal is not just an environment of clean air and water and scenic beauty. The objective is an environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all other human beings and all other living creatures….(the environment) involves the whole broad spectrum of man’s relationship to all other living creatures, including other human beings.”
The goal here, of course, was to create such a groundswell of eco-responsibility that the entire industrial and consumer-driven world would make wholesale changes in the way it functions, and begin to operate in balance and harmony with the natural world. But here we are, half a century later, looking around us and trying to assess both where we are and where we must go. What level of progress we are actually making? How well is this civilization dealing with the threat of catastrophic climate change, ocean acidification, loss of biodiversity, and the rise of disease associated with environmental pollution?
To answer that question, I present here are the results of an imaginary poll, i.e., what I personally would expect from a survey of a random sample of Americans:
Don’t know: 20%
Don’t care; don’t think these are important issues: 15%
Well; good progress is being made; I’m optimistic about the outcome: 15%
Poorly; we’re doomed; I’m pessimistic; A business-as-usual approach is in the process of causing catastrophe, but I feel powerless to do anything about it: 50%
Again, just a guess.
Of course, this breaks down according to the usual demographics. For example, educated people are less likely to say they “don’t know.” People who spend a good deal of time reading about the subject as are (by definition) less likely to say they “don’t care.”
A reminder to both optimists and pessimists, i.e., people who think they know how this is going to turn out: Maybe it’s too soon to know. Maybe it’s a function of important though unforeseeable events in the near future that galvanize the entirety of civilization and make the so-called “business-as-usual” approach untenable. Perhaps it will depend on how many people get on board and join the environmental movement. The crystal ball I keep in my bedroom closet as my go-to resource in such circumstances seems to be out of order.
Craig,
Oh dear, just when you guys were congratulating each other on “solidarity’ some pesky, (troll to you, brave whistle blower to others) leaked olds email from an IPCC Climate scientist to former IPCC Head RK Pachauri.
The importance of these emails, (the validity of which the UN and IPCC refuse to confirm or deny), may hold great significance.
The emails, which were sent to EU Parliamentarians and German media, relate to a 2014 exchange.
According to the emails, (if valid) the Scientist in question (who also refuses to answer except through his lawyer who issued a written statement saying he has advised his client not to answer as the matter was settled with the IPCC and is subject to a ‘no disclosure clause’).
The emails suggest the scientist sending the email was promptly silenced by the IPCC, and threatened with dire consequences unless he assumed a more orthodox position.
What is surprising, is the gist of the original email. At first glance seems pretty innocuous, and the IPCC response rather excessive. (I suppose you can judge for yourself from the following extract).
The Scientist in question sumed up his research as the following;
Temperatures are rising, but as the Little Ice Age ended around 1850, it is not easy to separate natural from anthropogenic causes.
There is little trend in the number of “hot” days for the period 1895-2013; 11 of the 12 hottest years occurred before 1960.
The global mean sea level has been increasing for thousands of years; it may or may not be accelerating.
The Northern and Southern Hemispheres’ sea ice changes tell very different stories.
U.S. tornado activity shows either no trend or a downward trend since 1954.
Tropical storms, hurricanes and accumulated cyclone energy show little trend since satellite measurements began in the early 1970s.
The number of U.S. wildfires shows no trend since 1985.
The Palmer Drought Severity Index shows no trend since 1895.
U.S. flooding over the last century is uncorrelated with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations.
The available data do not support the ubiquitous assertions about the dire impacts of declining pH levels in the oceans.
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The timing of the leaking of these email is important because the EU Parliament is currently considering the issue of who can make representations or talk to to EU Parliamentarians about Climate Change.
The debate was initiated by a group of Eco-feminist EU politicians from the green alliance, and campaigning to make “speaking to oil companies or ‘deniers’ “, an offense for EU politicians !
In true Orwellian spirit, EUMP Franziska Keller described the move to censor her fellow parliamentarians, as a “Liberation of the Truth”.
(And they wonder why the UK voted to skedaddle out of this madhouse!).