Charities unite to fight global warming 25 October 04

Where are you debating? Did you read Tom Burke’s piece in the Guardian on Saturday? Lomborg’s a tricksy guy: good luck!

It’s at the Royal Society in London on 2 November – details here.

Congratulations. Do they know about the pie thing, or are we being very careful not to draw attention to that?

And please will somebody scan the Harper’s article? They don’t have it in the sub-post office, for some reason, and it sounds very very funny indeed.

On our Election Day? Perfect! I hope we can deliver you some good news that day ourselves! (Not holding my breath about it-the number of stories on how the voting’s gonna get mucked up are breeding like rabbits!-but I can hope, can’t I?)

Talk about going into the lion’s den! (Is that bwahahaha I hear coming from him?)

Seriously, Mark—sic ‘im!!

Sorry Will, but I don’t have a scanner. And don’t go all the way to Kendal just for a laugh at me!

I hope those in the debate concerned about global warming will bring up some of my arguing points, including:

1. Science reached 95% certainty about anthropogenic climate change in 1995, according to an article in SCIENCE, and the evidence has been mounting. However, we do not even need such scientific certainty to start reducing our greenhouse emissions, because: a. the threat is so serious, especially with recent evidence that we may be facing runaway global warming; and b. reducing greenhouse gases (e.g., by using energy more efficiently) also reduces other environmental problems, and we save money and strengthen the economy.

2. We laypersons should follow NOT the “scientific model” but the “medical model.” We should be more concerned about avoiding false negatives (global warming is happening, when people say it is not happening), than avoiding false positives (global warming is not happening, when people say it is happening). Scientists have to avoid false positives to protect their reputations, or no one will believe them in the future. Laypersons living in the world need to be concerned about protecting themselves and the world. It sounds ridiculous for a doctor to tell a patient, “There is only 94% certainty that your tumor is cancerous, so we are not going to remove it.”

In case it helps, I think there are 2 powerful lines of argument that Lomborg might use on 2 November. These are:

a) That in many ways the environment is getting better due to sensible environmental controls etc. (and will use a whole range of statistics to demonstrate this), and

b) That campaigning organisations sometimes over-emphasize dangers to ensure they get media coverage and are better able to achieve their aims.

Personally, I think both these arguments have some validity. Thank goodness human societies are able to make some difference to the environment. That should give us reason for hope.

Also, campaigning organisations do need to be very careful about their claims and methodological assumptions. (However, if you are the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, it would be difficult to over-estimate the threats to our wild-life. We live in a very different and impoverished world from 100/150 years ago in terms of the wildlife in Africa and Asia etc..)

But we need to use good judgement to properly weigh the risks and deal with it in a scientific, pro-active fashion. I like the medical approach that Lynn describes! Are we just making sure that cabins are clean and insect-free in the first-class cabins of the Titanic?!

If you would like to read a third party book which is favourable to Lomborg’s point of view, you could read “Complicated Lives” (2003), Willmott & Nelson, Future Foundation. It is a very interesting read – but also very “human-centric”.

In the section on “Myths of Social and Environmental Decline”, from page 172, the authors quote Lomborg and then write:

“Despite our worries (and despite the barrage of criticism from the environmental movement of first Simon, before his death, and more recently of Lomborg), there is strong evidence that, overall, air pollution has decreased, water quality has improved, world poverty is being addressed and stocks of minerals and carbon fuels are at historic highs. Yes, problems remain. Lomborg, for example, says that man-made global warming is probably occurring with some potential negative impacts. Governments and companies could do more to help the environment. But, overall the news is not all bad, and in total, is arguably rather good. Yet, the vast majority of people believe that the environment is getting worse and, importantly, most feel it will continue to do so.” (page 173)

Later on:

“As Bjorn Lomborg notes, campaigning organizations quite naturally sometimes over-emphasize dangers to ensure they get media coverage and are better able to achieve their aims” (page 181).

Good luck, Mark!

Hi all,

1. Sorry to be a shameless self-promoter, but for those who live in mostly sunny climes, my website has a page on solar cooking that might trigger some ideas and inspired action. Now that the election is over, I’ll be working primarily on improving my solar energy capabilities. www.williamgbecker.com

2. For those who may not be aware of it, Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update, by Meadows, Randers, and Meadows, is must reading for those of us who really care about the future.

3. As a bit of an aside: the libertarian/lassez-faire deniers of all human-caused environmental problems are masters of the “tit-for-tat” school of wearing down an opponent. It is always possible to find a plausible, but usually specious, argument against any specific proposition about an environmental problem. Thus it is easy for scientific illiterates to “rebut” a proposition with some fol-de-rol about the general behavior of gasses, say. Prisoner’s Dilemma (by Poundstone, I think) gives a nice exposition of game theory, which the American right-wing has mastered almost to perfection.

I paid a brief visit to your web page and the photos are great! You have insighful writings.

Another thing we can do with regard to reducing cooking emissions is to simply eat more raw fruits and vegetables!

Now, I have been measuring the electric usage of each of our house appliances with a special inexpensive metering device.

I have discovered that our coffee maker uses as much energy as running our washing machine does and many of us rely on fresh sources of caffine each day.

With regard to your climate especially, brewing sun tea in a large glass container can help add a beverage to your solar-cooked meal with no brewing emissions!

Solar Tea anyone!

Thanks Dan. I’m kind of slow sometimes—thus the private response instead of using the links in the e-mail (duh!).

As I said, I'm not a tea drinker, but I'll experiment with solar-brewed coffee.  Also, with your expertise, maybe you can give us a handle on how much power can be saved by really turning off our tvs, dvds, vcrs, and microwaves when not in use.  It's simple using a power strip.

And, I made a great loaf of solar bread today. It got a bit iffy with some unexpected clouds, but they dissipated in time.