When Did So Many of Us Become So ... Um, Dumb?

Duh!

Still reeling from the dimwitted (not to mention progenycidal) approval of yet another fossil fuel production facility in my Canadian province -- at a time when we need to be shutting down fossil fuel production and heading rapidly to zero-carbon energy -- I stumbled upon a recent article that really demonstrates how governments can get away with this. It's because we're, um, well, dumb.

The article in question was published on a prominent business website, usually known for its sane coverage of the climate crisis (though, to be fair, they made a point of putting "This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board of So-and-So Company and its owners" at the end of the article).

What disturbed me most and made me question our intelligence in this North American culture of ours is that the author compares climate scientists to economists and climate change science to macroeconomics. Her dimwitted thesis is that because economists couldn't seem to model and predict what was going to happen with the economy (I can, by the way: without a revolution, the economy is going to keep making the rich richer), climate scientists can't predict what's going to happen with the climate.

C'mon. Really? You're comparing the dismal pseudo-science of economics with the laws of physics studied by climate scientists? Really? That's idiotic.
 
Then this author insults those of us who understand the climate change emergency by implying that "lukewarmists" are more rational than we so-called "alarmists" are (obviously forgetting that it's not alarmist to sound the alarm when something is alarming). "[Lukewarmists] say that warming is likely to be mild unless you use a model which assumes large positive feedback effects. Because climate scientists, like the macroeconomists, can't run experiments where they test one variable at a time, predictions of feedback effects involve a lot of theory and guesswork."

How can an educated-enough-to-write-for-a-fancy-business-website columnist write that and not laugh at the ludicrousness of it?

Why is this a ludicrous argument? Well, first, because the sentence structure implies that a computer model is the only thing keeping "mild" global warming from becoming hotter global warming.

It's also ludicrous because things are getting pretty scary all over the world already. For example, although fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions don't appear to have increased since 2014, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are increasing at a frighteningly accelerating rate.

And finally, it's ludicrous because we already have evidence that climate change models have been underestimating the impacts of global warming, not the other way around.

Besides, all the nations that attended the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and signed on to Agenda 21 agreed to the precautionary principle, which means we shouldn't fall prey to this asinine pretension called lukewarmism -- especially when we're already locked in to dangerously high global warming, with catastrophically dangerous heating just over the horizon.

So are we simply dumb -- too dumb to think critically about the climate crisis and about articles like the one I read? Perhaps all the toxics in our air, land and water have damaged many of us neurologically and intellectually to the point where we're no longer capable of critical thought. 

But I suspect the "powers that be" are happy to have dulled us and numbed us and dumbed us down so we'll be like those frogs in the proverbial pot of water, never complaining about the intensifying heat -- allowing them and their toadies (including that writer) to continue battering life on Earth with their evil, moronic greed.

Meeting a Witness to the Evil

EVIL

noun: profound immorality, wickedness and depravity

adjective: profoundly immoral and malevolent; harmful or tending to harm



Yesterday we had lunch with one of my husband's climate change heroes, a physicist. They've been corresponding online for many years and Peter holds this gentleman in very high esteem. So it was a great honour for us that he took time away from a conference he's attending nearby to spend some time with us. 

I'm not sure what I was expecting (green scales and horns, perhaps, recalling our last encounter with a physicist). I'm a humanities major, and science has always felt quite foreign to me. I'm happy to say that it turned out to be a wonderful experience! A meeting of like minds and hearts. The conversation was the kind you have with a good friend you haven't seen in years. It flowed well, with lots of laughter and agreement.

But there were some very serious discussions, too. When it comes to the world of climate change science, this fellow has witnessed what I would call "evil" at several different levels. 

For starters (and I must admit, I don't know what order to list these evils in), this man has been vilely slandered and threatened not only by people who are scientifically ignorant, but also by people who, it turns out, are raking in the money from their fossil fuel involvements and investments. Are not conflicts of interest like this, when implicated in keeping the public and their governments from acting on the climate change emergency, villainous?

Next, this climate change scientist has built his whole scientific career on observation, but observing is now considered out of vogue in this age of computer modelling. When the lives of billions of people are at stake, is it not reprehensible and unforgivable to ignore reality if it doesn't fit with your computer modelled view of the world?
And finally, he has been part of the IPCC and has witnessed the contempt of some of his colleagues in that process. It's worse than what I blogged about a few weeks ago (The IPCC: "All About Modelling, Not About Protecting the Earth"). It appears that in some cases, even though the Fifth Assessment Report accepted new research up to 2012, if that research disagreed with a particular bias, it didn't get included.
Now, I understand human nature and world views and biases (after all, scientists are only human), but that's where peer review comes in. Except that in some cases, that review was rejected. Sounds like ego to me. And when the future viability of our biosphere is at stake, is not allowing ego to interfere with good science, well, evil?
It was a lovely lunch with a wonderful gent, but I came away saddened that our suspicions, notions and observations of evil had been validated by someone within the fray of international climate change science.
It's time to redouble our efforts on the side of good!
UPDATE: I just heard about the possible death toll from Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. My heart goes out to my friends there and to everyone impacted by this super storm. What a terrifying experience it must have been for them. 

The Power of Belief and Mythology - A Guest Post by Dr. Peter Carter

It is hardly surprising that the honourable few of us in the world who are telling the truth about climate change are seemingly not able to save the world. However, recent publications about the "opposition" have led me to realize that there is one factor we lack.

The other side is coming from, and presenting, a belief, a world view … all mythology. We on the side of the good reject any idea that the global climate change planetary emergency has anything to do with belief. What I have learned about belief systems actually tells me that we are wrong in this.

Joseph Campbell's brilliant realization was that people and cultures operate from belief, not from their intelligence or logic. In fact, people use their intelligence to rationalize their belief.

We have to do this. We have to identify the established belief system – one with a history – that we can then use as the platform for our activism. When we do this, we few will have the people power of thousands to millions of global citizens in terms of the human psychology behind us.

Some elements of the mythology are fairly obvious. But the essential one is many thousands of years old and very simple. It is the mythology of "Star Wars" that was borrowed from Joseph Campbell. This is the mythology of Good and Evil. The belief is that there is a constant war between the forces of good and the forces of evil. Clearly the other side in the global climate change struggle is the greatest evil that has ever existed and that could ever be imagined. Yet no one on our side is saying this!

This makes those who are on the side of good and who oppose this evil the greatest force of the good that has ever existed.

May a greater force be with us.

Thank you, Peter!

Dr. Carter's writings can be found at Climate Change Emergency Medical Response, Climate Emergency Institute, and Climate Change Food Security. His educational videos on climate change can be found on Youtube.