Scientists take on sceptics at RealClimate 13 December 04

You perform a valuable service to stand up for the integrity of climate science. You translate into simple terms what it all actually means to everyday people. Both scientists and engineers have difficulty doing this at times and the message can get lost.

Even with my best efforts, I can fail to communicate something I understand at depth. When I talk to people or even post on this site, I naturally want to include numbers and state my assumptions and reasoning to show that I worked the problem at some level instead of simply forming an opinion based on no information at all.

Now, I have a story to share along these lines of proactive engagement:

I was at a local home improvement chain recently buying compact fluorescent bulbs to give as Christmas gifts. I bought 12 economy packs containing 6 bulbs each for a total of 72 bulbs. As I was there, another customer picked up those cheap inefficient bulbs. I asked him why he did not consider the compact fluorescent bulbs instead.

He said he did not know about these bulbs and I then proceeded to explain all about them. I said I was an engineer. He said he could not buy them because he was on a tight budget (even though I already fully explained the economic benefits).

Since this was not working for me, I told him that I would give him 10 dollars so he could BUY these bulbs and said it was necessary to save the climate. He refused my offer by walking away. I became angry inside and insulted as well and simply said sternly and slowly that I see that you still do not believe me.

So, the anger stuck with me for a while. My mind was trying to make sense of what happened. To me, I was simply trying to solve his budget problem offering a gift. I wanted to solve the problem and buying bulbs for others makes sense since I already changed my own bulbs.

That fellow simply did not understand me. I was providing too much information. Mostly, he had a shopping objective and he was not prepared to listen. Most of all, I shamed him by offering to buy him these bulbs.

Even though I was angry, I did observe him walking toward his car outside the store. I noticed he was walking with his head sunk low looking at the ground. He was not feeling good inside based on his encounter with me.

He needed to avoid me but it was evident that my message stuck and I ruined his day. He will never forget the image of a man with a cart full of compact fluorescent bulbs and that he offered to buy him bulbs to save the climate. It may play in his mind during quiet moments.

It can be difficult to deal with skeptics and an indifferent public. It is similar to trying to move a mountain with a teaspoon. This is pretty difficult to do by yourself.

So get a million people each moving a teaspoon each day and you then move over 3600 metric tons of mountain in a year. Improve your tool from a teaspoon to a tablespoon and move over 10,000 metric tons of mountain. Improve from a tablespoon to a bucket, and you move 31 million metric tons of mountain.

You may ask: How do we get a million people? First we get 2 people to help each week, and they in turn get 2 more people to help each week and everyone does likewise and then in 20 weeks you have over a million people!

Now, life does not quite work that neatly. However, the sure way to climate change is to know and learn all you can but keep it secret and despair about the people who do not know what you already do.

If ignorance is the major problem then solving that problem may only mean getting 2 people a week to understand more than they did before. Now, maybe with this post, I convinced just 2 people to start talking more to others about preventative strategies to climate change and not always be silent when opportunity presents itself!

What if every Congressman in the United States Senate owned a copy of Mark’s High Tide? This could be done for about 1500 US dollars! If this has not already been done then I have to ask why not? Surely this would have an effect even if it influenced only 2 of these Senators! What could 2 Senators do? Now, you already know that answer!

OK, I know I need to do other things other than comment on Mark’s site. However, I must make a comment about the misuse of numbers. Often, when I see people use some sort of mathematical analysis to say climate change does not exist, then I know that this analysis must be wrong simply because of non-mathematical observations posed by Mark in High Tide!

Steven Milloy and others can seem very sophisticated but they are dead wrong. When a glacier melts in 20 years that has been around for 10,000 years or indigenous people cannot not do things their ancestors did for hundreds of generations, then it points to something has changed in a short period of time that cannot be explained by decade long cycles or some clever mathematical analysis.

So, when faced with this sort of bull, the actual observations documented from Mark and others needs to be addressed. According to scientific thinking, you only need one solid example of actual real contradictory evidence to prove a theory incorrect! The empirical evidence all points to climate change being real so any math saying the opposite is simply incorrect math! That simple!

And one close relative I gave the bulb to broke it (I think accidently), so that was the end of them ever attempting to become energy efficient – even though they are very poor & always complain about lack of money & high bills. You try to get people to do good for the earth. That doesn’t work. You try to get people to do good for their own economic well-being. That doesn’t work.

I’ve also had to suffer ridicule by others. I read something about Noah – how he must have suffered a lot of ridicule (and expense & time) building that ark on dry land for so many years in order to save all the species of the world. He’s sort of my model (even though I understand it is a myth). We just have to keep doing what we can to save the world – despite negative experiences.

We really need some leadership from the top. If Pres. Bush would just get on TV & tell people what they can do to help the earth & the economy…but of course he & his buddies in oil might not receive as much profits.

The bulb must be held by the base instead of the delicate helix when installing the bulb. This will help prevent breaking the helix off.

It is best not to break any fluorescent bulbs since they all contain mercury gas.

If a new bulb breaks, the mercury goes into the surrounding air. If the bulb is spent first, there is little mercury gas left since it was mostly absorbed by the phosphor coating (the blackened appearance).

The mercury content is not that much in a compact fluorescent. However, it can accumulate in the environment. If a spent bulb is placed in the trash, it normally breaks when crushed. If the landfill is not lined, the mercury will make it into the ground water. If incinerated, the mercury goes into the air and later into the water.

These bulbs can be recycled using special equipment to extract the mercury for reuse.