The question now is not if climate change will happen, but how much of a change do we want to allow and how quickly will those changes come? “Our destiny is really in our hands,” Karl explained. “The size of those impacts is significantly smaller with appropriate controls.”
September 2nd, 2009 · Comments Off on France to impose a carbon tax … and a debate explodes
The news in France: a 14 Euro (about $19.90 at current exchange rates) tax per ton of carbon to go into effect in 2010. While discussion of a carbon tax has been an item of debate within French society, Prime Minister Fillon’s announcement of the actual amount and the parameters of the coming have created what might be an explosive discussion.
In short, the parameters:
Tax on carbon sources, including oil (gasoline, diesel), natural gas, and coal.
Electricity is not included (considering that France is almost entirely ‘carbon light’ (nuclear 80+%, hydro, and some (growing) wind/solar), this is not surprising)
This is a revenue-neutral program, with reductions in other taxes to balance this revenue source.
Many details yet to be worked out/announced, such as how to deal with helping those less fortunate deal with the additional costs.
This is the first step of a tax that will be gradually increased and spread throughout the economy to help achieve French goals for a 75+% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050.
On first glance, writ large, this looks to be a positive move, the type of revenue source rebalancing that should be pursued around the globe to help drive moves toward a low-carbon future.
Even so, while “positive”, this is causing debate with criticism coming from all directions.
A repost, with some minor changes, from something published a few years ago as I sip my way toward Labor Day …
Global Warming … some people, when praising the positive impact of Global Warming or by arguing that the warming is not out of line with history, will begin speaking about English wine production in the 12th Century. Others speak, with great concern, about how their favorite vintage is threatened. And, well, even though I love a great bottle of wine, it is has been hard to take this discussion seriously. Considering all the threats the globe faces, all the terrifying potential implications from Global Warming/the Climate Crisis, should we really care all that much about what goes into wine cellars? Maybe, however, there are other ways to look at the wine industry and Global Warming. Perhaps it isn’t just about swirling glasses in the Lives of the Rich and Famous, with chatting about ‘nose’ and ‘legs’ and …
Can the wine industry tell us something more about Global Warming?
We live in a “time of consequences.” We, as individuals and collectively, are setting the path which will determine the living conditions for millenia to come. This time of consequences is both long term and quite immediate.
This is true for the individual. Do you invest in an energy efficient future life? Will you unplug the computer before going to sleep?
And, it is true for society. What is the transportation infrastructure we want 30 years from now? And, what is the legislation that will emerge in coming weeks and months related to energy, farming, and Global Warming?
We live in a Time of Consequences. And, we can chose to live through this time, buffeted by the consequences, or we can seek to act to drive change in a positive direction.
September 1st, 2009 · Comments Off on The Most Deadly and Destructive Change
A Fish Out of Water struggles to survive, finding a path toward a safer environment. FishOutofWater is a thoughtful, engaged scientist, passionately struggling to help us find our way toward a prosperous, climate-friendly future. Here is a guest post focusing on what is happening with glaciers.
In climate change, drought, reduced water supplies and famine will affect billions of people. The global catastrophe is beginning on the high plateaus of the Andes, Tibet, and western north America. Disappearing alpine glaciers are threatening global water supplies. The “Water People” of the high antiplano of Bolivia are at ground zero of the drying. Rivers have slowed to a trickle and pastures have turned to dust bowls. Bolivia’s glaciers, the source of their rivers have melted to remnants.
August 31st, 2009 · Comments Off on “I’m a Petro-holic …”
This is a a repost of a speech that I wrote for a good friend and publish with permission, with just a few words removed or changed … Sadly, many of us could give speeches like this in terms of challenges. And, hopefully, many of us can speak to affecting change as well.
Hello.
My name is X and I am a Petro-Holic, a Carbo-Holic. My last fillup was 9 gallons three days ago. My last plane flight was 24 hours ago for 2500 miles. And, my last light switch turning on was 2 hours ago. My name is X and I am a Petro-Holic. [Read more →]
Here is a guest post from the passionate citisven about the potential for urban farming
A good friend of mine who is a backyard beekeeper in Oakland invited me to meet his fellow urban farmer Novella Carpenter for a reading of her new book, Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer. Novella has taken the art of urban farming to a whole new level by not only growing veggies galore but raising chickens, turkeys, rabbits, and a couple of hogs, squatting on a vacant lot in downtown Oakland. She is one of those people who has “Yes We Can” programmed into her DNA, and in true American pioneering spirit she is setting a great example of how we can ween ourselves off the corporate controlled food chain. Aside from being a radical yet down to earth farmer with a wonderful sense of humor, she is also a ridiculously talented writer, so I thought I’d whet everyone’s appetite with this review…
International negotiators are in Germany this week, desperate to achieve progress toward the strong global climate change agreement that’s supposed to be finalized in Copenhagen in December. But instead of leading the world in forging such an agreement, the United States is standing in the way.
A big reason for this — the reason President Obama won’t direct his negotiators to do what’s needed — is the domestic political opposition that a strong treaty faces. And a key argument being used by many Republicans and a fairnumber of Democrats to oppose such a treaty (and strong clean energy legislation at home) is that the U.S. shouldn’t commit to serious emissions reductions unless China and other developed countries do so too. This is a lazy, xenophobic argument, and it needs to be knocked down.
Polling seems a national mania, able to get on the front-page of the newspaper, top of the news report, top of the pile for agenda-setting for (at least some) politicians. Doing polling right is a serious and difficult challenge. All too often, for any number of reasons from shoddiness to intentional deceit, polling is done poorly (or wrong) and reporting of the polling leads to confusion, rather than enlightenment, on the public engagement in and knowledge of issues. The extremely insightful Devilstower purposefully created a poor polling question and, in this guest post, uses this to examine weaknesses in polling science and reporting on those polls.
Only 4 in 10 Americans believe in continental drift. How can we know that? We asked.
QUESTION: Do you believe that America and Africa were once part of the same continent?
YES
NO
NOT SURE
ALL
42%
26%
32%
DEM
51%
16%
33%
REP
24%
47%
29%
IND
44%
23%
33%
OTH/REF
42%
25%
33%
NON VOTERS
46%
22%
32%
Results by region
YES
NO
NOT SURE
NORTHEAST
50%
18%
32%
SOUTH
32%
37%
31%
MIDWEST
46%
22%
32%
WEST
43%
24%
33%
The collection of all the continents into a unified land mass around 250 million years ago (along with several other instances of such mergers at more distant times) is supported by fossil evidence, by evidence of magnetic fields recorded in the rocks, and by swaths of rocks exchanged between the modern continents along their ancient borders. Plate tectonics and the resulting movement that drove the continents apart is supported by even more direct evidence — we can see it happening. Sensitive instruments are quite capable of measuring the ongoing movement of the continents around the globe. We can see that the African Plate is currently heading northeast at around 2 centimeters per year. The North American Plate is moving southwest at around 1 cm/year (the Pacific Plate is trucking along at 8cm/yr in another direction, which explains much about why the west coast is such a geological fun zone). In around 300 million years, the continents will hold a reunion, once again forming a single mass before the moving plates carry them away on separate paths.
So why would only 42% of Americans say that they believe in this extensively-documented, measurable, well-established theory? Should we worry that America is hopelessly backward and mired in some kind of anti-science dark age?
No. For one very good reason: both the question itself, and the presentation of the results are deeply flawed. Intentionally idiotic.
The questions was written to press emotional hot buttons. It’s not “were all the continents once merged into Pangea?” or “Was the North American continent once closer to Europe?” or simply “do you believe in continental drift?” It’s were “America and Africa were once part of the same continent.” If you think that doesn’t matter, I invite you to look at the regional breakdown of results — that particular association of words “America” and “Africa,” probably accounts for the 10% greater “No” vote in the same region where “Birtherism” is at its height.
The question is also framed in terms of individual “belief” in a scientific theory. This gives the impression that data are of greater worth when they’re more popular. It’s the kind of wording that not only garners bad responses, it encourages bad interpretation of the results. If 90% of Americans believe in the photoelectric effect, but only 20% believe in quantum theory, what effect does that have on electronic performance? Absolutely none. Asking the question as a belief question encourages a complete misinterpretation of what science is about. What you get when a question is asked this way confuses “is this true” with “do you like it.” In short, a belief question is totally worthless in measuring American’s knowledge on the subject or the value of the theory. It’s a measure of a theory’s popularity. And science is not a popularity contest. Worse, this kind of question intractably mingles favorability and knowledge — it’s not even a good test of popularity.
Finally, the presentation of the results is particularly egregious. “Only 4 in 10 Americans…” may reflect the 42% who voted “yes” in the poll, but it completely ignores the fact that this is the most popular answer in the survey, and by a broad margin. It would be a much better description of the results to say that “far more Americans believe that Africa and America were merged in the past” than it is to misuse the raw numbers in a form that makes Americans look, well, ignorant. The results show that only a quarter of Americans don’t believe this well-supported theory, while a third of the population admits that they don’t understand well enough to have an opinion — a result that should shock no one. It is, in fact, the kind of number you should expect when asking about any scientific theory.
The poll above does reveal that Republicans are much more likely to not believe in the results predicted by continental drift. Which is interesting. But even that result is of little value when it’s attached to a question so deeply flawed.
So why do this? Why puposely ask a poorly framed question about science? Why purposely present the results in a way that makes Americans appear ignorant and ill-informed? Because that’s exactly what the Gallup organization, and the media that reports on their results, have been doing.
Here’s a poll that Gallup ran this year on the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin.
On Darwin’s Birthday, Only 4 in 10 Believe in Evolution
Belief drops to 24% among frequent church attenders
That headline ran not only on Gallup’s site, but was repeated almost word for word by every news organization reporting on the poll. What did Gallup ask?
Do you, personally, believe in the theory of evolution, do you not believe in the theory of evolution, or don’t you have an opinion either way?
Gallup — quite intentionally — framed a scientific theory in the form of a personal belief, distorting any possible result. What kind of results did Gallup get by encouraging people to declare their fondness or opposition to a theory?
On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, a new Gallup Poll shows that only 39% of Americans say they “believe in the theory of evolution,” while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don’t have an opinion either way.
In other words, just as with the “continents” question we phrased this week, belief in evolution was actually the most common response once again followed by those who said they didn’t know. In fact, the relationship is best expressed again as far more Americans believe in evolution than don’t. Even that statement is of extremely dubious value, but at least it’s somewhat accurate in representing the results.
So why does Gallup (among others) insist on asking questions in a way they know will negate the value of any results, then present those results in a sensationalized way that presents Americans as ignorant and anti-science? Why present these results on evolution as something extraordinary, when asking about any scientific theory can (as we demonstrated) generate similar numbers? Because it gets headlines. Because it keeps them in the news between elections.
Or maybe I’m giving them too much credit. Maybe the Gallup organization itself is too ignorant to see the numerous flaws in what they’re asking and how they’re presenting it. It’s hard to be sure.
out of line with history, will begin speaking about English wine production in the 12th Century. Others speak, with great concern, about how their favorite vintage is threatened. And, well, even though I love a great bottle of wine, it is has been hard to take this discussion seriously. Considering all the threats the globe faces, all the terrifying potential implications from Global Warming/the Climate Crisis, should we really care all that much about what goes into wine cellars?
Maybe, however, there are other ways to look at the wine industry and Global Warming. Perhaps it isn’t just about swirling glasses in the Lives of the Rich and Famous, with chatting about ‘nose’ and ‘legs’ and …
consequences is both long term and quite immediate.