High Broderism reaches the global warming debate

The supposed 'middle way' is debunked

Posted by David Roberts at 1:18 PM on 02 Jan 2007

Andy Revkin produced a truly bizarre piece over the weekend: "Middle Stance Emerging in Debate Over Climate." Frankly, I'm surprised it got past the NYT's news editors.

It strikes me as a good illustration of the limits of traditional journalism, since what Revkin's up to is not a description of a state of affairs -- i.e., reporting news -- but an attempt to frame a debate. Does that belong in the op-ed section? I'm not sure. It seems more like something that belongs on a blog. But it's clearly not news, though I'm sure thousands of readers will take it that way. (Note the paucity of actual data points.)

Revkin clearly wants to be seen as a reasonable voice -- not one of those kooky hippie extremists shunned by the Beltway Wise Folk. This has made him a rather gullible target for Roger Pielke Jr., for whom this "middle stance" has become a calling card and a ticket to media exposure. The entire piece reads like a Pielke press release -- it's a retread of his silly "nonskeptical heretics" shtick, about which I wrote here.

I find it wrong in every empirical detail and utterly wrong-headed in spirit.

Pielke wants us to believe three things:

There is a "climate debate," dominated by extremists. On one side are those who say global warming isn't happening, or isn't a big deal. On the other side are those who say global warming will be a catastrophe and we should mobilize immediately to take action.
Between these two extremes is a reasonable, balanced middle position, which is: We're not certain exactly what the effects of climate change will be, but the potential risks are large, so it's worth hedging our bets by acting to reduce emissions as an "insurance policy."
The extremists on either side are invested in having a vicious two-sided fight and will thus try to exclude this reasonable middle stance.

This way of framing things has great appeal to those for whom being reasonable -- or more properly, being seen as reasonable -- is central to their self-image. The problem is, all those things are wrong.

On #1: There is no such two-sided debate. There is a group of people who spent a long time denying that climate change is happening. When that became untenable, they denied that warming is anthropogenic. That's now becoming untenable, so they're moving on to claiming warming will be mild, or we can't do anything about it, or the best way to prepare is to avoid regulation.

These people are not involved in a "debate" by any normal understanding of that word. They are not advancing good-faith positions in an attempt to discover the truth. They are shills, advancing the interests of a set of industries and the politicians those industries fund. Their empirical arguments, to the extent they have any, have been utterly discredited. They are rarely taken seriously by anybody but right-wing bloggers and James Inhofe. Oh, and Pielke, who needs them to construct his centrist cosmology.

On the "other side" from the denialists is not the monolithic catastrophist camp of Pielke's imagination, but a many-hued, multi-polar debate about how best to address climate change, how fast to act, how to communicate to the public about it, how much risk to tolerate, etc. Pielke sees himself as complicating and opening up the debate, but in fact he's doing the opposite, reducing the varied questions and positions to a flat two-poles-and-a-middle dichotomy. Again, that may suit his purposes, but it's not accurate.

On #2: what is the substantive difference between this position and the position global warming advocates have been advancing all along? Do these Wise Folk think global warming is not a big deal? No:

They agree that accumulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases probably pose a momentous environmental challenge ...

Do they they think we shouldn't be preparing? No:

Many in this camp seek a policy of reducing vulnerability to all climate extremes while building public support for a sustained shift to nonpolluting energy sources.

Sounds familiar. Perhaps the difference is that the Wise Folk think we should take small, incremental steps rather than making big policy changes? No:

Many in this group also see a need to portray clearly that the response would require far more than switching to fluorescent light bulbs and to hybrid cars.

One of the iconic Wise Folk, Mike Hulme of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, is described thusly:

His goal, Dr. Hulme said, is to raise public appreciation of the unprecedented scale and nature of the challenge.

Gosh, that sounds familiar too.

So where's the beef? What's the difference?

Reading the story makes clear that the difference is one of tone and emphasis. This is about rhetorical style and temperament, not substance. The Wise Folk want to frame action as risk reduction and insurance policy rather than mobilization and crisis control. They want, in Revkin's near-parodic words, "the public to engage now, but not to panic."

To summarize: Aside from the denialist cranks, everyone agrees that global warming is a looming problem of unprecedented scale that needs to be met with long-term, fundamental change. But the people in the "middle" are unique in that they don't want the public to panic about it.

That's fine with me -- people can frame things however they want, however they think will be effective. But please spare us the canard that speaking in sweet dulcet tones that won't alarm David Broder puts you in the middle of some two-poled debate. It just makes you more likely to get on Meet the Nation.

As for #3, this is where Pielke reveals more than he intends. Because the issues here are so obviously about rhetoric and not substance, he correctly senses that people who have been advocating around this issue for years are going to say, "hey, that middle way sounds a hell of a lot like what we've been saying all along." And that would deny Pielke his position as Official Spokesman for the Wise Folk. We can't have that:

I fully expect that many of the usual suspects on the extremes of the debate (both sides) will respond to this story by saying that they've been in the middle all along. A two-sided debate rarely welcomes a third view, especially one that makes as much sense as that espoused in the NYT article.

Not to be all intemperate and extreme, but give me a %@#! break. Don't worry, Roger, nobody's going to try to take your ball. You make the mostest sense of anyone, ever. Happy?

Sigh. There's tons more to say about all this, but this post has gotten way too long. More later.

For story: High Broderism reaches the global warming debate
39 Comments | Post a Comment

Climate strategies, climate coverage.

Well, maybe the limits of traditional journalism need to shift, Dave. Isn't that why you do what you do?

You're criticizing me for exploring a nuanced, incremental, and vitally important facet of the climate problem in a way different than the media norm for the past decade (which has been only to look at the edges of the 'debate')...

Are you implying that journalism should remain locked into its old norms for what constitutes news? Those are the same norms that prompted most media to ignore climate for 20 years (don't blame it all on Exxon; it's also about the media's traditional notions of what is a 'story' and what isn't... tsunami=story... sea level rise = ?)

More on that here (minute 32 or so):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6569848953143124...

The untraditional aspect of my latest climate story was precisely the aspect you're complaining about: my focus, for a change, on people spending careers dealing with climate who (other than Roger P, perhaps) do not tend to seek the media spotlight, but whose positions deserve airing.

Hulme, Wallace, Mahlman, and many others are worth listening to along with Hansen, Gore, and the rest.

Sure I frame this as a trend, because that is my strong impression. I make judgements like that all the time. That's my job. Not everything comes in a press release.

When the WMO expert group on hurricanes & climate issues a statement that contradicts the sense of consensus promulgated lately by some campaigners about links between warming waters and juiced-up storms, that is something that needs airing.

It's not a convenient story for the mass media (nuance... more warming will likely intensify storms a few percent...). But it needs to be accounted for in framing a climate policy that will catch fire beyond the edges.

In some ways, it'd be oh so convenient if global warming was a simple, old-fashioned environmental problem like the ones we all grew up with in the good old 20th century -- here and now, in your face, like smoggy skies or a sewage-filled river. But it is different. It is implicitly probabilistic and hard. It is imbued with uncertainty that is not going away soon enough to make bipartisan decisions on carbon costs or energy R&D investments easy.

In covering climate since 1988, my job has been, and remains, conveying the state of play, the state of policy, the rate of emissions, the lack of R&D, the problems with Kyoto-style approaches (without a technology push), the stances of everyone with a meaningful and reasoned approach.

More of my coverage is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/globalwarming
And...

Mind you, the hotter voices are essential in American discourse. They mobilize the (pick your number, but probably a single digit) X million or so motivated informed, 'active' folks out there.

But I've got to write for a much broader sector of society as well, which includes millions of doubtful, disengaged people who have yet to see the Gore film or read Betsy Kolbert's book, who don't understand how sciencew works, who may even -- gulp -- watch Fox News.

For them, it's news that the only substantive debate now is over how to address the human influence on climate.

For Gristmill readers, hopefully that's NOT news, so I completely understand why -- for your audience -- you'd write the critique you posted.

And I'm glad to keep this dialogue going. Happy 2007, and a stable climate to all...

- Andy Revkin nytimes.com/revkin

by Andy Revkin at 2:36 PM on 02 Jan 2007

Andy,

Thanks for dropping by. I take your point about expanding the kinds of stories that make it into mainstream media (moving away from the "news hook" model). I take your point about giving space to voices that don't usually appear in climate stories. And I take your point about having to write to a broad audience.

It's fantastic that you're covering the nuances -- the fact that this is a debate over acceptable levels of risk rather than pure hype or inevitable catastrophe. The only thing that bothers me is framing this view as the "middle" between two extremes. It just isn't. The denialist crowd is not parallel to the "overstate the urgency" crowd. Their motivations are not the same. Their sins are not the same. They are not involved in the same kind of undertaking. I object to equating them, as your story seems implicitly to do.

Also, there's a fine line between moral urgency and overstating-the-science urgency. Seems to me it's entirely possible to understand the exact state of science and still view the task ahead of us as both morally and temporally urgent (as Hansen does). We shouldn't lump Hansen in with some obscure internet-dude who claims NYC is going to flood next week.

But anyway, we're all groping our way forward here with no maps or guidebooks. Thanks for the thoughtful work you do, and for engaging so openly with your readers and peers. Keep it up.

And a climatically stable new year to you too!

grist.org

by David Roberts at 3:22 PM on 02 Jan 2007

Centrist/Extremist theory

Sounds like what we're dealing with here is an application of the centrist/extremist theory in action.

http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/challenge.html

by caractacus at 3:37 PM on 02 Jan 2007
[ Parent ]

Storm Intensity and Hurricane Damage

I'm a regular reader, Mr. Revkin. Good to see you commenting on Gristmill.

You said: more warming will likely intensify storms a few percent

Yes, but a few percent could be significant. If you look at the bands of hurricane damage, they're not really that far apart. At one point the difference between minimal and extensive damage is only about 16 mph.

There are many ways to cover the way this government has handled climate policy. I agree with Professor Jay Rosen at NYU, that "the media thinks that it's covered this government pretty darn well... Which is one devastating illusion. It's been a rout, and it remains one." Professor Rosen's post was mostly about the Iraq War, but he makes the point that better coverage of this administration policy making in general would have been helpful.

Signed,

A worried citizen and media consumer.

PS: What are we going to do when Fox News buys the Wall Street Journal?

by jjwfmme at 3:40 PM on 02 Jan 2007

Standard deviation curves

Andy Revkin --

Your voice at NYT is valuable to far more people than those who read Grist, and I am very grateful for your contributions.

As I talk about global warming I find adults mostly ask "How will this affect my children?". They want an answer in a single sentence. Their children listen and they want the whole story. I agree with you that this dripping problem has fallen into the laps of children, our best hope.

One other pole between the extremes is time. The middle of the bell curve is moving as the extremes move with time. Twenty years ago it was mostly theory that CO2 would escape from warmer soils, from faster respiration of plants, from dying forests, more heat from albedo of melting ice, acidic oceans, plankton death, and so on. Twenty years ago we were told by media that these theories may become a problem after a hundred years and we have time.

Now, twenty years later, we are told that those assessments were too conservative, in part out the fear that industry deniers would attack and discredit scientists.

Observations have now reduced many of these theories into facts. The extremes moved and the middle of the bell curve moved with the extremes. The lack of urgency is on middle ground today, not tomorrow. I now regret finding comfort in the middle of the bell curve. It was a lazy dangerous mistake.

by sunflower at 3:57 PM on 02 Jan 2007

Urgency

I'm really appreciative of the tone of the conversation and the reinforcements of the general sense I get (admittedly spending too much time with the choir) that we are moving steadily into an era of sober awareness of the task at hand.

We want to be doing things that enable Americans to look back at us 50 year from now to say "Thank God they got their act together" rather than looking back to say "what in God's Name were they thinking."

Thanks for your excellent work, Dave and Andy.
Will

by wedjr at 5:15 PM on 02 Jan 2007

where is the "middle ground"?

it can be found in the IPCC's reports. these reports are remarkably good summaries of what we know about climate and how confidently we know it. there's little of what I would characterize as "alarmism" in the reports.

questions about what to do ("act now? act later? panic?") are fundamentally not scientific. differences here represent differences in values.

by Andrew Dessler at 6:11 PM on 02 Jan 2007

Revkin's on it

Andy Revkin's steady eye has stayed--for years-- on an issue that, albeit critical, falls on many deaf ears. He lays out the issues so that any layman might understand how the debate is being conducted.

Climate change, what-to-do and, how-to-help considerations for most Americans are daunting. Framing the conversation, allowing for the middle road, and "showing me how" are what kept 'An Inconvenient Truth' from becoming a cause for mass suicide.
Those--like Al Gore and Laurie David-- who have pushed hard need to push harder. The mass has begun to move but not fast enough. Revkin's piece highlights that those who de-bunked the seriousness of the situation--or kept silent-- now understand we cannot underprepare.

No action is ever fully enough, but America, for the most part, is not listening. Revkin's piece, focusing on the scientific agreement that we need to prepare, coupled with todays Times article on CFLs and Walmart make it clearer. The two articles keep the issue in front of the part of the world that intensely cares, the one that knows it's an issue but, seems to say, "so what", and the one world that knows that economics will drive any solution if one is to be found. The energy challenge both articles highlight-- that a real solution might be found somewhere in the middle with passion driving issues, science focusing the debate and economics funding solutions--seem to be moving us forward.

by wabranowicz at 6:55 PM on 02 Jan 2007

Unfortunately, the extremist has is correct

I remember when cigarettes were being debated. I guess the "extremists" were those who denied smoking was bad for health, and those who thought quitting was the answer. Here comes Revkin again with the extremist/centrist model: he would probably advocate just smoking a little. Sometimes the extremist is correct.

In the case of global warming: the alarmists are correct. Climate change is going to happen a lot quicker and more severe than people think (our emissions "trigger" is going to set off a chain reaction called "runaway global warming," more severe than past episodes, because our trigger is much stronger). Sorry if this doesn't fit in Revkin's extremist/centrist model.

Perhaps Revkin isn't familiar with the saying: you are entitled to your opinion, but you aren't entitled to your own facts. I can only wish Revkin lives long enough to see the product of his philosophy. Just like the cigarette companies fuzzied the health science of smoking, the science of global warming is getting fuzzied. Those journalists like Revkin who gives equal weight to each side in the global warming debate will eventually learn that somethings are too dangerous to play stupid with.

by dobermanmacleod at 11:45 PM on 02 Jan 2007

Doberman,

I don't see Revkin giving "equal weight to each side." I think he'd object to that.

What I see him trying to do in this piece is the following: convince the great disinterested masses that there's something to this climate-change business by showing that the reasonable "middle" of the debate is now no longer "let's wait and see if it's really happening," but "it's bad, we need to act, let's just not panic."

In setting that up as the New Middle, he slights the strong voices of advocacy that have been working in this area for years. But I can't really hold it against him. This is how political debate seems to work these days -- you have to sacrifice your advocates, even if they are correct, in the name of creating a safe, comfy middle where the mildly interested can reside. As I said, it's less about the substance of the issues and more about perception. If the scary hippies who have been right about climate change for years have to be branded extremists to get the masses on board, I guess you could do worse.

grist.org

by David Roberts at 12:04 AM on 03 Jan 2007

Andy's claimed audience seemingly not there.

If 71% of Aussies want to fight global warming, and 85% of Indians see global warming as either an importnat or extremely important threat, and whose views seem to correlate with those of Americans, then just who is this great unwashed that AndyRevkin is claiming to be writing for?

If anyone still hasn't seen An Inconvenient Truth, it is now freely available from YouTube for free. :::[An Inconvenient Truth Conveniently on YouTube] although I recommend the cinema experience if it is still on in town.

by Wadard at 3:45 AM on 03 Jan 2007

The problem with the 'mainstream'

The problem though, is that you can accept that climate change is happening, and still fail to take seriously the implications. A classic case in point is the Stern Review. On the face of it, the Stern Review is an excellent thing. Climate change being taken seriously by a major goverenment right? A perfect example of bringing it into the mainstream of public debate.

Stern is proposing policy aimed at stabilising emissions at around a 550 ppm CO2 equivalent, a figure which on most projections I've seen indicates some serious risks. Particularly to people in the developing world. (According to the Hadley Centre model, 550ppm has about a 70% probability of taking us to +3C)

What he's saying is in effect `450 is not achieveable without giving up growth, let alone the 400 ppm those naive greens keep on about, so let's just forget about it.'

He's then saying (and here I'm paraphrasing something he explicitly says) If we can reduce emissions by 1-3% per year, while growth continues at rates that can satisfy investors and if some optimistic assumptions about the biosphere's ability to regulate atmospheric greenhouse gasses are and remain true while we experience the effects of the emissions that have already happened, then stabilisation at 550 ppm may be feasible.

I say `remain true', because quite likely around 550ppm several key carbon sinks stop working so it's by no means certain that his assumptions about the rate at which the biosphere can self-regulate greenhouse gases will apply if we're going to approach 550ppm. That in turn calls into serious question his assumption that by reducing emissions growth by 1-3% per annum will do the trick, even if that is possible while growth increases at a rate acceptable to investors, which I personally beg leave to doubt.

At 550ppm, we're also in with a strong chance of seeing melting ice sheets, sea level rises of several metres and possibly runaway feedback caused by things like methane release due to melting permafrost and such.

He's talking about maybe stabilising at 550ppm, if a whole lot of things come together for his approach. Meanwhile a lot of people in the poor South are in very bad trouble, which is why he mostly discusses adaptation (ie learning to live with sea level rises, fresh water shortages, ecosystem collapses etc) in connection with the developing world. It also looks like part of the growth he's so keen on is going to come from lending them the money to adapt, so they can buy seeds with adapted genetics (presumably for growing under 2m of seawater) from Monsanto etc. Ch 12 and 26 make that bit fairly clear.

What he seems to be trying to do is make a case that by doing a little bit of regulatory fiddling here, at little bit of taxing there and a tiny bit of pump-priming where there is no alternative, that reducing carbon emissions globally can be turned into an attractive investment opportunity.

Stern's report targets a threshold (assuming they could really stabilise at 550ppm CO2 equivalent in the way he proposes) where we have a russian roulette player's chance of avoiding runaway climate change, and where the impacts on the UK, US and most of at least Northern Europe, are within a range that we can probably handle, given our fairly impressive technical and financial resources. It'd be pretty horrible, but not doomsday by any means.

The impacts at the threshold he's set of 550ppm are only likely to be massively fatal and otherwise completely disastrous for a few hundred million poor people in the developing world. Of course trying to save them, by aiming for stabilisation at 400ppm, would probably be impossible while maintaining the reproduction of capital on the scale to which we, or at least the ruling class, have become accustomed.

Which is why a few hundred million poor people are a sad but necessary sacrifice in the minds of our leaders (and a potential investment opportunity, let's look on the bright side chaps!).

I think he's aiming for a level of 550ppm CO2 equivalent, that is dealable-with (at a fat profit for some) in the UK (and the nice bits of the US), irrespective of the effects elsewhere, and that he thinks is compatible with continued economic growth. If he'd aimed for what the climate scientists are mostly suggesting as 'safe' (please take a paragraph or two of qualifications about levels of certainty and what 'safe' is meant to mean as read here) which is 400ppm, then the impossibility of continued economic growth would call the whole neo-liberal economic programme, and perhaps capitalism itself, into question.

by caractacus at 3:54 AM on 03 Jan 2007

Nicely put

I'm glad that at least one Grist reader noticed that this story is about the middle and one edge, despite the (bad) headline (which, as all writers always explain, is not written by the reporter).

And I, too, see our best hope, perhaps, in getting the next generation to absorb that their world (climatic and biological and more) is largely being shaped today by their parents' decisions -- or lack of engagement. I'm not being coy when I explain to audiences that one reason I wrote my new climate book for kids (anyone 10 and up) is I'm not convinced today's "fossils" (as youth climate activists call us grownups) are going to get this in time. You can read first chapter online here: www.nytimes.com/learning/globalwarming

- Andy Revkin nytimes.com/revkin

by Andy Revkin at 5:28 AM on 03 Jan 2007
[ Parent ]

hoorah

you nailed it. and just so everyone can see the whole series, here's the URL one more time:
www.nytimes.com/energychallenge

- Andy Revkin nytimes.com/revkin

by Andy Revkin at 5:30 AM on 03 Jan 2007
[ Parent ]

Impossible

"the impossibility of continued economic growth would call the whole neo-liberal economic programme, and perhaps capitalism itself, into question."

It is impossible to understand why this attitude persists in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Mass production of the technology we already have in batteries, solar cells, solid oxide fuel cells, wind power,geothermal heating/cooling and on and on, will not only pay it's own way, but it will create a huge economic boom.

With real capitalism. What we have now, monopoly capitalism, is the problem. Have you seen "Who Killed The Electric Car"?

And do us all a favor and try to pay attention to reality Andy. You have a huge audience and with that comes responsibility. Not just to your own career. I know you probably would never be featured in the times again were you to state the obvious points I mentioned. But that needs to change.

The NYT needs to change, along with the conventional wisdom that renewable energy will stop economic growth in its tracks.

The NYT, and all other media at the time, ignored the Wright brothers for four years after their first flights. They gave up flying in despair for 2 1/2 years. They were considered crackpots.

The same effect is in operation in this stalled energy revolution.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 6:17 AM on 03 Jan 2007

Ice

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/science/01climate.html?...

"the discourse of catastrophe is in danger of tipping society onto a negative, depressive and reactionary trajectory"

Dr. Hulme did you see how the ice is melting as portrayed in Gore's movie? And you still think there is time to take some sort of so-called "reasonable" middle ground? Wouldn't want to depress people! (maybe the anti-depressant makers would see a bottomline corporate motive to publicize the facts about global climate disaster?)

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 7:00 AM on 03 Jan 2007

impossible

AmazingDrX,

If there's 'overwhelming evidence to the contrary' why is Stern dismissing the sort of target the scientists are asking for of 400ppm and even 450ppm as uneconomic and too hard to do without hurting the economy?

by caractacus at 7:15 AM on 03 Jan 2007

Fossils holding hands.

There are two types of denials from the fossil industrialists. The original denial is that energy efficiency and renewables are too expensive and too limited. The second, more recent denial is that anthropogenic global warming is not proven, just a theory.

by sunflower at 7:47 AM on 03 Jan 2007

He is misinformed

Just as was the media in the time of the Wright brothers.

Repeating conventional wisdom that supports the status quo. Based on propaganda supplied by the mass delusional corporate media.

Altairnano's new 10 minute charge battery costs only 2000 dollars for a 40 mile range in a plugin car. Will it take 4 years for that to be reported in the mass media?

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 7:49 AM on 03 Jan 2007

Clarification: Stern discusses CO2e

In a recorded talk about his report -- back when it was relevant and the UK leadership hadn't made clear that their collective knees had already buckled at the implications -- Stern makes clear that he uses CO2 equivalent (CO2e) when discussing greenhouse gas concentrations, rather than just CO2 concentration. For instance, at one point he says something to the effect of "We are already at 430 ppm, so stopping at 450 would be nearly impossible."

(The talk is available for free through Global Public Media, www.globalpublicmedia.org.)

The 5% Project

by JMG at 8:07 AM on 03 Jan 2007

CO2e

Yes, you're right that he's using C02e, I didn't know about the recorded talk though and I certainly don't recall him saying 'we're already at 430 CO2e' in the report, but I just went back and had a look and it's right there in one of the footnotes of Ch13. Thanks for pointing that out JMG

by caractacus at 8:48 AM on 03 Jan 2007
[ Parent ]

CO2e

I think the basic point I was trying to make still stands though, ignoring the confusion I've introduced where I'm on about 400ppm (which he doesn't mention) and just asking why he's not willing to seriously consider aiming for 450ppm CO2e (which he does mention, but dismisses)

As a government economist, a representative of the 'mainstream' we were talking about above, he's constrained in such a way as to be unable to seriously consider a target that would have an unacceptable impact on growth, ie return on investment. In order to talk seriously about even 550ppm CO2e, he's got to make the strongest case he can for profitable investment opportunities.

From his perspective, no solution that calls economic growth into question is a viable one.

by caractacus at 9:10 AM on 03 Jan 2007

A failure of imagination.

I agree. If the solution does not come from political leadership then all that is left is the private sector.

If the the solution does not come from the private sector then all that is left is political leadership.

Nothing is happening.

by sunflower at 9:43 AM on 03 Jan 2007

Nothing happening

The problem is though, that government is there to serve the needs of its political sponsors, who are by and large corporations, major investors etc.

Neither public or private sector can therefore do anything at all that would seriously impact return on investment year on year. To his credit Stern has a pretty brave try at making a case that by using the World Bank/IMF to foist climate change insurance and GM crops on the parts of the world most affected, they can get a decent ROI out of the people they'll be starving, dispacing etc at 550ppm, but it's really not a very nice picture even if he could get it adopted seriously, which I doubt.

by caractacus at 9:58 AM on 03 Jan 2007
[ Parent ]

money

Let us also not lose sight of the fact that David Roberts and Grist have a direct financial stake in promoting the extremist position. The level of their funding, and of Roberts' salary, depend on the financial contributions of Grist readers whom they have scared silly. That's just as big of a conflict of interest as anything on the other side paid for by the oil industry.

by d41295 at 1:46 PM on 03 Jan 2007

Dear d41295,

The level of their funding, and of Roberts' salary, depend on the financial contributions of Grist readers whom they have scared silly.

This line of argument is so tired. All you have to do is go to any major news website (BBC, for instance) and get the same story that Roberts and company posts here. Or go to the IPCC for that matter. If Grist went away tomorrow, we would miss its great coverage, but on a basic level the same information would be out there.

Please, d41295.

by jjwfmme at 2:27 PM on 03 Jan 2007

Re: money

jjwfmme: The fact that an argument is "tired" is not proof that it is not true.

And the British papers and magazines are well known for their hyping of the science stories they cover, especially global warming.

The IPCC is not extremist.

Face it: the extremist position advocated for here by Roberts might be strongly influenced by their bottom line. They have a direct financial stake in expressing the most extreme view possible. If you criticize the right for their financial entanglements, you have to criticize the left as well.

That stresses the importance of true journalists like Andrew Revkin, who can be objective in a way that David Roberts cannot.

by d41295 at 3:23 PM on 03 Jan 2007
[ Parent ]

Electrons

Andrew Revkin has a following. Go figure.

by sunflower at 3:47 PM on 03 Jan 2007

crikey!

This is surely the most ugly and foul contribution that I have yet read in Gristmill. That the administration and writers of Grist should be sucking vampirically the blood of us, their readers and willing victims, whom they keep in a state of scared silliness, is just too absurdly paranoid a suggestion, on top of its being brutally offensive.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 3:51 PM on 03 Jan 2007

Food

I don't know Canis, you might be the target.

Monk Doug.

by sunflower at 4:03 PM on 03 Jan 2007

You think I'd have all this bling ...

... if I wasn't shilling for my alarmist paymasters?

grist.org

by David Roberts at 4:10 PM on 03 Jan 2007

Extremist

Well you know d41295, I haven't yet seen David say that we need to abolish capitalism in order to deal with climate change. Perhaps he did but I missed it.

If you want to call someone an extremist, pick on me, because I would argue that capitalism and sustainability are fundamentally not compatible.

Lots of Love

XXX

Caractacus

by caractacus at 4:35 PM on 03 Jan 2007
[ Parent ]

The Prophets of fear

In the spirit of full disclosure, I sucked in $1,100,000 from the fear of the oil industry.

As Grist knows, the big money is in 501(c)(3) non-profits.

by sunflower at 4:55 PM on 03 Jan 2007

The dirty hippy problem

No matter how right you were, how early you were right, and how obviously wrong your adversaries are, if you're on "the left" (enviros, peaceniks, and other suspected homosexual fronts) you can never occupy a legitimate position in the public sphere.

See re: Iraq War.

I don't attribute any malice or anything to Revkin (good on him for participating here, and for his kids' book) but it's clearly the dynamic at work. Al Gore was right about climate change decades before any American political leader, but he's an "extreme" in Revkin's piece.

It's incredibly insulting to those of us who didn't swallow pure, uncut lies for the last twenty years. And it's a shame that American journalism still, after everything, can't escape the straitjacket of denigrating the correct.

by John McGrath at 9:20 PM on 03 Jan 2007

Irony

Ironically enough, the Union of Concerned Scientists has just put out an excellent report showing exactly how Exxon spent $16million on climate change disinformation over the last few years :)

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-Globa...

Follow the money eh?

by caractacus at 3:09 AM on 04 Jan 2007
[ Parent ]

Exxon Valdeze fine cut in half

http://www.homernews.com/stories/010307/news_3a003.shtml

They have plenty of extra cash for propaganda and endless appeals. When will the fine be zero. Will even half of the 5 billion be payed. Doubtfull.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 7:29 AM on 04 Jan 2007

True John

This "dirty hippy" comedy was popular with writers for this very blog awhile back. I think it included remarks about pagans too, dancing round the fire.

Apparently they were in a "credibility" seeking phase? Hehehey. It included pictures of them in their "hippy" years.

Go to otherpower.com to see real hippies building actual renewable energy products, communally. This has to be the least expensive, cleanest power since Jacobs Wind Electric from Minnesota held sway in the clean energy arena.

http://www.otherpower.com/

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 7:39 AM on 04 Jan 2007

tired

The fact that an argument is "tired" is not proof that it is not true.

Ha! It probably is tired because it´s so truthy.

by 314159265 at 7:48 AM on 04 Jan 2007
[ Parent ]

Agreeing Some With Both of You

Another voice from the "mainstream" media here. I applaud both Andrew and David for different points. I'm glad that Revkin wrote the article and showed that there are other voices out there besides environmentalists and conservatives shouting at each other over climate change.

But I agree with David that there really is no climate debate. I guess the big question now is, what are we going to do about climate? We need all voices to push for change.

See my full post about this on my blog, Down to Earth

-Dan Kulpinski, editor, reference.aol.com

by downtoearth at 6:55 PM on 05 Jan 2007

ADVERTISING POLICY

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