by bystander » Mon Jan 18, 2010 6:11 am
I think Chandra Clarke (a humor columnist) had the right of it in her column
Hot But Not Bothered:
Chandra Clarke wrote:...
Take the gruff fellow I met at the gas station yesterday. He was filling up his quad cab pickup, and very incensed over the cost. Bent my ear for fifteen minutes, on all things related to gas prices. "Global warming is a crock," he huffed, "it's effing freezing out here!"
That, for me, neatly summed up how scientists and environmentalists have blown the climate change debate.
The message for the past 20 odd years, you see, has been that we need to reduce pollution because it's one of the chief causes of climate change. This message has failed for the following reasons:
The Scientific Method - Scientists fight amongst themselves, in public, over details. This would be fine if we had a scientifically literate public. This problem isn't helped by the fact that this week's science reporter was last week's lifestyles editor. ...
Vested Interests -- The people concerned about climate change are researchers, volunteers, and environmentalists - you know, people who are happy to have enough spare change to be able to afford a fair-trade coffee sometimes. Critics of climate change research tend to be car makers, oil companies, and manufacturers - you know, people who are happy to have enough spare change to be able to afford a coffee producing country now and then.
Whither the weather? - The average non-scientific Joe on the street has difficulty believing long term predictions about climate, when we still can't reliably predict if it will rain in Philadelphia next Thursday.
So what *should* the message have been? Air quality.
It's personal: We all breathe. It's scientific: We've got instruments that can tell us exactly what we're breathing in. It's immediate and health related: What was that about asthma rates again? It's tangible: Even guys in pickup trucks know when they can see, smell, and practically chew the smog.
Plus it's really, really tough to spin the benefits of smog: "Just look at that brown sky! Doesn't it just make you want to... to... oh, never mind."
One last ponderable: In most of North America, it's now socially unacceptable to light up a cigarette. But it's still okay to fire up a smoke stack.
The point is regardless of whether
global warming is a crock or not, we still need to reduce our environmental impact on this world in which we all have to live.
I think Chandra Clarke (a humor columnist) had the right of it in her column [url=http://www.chandrakclarke.com/humour_column/hot_but_not_bothered][i]Hot But Not Bothered[/i][/url]:
[quote="Chandra Clarke"]...
Take the gruff fellow I met at the gas station yesterday. He was filling up his quad cab pickup, and very incensed over the cost. Bent my ear for fifteen minutes, on all things related to gas prices. "Global warming is a crock," he huffed, "it's effing freezing out here!"
That, for me, neatly summed up how scientists and environmentalists have blown the climate change debate.
The message for the past 20 odd years, you see, has been that we need to reduce pollution because it's one of the chief causes of climate change. This message has failed for the following reasons:
The Scientific Method - Scientists fight amongst themselves, in public, over details. This would be fine if we had a scientifically literate public. This problem isn't helped by the fact that this week's science reporter was last week's lifestyles editor. ...
Vested Interests -- The people concerned about climate change are researchers, volunteers, and environmentalists - you know, people who are happy to have enough spare change to be able to afford a fair-trade coffee sometimes. Critics of climate change research tend to be car makers, oil companies, and manufacturers - you know, people who are happy to have enough spare change to be able to afford a coffee producing country now and then.
Whither the weather? - The average non-scientific Joe on the street has difficulty believing long term predictions about climate, when we still can't reliably predict if it will rain in Philadelphia next Thursday.
So what *should* the message have been? Air quality.
It's personal: We all breathe. It's scientific: We've got instruments that can tell us exactly what we're breathing in. It's immediate and health related: What was that about asthma rates again? It's tangible: Even guys in pickup trucks know when they can see, smell, and practically chew the smog.
Plus it's really, really tough to spin the benefits of smog: "Just look at that brown sky! Doesn't it just make you want to... to... oh, never mind."
One last ponderable: In most of North America, it's now socially unacceptable to light up a cigarette. But it's still okay to fire up a smoke stack.[/quote]
The point is regardless of whether [i]global warming is a crock[/i] or not, we still need to reduce our environmental impact on this world in which we all have to live.