Will Climate Change Denial Doom the Planet?
Government leaders convene in a hearing room, a tableau of probity and power. A lone, impassioned scientist addresses them. He says their planet is in grave danger from catastrophic but predictable changes, some already underway. He cites natural disasters, floods, and the planet's steady warming. Despite this grim prognosis, he argues, there is a solution, one the cost of which is manageable -- but only if they commit to action.
At first, the leaders are shocked. But after a moment's consideration, some begin to titter. Some smirk, others laugh derisively, accusing him of fabricating a hoax. Yet even as dismiss the scientist as having lost his senses, the first unmistakable signs that he is right are taking place all around them.
Al Gore testifying to the Senate?
Far from it. The scientist was Jor-El. The leaders were the Council of the Planet Krypton. And the scene was the opening of the first episode in the television series, Superman.
Superman - the "strange visitor from another planet" - was rocketed to Earth as an infant by his parents, after the Kryptonian leadership ignored his father's warnings of their planet's imminent disaster. It's a famous scene in American pop culture, but also a compelling parable at a time when the Earth is at a similar crossroads due to man-made global climate change. And the parallel, unfortunately, is called to mind as climate science "deniers" in the Congress plan hearings to expose the climate "hoax" and Congressional leadership talks about carbon dioxide as a "carcinogen" with the same kind of derision and denial that came from the cartoonish Council of Krypton.
Jared Diamond's book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, describes several instances in which societies - such as the statue builders on Eastern Island - chose to continue behaviors that would obviously result in their extinction despite obvious evidence to the contrary. But why do they fail to act? Why do they passively continue behaviors that lead to their own destruction?
The answer lies in the psychology of denial, the psychological shutdown that is often triggered by the challenge of new realities. Denial is fueled by intertwined emotions of fear and helplessness, on the one hand, and by frozen ideology and beliefs, on the other. We think of denial at the personal level - the reaction to a loss through death or the ending of an intimate relationship - but it operates at other levels as well. For example, the Elders of Krypton were overwhelmed by dissonance when Jor-El described their fate to them. It was simply not conceivable to them that their planet was anything other than stable and hospitable, and they would be the perpetual beneficiaries of that stability.
Driven by this ideology, the Kryptonian leaders saw little advantage in recognizing the new reality - especially when it meant facing risks, danger, and new adjustments. Instead, they preferred an illusion of security, clinging to the idea that nothing their society believed in would ever change or be proven untrue. In the classic psychological sense, they became "deniers." Many of us have such an illusion. But when that illusion is shattered by evidence or events, powerful emotions of fear and helplessness can arise and drive denial, even aggressive attacks upon reality. While Congressional and scientific "deniers" themselves may have a variety of self-aggrandizing motivations, their pitch to the public is, in essence, an encouragement of popular emotional denial about the scientific reality and the mounting evidence around us.
The phenomenon of denial operates at an ideological level as well. Our capitalist society's ethic of individual responsibility and accumulation, dissected 100 years ago by the sociologist Max Weber, sees these activities as a "calling," and therefore "good." But the despoiling of the planet changes that view - not only can individualism lead to devastation, but only an affirmative, collective decision can remediate the danger. The climate challenge, therefore, undermines the dominant ideology, just as Jor-El's analysis did on Krypton.
America has mastered similar moments before. The Civil Rights movement challenged many Americans' fundamental beliefs and behavior, but over time they learned that fears and resentments could be conquered by acknowledging them and finding new ways to address and deal affirmatively with new realities. Our society's progress was in many ways the sum of many individuals coming to grips with this reality.
Climate change will require a similar transformation, but the seeds of it are already around us. Many of today's business leaders realize that they can increase business success and reduce costs through sustainable practices that head off the prospect of climate change at the front end. Environmental and civic organizations have identified specific actions that individuals, families and communities can take in daily life.
There's no question that facing new dangers and uncomfortable truths, or carrying out new solutions, can feel like plunging into unknown, dangerous territory. Feelings of powerlessness and impotence can be overwhelming, but they can be mitigated by acknowledging them and responding with constructive, collaborative actions. Awareness and action are the antidotes, because recognizing reality and doing something about it shows mastery over the dangers you face, as an individual or society.
If we are to avert catastrophic climate change, we must understand the psychology of the "Elders of Krypton" among us today. The emotional message of climate change is that we must abandon old beliefs and ideologies that no longer fit reality. Proponents of action must convey an affirmative message that we have the power to change our planet's direction if we so choose, and combat not just the scientific "denial" pitched by their opponents, but their emotional denial as well.
Everett Ehrlich is the president of ESC Company, a Washington-based economics consulting firm; he was Undersecretary of Commerce in the Clinton Administration. Douglas LaBier, a business psychologist and psychotherapist, is Director of the Center for Adult Development in Washington.
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Some skeptics use satellite temperature measurements like those compiled by Dr. Roy Spencer at the University of Alabama-Huntsville (UAH) as an excuse to deny anthropogenic climate change.
For one, Spencer is a firm believer in Intelligent Design, a field that is a media creation of the right.
Secondly, do satellite temperatures and those measured at the surface differ by so much?
After errors in the satellite data collection system were corrected such as orbital drift, instrument body warming, inter-instrument calibration, and orbital decay, the temperature anomalies were not much far apart.
According to University of Alabama-Huntsville where Spencer works...
"Surface temperature records indicate a long-term atmospheric warming trend of about 3° Fahrenheit per century."
" One of the hottest controversies in climate science is the apparent disagreement between temperature data collected by thermometers at the surface and the satellite dataset."
""Global" surface thermometer networks show a warming trend of approximately 1.7 degrees Celsius per century — about 3° Fahrenheit
"The satellite data show a warming trend of 1.4 C or about 2.52° F per century."
http://www
So it looks like there is not so much of a discrepency between surface temperatures and those measured by satellite once Spencer and his team removed the errors, unless one wants to substitute faith-based ideologies like Intelligent Design for actual science.
Denial is a terrible thing.
This weekend of the sixth of June, motorists in the northern Sierra Nevadas may be required to have chains for their tires, due to unseasonable snow. Snow has also fallen in parts of North Dakota, Alberta, Canada and northern England. Looks like a cool summer for the northern Hemisphere.
Maybe we should hold off saving the planet from global warming. We may need to conserve all the warmth we can.
That's why we're now calling it "climate change", Richard. It's important to be able to blame EVERYTHING on it.
it's june here in the big sky state of new jersey and i hope to finally turn the furnace off this week.
that's not global warming..
climate change is part of nature.
So? Humans are too. And we have changed the chemical composition of the atmosphere.
Smoke stacks are not a part of nature, neither are highways bumper to bumper with cars. I can name several other things not a part of nature- brick making factories, coal fired power plants, chemical plants- need I go on?
rp, since when are you not natural? some species make nests, some coral. some can fly w/o strange contraptions, some cannot..
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"climate change is part of nature"
True. Everything on Earth is "part of nature". It's also "part of nature" for species to die off when they are maladapted, as appears to be the case with humans.
The earth is about 4.5 billion years old. The "climate" of the earth has constantly changed over this long, long period of time. Natural Climate Change is the norm.
The author of this article appears to deny the existence of natural climate change over the 4.5 billion year history of the earth. He implies that if humans don't act immediately, the earth is ruined forever.
How logical is it to assume that a planet with a 4.5 billion year history is going to be ruined in only a few years, due to the actions of one species of animal, a species that doesn't even live in the oceans which cover most of the earth's surface.
It is a straw man argument to assume that because natural climate change has always influenced the earth before that man is not now.Actual
It is a fact that natual climate change over the past 100,000 years has been more severe than any imagined recent climate change caused by man. Remember, there have been four ice ages in relatively recent times. The ice sheet over New York at one time was reportedly twice the height of the Empire State Building. And Yosemite Valley was once just another mountain valley. The Great Lakes didn't exist until fairly recent times. The Midwest possesses abundant evidence of glacial activity from the Ice Ages. Against this, we have the one degree warming of the 20th Century, part of which may have been caused by natural causes. Again, the idea that we must act within the next five years, or face disaster, is not credible, given the periods of time involved, and the great changes in climate, during the Ice Ages of the past.
How logical is it to assume that a planet with a 4.5 billion year history is going to be ruined in only a few years, due to the actions of one species of animal, a species that doesn't even live in the oceans which cover most of the earth's surface."
How logical is it to assume that every single country on that planet that has a governmental scientific organization subscribes to the idea of anthropogenic climate change, and they ALL got it wrong, they forgot we don't live in the ocean! Far, far too many other organizations to list here, ALL WRONG. Darn! Not one of those scientific bodies and organizations ever examined climactic trends over time!
In light of such simplicity, how about I point out that we live in the atmosphere, which covers those oceans, then point out that both observations are irrelevant. The "actions of one species of animal" that has embraced combustion to manipulate that planet.
How about I point out that natural climate change IS the norm, what virtually the entire world has recognized as occuring is climate change that is NOT the norm. One might even say THAT IS THE POINT!
You are mounting the "arrogance of man" argument that has been used to suppress various of humankind's scientific endeavors, when they conflict with powers that be, like petroleum companies, or the delusional "free marketers". It hasn't worked since literacy became common.
You nailed him, but he won't respond. He will just make the same posting under another article on climate change. Like you say, deniers just want to obfuscate the issue.
Shock, I just read your profile. I don't know if we're totally polar opposites politically, but we could be. We could very well be the perfect test case for exploring whether or not there is common ground between left and right, the collective v. the individual. We may never be able to convince each other, but it would sure be interesting to find where we agree.
It is a mistake to assume that government scientific organizations are all knowing. These organisations have in most cases not existed for more than a few decades. The earth is 4.5 billion years old. Temperature records are only a few centuries old.
If you look at science books from 100 years ago, you will see how much new knowledge we have now. 100 years from now, our knowledge will be even greater. The human race is still trying to figure out the universe it exists in, and how it works. This is a long, slow process. The idea that we must take drastic actions now, when the earth's temperature appears stable to slightly cooling, seems very unreasonable.
Of course the earth's climate has changed over long periods of time. I don't think any reputable scientist would question that. The problem here is relatively rapid climate change with a human forcing mechanism. When changes happen too fast, species cannot adapt fast enough resulting in mass extinctions as have happened in the past or in drastic reductions in population sizes. As far as your point about the climate being ruined in a few years, drastic changes can occur. (My house is located on outwash deposits from a flood of Biblical proportions that went through the area in a few days when an ice dam in what is now Montana broke and flooded a huge area in the West --the channeled scablands. This happened near the end of the last ice age. The problem with the current changes in our area is early snow melts and reduced snow packs creating water storage problems for an already arid area totally dependent on irrigation
''The problem with the current changes in our area is early snow melts and reduced snow packs creating water storage problems..
sounds more like soot taking out your snow pack than ''global warming''
How logical is it to assume that because there is natural climate change, that humanity can't possibly be having an effect on the climate? Richard2, your comment assumes that they're mutually exclusive. Not very logical. Or thoughtful.
good post r2. in fact @ 9F warmer the ice did not completely melt on greenland and there were butterflies! looky here: ''Scientists who probed two kilometers (1.2 miles) through a Greenland glacier to recover the oldest plant DNA on record said the planet was far warmer hundreds of thousands of years ago than is generally believed. DNA of trees, plants and insects including butterflies and spiders from beneath the southern Greenland glacier was estimated to date to 450,000 to 900,000 years ago, according to the remnants retrieved from this long-vanished boreal forest. That view contrasts sharply with the prevailing one that a lush forest of this kind could only have existed in Greenland as recently as 2.4 million years ago. The existence of those DNA samples suggest the temperature probably reached 10 degrees C (50 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summer and -17 °C (1 °F) in the winter. They also indicated that during the last interglacial period, 116,000–130,000 years ago, when temperatures were on average 5 °C (9 °F) higher than now, the glaciers on Greenland did not completely melt away.[29]'
When Greenland was 9 degrees warmer, sea levels reached up to 6m (20ft) above where they are now, fuelled by the melting of ice sheets that covered Greenland and Antarctica. Most of the cities on the East and West coats would be under water and Bangladesh, probably Holland, and Venice.
Extreme melting in Greenland.
"The Arctic fauna has followed the climatic change, and both fishes and fowl are now found much farther north than formerly. The southern limit of permanently frozen ground in Asia has moved many kilometres farther north, and the Spitsbergen period of navigation has lengthened considerab
The number of ice-free days went from an average of 95 days to an average of 175 days.
"This part of the Arctic may, without exaggeration, be said to have experienced a climatic revolution
Date of report: 1947.
Brookhaven National Lab scientist concludes that the Earth’s climate is only about one-third as sensitive to carbon dioxide as the IPCC assumes
http://www
other news:
In 2008, much fuss was made that the thinning ice on Lake Baikal is due to global warming.
http://www
Last month (May 2009), by happenstance, NASA took a set of satellite pictures of Lake Baikal:
http://ear
Lake Baikal is actually a rift valley, where the tectonic plates are pulling apart.
The article about Lake Baikal states: "The pattern and appearance suggest that the ice is quite thin."
no doubt due to soot rp..
ya think?
Please provide a quantitative definition of climate change. It is necessary in order to benchmark progress. When the issue was all about global warming, the temperature was used. Since the global mean temperature has actually been cooling recently, global warming has now become climate change. It does not seem that the non-deniers have an actual quantitative definition. Just anecdotal stories.
Your statement, as most provided by denialists, is very misleading. According to NASA,....
"The ten warmest years all occur within the 12-year period 1997-2008.
"The year 2007 tied for second warmest in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. 2007 tied 1998, which had leapt a remarkable 0.2°C above the prior record with the help of the "El Niño of the century". The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean is in the cool phase of its natural El Niño-La Niña cycle."
http://dat
http://dat
Realpolitic,
If the earth had warmed at all over the past decade, it would not be necessary to change the expression "Global Warming" to "Climate Change." If people use Global Warming, then the test for the existence of Global Warming is simply an accelerating increase in temperature.
Given the vigorous efforts to get people to stop using Global Warming and to start using Climate Change, it is safe to say that those pushing this change think that either Global Warming has paused, or the earth's temperature has cooled over the last decade.
You are correct. The fanatical deniers, duped by the conservatives, will resist any proposals based on climate control.
So don't do it.
Replace fossil and nukes with Solar and BioChar
For national security reasons.
How does nuclear power emit greenhouse gases?
mining, processing.
The Problem with nukes is Global Thermonuclear War,
from proliferation.
Not to mention waste, cost, terrorist target, and a thousand other reasons.
See my profile for proof.
Thank you for this informative and interesting column. I suggest you write a follow up piece on the psychology of those who claim to believe that climate change poses grave imminent dangers but advocate public policies designed to do little or nothing to stem greenhouse gas emissions. I'm genuinely puzzled by the hostility of most environmentalists to expanding nuclear power in the US, as well as by the support that the proposed Waxman-Markey climate change legislation is attracting.
Is the explanation that many people's minds are more divided than they recognize-- that is, that on an unconscious level, they doubt Al Gore is right? Or is something else going on?
really, the increased threat of global thermonuclear war puzzles you?
All for a limited supply of energy we can get safely from Rooftop solar and BioChar
Forever.
http://www
No one is cavalier about the hazards of nuclear power. But as you no doubt know, that technology is up and running in a way that alternatives are not right now. If the threats posed by climate change are as dire and as immediate as Al Gore and others claim, one would think there would be a lot more serious weighing of nuclear options. And absurdities like Waxman-Markey would be laughed at.
Yes, nuclear power is a solution advocated by environmental scientist James Hansen, but it does lead to very critical questions of spent fuel storage.
There are some other practical problems as well. No nuclear generation plant has ever arrived on time, or within budget. 200 to 300% cost overruns are typical. No private insurers are willing to cover nuclear plants. No banks will finance their construction without ironclad federal loan guarantees.
Maybe, but let's hope not!
.
Rhetticent, You will be hearing about running out of fossil fuels for the next 40 years too, but they are finite and are already harder to find and extract. It will take at least that long to begin the switch to alternative fuels. Whether you support the climate change approach or the limited fossil fuel approach, there will be change or Aramingo's quote from George Carlin may come true. While we still have the opportunity to change with the least anguish, we should take advantage of it.
Absolutely. Let's change in a way that makes sense. Let's start driving cars powered by CNG for starters: cleaner, and we have oceans of it in this country. let's develop nuclear...
The billions of dollars in subsidies received by the coal and oil industries is another form of tax on Americans which you seem to miss. But it does not surprise me!
It's a little odd to be carried into this argument by Superman but whatever. Great piece. I've been arguing for years at my art rant and now at nth word that denial and other unconscious forces are at the root of most of humanities issues, and are the crux of the worst. You manage to include both of the primary forces; in addition to denial, what I (inspired by gamer talk) call the "lag" or "latency" problem: the delay in information systems (including consciousness) between perception, decision and action. This lag at the global scale gives new meaning to the concept of "doom." "Latency Kills." Thanks.
"The emotional message of climate change is that we must abandon old beliefs and ideologies that no longer fit reality."
I thought climate change was all about science.
"The emotional message of climate change" ( and the point of this article ) has to do with if, and how, we react to inconvenient realities. Or did you not read the article?
That works both ways. I'm just wondering when the argument turned from a scientific one to an emotional and psychological one, when more and more scientists started challenging the "consensus?" When the scientific evidence no longer supported the overly dramatic rhetoric?
Environmentalist types for years have made emotional arguments about climate change for years so OUR problem must be emotional. Is that it?
Well yes, but changing people's behavior involves a message that goes way beyond science.
By the way, good to see you, Real. Haven't seen a post from you in a while. You doing OK?
Whether you agree with the climate change scenario or not, this planet is running out of fossil fuels. The change to other sources of energy will not be quick, 6 billion plus people will not change their habits over a decade. The development of alternative energy sources should be at the top of the priority list for long term projects because without it, nothing else make much difference.
I've been hearing the "running out of fossil fuels" mantra for 40 years. The US is awash in oceans of natural gas that we're not using, and that burns cleaner than coal or gasoline. But a simple changeover to a common sense, clean and readily available fuel source will not provide a revenue stream to the government like the nonsense of cap and trade will.
If the global warming people were proposing real, non-governmental solutions, I'd be happy to help out, because the end result would be GOOD. For everybody. Cap and trade, and carbon taxes, will not solve the problems that are supposed to exist, and will simply make matters worse.
And we've gotten 40 years closer to running out. Claiming that fossil fuels are an infinite resource is foolish. But the bigger problem - one that burning WHATEVER carbon fuel we happen to be "awash" in - is that of adding greenhouse gasses to the atmospher at a rate greater than any natural process can handle.
And the solution to a truly global problem unlike anything humanity has ever had to solve requires a greater base of action than any "non-governmental" entity could hope to handle. This cannot be "left to the states" or "left to businesses" who have been the problem all along; look how well they've done so far.
The money to develop the new technologies and then the resultant infrastructure has to come from somewhere. It won't appear out of thin air and part of the reason our trains, planes and autos are so far behind the rest of the world is because of DENIAL.
Listen, when was the last time a major oil reservoir was found? Quite a while! And I am not speaking of the real dirty shale oil sites!
We have one more obstacle to overcome in the struggle to engage our leadership against Climate Change, that doesn't have a parallel in the world of Krypton. There is, unfortunately, a rather large number of fundamentalist Christians who believe that it doesn't matter what we do to the planet because the "Rapture" is near. This is one of the more dangerous delusions, convenient to the oil-lobby, which propels the agenda of the fringe-right.
Worrie, why must you assume that everyone who disagrees with you is a "fundamentalist Christian"? The left is able to trot this tired accusation out without question to demonize anyone that disagrees with them. If a conservative were to make these kinds of sweeping stereotypical assumptions about any race or gender he would be attacked without mercy. Keep an open mind, and realize the "large number" you assume is a tiny percentage of the people who have problems with the Church of Global Warming.
The assumption is based on the fact that warming deniers, like christians, choose to believe that which has no factual basis to verify it. While at the same time choose not to believe that which has an overwhelming factual basis to verify it. They choose fantasy over reality. It takes a certain mindset, so it's logical to assume that they're one and the same.
Rhetticent, why don't you produce any science that says man-made greenhouse gases are not responsible for climate change instead of going on and on? No right wing blogs!!
Where is the nearest Church of Global Warming. I would like to attend services, get baptized and put some money in the collection plate.
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