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Interactive of temperature a from time series of 1884-2010: http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/
In his final Economic Scene column in the New York Times last week entitled “A Knowing Nation Has Issues That Need Solving,” Pulitzer Prize winning columnist David Leonhardt notes the messiness of economics and democracy, writing that “knowledge tends to come with caveats and nuances” and suggesting that we’re not very good at either these days.
The earth is not perfectly round, of course. Some smokers will never get cancer, while most cancer is not caused by smoking. Yet in the ways that matter most, the earth is still round, and smoking does cause cancer. Both of these facts are illustrative in another way, too; seemingly smart people spent decades denying them.
Focusing primarily on the benefits of market economies balanced with the dangers of unencumbered markets, the importance of education and the costs of health case in the US, which is about 75 percent more per person that other affluent nations, he also touches on climate change as an issue that needs solving.
We know the planet is getting hotter. Last year tied for the warmest on record, and the 10 hottest have all occurred since 1998. The resulting risks, economic and otherwise, may be more serious than the risks from the deficit, but receive far less attention in Washington. (And climate worriers do not need to be skittish about making the connection between heat waves and the larger trend. The thing about global warming is that it warms the globe.)
Indeed. But what to do about it, if anything?
Even among those who agree that human activities are impacting climate and the environment that sustains us, the “debate” is polarized and sometimes mean-spirited.
Over on GRIST, Joe Romm, who has expressed strong anti-adaptation attitudes himself in the past, preferring to put all the eggs in the reducing emissions through laws and treaties basket, manages in his posting “Be Unprepared: the GOP war against climate adaptation” to lump together and blur the differences between those who are out to gut any climate-related federal programs with a group who offer an alternative to the current stalemate in their Climate Pragmatism report. To Romm the Climate Pragmatism authors, who he is fond of feuding with, are naive. But see for yourself what the Climate Pragmatists propose:
For the United States and other nations to effectively pursue energy innovation, resilience to extreme weather, and pollution reduction, policymakers must make a clean break from the pitched and polarizing climate wars of the last twenty years and embrace a more pluralistic and pragmatic approach. Already, the international community is moving in the right direction. In mid-January, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon announced that the focus of his efforts would shift away from climate and toward accelerating the development and deployment of clean energy, especially in the developing world. China presses ahead with the deployment of new, low-carbon energy technologies to enhance security of supply, improve public health conditions, and build a profitable new domestic manufacturing sector. And President Barack Obama’s 2011 State of the Union Address focused squarely on energy innovation in the context of economic renewal and competitiveness, rather than climate change.
Read for yourself the Climate Pragmatism report, which, while not immune to critique, does point out the flaws of the sole focus on carbon mitigation through laws and treaties.
Meanwhile, over on Big Think, Michael Nisbet discusses the climate cultural divide between science and journalism (and the limits of science literacy), while at Al Gore’s newly rebranded Climate Reality Project, which is getting geared up for a big 24 Hours of Reality event in mid-September, is now partnering with 350.org. Will this nation be able to overcome the “the pitched and polarizing climate wars” of the past decades? Our recent political history doesn’t bode well for resolving these issues anytime soon.
