Get Energy Smart! NOW!

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.
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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…

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This is a guest post from Kate Horner, international climate and energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, taking a look at the oft-used line “China pollutes more than the U.S.” and “if we act, it will give China an advantage” and … Well, go ahead and read it …

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 fair number 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.

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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.

Maybe we should have a poll.

Having watched this awhile ago, listening to Tracy Chapman earlier today reminded me of this …

Take the time to watch with me.

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Here we have a guest post from BruceMcF who blogs at Burning the Midnight Oil.  BruceMcF has done tremendous work re rail issues and how to move the United States toward a better transportation system.  Here, he lays out what might be called a smear campaign against sensible rail policy.

I speculated on what was behind the recent surge in op-ed articles using slipshod reasoning to attack the policy of the Obama administration to support investment in High Speed Rail travel options for the American Public. And, I stress, it was speculative:

… Simply paint a specific Sustainable Energy Independence project as receiving “uncritical support”, declare yourself a skeptic, and you are free to spout the a Libertarian anti-HSR talking point without dwelling on such messy things as facts and figures.

In searching for “Libertarian talking point” examples, I came across this collection at the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, in their High Speed Rail: Fact versus Fiction, where they collect a series of talking points from the three main anti-public-transport think tanks – Cato, Heritage, and the Reason Foundation (just google if you need the links).

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A guest post from mwmwm … Want to talk about “clean coal“?

Virtually with each passing day, the scientific understanding of the depths of our climate change challenge deepens. Just this week, the head of the IPCC, stated (in a private capacity) that the IPCC almost certainly understated the case and has joined an increasing number of scientists calling for a target of 350 ppm of CO2 or ten percent below where the atmosphere is at this time. We must determine our path forward not to simply reducing our emissions, but a climate-friendly future prosperity requires a path that will actually lower atmospheric (and ocean) CO2 levels.

With this in mind, over 300 religious, environmental, human rights, and social organizations have joined in a call to Senator Barbara  Boxer to redouble her efforts to not just pass a climate bill, but to seek a meaningful bill that will actually meet core criteria for meaningful legislation.

What are the core tenets being put forward by this coalition:

• Reduces atmospheric CO2 concentrations to a safe level of below 350 parts per
  million;
• Maintains existing Clean Air Act protections against global warming pollution;
• Minimizes the use of offsets and other loopholes;
• Protects vulnerable populations and communities;
• Promotes abundant clean energy;
• Eliminates polluter giveaways; and
• Adheres to preexisting U.S. commitments to the rest of the world.

“We haven’t yet seen the bold leadership from Congress that’s required to solve the
climate crisis,” said Church World Service Director of Education and Advocacy
Rajyashri Waghray. “We’re sending this letter to demonstrate broad grassroots
support for such leadership.”

“The everyday people of America have been left out of the climate debate. We are
building a grassroots movement that reflects the diversity of America, to mobilize
everyday people who are experiencing the affects of climate change. We aim to
defeat entrenched fossil fuel polluting special interests in Washington and pass a
truly strong climate bill,” said Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental
Network.
“There’s an impressive breadth of groups on this letter, and it demonstrates that the
status quo isn’t acceptable. Congress must pass a bill that actually gives us a fighting
chance of avoiding runaway global warming. There’s no other

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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 the local, regional, national tragedy that is mountain-top removal.

This is a guest post from Prof. Don Mikulecky highlighting Richard Heinberg’s alerting us to the seriousness of our situation.

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