Into the heart of the climate debate—What’s warming us up? Human activity or Mother Nature?

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=222&content_id=CNBP_023704&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=b01a28cf-decc-4b3d-8c4a-0080b1f2ad8c

Into the heart of the climate debate
What’s warming us up? Human activity or Mother Nature?

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21, 2009 — Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the world’s largest scientific society, today published a major analysis of the divisive issues at the heart of the debate over global warming and climate change. The article appears at the conclusion of the much-publicized United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, which sought to seal a comprehensive international agreement on dealing with global warming. An embargoed text is available to journalists upon request.

C&EN’s 8,900-word cover story notes that global warming believers and skeptics actually agree on a cluster of core points:

• Earth’s atmospheric load of carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas — has increased since the Industrial Revolution began in the late 1700s.


• Carbon dioxide bloat results largely from burning of coal and other fossil fuels.


• Average global temperatures have risen since 1850, with most of the warming occurring since 1970.

“But here is where the cordial agreements stop,” writes Stephen K. Ritter, a senior correspondent for C&EN, a publication of the 154,000-member American Chemical Society. “At the heart of the global warming debate is whether warming is directly the result of increasing anthropogenic CO2 levels, or if it is simply part of Earth’s natural climatic variation.”

Ritter presents a sweeping panorama of global climate change science from the point of view of those who support both scenarios. The story notes that the debate is growing ever more contentious in light of the recent disclosure of e-mail messages suggesting that some scientists supporting the human activities scenario tried to suppress publication of opposing viewpoints.

Most climate scientists maintain that man-made global warming is happening, the article states. This majority opinion has been disseminated in peer-reviewed reports over the past 20 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an entity established by the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization.

Climatologist Michael Hulme of the University of East Anglia, in England, told Ritter that the scientific evidence backing the basic idea of human activity changing the global climate system is now overwhelming, even if scientific predictions for future climate change are still shrouded in uncertainty.

“It is vital that we understand the many valid reasons for disagreeing about global warming and climate change,” Hulme says in the article. “We must recognize that they are rooted in different political, national, organizational, religious, and intellectual cultures –– our different ways of seeing the world.

“But we must not hide behind the dangerously false premise that consensus science leads to consensus politics,” Hulme adds. “In the end, politics will always trump science. Making constructive use of the idea of climate change means that we need better politics, not merely better science.”

However, global-warming skeptics argue that there is still a lot of guesswork in how scientists come to their conclusions. They take exception to the notion that there is a “consensus” agreement on the science –– that the science is settled and devastating man-made global warming is a foregone conclusion.

“The only contentious aspect of the IPCC assessment is attribution –– what is the cause of global warming and climate change,” says atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer, who is president of the Science & Environmental Policy Project, a public policy institute based in Arlington, Va. “We have looked at every bit of data that IPCC has brought forth, and we see no credible evidence for human-caused global warming. None.”

In response to the latest IPCC report, Singer and other scientists formed the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). NIPCC is an international coalition of scientists –– 35 participants relative to the 2,500 participants in IPCC’s 2007 assessment––convened to provide a “second opinion” on the scientific evidence available on the causes and consequences of climate change. The NIPCC report was published by the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based public policy organization. Unlike the IPCC report, the NIPCC conclusions are not peer-reviewed.

The issue of C&EN also contains three news stories on developments at the UN climate change meeting.
###

[GliderGuider]

1. Yet more evidence for what I keep harping on

“It is vital that we understand the many valid reasons for disagreeing about global warming and climate change,” Hulme says in the article. “We must recognize that they are rooted in ... our different ways of seeing the world."

If we do not take psychological factors into account as primary inhibitors of action, we will seal our children's fates.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. But attributing it to “psychology” isn’t terribly helpful

It’s like saying “climate change” is caused by “physics.” While the statement may be true, it’s simply too broad a term to be helpful in addressing the problem.

If/when we come to an agreement to address the problem, that too will be due to “http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/psychology">psychology,” and the solution will lie in the realm of “http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/physics">physics.”

[GliderGuider]

4. The reason I keep harping on it

Is because there is a determined cadre within the environmental movement that insists on seeing the problem in terms of science, technology and money. Recognizing that the problem has a fundamental inner human dimension is just a first step, but as far as I can tell we haven't even taken that step yet. I see a persistent misidentification of the nature of the impediments. It's like saying climate change is being caused by "physics" when everyone else is saying it's due to "god's will" -- first you need to correctly identify the domain of the problem, then you can sharpen your focus.

At this point all our energy needs to be thrown behind identifying the specific psychological leverage points that can be used to move the game down-field. If, as so many others here assert, money and technology are not the problem, we have to focus on the areas that still are problems. And as far as I can tell, those are all human factors.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Tautology: “Psychology governs human behavior.”

It’s a matter of http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/psychology">definition.

“Science,” a human drive to understand the nature of things, is motivated by our psychology.
“Technology” (a byproduct of science) is motivated by our psychology.
“Money,” a psychological construct. (Its only worth is that which we assign it.)

If we start with the assumption that “Climate Change” is caused by human behavior, then (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/psychology">by definition) “Climate Change” is caused by “psychology.”

[GliderGuider]

7. That's not what I'm talking about

I'm saying that the psychological aspects of why we can't get any agreement to limit our GHG production (or stop raping the planet in general) have not been well identified, let alone addressed.

[OKIsItJustMe]

18. How so?

Why we can't get any agreement to limit our GHG production?
What usually stands in the way of agreements? Distrust of the “other.” (See also "Greed.")

Why don’t we stop raping the planet?
Show me how it benefits me for me to stop raping the planet, and demonstrate to me that you’re willing to stop raping the planet yourself, and maybe I’ll agree. (See above.)

[GliderGuider]

19. So if we understand it so well

Why are we losing? kristopher seems to imply that we know everything we nee d to know about human nature in order to do battle. But if we have all the psychological tools we need, we know what the problems are, and we have Truth on our side, how come we're losing? Is greed that intractable?

Greed is an example of the short-term thinking that comes from having a hyperbolic discount function. Either that or we are a sociopathic species that just doesn't care about others, and I don't buy that for a second. So how can we make the long-term threat of climate change so urgent that the loss of income will seem trivial next to it?

IMO we can do it, but we need to change peoples' consciousness to accomplish it. The main difference I see between the David Suzukis and the Dick Cheneys of the world is a qualitatively different consciousness. I'm also convinced that we can change peoples' consciousness -- that's what the "Blessed Unrest" movement is all about. So perhaps I can narrow my definition a but from "psychology" to "consciousness". Much of mankind is asleep, as we have been for tens of thousands of years. What we need is a general awakening with a touch of non-dualism thrown in to make the rift between Man and Nature more palpable. Someone who has that awareness simply cannot participate in the kind opf planet-rape that's going on right now, or at the very least will find it easier to pay a personal price for slowing it down.

[OKIsItJustMe]

20. Unfortunately, “changing people’s consciousness,” takes time…

(Too much time I fear.)

I would say that “http://www.theclimateproject.org/">The Climate Project” represents an effort to “change people’s consciousness.”

What changed your consciousness? Does it scale well? Can we do it in a timely manner?

While I have long advocated, and participated in changing people’s consciousness, I grow impatient. It is taking too long to gain and maintain “critical mass.”

[GliderGuider]

21. How fast do you want?

From what I can tell, the "Blessed Unrest" movement probably has about 20,000,000 "members" at the moment and is growing at 40% or so a year. Even if it slows down to 33% a year (which means that each member raises the consciousness of one other person only every three years), in the next ten years it will have helped raise the consciousness of over 250 million people high enough to motivate them to action.

Given that most people who have woken up are not part of one of the little groups that get counted as part of that movement, I think that ecological awakening is actually spreading much faster than that. If twice that many people are actually awake to some degree but have not joined a group, and if each of them wakes up one other person every four years, we could end up with almost ten percent of the planet's population ecologically awake in ten years. That's some serious horsepower, and I honestly believe I'm being too conservative in my figures.

Of course this shift is entirely viral and grass-roots, so people who are wedded to top-down political paradigms have a hard time even seeing it. Which IMO is a very good thing.

Awakening is different for each of us. What woke me up will not work for someone who is at a different place in their life with different issues. We are not machines who can be awoken to a formula and a timetable. That's why the viral approach is working so well - the influences are more varied and more personal than any organization could hope to achieve, so the chances of success are much, much higher.

[OKIsItJustMe]

24. I want critical mass 10 years ago…

Seriously, if we are to believe James Hansen (which I do) we don’t have 10 years to wait for 10%.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070507/hansen

Why We Can't Wait

By James Hansen

April 19, 2007

There's a huge gap between what is understood about global warming by the relevant scientific community and what is known about global warming by those who need to know: the public and policy-makers. We've had, in the past thirty years, one degree Fahrenheit of global warming. But there's another one degree Fahrenheit in the pipeline due to gases that are already in the atmosphere. And there's another one degree Fahrenheit in the pipeline because of the energy infrastructure now in place--for example, power plants and vehicles that we're not going to take off the road even if we decide that we're going to address this problem.

The Energy Department says that we're going to continue to put more and more CO2 in the atmosphere each year--not just additional CO2 but more than we put in the year before. If we do follow that path, even for another ten years, it guarantees that we will have dramatic climate changes that produce what I would call a different planet--one without sea ice in the Arctic; with worldwide, repeated coastal tragedies associated with storms and a continuously rising sea level; and with regional disruptions due to freshwater shortages and shifting climatic zones.

I've arrived at five recommendations for what should be done to address the problem. If Congress were to follow these recommendations, we could solve the problem. Interestingly, this is not a gloom-and-doom story. In fact, the things we need to do have many other benefits in terms of our economy, our national security, our energy independence and preserving the environment--preserving creation.

…

[GliderGuider]

25. There's an old aviation saying:

The 3 most useless things in aviation :- 1) Runway behind you 2) Fuel in the bowser 3) Altitude above you.

We have to deal with things as they are right now. The phenomenon I've described is the one that seems to offer the most immediate hope for the most individuals over the short to medium term. With any luck some of those ecologically awakened individuals will run for office, and some of them will resist corporate pressures long enough to move some countries further in the right direction. In my heart of hearts, though, I do not think this is a top-down problem. It will (can) only be addressed effectively at the grass roots, at the level of individuals and small communities.

[OKIsItJustMe]

36. The phenomenon you describe was once called “evangelism.”

i.e. the spreading of “the good news” from individual to individual.

[GliderGuider]

37. I suppose

I will cop to having more problems with the word than the concept...

[kristopher]

8. There is a large body of literature on motivations in the area of environmental issues.

Just because you haven't done the research doesn't mean the work and literature isn't there. Those same people asserting that money and technology aren't the problem usually identify the issue as a political issue. That is the broad category where the psychological component you are fixated on is integrated into a larger narrative.

I asked you before how you determined the values and beliefs of the "public" you are attempting to describe, remember? You dismissed it as an irrelevant slant, but actually it is the core of the matter.

[GliderGuider]

9. I'm talking about mechanisms rather than content.

The content is simple, and the values are straight-forward. Unfortunately, shifting people from one value system to an opposing one and then motivating them to act on those new values is not so simple.

There is indeed a large body of research sponsored by the advertising industry regarding how to change and direct beliefs, motivations and actions. I guess my question is why the deniers are being so successful at it and we're not? It's not just a question of me not doing research - the question is, if that research is available, and we really believe the outcome is as important as it is, why are we not using that research to change the outcomes of crucial meetings like Copenhagen?

I personally think it's because the events that concern us still appear to be too much in the future, and the objections that our opponents are raising (basically the loss of money and jobs) are right here, right now. It's easy for them to make the case: they can rely on the discount function to make the near-term risks seem more urgent than the future risks; they can rely on our innate deference to authority to get us to accept dodgy science as fact; and they can rely on the herding instinct to spread doubt about the motives of climate scientists as well as the severity of the risk.

Again, the question is, how do we counter what seems to be a very effective obstructionist campaign? Fact and appeals to reason don't appear to be the answer. If research is available that links our psychological makeup to environmental issues in a way that would be as effective as the research the deniers are obviously using, why aren't we using it? Is it because our cause has a weaker psychological hold than theirs due to its very nature? I'm concerned that this is the case.

[kristopher]

14. If you don't know the content (and you don't) then you have no hope of discovering the mechanisms.

[GliderGuider]

15. In the inner world as in the outer world, mechanisms act on content much more than the reverse.

A scale doesn't care if it weighs beans or bolts.
Our fight-or-flight response doesn't much care if the threat is a charging boar or a looming job loss.

Getting hung up on content and glossing over the mechanisms is IMO one of the things that has kept us from making significant progress on the issue of climate change.

[kristopher]

16. What a load of hogwash.

All research efforts aimed at establishing what people believe use some vehicle (discipline) for exploration. If you don't know what those various exploratory tools are and what they have revealed, then you don't know anything except your own preconceived opinions. By exploring the results of various analytic approaches to establishing what people's beliefs are you will gain a depth that is now lacking.

by focusing exclusively on one discipline, you are like one the of the three blind men trying to describe the elephant from the small piece he has focused his touch on. While the narrow points you are focused on are valid as far as they go; they no more reveal the entire mechanism than the toenail of the elephant reveals its entire nature.

Political science, anthropology, sociology, economics, linguistics and psychology are but a few of the broad headings that look at the issues related to the larger question of how people evaluate and respond to risks.

[GliderGuider]

17. So why do you think we're losing the fight?

[kristopher]

22. We can get to that...

but first, let me ask how your explanation accounts for this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/business/energy-environment/22solar.html

Desert Vistas vs. Solar Power


The solar developer BrightSource Energy has canceled one solar-energy project in the Mojave Desert, above, but is proceeding with several others.

By TODD WOODY

AMBOY, Calif. — Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation in Congress on Monday to protect a million acres of the Mojave Desert in California by scuttling some 13 big solar plants and wind farms planned for the region.

But before the bill to create two new Mojave national monuments has even had its first hearing, the California Democrat has largely achieved her aim. Regardless of the legislation’s fate, her opposition means that few if any power plants are likely to be built in the monument area, a complication in California’s effort to achieve its aggressive goals for renewable energy.

Developers of the projects have already postponed several proposals or abandoned them entirely. The California agency charged with planning a renewable energy transmission grid has rerouted proposed power lines to avoid the monument.

“The very existence of the monument proposal has certainly chilled development within its boundaries,” said Karen Douglas, chairwoman of the California Energy Commission.

For Mrs. Feinstein, creation of the Mojave national monuments would make good on a promise by the government a decade ago to protect desert land donated by an environmental group that had acquired the property from the Catellus Development Corporation.

“The Catellus lands were purchased with nearly $45 million in private funds and $18 million in federal funds and donated to the federal government for the purpose of conservation, and that commitment must ...

Regarding your question "So why do you think we're losing the fight?"

First let me state clearly that I'm not convinced we ARE "losing the fight". I've discussed most of my thinking about where we are, but I'll be happy to take a moment sometime soon and organize it better to provide clearer focus of the nature of the problem. It is a complex picture with many facets, but I *think* I have an idea of how to present it cogently.

[GliderGuider]

23. Accounting for this is straight-forward.

Politicians as a class are quite sensitive to the demands of their reptilian brains for power and status (it’s one of the reasons people go into politics). How they express that sensitivity depends on their constituency (i.e. where the power comes from). The ultimate constituency in a democracy is of course the electorate, since a politician can only access power if they are elected.

If the interests of a politician and their constituency are well aligned, the politician can ensure continued support by enacting (or at least supporting) legislation and policies favoured by their electorate.

If their interests are not well aligned, and there is a risk that the electorate will not support their candidacy, several options are open. These include reshaping the beliefs of the voters through communications like advertising, or buying voter support in various ways. For a politician, changing their own position to align with their constituency is not usually seen as an option, and I would argue that one reason is that it would be seen as a sign of weakness and loss of status by their reptilian brain.

Both the options of advertising and buying voter support require money, which is where corporate support comes into the picture. Even a politician that is well-aligned with their constituency may be vulnerable to corporate influence if they perceive knock-on opportunities once they leave politics. A politician may be relatively immune from corporate interests only if they are both well-aligned with the electorate and uninterested in the power and status opportunities available through corporate support.

In this case it looks like Feinstein feels that her interests are enough in sync with her electorate that disappointing corporate interests carries a low risk. There is always some risk, of course. The risk is that the project developers will put their money behind an opposing candidate. Then the electoral fight will be between Feinstein’s beliefs and reputation (and the voters' beliefs in the long-term value of the parks) on one side, and the advertising appeals to short-term fears about power shortages and rising costs, as well as the promise of green jobs on the other side. The corporations could even steal a march on the environmentalists, and paint Feinstein as an anti-environmental candidate for blocking renewable energy development.

[kristopher]

26. So she is doing what her constituents want?

And not what amoral corporate interests have paid her to do?

I'm guessing you don't see a conflict with what you wrote earlier?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=221466&mesg_id=221466

Why are her environmentally aware constituents not encouraging the development of projects that will address AGW?

...Here is how I think the psychological jigsaw puzzle fits together.

First of all, human beings have evolved a steep "discount function" with respect to abstract risks like global warming. What this means is that the more abstract and remote a threat is, the less urgently we respond to it. In fact, it's difficult for most people to perceive remote, abstract threats as threats at all. We tend to respond urgently only to immediate, tangible difficulties. I've written about this in general terms here, and there is a paper by a professor at UC Berkeley on this effect and its application to global warming here.

Next there's the herding instinct. Like the discount rate, this appears to be a product of our limbic brain. What it does is makes us very susceptible to popular opinion - we tend go along with the herd unless there are urgent personal reasons not to do so. It's why we respond so well to advertising, why stock market bubbles develop, and why the "War on Terror" meme was so successful. In each case we adopt rational justifications for our behaviour, but the behaviour itself is actually rooted at a very deep level in our brain's wiring.

Third is deference to authority. That comes from even deeper down, from the "reptilian" brain that was laid down hundreds of thousand years ago. This part of our brain generates behavior related to survival and hierarchy. It's where the "fight or flight" mechanism resides, and where our urge to dominate or submit to other troop members comes from. Because of this, when an alpha asserts themselves, large numbers of "average citizens" immediately and unquestioningly accept their leadership.

These three qualities define the behaviour of the vast majority of people when it comes to a threat like AGW. They don't see it as an immediate threat, so they're not prepared to spend significant time, energy or attention on it. When they see their friends and neighbours ignoring it this reinforces their assessment and makes them feel perfectly justified in their non-response. In the USA, the right-wing noise-box makes all kinds of authoritative-sounding pronouncements against action, so the three tendencies line up to make people believe such stupidity as, "The calls of alarm are coming from eggheads with agendas who are just getting their panties in a bunch over grant money and academic empires." They'll stop driving their SUV to work when the neighbours do: the neighbours haven't stopped, there's no sign around them that this "global warming" thing is even real, the kids still need to get to football practice, and everybody on Fox news is telling them not to fall for that baloney. So they keep on driving."

[GliderGuider]

27. Yes, as is James Inhofe.

Feinstein and Inhofe are both unusual cases, though. In every population there will be outliers.

Did you think that I meant that all politicians are always owned by corporate interests and never take independent, enlightened positions? I don't believe I said that.

The herding instinct or any other psychological mechanism can be used for good or ill, they're just psychodynamic mechanisms. We can defer to the authority of James Hansen just as easily as that of Fred Singer, and the "Blessed Unrest" movement is a wonderful example of herding behaviour operating in service of a positive goal.

In the case where climate change obstruction is coming from political sources and is being supported by their constituents, these mechanisms are being used towards what I consider negative goals. Because these negative goals are aligned with the interests of some very large corporations, the corporations supply the money needed to harness the psychological mechanisms of the public in service of those goals. The evidence that this is effective is on display in every comment thread following every Monbiot article in the Guardian.

[kristopher]

28. BUT WHY IS THIS GROUP OPPOSING ACTION ON CC? nt

[GliderGuider]

29. Because they don't see it as a threat.

Instead they see remediation as a threat to their short-term interests. And their short-term interests are material comfort and power. This is as true of the proles as the apparatchiks.

[kristopher]

30. "These three qualities define the behaviour of the vast majority of people"

Discounting the threat, herding instinct, and deference to authority...

Your theory fails as an overarching explanation.

[GliderGuider]

31. I agree that my use of the phrase "vast majority" overstated the case. However,

If you read the following, it makes a lot of sense when considered against the characteristics of our steep discounting function. 73% of the people in this poll said global warming was at least somewhat serious, but 60% would oppose a raise of $10/month in their electricity bill to fight it.

Poll: Most see climate change as serious

In the AP-Stanford poll, when participants were asked how serious a problem they thought global warming presented, 42 percent replied it was very serious and 31 percent said it was somewhat serious.

Nearly two-thirds, or 63 percent, said that if nothing is done to reduce the threat of global warming, future generations will be hurt a great deal or “a lot.” An additional 13 percent said future generations would be moderately harmed.

Still, only 41 percent viewed global warming as extremely or very important to them, although respondents said they rated climate change as second only to the economy as the most serious problems facing the world if nothing is done to address it.

While a solid majority say they believe the Earth already is warming, those that do not appeared to be more convinced than ever about their skepticism.

Of the 22 percent of the respondents who said that warming “probably is not happening,” about half said they also are extremely or very sure of that conclusion. Two years ago, only one-third of people felt that way when asked the same question.

But the broad concerns over climate change appeared not to translate into support for legislation before Congress that would cap greenhouse gases.

While three-quarters of respondents said they support action to combat climate change, just as many said they would oppose the “cap and trade” legislation to limit heat-trapping pollution if it raised their electricity bill by $25 a month. Almost six in 10 balked if it meant paying $10 extra a month for electricity.

Essentially, people will oppose action on CC at this time if there is any perceived cost associated with it. IMO, in order to avoid the cognitive dissonance inherent in that position, they are therefore forced to adopt the positions laid out by the deniers.

[kristopher]

32. This is a perfect example of my criticism

While I don't disagree that we engage in discounting future threats, that is only one thread in a large tapestry of forces at work. The reason this is a perfect example is the way you are basing your analysis on the values (and beliefs) of the public, but you haven't focused your attention on gaining a FULL understanding of what those values and beliefs are. Instead, you select random polls that tend to support your preconceived opinions.

Surely you have enough grounding in logic to see the problem with that?

Again, I don't think you are "wrong" in your belief that the influences you present are pernicious and relevant, but I do suggest that the problem of how to address climate change (a question you've phrased as how to motivate people to action) requires a much broader perspective.

[GliderGuider]

34. And I don't disagree that it requires a broad perspective

My point in raising this particular issue is that the influences I've described are not present in the discussion at all. I ignored the other influences in this instance not because I think they're unimportant, but to throw the spotlight on a significant aspect that most people are utterly unaware of.

[TxRider]

33. A nuance.

"But the broad concerns over climate change appeared not to translate into support for legislation before Congress that would cap greenhouse gases.

While three-quarters of respondents said they support action to combat climate change, just as many said they would oppose the “cap and trade” legislation to limit heat-trapping pollution if it raised their electricity bill by $25 a month. Almost six in 10 balked if it meant paying $10 extra a month for electricity."


People don't oppose action on CC.

People oppose higher electric bills.

They oppose them regardless of the reason they are higher, and the monthly bills now are a higher priority than the risk of CC change negative effects to them later.

If climate legislation was going to reduce next months light bill by 25%, even deniers would be all for it.

[pscot]

35. We're losing the fight

partly because it's easier to temporize and rationalize than to actually do the hard thing; but also
because the deniers are telling people what they want to hear, and using the full panoply of media and the very finest, most up to date manipulative techniques behavioural science can provide.

Manufacuring consent has been a project of Ad agencies since the 1920's. Harvard started handing out awards for advertising in 1924, and BBDO was formed in 1920. Goebbels understood the process crudely, intuitively. It's a mainstay of corporate control and their stock in trade has always consisted of half-truths, innuendo and an atavistic appeal to the snake-brain. It's axiomatic that the average American has a mental age of 13, and is best spoken to at the level of the 5th grade reading primer.

And what have we got? The truth? Let's be serious.

One of the Brits, whose name escapes me, said the only thing that can save us now is some kind of religious conversion. I think that's true, and it will probably come when the reality bites. Too late to make a difference.

[tinrobot]

11. The problem is physical, enacting the solution, motivational.

I get where you're coming from... we know the science, and we can come up with technological solutions. That's the physical reality.

The problem is with motivation (i.e. psychology) People have no motivation to change, and like many faced with the prospect of major change, they deny that there's a problem in the first place.

It's like the alcoholic who can't accept how drinking destroys his/her life and family. Only when the alcoholic hits rock bottom and loses everything does the motivation to change usually come about.

We're addicted to oil/growth/consumerism. We may have to hit rock bottom before finding the motivation to shed those addictions.

[GliderGuider]

12. Even worse, to extend the alcoholism metaphor a bit

we have well-heeled liquor salesmen acting as addiction counselors...

[drm604]

3. Oh look, another article attempting to give equal time to deniers,

and it's from the American Chemical Society, and they're "the world’s largest scientific society". Wow, "world's largest", they certainly can't have an agenda.

And the NIPCC, they must be unbiased. They have their reports published by the Heartland Institute!
:sarcasm:

http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Chemical_Society

Corporate Influence on American Chemical Society Journalists

With its strong ties to industry and elected board filled with industry officials, corporate bias has come to light on at least two occasions at ACS. In 1995, the Columbia Journalism Review reported in its Darts and Laurels section that an executive with an oil company killed a story that was to appear in Chemical & Engineering News.

"Getting wind of the news that staff writer Wilbert Lepkowski's year-long investigation into the dismal history of Ashland Oil and its legal and environmental woes was just about ready to erupt, Ashland vice president John Brothers flew from company headquarters in Ashland, Kentucky, to Washington, D.C., where he and ACS executive director John Crumb had a little chat." The article continued, "Whatever was said, following that meeting the Ashland piece was sunk."

[GliderGuider]

5. This is why we are losing the battle.

They have figured out how to get mindshare.

[TxRider]

13. Not hard to figure out

The real argument on attributing warming to man and our C02 output when I read on places like RealClimate is summarized as "we can explain the warming in no other way" which by plain wording does not exclude another reason for it they are not aware of or haven't been presented with.

[tinrobot]

10. If warming was coming from the sun, the stratosphere would heat up.

But it's not. The stratosphere is cooling.

If the warming was coming from the surface (and trapped by CO2/greenhouse gases) then the lower atmosphere would heat up and the stratosphere would remain cool. Cooler, in fact, because outgoing heat trapped at the surface never reaches the stratosphere.

This is exactly what we see. Here's an article on it:

http://www.wunderground.com/education/strato_cooling.asp