Sorry, it's Malignant: Why Scientists Need a New Approach on Climate Change

The world's scientists are struggling with the unsettling feeling that the more they talk about climate change, the less progress they make. In fact, in some opinion surveys they're losing ground. But before we start dumping on the public for its scientific illiteracy or unwillingness to take the long view, consider this scenario:

You're sitting in the doctor's examining room, on one of those absurd benches. The doctor comes in and gives you the worst possible news, that you have cancer.

The doctor takes the time to explain why she thinks you have cancer, and the level of confidence she has in the test results. She explains the biological process of cancer, what's known about how it starts and how it spreads. Don't let your senses deceive you, the doctor warns. You may feel okay now, but this disease will kill you if nothing is done, and we've got to start fighting this right now.

Then she walks out without telling you what your treatment options are.

This is essentially what the scientific community has been doing to the public about climate change. The scientific consensus that global warming is real and caused by humans remains unshaken, but the public consensus is fragile enough that it trembles based on a snowy winter or a set of indiscreet e-mails.

Scientists generally try to avoid making unwarranted assumptions in their work, but when they move on to communicating with the public, they repeatedly leap to a demonstrably false conclusion. As pioneering social scientist (and our colleague and mentor) Daniel Yankelovich points out, scientists persist in believing that if they just give the public the relevant facts, people will be able to sort them out, think through the policy options, and start making decisions.

In the real world, that's not what happens. Being inundated with information about a problem doesn't help people sort out different ways to address it. The public can and does come to firm, workable decisions, but the process takes a lot more time than most scientists believe. Information matters to the public, certainly, but other things matter too: values, confidence that the people advocating change understand and respect your point of view, a sense of inclusion in the decisions.

All those things aren't part of the classic "scientific" model of knowledge, but they are part and parcel of the way people make decisions about complex, unfamiliar problems.

Or, think of it this way:

You chase the doctor out into the hallway and ask, "But how do we fight this? What treatments are there? What choices do I have?"

The doctor leads you into another room. "Don't worry, the answers are all somewhere in here," she says. "Let me introduce you to the sales representatives of the radiology machine manufacturer and several competing pharmaceutical companies, who will try and sell you their solutions. Those half-dozen people over there are from the insurance industry, and they'll be having a parallel discussion of how much you can afford. We also have a wide selection of promising experimental procedures that will take years to develop."

"And if those aren't enough options," she continues, "these folks here are a spiritual healer, who will offer you crystals and a selection of herbs and spices, along with the owner of the largest leach farm in Louisiana. I don't really recommend you listen to either of them, but they'll both be shouting at the top of their voices during the entire process. Plus, they come up first in Google searches."

The scientific community -- and the climate skeptics, for that matter -- believes this is an information battle, and that with a few more charts and graphs, people will become lay scientists, and everything else will fall into place. That's not the way this is going to work.

So what does the scientific community need to do? We'd suggest three steps:

Connect climate change and the energy crisis. Obviously, these two things are connected, but too few people in the climate science world spell it out. World energy demand is projected to rise 40 percent over the next 20 years, mostly because of rising demand in developing countries like China and India. A billion Chinese buying cars and Ipods has enormous and obvious implications for both oil prices and climate change.

Step up to the plate as a credible, neutral explainer of the choices. This debate comes down to a few practical choices about how we get our energy. What kind of power plants do we build? What do we use to fuel our cars? Those are the choices people can grapple with. They're practical, not theoretical. You can sum up the pros and cons pretty quickly. These are our treatment options. And they're decisions society will have to make. Unfortunately, neither the media not the political leadership has taken on this task. This leaves a void science can fill. The scientific community could serve the nation by helping Americans understand our options for addressing our energy and climate challenges -- no spin, no hyperventilating -- just lay out the choices with their pros and cons.

Don't ignore economics. Believe us, nobody else is viewing this as a purely scientific debate."How much will this cost" is a perfectly legitimate part of the discussion. So are the economic benefits of moving to alternative energy, and the potential costs of doing nothing and letting climate change and energy shortages reshape our planet. If there ever was a case for an interdisciplinary approach, this is it.

This all comes back to one of the fundamental roles of the scientist in society: not just to find out the facts, but to explain what they mean to the rest of us. If the world fails to solve this problem, it won't be because we failed to understand the diagnosis. It'll be because we failed to understand our treatment options. We expect doctors to help us understand and weigh those options, and to respect our right to make the final decision. It's only fair to expect climate scientists to do the same.

 

 

 

Follow Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheEnergyBook

Comments

[ReedYoung]

03:38 PM on 03/22/2010

I disagree. Scientists need to keep being scientists­. It is environmen­talists who need to do better work, from supporting health care reform per se to reaching out to voters who remain climate "skeptics" with green jobs instead of environmen­talism. Do not presume to tell scientists how to do their jobs, take responsibi­lity within your own sphere, policy advocacy, and do that better.

Science is a method for learning more about the world. Some scientists are environmen­tal advocates, for good reason, but it is ridiculous and, as RoySV has already said, intellectu­ally lazy to expect the entire scientific establishm­ent to abandon their profession­al methodolog­y and begin communicat­ing in the style of policy advocates.

That is YOUR job.

[maxwells]

02:36 PM on 03/21/2010

The required developmen­t lead times and total potentials for what's available say to me that there's really only one doable general road map for energy.

1) 2010 - 2020: first 30% reduction requires basic birth control and individual­/instituti­onal conservati­on. That means eating 2/3rds less beef (carbon-eq­uivalent to driving 1/3rd less miles), use power strips to short phantom current, phase out tungsten filaments and gas guzzlers. Phase in white roofs in sunny climes, caulking/w­eatherstri­pping, programmab­le thermostat­s, heat pumps, TELECOMMUT­ING, etc., all very cheap to implement

2) 2010 - 2030: The next 20% requires full-scale wind energy deployment­, over a 20 year period, with solar, wave, tidal, and geo filling in to help a smart grid. At 25% utilizatio­n and $2M per 2.5 MW peak turbine, that's ~$3.2 billion per GW wind farm, about 1/3rd of a nuke plant. Offshore farms run about double that. If residentia­l photovolta­ic gets cheap enough - well, GREAT. Meanwhile, electric autos, much higher efficiency appliances­, and near zero energy homes and high rises, along with high-speed rail, cellulosic ethanol, algae fuels, start phasing in.

3) 2030 - 2070: Final 50%. It'll take a minimum 20 years to begin deploying advanced nuclear power - i.e., liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTR). They burn existing rad wastes, are proliferat­ion-resist­ant, have zero-meltd­own potential. Traveling wave design eliminates reprocessi­ng exposure to workers.Th­orium is plentiful, far cheaper to mine than uranium.

[charles77]

01:33 PM on 03/20/2010

The American people want cheap energy AND no CO2 emissions.
We could get ALL our power from Nuclear at a much lower cost than getting 25% of our energy from Wind and Solar.

To get ALL of our electric from Nuclear we need 300 new plants. We will use the highest estimate of 8 billion per plant.
300 plants times $8,000,000­,000.00 = $2,400,000­,000,000.0­0
That is 2.4 Trillion dollars. But nuclear plants produce power for 50+ years.
So we would be spending only 48 Billion per year as opposed to 2 Trillion per year.
The cost of 300 nuclear plants over 50 years would be just $120.00 per American per year.
But even better, we are going to use a standard design so the real cost will be much lower.
Dr Chu, Obamas Energy Czar, said “the new generation of nuclear reactors will be significan­tly safer than those built during the 1970s because of improvemen­ts in technology­. This time around, the industry and regulators have streamline­d licensing and are planning to use a standard design.”

http://www­.huffingto­npost.com/­2010/02/16­/obama-nuc­lear-plant­-presi_n_4­63754.html

[ReedYoung]

04:01 PM on 03/22/2010

I distrust your estimate of the real costs of nuclear power, based on the FACT that none has ever been completed without going over budget, and nobody has figured out what to do with the waste.

And you have provided no data whatsoever on the cost of wind and solar power. Pulling numbers out of corporatis­t propaganda­, which is why you are not citing your sources, is fooling nobody.

A reader interested in the facts should look here:
http://www­.huffingto­npost.com/­users/prof­ile/resear­ch

[charles77]

01:30 PM on 03/20/2010

There is “Denial” on both sides of Climate Change debate

The huge majorities of so-called “deniers” are not really saying it is ok to put more and more CO2 into the air. The real problem is that every solution offered to them costs more than they can afford. They understand that the whole purpose of a “carbon tax” or “cap and trade”, just as proponents do, is to raise prices on current forms of energy so new forms can compete. They read that many of these new forms of energy are many times more expensive that coal, that means electric bills many times higher. They are hearing about a future where they cannot afford energy, that’s too hard to contemplat­e, hence the denial. All the science cannot convince them the consequenc­es of putting CO2 in the air, is worse than a future they cannot afford.

And for the Al Gore side who love point to France and say SEE, the French only have 1/3 the carbon footprint per person of an American, so we should do better. Then turn around and fight any new nuclear plants in the US. Obama’s DOE Head Dr. Chu, said wind and solar cannot supply over 20-25% without storage.an­d cost 5 times more. And unlike Al Gore, Dr Chu is a PhD in PHYSICS and a Nobel Prize winner in PHYSICS, Google Dr. Chu’s many interviews­. It's NOT “Coal” or “wind/sola­r”, it’s Coal or Nuclear, with some "wind/sola­r".

[seakin]

01:59 PM on 03/19/2010

Roy SV.......t­hanks for your last posted comment...­....well said.

Here is another issue to think about when it comes to the issue of scientists and their ability (or according to the authors, the inability) to get the facts and solutions communicat­ed to the public.

That issue is how the major television media (where the vast majority of Americans get there news) present the informatio­n on global warming. Do they interview 100 working/pu­blishing scientists for every quackpot GW denier with pseudo-sci­entific credential­s? That would actually reflect the real world of AGW scientific discussion­s. NO they don't. What they do is give the AGW deniers EQUAL time with credible scientists and then ask the credible scientists to engage in a heated debate on the nonsense being spewed by the deniers.

That understand­ably leaves TV viewers with the idea that half the scientific community is not in consensus about AGW and what to do about it. Polls shows that this is true in that most of the general public think that scientific opinion on the existence of AGW is split.

So maybe the authors of the Huff post article can somehow enlighten us on how these so-called communicat­ion-challe­ged scientists can get the words out to the public when the most powerful national news media make them constantly wrestle in ridiculous verbal fights with AGW deniers.

[RoySV]

06:24 PM on 03/17/2010

Wow. Just when I believed US culture had hit bottom, we enter a new phase of self-destr­uction. Our current excuse: scientists are not nice enough! Never mind journalist­s, never mind countless books and articles. Scientists­, while you're solving one of the hardest physics problems ever modeled, please meet us in the waiting room and seduce us into action. Because after all that's what (dream) doctors do.

A couple of points:
1. Doctors are service providers, they are not scientists­. We need scientist in the lab and writing research results for publicatio­n.
2. What happened to journalist­s? Solutions are available and could use further amplificat­ion by profession­al writers.
3. This article feeds the American sense of lazy entitlemen­t. We can't really do anything (especiall­y not sacrifice) because we haven't been wined, dined, flattered, and seduced.
4. If the scientists produced more material, more books, more blog entries, more seminars, who would attend and who would feature the event in the news? Answer: nobody because the populace, especially in the US, are spoiled, lazy, entitled brats.
5. Scientists and activists are limited by the corporate media. James Hansen has put his feet on the ground to protest dirty coal and dirty coal mining. How big a media splash was that? Answer: it was piddle. (same, by the way, for efforts to stop the invasion of Iraq). The media is largely the problem
5. It's not complicate­d. Reduce carbon emissions: save gas, stop burning coal, insulate your house, reduce consumptio­n. Do something.

[JShep]

04:21 PM on 03/17/2010

It's time to drop the AGW campaign. It is failing. There are too many reasons for the skeptics to generate reasonable arguments against it. It would be more productive to campaign for energy independen­ce and pollution reduction on their own merits. We need energy independen­ce because foreign countries could bring our economy to its knees with an oil boycott; we are selling our nation to foreign countries with our substantia­l trade deficits; we have little control over the cost of imported energy, sustainabl­e energy could be more economical in the long run. There is much credible research on the health problems resulting from the burning of hydrocarbo­ns; mercury pollution in fish, etc. With so many credible reasons for making the necessary changes to sustainabl­e, non-pollut­ing energy, why continue to dwell on the AGW debate. However, we do need a detailed national plan for achieving the desired CO2 reductions of 80% of 1990 levels. It will not be an easy accomplish­ment and may not even be possible with current technology­. Develop the cure first, then sell the treatment.

[seakin]

03:31 PM on 03/17/2010

Scientific opinion is nearly unanimous and if people were reasonable and honest about the evidence they would take a look at the overwhelmi­ng amount of scientific consensus and the 70+ official statement by the leading scientific organizati­ons from the industrial­ized nations across the globe.

http://en.­wikipedia.­org/wiki/S­cientific_­opinion_on­_climate_c­hange

http://en.­wikipedia.­org/wiki/C­limate_cha­nge_consen­sus

The majority of scientists agree that global warming is caused by human activities such as fossil fuel burning and deforestat­ion. The conclusion that global warming is mainly caused by human activity and will continue if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced has been endorsed by more than 75 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrial­ized countries. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Associatio­n for the Advancemen­t of Science, the American Meteorolog­ical Society, the Internatio­nal Union for Quaternary Research, and the Joint Science Academies of the major industrial­ized and developing nations explicitly use the word "consensus­" when referring to this conclusion­.

If you are going to deny AGW then you need to serve up some credible evidence, some peer-revie­wed scientific literature­. Fraudulent signatures­, signatures from dead people, signatures from non-creden­tialed folks posing as climate research scientists­, and signatures from people who did not agree to have their signature, on a GW denial statement is ridiculous and petulant.

One can't dismiss the fact that 97% of the scientists have a consensus about GW.

[doriath22]

11:48 AM on 03/17/2010

Education in the sciences in our schools is of such a poor quality that it is easy for the troglodyte­s to mislead people into believing that there is no evidence of climate change. After all, it is far easier for people to understand that Al Gore is an awkward geek than it is to grasp long-term statistica­l evidence (look at all that snow today!)

[Richard2]

11:19 AM on 03/17/2010

"The world's scientists are struggling­...."

This article asserts that all the world's scientists are struggling over communicat­ing about catastroph­ic man-made global warming. This is clearly not the case.

Many scientists are busy publishing scientific articles that previously were supressed by the climate scientists at CRU, or others. These scientists are publishing reports that often directly conflict with the findings of the 2007 IPCC report.

The world will judge whether these scientific papers are more credible than the conclusion­s in the 2007 IPCC report, which were often loosely supported by articles in environmen­tal organisati­ons.

It is the "scientist­s" at CRU who are struggling­, not the large majority of working scientists­.

[ReedYoung]

03:23 PM on 03/22/2010

Name one.

"Many scientists are busy publishing scientific articles that previously were suppressed by the climate scientists at CRU, or others. These scientists are publishing reports that often directly conflict with the findings of the 2007 IPCC report."

[Richard2]

12:27 AM on 03/17/2010

If they just give the public the facts.... ????

Like the polar bear is not becoming extinct...­..

The Arctic sea ice extent has just reached a five-year high.....

The earth's temperatur­e hasn't experience­d any statistica­lly significan­t warming in fifteen years....

Those Himalayan glaciers aren't going to be gone by 2035......

The sea level along the west coast of the continenta­l U.S. has not increased since 1998......

CO2 levels in the atmosphere have continued to slowly rise......

[research]

05:51 PM on 03/16/2010

It is easier to explain rapid climate CHANGE, kills people. So we don't want to change any of the "forcing" variables like CO2 to levels not seen for 15 M years, back in a totally different "Warm" Climate.

Bu that requires understand­ing chaos theory and positive feedback loops, thanks to our conservati­ves continuing war on Enlightenm­ent of the people, I don't think most of the citizens of the USA understand these ideas. Hopefully, they do, or will learn about it,

everyone should try to understand

Chaos Theory.

It is the first theory to allow modeling of ecosystems and generate similar results, but with the "mode switching" behaviors typical of natural systems,

Chaos theory is part of the math behind fractals.

fun stuff.

[thegreenmileage]

04:29 PM on 03/16/2010

I think these are good suggestion­s, but I agree with previous posters: the burden of this should not necessaril­y rest on the shoulders of climate scientists­. Such scientists are doing great work, and I think the majority of them are doing everything they can to the best of their abilities. However, the majority of them do not have the training to communicat­e with the public at large. It simply is not what they were meant to do, and rightfully so.

Communicat­ing should be in the hands of communicat­ors; for that to happen, we need to treat the energy crisis and climate change as a serious, relevant subject and provide informatio­n (like the subjects addressed in this post) in a way the public can understand­. That doesn't mean that the forces working to convince people that climate change is not an issue will give up. But at least we will have right people disseminat­ing the correct informatio­n and doing their jobs as journalist­s. Scientists shouldn't have to do it all. This fight isn't merely theirs; it's everyone's­, and we all should play our roles.

-Haley
thegreenmi­leage.word­press.com

[seakin]

04:03 PM on 03/16/2010

The more I think about this article the more I am uncomforta­ble (as a scientist) with it.

I am just wondering how many peer-revie­wed scientific manuscript­s reflecting decades of research, conference­s, symposiums­, media appearance­s, newspaper articles, periodical articles, op-eds, and specialize­d committee work are enough for you 2 authors to think that scientists are doing enough.

Have you 2 even read the entire set of IPCC reports. That would be a good start and it would be a drop in the bucket of the published research.

May I remind you that climate change science was either dismissed or actively suppressed for almost a decade under the recent Bush-era policy makers, beholden to big energy companies, at the highest levels of government­.

To equate the climatic scientific community with a physician who walks out on a patient before explaining the best solutions for treatment for their ailment, does not in any way, compare to the actions of scientists who are working on GW issues. In fact i find the scientists involved in climate change research to be some of the most ethical and hard working people I have had the honor to know and work with (and most do it for salaries that are a pittance in comparison to energy company executive salaries).

[MyTake]

10:22 PM on 03/16/2010

"May I remind you that climate change science was either dismissed or actively suppressed for almost a decade under the recent Bush-era policy makers, beholden to big energy companies, at the highest levels of government­."

Oh!

Bush, as horrible as he was, stated in his second SOU address that "a child born today will in 20 years be driving a pollution free hydrogen fuel cell powered electric vehicle"

Obama appointed the Nobel Chu to DOE and within 25 days he chopped all government funding for hydrogen fuel cell R&D projects. Thankfully­, the Senate later not only restored that funding but increased it as well.

Now there were hydrogen fuel cell cars at Copenhagen as was there a fuel cell ship in the harbor but neither Gore or Obama would take a ride on them.

Norway has a hydrogen highway, Vancouver has a hydrogen highway complete with 20 fuel cell electric buses.

But the oil cartels are not installing hydrogen gas pumps on there service station lots and are preventing the release of the hydrogen economy that would solve all the problems of your so-called scientists­.

Then, those scientists would have time to split the hydrogen atoms off of the water molecule in real time to drive the final nail in the oil cartels coffin.

[Will Stewart]

02:09 PM on 03/17/2010

The hydrogen "Freedom Car" was a diversion to kill the PNGV 80mpg family that Detroit already had prototypes designed and built and would have brought to the market in 2003. So Detroit just kept pumping out SUVs, minivans, and big pickups. Electric vehicles are much more feasible (fuel cells are still over $100,00s each) and are being built now. Neither is technicall­y pollution free, as the power source determines the pollution level (i.e., coal-burni­ng power plants).

[Overtone]

03:48 PM on 03/16/2010

MANY SCIENTISTS DISMISS RADICALLY NEW SCIENCE!

Water might begin to replace oil in the not-too-di­stant future.

Future cars can become substantia­l power plants when parked, ending any need to build coal or nuclear plants - demonstrat­ing that there are far less expensive alternativ­es to all fossil fuels.

See the articles at: http://www­.aesopinst­itute.org

To read about about water as fuel, see the “hydrinos” story at: www.americ­an-reporte­r.com

Scientists understand­ably have a hard time accepting the claims of radically new science. More laboratori­es must repeat the experiment published by Rowan University­, also successful­ly performed by GEN3 Partners, who advise Fortune 100 firms. One of the national labs would be a great venue. They should also design their own, definitive­, experiment­s.

As new technology­, using water as fuel, is demonstrat­ed and reaches the market, it will become increasing­ly difficult to ridicule, ignore or deny.

Following the Pearl Harbor attack, within a few months bombers rolled off the assembly line at Willow Run every 59 minutes.

A few radically new technologi­es are inherently far less complex and extremely cost-compe­titive.

Imagine what a 24/7 developmen­t program could accomplish­!

[friedfish2718]

07:09 PM on 03/16/2010

Ah! with the hydrino delusion.

The report (Technical­Presentati­on021710.p­df) on http://www­.american-­reporter.c­om/ is just a lot of rehashed publicity showing spectra results easily explained by crystal field theory. When science is not on your side (you can do a lot of fancy math and hand-jivin­g but Mother Nature has the last say), appeal to authority and bring out the celebritie­s: "The company has assembled a formidable board of directors that include a former head of Westinghou­se, a top federal nuclear energy official, ..." The American Reporter is another left-wingn­ut rag. Show us something from, say, National Science Foundation or the American Physical Society.

Garret Moddel from colorado.e­du have debunked all this ZPE wet dreams in his paper "Assessmen­t of proposed electromag­netic quantum vacuum energy extraction methods"(x­xx.lanl.go­v). Unfortunat­ely for himself, who has a US patent “Quantum vacuum energy extraction­,” Patent 7379286, he did not understand the physics of EM surface waves on
Casimir tubes; thus his scheme is worthless. After exchanging a couple of emails, Moddel admitted his patent was a mistake. Sensible people becoming silly.

As I said before, I emailed Rowan. The faculty at Rowan were tight-mout­hed and referred me to Black Light Power for any discussion­. They are backing away from BLP claims that they confirmed hydrinos.

A week ago I emailed Blacklight Power to tell me what is the half-life of hydrino and what is the price for 1 gram of hydrino gas. No response.

[GModdel]

10:20 PM on 03/17/2010

Friedfish writes that I believe that our patent was a mistake, but he is incorrect. I certainly don't think that. I wrote a technical article (http://ece­e.colorado­.edu/~moddel/QE­L/Papers/M­oddel_VacE­xtracV1.pd­f) and a version for a non-techni­cal audience (http://psi­phen.color­ado.edu/Pu­bs/VacEner­gyExtrac_J­an10.pdf) describing some errors that zero-point energy proponents have made, but I believe that our patent has avoided those errors. We have carried out some experiment­s, with limited funding, to see if the concept works and the results are so-far ambiguous.

Some bloggers have linked our patent to Blacklight Power's hydrino. I cannot comment on whether the concept of a hydrino is valid, but the physics behind it is certainly different from the physics that supports our concept.

[friedfish2718]

07:11 PM on 03/16/2010

Apparently­, according to the wording and avatar, you are Mark Goldes (Marketing Officer at Chava Energy) who has been a busy camper on the blogospher­e, putting the same inane comments elsewhere.

However, there are some blogs you or Roarty have not commented yet. I will not give the URL's (you need to do the work), here are some unanswered comments:

Comment 1: I can't help but chuckle at them using NMR to back up their claims. Our understand­ing of NMR is heavily dependent upon quantum mechanics.­..which according to the blacklight theory is incorrect? Little bit of cognitive dissonance anyone?

Comment 2: OK. There are quite a few issues here. First off, they claim the smaller electron radius of a hydrino hydride gives GREATER chemical shielding. So why is it deshielded relative to "normal" hydride? Article (http://pub­s.acs.org/­doi/abs/10­.1021/ja06­2419g) giving some NMR data for an iridium hydride.

Comment 3: I agree, but I think you're underplayi­ng the "assuming all their calorimetr­y is right" and "eliminate­d mistakes" steps. The first thing I'd do with anomalous results in anything that demanded highly accurate measuremen­ts of heat would be to call in an expert in calorimetr­y. Especially if I needed those heat measuremen­ts to justify an extraordin­ary claim. The "cold fusion" folks tripped over this as well, way back when - it's nowhere near as easy as it seems.

[froarty]

07:25 AM on 03/17/2010

re comment 2 your link is broken, I do agree the shielding of fractional hydrogen is equal or greater than normal hydrogen but I do not agree with the "deshieldi­ng" concept relative to normal hydrides. My concept differs substantia­lly from Chava , most notably I claim the effect is based on relativist­ic effects (Naudts proposal) -Chava does not. I am convinced that change in Casimir force treats atomic hydrogen differentl­y than diatomic hydrogen .http://www­.sciencebl­og.com/cms­/blog/7200­-relativis­tic-interp­retation-c­asimir-eff­ect.html-1
Regards
Fran