Thoughts

I believe, as much as anything else, in serendipity. Within the last week I have been pummeled by climate change events. I could drone on for hours about this, but I'll try to contain myself. First, a recent article on which I was a co-author raised the ire of a visible meteorologist, someone who has long-standing disputes with some aspects of climate research (though notably, not with the effect of greenhouse gases on temperatures, or that human activities are driving rising temperatures). His main complaints relate to our willingness, despite our acknowledgment of uncertainty, to suggest ways to quantify some aspects of that uncertainty for the use of people responsible for planning. Of course, we do not state that this is the only thing planners should consider (and what representative of a water district, for instance, would plan for the future based solely on climate projections, regardless of how uncertainty is characterized?), and of course they should (and do) incorporate other societally driven changes (population growth, land use changes, and so on). That the new generation of climate (or earth system) models include some biophysical feedbacks between land cover and the atmosphere is an exciting advancement, and to see how this changes projections (and estimates of uncertainties) will produce new knowledge. So this person's inflammatory objections hone in on a frequently repeated message of his: that risk and vulnerability assessments should be pursued by communities considering all stresses on the system and that climate projections are a useless component of these assessments. Our paper by contrast summarizes how planners can determine for themselves, in ways that reflect the state of scientific understanding, for their region, time frame, resources, and acceptable risk level, to what degree climate projections should influence their planning decisions. So what’s so objectionable about that?


Occasionally in the morning we tap into NPR (thanks to this interweb thing) to listen to the tepid, moderate take on the day’s U.S. news. I was assaulted this morning by the voice of Rick Perry, an apparent republican candidate for president (are elections really over a year away?), who like so many others is fervently anti-government while suckling at the ample government teat for his salary, health care, and pension, and he even uses his political power to amass personal wealth. OK, he’s a corrupt hypocrite, but here’s the connection to my uneven line of thought: he also belched up the bile that he believes global warming is a hoax. After the experience of Bob Inglis who was willing to let the science of our changing climate affect his opinion that maybe we should do something about unfettered greenhouse gas emissions and was thus promptly replaced by a tea party representative, it is understandable that those who want to maintain their privilege as government employees will avoid facts and just toe the required line on this issue. The fact that the tea party is an entity manufactured by the notorious Koch brothers, who made their billions in the fossil fuel industry is not a secret, so how is it that this sort of disingenuous line spouted by Perry is not completely dismissed? (An aside: I've found that this isn't an issue so much in Chile. No matter what one's political persuasion there is a basic understanding of the findings of climate science, so while how to deal with climate change is argued, that it's happening and will intensify is pretty accepted. Chile essentially has no native fossil fuel industry. Could that be related?)  A study that came out of Yale this week shows most tea party members either think global warming isn’t caused by humans, or that it isn’t happening at all (but they're not alone: there's even a decent slice of democrats in this category). More shockingly, they are the group most likely to think of themselves as “very well informed” and that they “do not need any more information“ about global warming to make up their mind. So it seems like a sort of fundamentalism is the problem, a search by many people to just reach a conclusion and close the issue. There is obvious comfort in that, especially if you latch onto a belief that absolves us of any responsibility for negative impacts to the world our children and grandchildren will inherit. So, what to do? It seems that the answer lies in developing an image of a future that is actually fun, not just a list of things we really should give up. In the academic community I have seen stirs of this, cloaked in language about "intrinsic values" but really pretty good stuff. I'll climb off my soap box now.

Integrating fun and sustainability happened last Tuesday night, when I joined the Santiago ride of the Furiosos Ciclistas. One other person from the PUC and I joined several hundred other cyclists for a nighttime ride through downtown. It was a healthy mix of ages, falling between Critical Mass (though with very little confrontation with cars) and the San José Bike Party (though with no detectable alcohol or herbal combustibles). We did two loops: one through the old downtown area, ringing bells and chanting "somo ... caleta ... andamo bicicleta" (yes, there are supposed to be some 's's in there, but they are generally discarded in Chile). The second loop brought us past the multi-day vigil happening in front of the VTR TV station that lost it's reporter and crew in a plane crash last week. There were probably 15 minutes of somber silence there, which was a logistical issue since we completely blocked the entrance and exit, then we headed down the hill and back to the Plaza Italia, which is the starting point for everything here. To experience, even for an hour, a healthy crowd of friendly cyclists enjoying wide, smooth streets without cars or buses, really does give a sense that a better, and more fun, world is possible.