[Note: I'd be very interested in hearing from environmentally-responsible Climate Progress readers about what you think of the claim by Will and Shellenberger and Nordhaus that you are just trying to make a statement, just trying to assuage your guilt.]
Two weeks ago I wrote, “I can’t imagine why any serious journalist would cite the work of The Breakthrough Institute (TBI) “” except to debunk it” (see “Memo to media: Don’t be suckered by bad analyses from TBI“).
But here comes George Will to show us all why a semi-serious anti-science journalist would cite TBI founders, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus: They have the exact same worldview. They are, to use the popular term, BFF. Will’s piece, Green With Guilt, is an extended diatribe against all environmental action. No surprise, then, that Will cites at length TBI’s New Republic piece, “The Green Bubble.”
Will loves the Shellenberger and Nordhaus piece, of course, and not for the reason you might think, namely that the S&N piece is a string of factually untrue, egregious statements just like his entire body of work. No, oddly enough, even though most of the media treats TBI as if it were part of the environmental movement, uber-conservative George Will share S&N’s entire Weltanschauung, which I call “The Audacity of Nope.”
Will and Shellenberger and Nordhaus say “nope” to all those of you who are taking individual action to reduce your environmental impact and global warming emissions — and they also say “nope” to any major government effort to take collective action to reduce global warming emissions. Future generations — you are on your own!
Will and Shellenberger and Nordhaus are the anti-Obamas, quite literally: Both Will and S&N have explicitly and repeatedly attacked Obama’s climate policies.
Note to media: Perhaps now, after the Washington Post has gone to all the trouble of publishing this engagement announcement from George Will, you can stop pretending that Shellenberger and Nordhaus are part of the environmental movement.
Here is Will’s big wet kiss to Shellenberger and Nordhaus:
In “The Green Bubble: Why Environmentalism Keeps Imploding” [The New Republic, May 20], Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, authors of “Break Through: Why We Can’t Leave Saving the Planet to Environmentalists,” say that a few years ago, being green “moved beyond politics.” Gestures — bringing reusable grocery bags to the store, purchasing a $4 heirloom tomato, inflating tires, weatherizing windows — “gained fresh urgency” and “were suddenly infused with grand significance.”
Green consumption became “positional consumption” that identified the consumer as a member of a moral and intellectual elite. A 2007 survey found that 57 percent of Prius purchasers said they bought their car because “it makes a statement about me.” Honda, alert to the bull market in status effects, reshaped its 2009 Insight hybrid to look like a Prius.
Nordhaus and Shellenberger note the telling “insignificance,” as environmental measures, of planting gardens or using fluorescent bulbs. Their significance is therapeutic, but not for the planet. They make people feel better:
“After all, we can’t escape the fact that we depend on an infrastructure — roads, buildings, sewage systems, power plants, electrical grids, etc. — that requires huge quantities of fossil fuels. But the ecological irrelevance of these practices was beside the point.”
In short, Just Say Nope, environmentally-responsible human beings!
And when you add in their opposition to strong federal action on climate, why, Will and Shellenberger and Nordhaus leave you with nothing but blissful, guiltfree unsustainable consumption — at least until the global Ponzi scheme collapses.
“Apr¨s moi, le d©luge!”
Will also backs up his anti-environmentalism, anti-environment message by quoting from “The Goode Family,” an animated ABC entertainment program. The irony may be lost on him, but I see a sort of poetic justice in Will citing an animated entertainment program and an essay by S&N in the same piece. Both are works of fiction.
Since Will bases his analysis on “The Green Bubble,” a disinformation-filled anti-environmental screed, I am once again reprinting a response by Robert J. Brulle, Professor of Sociology and Environmental Science, Department of Culture and Communications, Drexel University “” and a widely published expert on the environmental movement:
[Note: Regular CP readers can skip the rest of this post.]
The New Conservatism or Ecological Romanticism: A False Dichotomy
In their recent essay, “The Green Bubble”, Nordhaus and Shellenberger launch a long attack against the green movement in the U.S. Based on a series of heroic misstatements, revisionist history, and unsubstantiated stereotypes, they construct an image of environmentalism based in liberal elite circles and searching for social redemption in premodern, aesthetic lifestyles. Thus much of what passes for “green” activity comprises little more than symbolic gestures to define an “alternative” lifestyle. Yet at the same time, environmentalists are also portrayed as dabblers in these bohemian lifestyles, floating in and out of aesthetic and consumerist roles. Hence environmentalism takes the form of fads or bubbles that come and go.
N&S critique the presumed attachment of environmentalists to romanticist premodernist images of society and celebrate economic modernization, along with the growing affluence, individualization, and freedom that this social process creates. The answer to ecological issues for all, they imply, is to increase economic modernization across the globe. For example, they note that “It is poverty, not rising carbon-dioxide levels, that make them (the poor) more vulnerable than the rest of us.”
One can easily critique their essay on a factual basis. Note the sparse nature of their data sources and their lack of reference to any existing environmental histories. They can maintain their interpretation of the U.S. environmental movement only by speaking in broad generalities, without citing specifics. The manuscript is rife with historical inaccuracies and fabricated statements. This essay is a political fiction in which facts are created to support their argument. For example, one of the most egregious statements is that “it has become an article of faith among many greens that the global poor are happier with less and must be shielded from the horrors of overconsumption and economic development – never mind the realities of infant mortality, treatable disease, short life expectancies, and grinding agrarian poverty.” Who or what environmental group has ever said anything of this nature? This statement is an out-and-out fabrication. One wonders if there are any fact-checkers at The New Republic.
While this lack of factual basis is an important critique of N&S’s argument, it is not the most central. Essentially, they are attempting to dichotomize the environmental movement between hopeless anti-modern romantic yuppies, engaged in symbolic activities, and the sober modernists (exemplified by themselves) who celebrate and promote economic expansion as the only real way to address environmental degradation. The space created by this dichotomy only allows for “responsible” environmentalism, based on economic modernization, and irresponsible, premodern romanticism, and eliminates all other possibilities. Thus the essay seeks to paint environmentalism with a universal brush, and delegitimate the entire movement.
The core problem with this analysis is that we are held between two competing and rigid ideologies. Apparently, in the view of N&S, the modern environmental movement has no ability to reason, or to calculate trade-offs between economic growth and environmental protection. Neither, apparently, do N&S. They are imprisoned within their own ideology of an uncritical and unreflexive modernization, without any corrective capacity based on democratic governance. The idea of the Enlightenment was to subject our institutions, including both the market and the state, to collective democratic control. Our society’s capacity to learn, and change is enabled through democratic discussion. While economic modernization is one part of modernization, its uncritical application as the universal solution to whatever ails us is just another form of irrational ideology. Nowhere do we see any critical perspective on the limitations of markets, or the false freedom of consumer choice that N&S celebrate. How can one celebrate “individual choice” in a society permeated by a $300-billion-per-year needs-creation industry in the form of modern advertising? The so-called freedom and individuality lauded by N&S merely amounts to a false choice among consumer lifestyles, not a real and informed participant in our own governance.
N&S can only maintain their simplistic dichotomy by basing their argument on typifications, and ignoring the more complex reality of environmentalism in the U.S. Thus this is a false dichotomy. Thus Nordhaus and Schellenberger deny the legacy of the Enlightenment, and revert to a blind faith in the market and a celebration of the status quo.
There is a third alternative. Through democratic deliberations, we can define the shape of the world we wish to create, and then act collectively to realize it. Dealing with environmental degradation, poverty, and exploitation is a difficult task. But it will only be solved by looking truthfully at our situation, and rejecting easy and simplistic solution. Ideological diatribes only make a hard task more difficult.
We are not trapped in either hopeless romanticism, or at the whim of market dynamics. We can do much better than this.
And the media can do better than pretending that Nordhaus and Shellenberger are part of the environmental movement. They are part of the conservative movement stagnation.
Related Posts:
- In a blunder reminiscent of Janet Cooke scandal, the Washington Post lets George Will reassert all his climate falsehoods plus some new ones
- Washington Post reporters take unprecedented step of contradicting columnist George Will in a news article
- Is George Will the most ignorant national columnist?
- The Washington Post op-ed page remains the home of un-fact-checked disinformation about clean energy and global warming
- Notes from the conservative stagnation, Part 10: Grover Norquist
- Can This Planet Be Saved? Not if conservatives rule
- George Will nails the difference between conservatives and progressives
Previous in TP Climate Progress
One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
I am old enough to recall the endless television hours of Senator Joe McCarthy – in the Army-McCarthy hearings. Old babbling Joe was totally sunk by the open forum and his own idiocy that all viewers could plainly see. But it took a few hours, or days as I recall.
George Will could actually be a well camouflaged delusional fool that is most skilled at putting out the briefest of bumbersticker comments in TV shows that are tight and fast. Pity that modern television fails to give him enough rope, er, time for him to fully express his opinions. The WaPo limits him to a few poorly edited paragraphs… perhaps they could turn him loose completely to frolic in his fantasies and let the world see how he really thinks.
Except for baseball issues, I am not sure I have seen any George Will interviews that were anything other than terse, severely time constrained with carefully selected colleagues.
“Gestures – bringing reusable grocery bags to the store, purchasing a $4 heirloom tomato, inflating tires, weatherizing windows — “gained fresh urgency” and “were suddenly infused with grand significance.”
Green consumption became “positional consumption” that identified the consumer as a member of a moral and intellectual elite. A 2007 survey found that 57 percent of Prius purchasers said they bought their car because “it makes a statement about me.”"
Quotes from the Will article. As a psychologist these attitudes and behaviors are soo obvious. My teens were mortified when I dropped them off at school and left them with a hug. In public. Now reshaping the culture, a teen is shaped to be mortified if a parent drops them off driving a 400 cubic inch big old car. We used to call them gas hogs.
In studying human behavior, there is a lot of identity to be attached to public consumption of consumer products. Watching people can be so entertaining.
Re “Nordhaus and Shellenberger note the telling ‘insignificance,’ as environmental measures, of planting gardens or using fluorescent bulbs. Their significance is therapeutic, but not for the planet. They make people feel better …”
They do more than make people feel better. Individual choices, such as the car you drive and your dietary preferences, can significantly reduce your personal carbon footprint …
Except when your emissions are covered by an economy-wide cap-and-trade system.
In that case, if your actions resulted in an actual reduction of aggregate emissions, then not all issued emission allowances would need to be surrendered. Someone would be left holding unused allowances. But the trading system creates an incentive for that someone to sell the allowances, which will allow someone else to increase their emissions up to the cap limit. In cap-and-trade’s relentless drive to “reduce costs at any cost” any action you take to reduce your emissions will just allow someone else to increase their emissions, and all you will be doing is subsidizing polluters. Once you understand that, your individual actions won’t even have the therapeutic value of making you “feel better”.
Ken -
I might worry about that if my own carbon emissions consisted 10,000 ton units of CO2 and were therefore subject to cap and trade. But they aren’t and so they won’t be.
“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
Imannuel Kant
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Margaret Mead
“If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?”
Rabbi Hillel
That is why I use compact fluorescents, reusable grocery bags, and why I don’t drive. If I do not act in accordance with my view of a better world, then how can I ask that others do the same ?
Nordhaus, Shellenberger, and Will are morally bankrupt men. Shun them.
Jay -
I believe that allowances are sold in 1-ton units. If you reduce your use of electricity or fossil fuels, you will free up surplus allowances somewhere upstream. What do you think the owner of those unneeded allowances will do with them?
I’m old enough to remember the environmental movement as it existed in Canada in the mid-1960s. A lot of environmentalists then came across as holier-than-thou types, and were thoroughly hated for it. Fast forward 40 years and the same comment applies.
I don’t think we’ll ever sell environmentalism if it’s framed as a moral choice. Instead, we have to frame it as an economic choice–what’s best for me.
I recently bought a small, fuel-efficient car because it makes good business sense for me. I patronize a farmers’ market that’s just 3 km down the road because it makes good business sense to buy from local growers. Besides, the stuff they sell tastes better, is healthier, and so makes good business sense for me. I had a guy come to the house last fall and do some weatherstripping and caulking because it makes good business sense for me. I had a high-efficiency furnace installed three years ago because it makes good business sense for me.
I know people who try to tell me that climate change is pure bunkum. But I don’t argue with them because anyone who believes that is likely not too receptive to anyone who tries to tell them otherwise. Those same people do most of the things I do, but they don’t do it for the environment, and, above all, they don’t do it for future generations. They do it for themselves. So they don’t give climate change as a reason. So what?
There are solid economic arguments (reported here on Climate Progress and countless other places) for an organized, frontal attack on GHG emissions, and I’m convinced that those arguments will ultimately prevail.
So talk to people you know about the economic benefits of alternative energy, and the investment opportunities that represents. Talk to them about the benefits of compact, mixed-use neighbourhoods criss-crossed with walking and cycling paths, and the sorts of small-business opportunities such neighbourhoods present. Talk to them about reduced health-care costs that flow from clean air.
Just never, never, never talk to them about polar bears.
One of the problems with the views of Will and Shellenberger and Nordhaus is that they portray the environmental movement as a singular entity with a common agenda. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Some people consider vegan animal rights activists as part of the environmental community, including who folks that are opposed to killing any members of the animal kingdom. At the same time, you can find advocates of wilderness preservation who personally shoot deer, elk, and waterfowl for personal consumption.
In this “movement” you can find relatively conservative organizations, like The Nature Conservancy, that openly accept corporate donations to achieve their goals. Under that tent you also will find moderate groups like the Sierra Club and radical groups like Earth First! You can find groups that mostly are composed of volunteers as well as those staffed by highly paid executives.
Needless to say, there are times when “environmental” organizations oppose each other. For example, some conservation organizations want to kill the feral burros that trash water holes in the desert and cause the demise of native bighorn sheep. Some animal rights groups would let the bighorn sheep go extinct rather than allow an exotic burro be harmed.
I spent my career working to protect California’s wild places. Because the ultimate threats to wilderness are overpopulation, resource extraction, and global warming, my wife and I chose to not to have children (far more effective than changing light bulbs, although we also have done that). We also have a garden, buy organic produce when we can, and try to limit our use of vehicles. But because of guilt? Hardly. We do this because we believe that it is necessary for us to set an example of how one can live a happy and productive life without over consuming.
Indeed, without the world coming to grips with overpopulation, resource extraction, and global warming, all that I have worked for ultimately will be for naught. Kinda sad.
Yes Ken, allowances are sold in tons. Cap and trade requirements are applied to industrial emitters and they are not applied to individuals. For example, from the bill summary -
Section 722, Compliance Obligation: Mandates that covered entities are required to hold or
submit emission allowances equal to the amount of greenhouse gas emissions for which they are responsible. Electricity generators, liquid fuel refiners and blenders, and fluorinated gas
manufacturers are covered starting with emissions in 2012. Industrial sources that emit more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year are covered starting with emissions in 2014. Local distribution companies that deliver natural gas are covered starting with emissions in 2016.
I didn’t know I was guilt-ridden. I thought I was carpooling and reducing the number of trips I make because it saves money. I thought I was riding a bicycle more because it’s good for my health; who knew I was wracked with guilt? I thought I was growing more food in my garden because it saves money and lets me know where it came from. I thought I was supporting local growers at the farmers market because their free-range chickens, pastured pork, and grass fed beef tastes better. I thought I was buying wines from vineyards and wineries in the area because they suit my peasant tastes. Who would have guessed that all this time I’ve been assuaging a conscience overwhelmed with guilt? Who knew? Now I have to go into therapy. I’ll start by rushing out and buying a 9 passenger SUV with an 8 cylinder engine and I’ll drive it down to the post office to mail letters, to work every day, and never never never to the recycling center.
Will’s allegation is plain stupid.
‘Just trying to assuage your guilt?
Why would it be suspect to do something which is relatively benign/helpful or to refrain from doing something which is relatively detrimental in order to not feel guilty about neglecting to act in that manner? Sharply stated: why is it bad to try to make choices for the sake of the good which help to not make you feel bad about doing something bad?
This shows clearly the real and hidden assumption in Will’s type of thinking: ‘that which environmentalists are aspiring to achieve is not good – or: behaviour (manufacturing, lifestyle, political choices) harming the environment are not bad.
So be fair, Willonians, and let’s continue to debate that. And then let’s be not morally accusatory in a fuzzy way, but become specific: which practices are good, or bad, for what cause, for which people and in in what respects.
Another aspect:
Just trying to make a statement?
Yeah, why bring out your vote in a democratic election… your one, single vote doesn’t change the outcome (at least, chances that it does are terribly small).
Will doesn’t understand or – worse – deliberately ridicules the importance of ethos in preserving a fair, balanced, sustainable society and a civilized, non-egotistic personal attitude.
I am a recovering “guilty environmentalist” with a strong tendency to eco-ritualize little daily activities. I absolutely think that N and S’s cultural critique is spot-on, and that Will’s use of it makes perfect sense.
Frankly Joe, the smart response to this is not to collapse into thinking that N and S are conservatives or anti-environmentalists, because they aren’t. They’re pretty smart cultural critics who want to solve the problem just like you do, but are dopily over-reliant on technological solutions to problems that we can start solving today. They are bringing something important to the table that you can use. Why hurl bricks?
[JR: They are most certainly "anti-environmentalists" and from a real-world perspective they are essentially conservative on the primary issues they focus on -- the environment and climate -- in that they promote the same exact myths and disinformation that conservatives do. As Brulle shows, they aren't smart cultural critics. And they have no interest in solving problems just like me or anyone else who is concerned about avoiding catastrophic global warming.]
Are N and S so difficult to work with in real life that you feel compelled to twist their actual thoughts so that you don’t have to work with them? What gives?
[JR: N&S don't "work with" people who care about global warming and the environment -- they relentlessly attack them, including Al Gore, Obama, Waxman, Tom Friedman.... Please identify where I have twisted their actual "thoughts." No one has a clue what their actual thoughts are since they constantly change their position and backtrack on previous statements. I focus on quoting their words at length, as Will does.]
Didn’t Sun Tsu say that you need to know your enemy? Will’s use of The Green Bubble is not proof that Will, Nordhaus and Shellenberger are in bed together… but it is great proof that N and S have some valuable insight into how to create a culture of environmentalism that can preach past the choir. Why not just take it and use it?
[JR: Huh? That fact that one of the leading right wing global warming deniers uses the writings of Nordhaus and Shellenberger proves that have "valuable insight." So if Will quotes Limbaugh's identical attacks on environmentalists, that would also mean he has valuable insight too?]
The BreakThrough institute is working to put some distance between themselves and Wills’ recent article: thebreakthrough.org/blog/2009/06/george_will_inequality_and_the.shtml
But BTI amd Wills share a contempt of the “reusable grocery bag” ethic, and all things “green”. Ironically, they are both obsessed with this concept of how “ideology shapes perception”, not realizing that it is their own ideologies which have rendered them numb to both the climate crisis and the climate solution, virtually guaranteeing that anything they have to say will be useless.
I’d like to say upfront that the criticisms made of Shellenberger & Nordhaus here are apt, and I had the same thoughts while reading their book. (I did actually read the book.) I do all of the small actions they write off–transit and biking and recycling and cfls and reusable bags–and I work as a professional environmentalist, and spend much of my free time doing freelance enviornmental journalism and a bit of volunteering. Sometimes that’s motivated by guilt (and why shouldn’t I feel guilty? Why is it presumed that I must be protected from the consequences of my actions?), but more often it’s motivated by the connection I have with non-human nature. You know, if you saw your friend being pistol-whipped by a bully, you would naturally want to intervene. And I feel the same way about nature.
That said, I think they had a few valid criticisms in their book. Humans are indeed a part of nature and our policies would work better if we recognized that (though it’s hard to see how a person could speak about environmental issues with someone from the mainstream without falling back on the old dualism), and a vision of the future that is inspiring rather than depressing/terrifying would probably be more motivating for most people. (I disagree with the comments here that we need to appeal to people’s wallets; I’ve read quite a bit of environmental psychology and it’s very clear that values–specifically values relating to a person’s connection to the environment/nature–are an important predictor of pro-environmental behaviour (PEB), and that values of self-enhancement including power, achievement and, yes, finances, are negatively correlated with PEB. So you want to be very, very careful in appealing to people’s selfish sides. It could backfire in a big way.) That said, that inspiring vision of a possible future does need to recognize the importance of the limits they disparage. Living within limits isn’t being doomed to failure, it’s the sign of a psychologically healthy adult. As every parent of a small child knows, people *need* limits.
Thanks for the thought-provoking discussion. I enjoy your blog.
I agree with Andrea and Deborah Fisher. The constant vitriol from Joe toward Nordhaus and Schellenberger (and in past debates, it was from both sides) is tiring, useless, childish, and probably damaging.
Joe, STOP TRYING TO WIN. That’s what it starts to look like–that you just want to prove N&S wrong at any cost.
N&S and their colleagues have some valid points and they raise some important issues. They’re wrong sometimes, they’re right sometimes. Engage in a productive debate with them and we’ll get more answers rather than more bickering.
Jay -
Who owns the allowances for your emissions (e.g. from electricity or fuel use)?
You get credit for trying, but the correct usage of the term would be “They are, to use the popular term, BFFs.” I realize that the pluralization is either or redundant or incorrectly located, but alas I did not invent the term.
Andrea, I agree wholeheartedly with you, and am particularly interested in your take on limits.
One of TBI’s weakest rhetorical links (the one that leads them to this maddening reliance on technology) is a refusal to admit that our collective definition of “growth” can evolve, and that people don’t need to be pandered to in order to be understood.
The will be (more) limits imposed on us in the very near future now that we are at peak oil.
I have no interest in personal sacrifice for environmental causes. I don’t do green guilt. It’s the other guy who should do the personal sacrifice, and government policies that I support are going to make him do it. I advocate behavior modification through taxation, environmental policies and legal incentives to do the right thing. Voluntary personal lifestyle changes are not useful or productive because only a tiny minority of the population will participate. It is the indifferent majority who must alter their ways, whether they understand the need for it or not.
People are like sheep. We are the dog trainers. Do not expect the sheep to train the dogs.
Think globally. Act globally.
Well, I don’t think my actions are solely motivated by guilt, although they certainly are motivated by my philosophy. After getting degrees in environmental biology and philosophy, I felt there was a significant amount of evidence scientifically and a strong moral argument being made to lead to a change in lifestyle. I don’t think much differently now that I’m in policy, either. I think the guilt is just recognized by those who feel remorse for having done things that in hind-sight were not within their definitions of moral behavior.
I would say I am most motivated by trying to make/ensure a better world for current and future generations, not by some feeling of intense guilt.
Personally, as one that counts himself among the green progressive movement, I do agree that there is a lot of self-indulgent nonsense parading as “green” that the environmental movement is far too tolerant of. The reason is obvious; there exists a tremendous market for feel good products that ease the guilt and soothe the despair that any thoughtful person must bear. The net effect is to provide easy outlets for that despair, easy and ineffectual outlets. If we held ourselves accountable to the notion that our attempts in “making a difference” really did make a difference much more progress would be made. Unfortunately, too many out there are more easy going about the whole thing and it discredits the movement as a whole.
[Note: I'd be very interested in hearing from environmentally-responsible Climate Progress readers about what you think of the claim by Will and Shellenberger and Nordhaus that you are just trying to make a statement, just trying to assuage your guilt.]
Joe,
Where do I start with that one? I’ve spent the last 3 years purchasing new Star Energy compliant appliances, dish washer, clothes washer, refrigerator, etc. I have calked and sealed the major openings in the house. I have CFLs in all but the three way lamps. I hypermile my 2000 Camry to increase its fuel mileage from 24 to 33.1 mpg. That’s a record for me so-far. There’s much more but I won’t bore you with that.
Oh yeah, in answer to your question, I do it to reduce my carbon footprint not out of guilt but to contribute my small part so that the next generation can live. It also helps me save money on my utility and gasoline expenses.
Rick,
Is the money alone sufficient motivation to do all those things? How motivated would you be if you knew that every time you reduce your GHG’s by one ton, someone else would be allowed to emit one more ton? And who will profit from the sale of that 1-ton surplus allowance resulting from your individual action?
Ken,
If I was all about money I would be working in get rich funny paper stocks or would have made the jump to Enron when it was the hip thing to do when I worked in IT back in the late 90′s. They had zero integrity. I didn’t. They had no redeaming qualities at all.
I’m puzzled too why you equate my efforts to conserve energy with a straw man argument that if I saved a ton of CO2 emissions that someone would naturally emit 1 ton more. Such a person who does that would have to have remarkable clairvoyent powers like ESP. I don’t do carbon trade purchases. I might as well engage in purchasing indulgances from the church if it were so offered. So why even bother with the argument?
The money argument was to respond to the George Wills of the world, an admittidly futile task, put into the only vernacular they understand.
I don’t feel guilty.
I do feel responsible.
Ditto David B. Benson
I’m partly responsible, so I try to do my part. Guilt? No. Maturity? Yes.
This is almost too obvious to state, but:
My individual actions (cfl’s, PV system, hybrid) reduce my footprint AND save $$$.
Our collective actions influence local, state, federal, and international policy to reduce GHG AND save $$$, create jobs, bolster domestic energy supplies, etc, etc, etc.
How is it possible not to connect these dots?
Andrea, Deborah Fisher, PaulM, and Jay Fitz:
Re- “Living within limits isn’t being doomed to failure,
it’s the sign of a psychologically healthy adult.” AND
“The[re] will be (more) limits imposed on us in the very near future
now that we are at peak oil.” …
It may have been Diderot who said:
“Freedom is the luxury of imposing self-discipline.”
Re- “One of TBI’s weakest rhetorical links (the one that leads them
to this maddening reliance on technology) is a refusal to admit
that our collective definition of “growth” can evolve” …
I’ve written about spurious “progress” in the context of Technological Ethics,
and how our technologies constrain our freedoms in ways that tend to be
invisible to us. We are all shaped by “externalized” risks, costs,
and constraints imposed by technology that other people “use”.
As a computer scientist, I understand that I am “used” *by* computers,
far more than I “use” computers.
Thoreau was more concise: “Men have become the tools of their tools”.
Carl Mitcham gives a Western historical and philosophical examination of
cultural limits on technology. (I examine in depth, the Samurai’s choice
to give up firearms and return to killing each other with swords,
which Mitcham’s focus on the West omits).
Mitcham does not mention the Precautionary Principle explicitly,
but he does frame the Enlightenment’s profound cultural shift
toward Techno-Optimism in terms of who bears the Burden of Proof
to show techno-risk and harmful consequences. Modern American law
embraces this risk-shifting tradition: Every technology or chemical
(CO2, tobacco, or thalidomide) is innocent until proven guilty!
Search for this passage:
“classical Greek culture was shot through with a distrust of the wealth
and affluence that the technai or arts could produce if not kept within
strict limits.”
It’s near this quote, from Plato’s Republic, on the virtue of satisfaction,
in contrast to the cultivation of “needs” and its pathological growth :
“The healthy state will no longer be large enough either,
but it must be swollen in size by a multitude of activities
which go beyond the meeting of necessities.”
Jay Fitz: Re “self-indulgent nonsense”, I’m surprised you didn’t
mention the purchase of Carbon Indulgences! (i.e, alleged offsets.)
But you are spot-on in your recognition that the “tremendous market
for feel good products” removes what, otherwise, might become
pressure to push for collective change in our political economy
and infrastructure.
I’ve portrayed the modern computerized technologies of
consumer-surveillance and micro-targeted marketing
as extensions of Jeremy Bentham’s 1791 Panopticon:
[
The power of Panoptic architectures derives not only from data
surveillance, but also from techniques that classify, segment, and
isolate the population. In Bentham's vision of the Panopticon, the
inmates, isolated from communication with one another, would be reduced
to the status of "solitary sequestered individuals ... Indulged with
perfect liberty within the space allotted to him, in what worse way
could he vent his rage, than by beating his head against the walls?"
These passages chillingly foreshadow the much-vaunted "consumer
choice" of modernity. As the public sphere erodes, the public space
available for community fragments, leaving individuals isolated inside
shrinking private spaces -- corporate-designed technological enclosures
such as the automobile and the "home entertainment center." While mentally
confined within these cells, individuals are "indulged with perfect liberty"
to choose among the commodities advertised as individual "solutions"
to collective social problems. Segmented by psychographic class into
virtual Panoptic internment camps, citizens and consumers are bombarded
with targeted images as symbolic substitutes for freedom and community,
thereby dissipating the forces available for genuine social change.
]
I called that chapter “Computer-assisted Crises”.
But perhaps I should have titled it, “Of Technological Bondage” !
It’s on my website, but if I include that URL, my Comments never appear!
JOE — did you blacklist my usual email and website???
If you want to find that on my website, google for
===> “Computer-assisted Crises”
Rick,
I am baffled and befuddled as to why people don’t understand this. It’s a very simple concept. I tried explaining it to Jay (see previous comments), and he didn’t get it. (Am I misunderstanding something?)
Suppose you get your electricity from coal power. Somebody (the electricity generator or distributor) has to get allowances for the GHG emissions that result from generating your power, and they have to surrender one allowance for every ton of GHG’s emitted. If you use less electricity, resulting in one ton less GHG, then the regulated entity will have to surrender one less allowance. What do you think they will do with that unneeded allowance?
Shellenberger and Nordhaus are charter member of the lie back and enjoy it school of dealing with climate change. Romm is really angry because it is completely corrosive to actually starting to do anything.
1. Climate change is not happening.
2. If it is happening, it’s not our fault.
3. If it is our fault, it’s too late to stop it.
4. If it’s too late to stop it, there’s still time to get famous on it.
They are somewhere between 3 and 4.
There is no magic wand, there are a number of small steps we can take RIGHT NOW which at worst will stop things from getting worse, and at best will help.
An addendum to my earlier comment. Although the critiques of S&N
by Joe Romm and Bob Brulle are correct, they barely scratch the surface.
I suspect Brulle would agree that even the Unabomber’s
“Techno-sociological manifesto” was more intellectually sophisticated,
coherent, and consistent with reality than most of what S&N emit.
Unfortunately, part of the S&N piece in TNR is accurate:
It describes a small social segment I’ll call “liberal green guilt”,
which has been extensively cultivated by corporate “greenscam” marketing,
by “No-impact” opportunists, and by motivational “lifestyle coaches”.
(Like S&N themselves, this segment has become psychologically-imprisoned,
caged in commodified Life-STYLEs, rather than creating SUBSTANTIVE Lives.)
In short, S&N ignore the vast cultural pathology caused by consumerism.
Or rather, S&N *celebrate* and *pander* to that pathological consumerism.
That, indeed, seems to be the only consistent message,
among their otherwise ever-mutating “positions”.
(Other than that “environmentalism” is perpetually “imploding”.)
Like Rush Limbaugh, what they are selling is feel-good ideology.
To add insult to injury, S&N conflate that “liberal green guilt”
segment with the (to my mind) much larger segment of people
who are committed to “behavioral integrity” and “walking their talk”.
These people, whether atheist or motivated by Buddhist or other
religious conceptions of “Right Livelihood”, pursue ethical lives,
and reject the shallow selfishness of hedonism.
(The tension between individual- vs. collective- salvation
goes back at least as far as the Mahayana-Hinayana divide.)
S&N assert these schools of thought, with roots in numerous ancient
religious and philosophical traditions, are a New Bubble, a 2008
invention of Michael Pollan. Their ignorance — or willful
misrepresentation — of even recent American history, is breathtaking.
After misrepresenting and sliming all of us who have worked for decades
to promote *global* economic and environmental justice, and who have
long viewed climate change as the most egregious possible injustice,
S&N close with this revealing quote about their own psychosis:
“the contradictions that drive our dissatisfaction …
are irresolvable. And this we should celebrate.”
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.
My clients are simply unfit to stand trial.
S&N remind me of the worst of Freud, in that they project the
peculiar sub-cultural pathologies of themselves and their elite associates
onto society in general.
(Freud, at least, made some worthwhile contributions.)
I highly recommend S&N follow the prescription George Will
gives in his closing line: “Reengagement with reality!”
(Hey George, why not try some of that medicine yourself.)
Ken,
The original purpose of the thread was to argue our case for conserving energy. The topic was not over the topic of cap and trade of CO2 emissions.
I subscribe to Green Mountain Energy with their 100% renewables plan and while that doesn’t mean that all the electrons that flow through my house circuits are magically routed to my house to the exclusion of the natural gas, nuclear or coal it means that my money goes to those supplying and/or building reduced or non-carbon dioxide sourced electricity.
Now a utility provider paying for the right to pollute from a provider that is green would ultimately make themselves less competitive in the market because their carbon costs will grow as they continue to use more fossil fuels making them a more costlier electricity provider. They are paying the cost for their externalities and these emissions have a cost to society. If these carbon emitting providers continue to pay an ever increasing cost for their CO2 emissions permits they will find that their customer base will shrink as they loose customers to more carbon emissions reduced utility providers and then they ultimately change their equipment to produce less CO2 or purchase more carbon dioxide emissions permits and log themselves out of business.
Rick,
The question I was raising is whether you can still make a case for individual action to reduce GHG’s if Waxman-Markey’s cap-and-trade system is enacted. Cap-and-trade normally creates market incentives to increase emissions up to the cap limit, so that if you reduce your individual carbon footprint, emissions somewhere else will increase to bring the total up to the cap. Volunteer actions simply increase the number of surplus allowances available for sale, making them cheaper.
To ensure that your actions actually result in additional emission reductions (beyond what would have occurred anyway) the surplus allowances resulting from your action must somehow be taken out of the system and retired.
[Does anyone know whether W-M contains an allowance set-aside provision to support the voluntary renewables market?]
Ken,
I say that both things need to be done. You need to reduce consumption of energy and that energy needs to be generated with no CO2 emissions. There is always a good reason for individuals to increase energy efficiency ie: do more work with less energy, because efficiency translates into power you do not need to generate. If that means that due to efforts to reduce energy consumption you don’t have to build any new capacity with renewable energy after the coal fired electrical generating plant is shuttered than you are making substantial emissions reductions.
As I understand it, Carbon Cap and Trade will place additional costs on the utility providers to seek out the least costly energy generating solution. Even if the credits were given away to the utility provider they can make money by selling them to some one purchasing emissions credits if the provider pays an electricity generator with a a lower CO2 emissions and the purchaser pays to pollute. The operating cost to the purchaser will increase and they will be less competitive because they are pricing the cost of their product higher than carbon reduced or carbon free competition.
Hi Joe,
Concerning your inquiry and assuaging guilt as a motivator, yes, I do what I personally do due to a sense of guilt. While I am generally in denial of this aspect of the dynamics of my social intercourse, it is an observable phenomena—particularly by those with a more whole/complex moral system.
That liberals do what they do (and, more to the point, what we do not do but know needs to be done) to mitigate a sense of guilt is, from the conservative pole of Jonathan Haidt’s moral continuum model, a reasonable judgment. This is because what I do is not even close to what needs to be done to tip back out of our tip into klimakatastrophe. That I can limit my personal actions, as I do, is endemic to my two-part/simplistic moral system. This moral system’s consequence is that if I am intellectually right I can feel I hold the moral high ground. In a more complex moral system, doing right is necessary to hold the moral high ground. Isn’t a primary dynamic of the Blogosphere that of claiming/maintaining a perception of a possession the moral high ground? If so, can either moral pole rationally be moral (feelings withstanding, of course!).
Regardless, when critiquing Will’s critique, I find it helpful to remember that newspapers are fighting to survive. Remembering this I am able to hear what is behind the “religiously” held ignorance concerning AGW from which he writes. Referencing Haidt’s modeling of morality, Will’s framing is very comforting to the conservative (balanced) five part morality. When one is stressed, what is comforting sells (the discomforting hard truths of science be damned). In a wrong headed and hearted culture such as ours, hard truths only “sell” to a professing—as opposed to doing—liberal minority. Such a market is not one which a “news” business was structured to meet the needs of: a mass market.
Besides the truism that markets are created and defined by unmet social needs (and liberals are only a legend in their own minds), another is in play: “the fault we see in others is the one we have ourselves.” In this time of change in administrations/moralities for interfacing with global challenges, those of a conservative morality constitute a big market. Theirs is a need for support for the denial required to stave off coming to terms with the import of the observable changes in the climate. Ironically, what is being observed is worse than climate modeling predicted. This irony is likely lost on them: they were right with their GIGO critique of the modeling science (but right in the wrong way!).
Isn’t a bit of humor and humility needed all around?
Ken,
JR wrote about the provisions of the proposed Cap and Trade plan a few days ago.
The summary: Capping Carbon Emissions from Large Sources. Starting in 2012, ACES establishes annual tonnage limits on emissions of carbon and other global warming pollutants from large U.S. sources like electric utilities and oil refiners. Under these limits, carbon pollution from large sources must be reduced by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% below 2005 levels by 2050.
Carbon Cap and Trade and REDUCTIONS!
As for all your other questions, please read what JR et al have provided; I think you will find your concerns are already addressed by the legislation.
NREL has just released a comparative study of various plans titled “Comparative Analysis of Three Proposed Federal Renewable Electricity Standards” which might be useful.
Rick,
Re “There is always a good reason for individuals to increase energy efficiency … because efficiency translates into power you do not need to generate.”:
Greater efficiency will reduce power consumption, but under cap-and-trade greater efficiency will result in less low-carbon power. The total GHG emissions from capped sectors is determined by the cap limit, with or without greater efficiency. If efficiency resulted in aggregate emission reductions beyond the cap, then not all emission allowances would be used, but those surplus allowances could be profitably sold to high-emission generators who would increase emissions to the cap limit.
Re “As I understand it, Carbon Cap and Trade will place additional costs on the utility providers … they can make money by selling [free credits].”:
What you don’t seem to understand is that your actions to reduce your personal carbon footprint would reduce costs for high-emission generators by increasing the supply of surplus allowances. When you reduce your energy consumption to reduce emissions by an additional ton, someone else profits from the sale of the allowance for that ton.
Can you make a case for voluntary individual action to reduce GHG’s within capped sectors when the cap determines the total emission level irrespective of such action? I think not. This applies equally well to action by states and cities, and by corporations, as well as individuals, in the context of a federal, economy-wide cap-and-trade system.
A fundamental problem with cap-and-trade is that it nullifies incentives for individual action. It’s a problem that can be fixed, but not if you don’t recognize and understand the problem.
MikeB,
Would the 17% reduction target in 2020 be surpassed by individual volunteer action? What regulatory mechanism would ensure that such action results in additional emission reductions?
Ken and others,
It is correct that under a cap system if I take actions that use one megawatt hour less of electricity some generator somewhere generates one MWh less power and, if it’s coal-fired generator, emits a bit less that year and has to acquire one fewer allowance. Similarly, if I use 100 gallons less some refiner ships that much less gas and reduces its need to acquire allowances.
But this does not mean there is no benefit from the individual action. That slightly reduced demand for allowances means the clearing price for the allowance market is also slightly lower. That means the cost of achieving a given cap is also slightly lower, which is beneficial in providing continued political support for the pollution reduction program. (An economist may argue that if I spend more to achieve my reduction than the savings from reducing the market clearing price, then total societal costs are not reduced. But this invites a philosophical debate about consumer preferences: if my preference was to take the voluntary action and it imposed no costs on others then doing so increased society’s benefits as I understand neoclassical economic theory.)
So, for the efficiency case at least, just do it. Feel good and save us all money!
Sounds about right. What car company has the most hybrid models right now?
…
…
…
…
…
General Motors
They went bankrupt while the greenies bought the Prius that let them send a message about how good they are.
David Hawkins,
Why not cut to the chase and just send your local coal generator free money? Maybe you could get a tax break for the “charitable contribution”.
You seem to know something about economics. Can you answer this question: How can cap-and-trade be implemented to ensure additionality of individual GHG-reduction actions?
Rick wrote: It may have been Diderot who said:
“Freedom is the luxury of imposing self-discipline.”
I think it was Voltaire, but I wouldn’t swear to it. I remember the quotation as “Liberty is the luxury of self-discipline.”
Rick also wrote: “Unfortunately, part of the S&N piece in TNR is accurate. It describes a small social segment I’ll call “liberal green guilt”, which has been extensively cultivated by corporate “greenscam” marketing, by “No-impact” opportunists, and by motivational “lifestyle coaches”. (Like S&N themselves, this segment has become psychologically imprisoned, caged in commodified Life-STYLEs, rather than creating SUBSTANTIVE Lives.)”
What you describe is closer to what I think of as shame. These people buy the Prius because they’re ashamed to be seen driving a gas-guzzler. Then they drive it so much as to cancel out any fuel savings. If that’s what Shellenberger and Nordhaus (and Will) are getting at, their case is even weaker.
Let me play devil’s advocate and turn things around. It can just as well be said that some people buy SUVs out of guilt. They worry about accidents on the highway, so they get the biggest, most crash-worthy vehicle they can find and then drive it recklessly enough to nullify the additional safety margin. This argument is no more valid as a general condemnation of “safe culture” than S&N’s argument is as a condemnation of “green culture.”
Ken
Try searching CP for “Waxman”, read the analysis provided and follow the links. Very thorough.
As for your questions: “Would the 17% reduction target in 2020 be surpassed by individual volunteer action? What regulatory mechanism would ensure that such action results in additional emission reductions?”
Are you seriously suggesting that individual Americans would or could–on average–reduce their emissions by 17% in 11 years? How would that work? Put up their own windmills and brew up biodeisel in their garages?
We need to rework the grid, build better buildings, and power our vehicles renewably. That means coordinated action by corporations and government = leadership. We need a massive effort right now.
But I think I see your point. You are saying that individual efforts would be rendered futile by a cap and trade system, that the polluters would just appropriate all the goodness created by progressives tending to their own CO2 footprint, and burn up some more coal. Therefore, you reason, cap and trade is bad, and we should just wait for the guy next door to scrap his SUV and go solar. BAU.
Ken,
Forgot to say that it looks like your are advocating for a simpler solution, such as a carbon tax.
I agree, that would be best, but as a famous person once said: “don’t let the best be the the enemy of the good”
Cap and trade is what we have today. It is good.
MikeB,
The question I posed to David Hawkins was “How can cap-and-trade be implemented to ensure additionality of individual GHG-reduction actions?” (The question is not whether it can be so implemented — it can. The question is how.)
David,
Thanks. It’s a better explanation than what I could come up with.
I wonder whether Rick even understood David’s explanation. Translation:
(1) It is correct that cap-and-trade will nullify any environmental benefit of your individual GHG-reduction actions.
(2) Nevertheless, your actions benefit society because they reduce costs for those who cash in on your altruism and gain the extra emission allowances that you have provided.
(3) Because your preference is to take voluntary action, based on the naive belief that you are reducing your carbon footprint, the total societal benefit is positive.
So you can feel good that you are, in effect, giving the rest of us free money.
IS CONSERVATION INCOMPATIBLE WITH “BREAKTHROUGH” TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT?
I’m taking a step back, and (temporarily ;-) trying to separate issues
from personalities who have descended into “rhetorical excess”.
(That’s the most charitable interpretation any reasonable person
could possibly give to S&N’s “The Green Bubble”.)
So: Where and how did S&N go wrong on the issues? One plausible point
where they diverge from reality, is that they fall prey to an
Either-Or Dichotomy regarding various energy-replacement Wedges.
I.e, given politicians’ finite tolerance for leading social change
by taking courageous action to broker social disagreements,
and given (S&N’s extremely low estimate of) the American public’s
finite tolerance for “inconvenience” and lifestyle changes/disruptions,
S&N seem to feel that any attention and effort (either individual
or political) devoted to a Conservation wedge, will fatally detract
from the “Breakthrough Technology” wedge — our only hope for survival.
Perhaps for S&N, the Ends (survival of our globalizing “Economic Modernist”
system via a Techno-Fix) justify the Means (demonizing and misrepresenting any Wedges that might fatally compete with Techno-fix for social resources).
One major blindspot for S&N’s scenario, is that they see no danger that
putting all our eggs in the Techno-Fix basket might reduce the
individual psychological pressures that are needed to drive major changes
in our collective infrastructure.
But Americans are peculiarly vulnerable to what I’ll call
Techno-Optimist New Denialism syndrome, by telling themselves:
“Don’t worry; some really smart geek will invent something.
But I’m not an Einstein capable of making Techno-Breakthroughs,
so any effort I make would be futile.
Therefore, it’s no longer my responsibility.”
S&N are aware that some people resolve the Cognitive Dissonance between their behavior and their beliefs about climate risk by engaging in feel-good, (but useless) behaviors. But S&N seem unaware that their “Breakthrough” PR campaign raises the danger of people resolving that Cognitive Dissonance via the self-indulgence of Techno-Optimist New Denialism.
Returning to my thesis of an Either-Or Dichotomy for various
energy-replacement Wedges, S&N’s 6/9 blog entry is their attempt
to explain why George Will likes their “Green Bubble” piece.
In the last paragraph, S&N state this position:
“Our own view … is that we will only reduce greenhouse gas emissions
once we have clean energy or decarbonization technologies that are
cost-competitive with fossil fuels — and achieving that will require
a large ($30-50 billion annually) commitment to public investment.”
S&N are clearly wrong that a Conservation Wedge (individual and/or collective) will not reduce GHGs relative to the BAU scenario.
Their statement supports my thesis that — in the minds of S&N —
a Conservation Wedge has gone from being part of the SOLUTION,
to being NO part of the Solution. And from there,
it’s one small step to Conservation becoming part of the PROBLEM.
But wake up, S&N: To make green energy cost-competitive with fossil fuels, we can subsidize green energy (and research efforts) AND
we can also tax/cap fossil fuel use (to encourage Conservation,
and to shift private-sector investment dollars toward green energy).
And we can remove hidden carbon subsidies. We might even announce
an ever-tightening CAP on our Mideast military expenditures!
(Sorry, no “Military Protection-Racket Offset Trades” will be sold
to oil-dependent nations that lag in their Green-Transitions.
Too much risk of new Military Futures & Derivatives Markets!)
The Either-Or Dichotomy exists in the minds of S&N.
It’s never been seen in the real world (with the possible exception
of scientifically non-repeatable “Focus Groups” hosted by S&N).
S&N, being “liberals-but-realists” are horrified by the embrace of George Will. Unfortunately, they’ve not yet realized that their latest position puts them in bed with Dick Cheney!
Recall that on 5/1/01, Dick Cheney made this famous statement:
“Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is
not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.”
S&N agree with Cheney in rejecting public policies of energy conservation.
But in their TNR piece, they’ve now gone far to the “Right” of Cheney:
For S&N, conservation can not be a “personal virtue“.
Rather, conservation is a sign of character flaws —
guilt, hypocrisy, and social status-seeking!
(Those poor guys have dug quite a hole for themselves.
Now their path of least Cognitive Resistance/Dissonance
will be to keep digging, rather than confront how far they’ll
have to climb to get out, and how much social “face” they’ll lose
during that long, embarrassingly-exposed ascent.)
Ken
Thankyou for motivating me to start reviewing hr2454, ACES 2009.
Your questions are circling around the central issue of how does an individual’s actions mesh with a national reductions plan. Are they additive, does ACES cancel individual action, will individual action outperform ACES???
That is interesting, because that was the starting point to this post, way up at the top of all this.
Anyway, worry not too much, the allowance structure in ACES means your efforts have value and impact, just as reductions by big polluters will have value and impact. Ken, please start reading hr2454.
From the very top [Note: I'd be very interested in hearing from environmentally-responsible Climate Progress readers about what you think of the claim by Will and Shellenberger and Nordhaus that you are just trying to make a statement, just trying to assuage your guilt.] Is this how W S N view the world? That people taking responsibility for their pollution are in fact just dupes who have been herded into meaningless action?
[Joe and Robert Brulle -- I'm afraid you need to read this one... ]
For anyone who mistakenly thought discussions of Ethics were a diversion
from more important aspects of Climate Politics, here comes … Breakthrough!
“Beyond Environmental Ethics:
How Green Moralizing Gets in the Way of Green Politics”
That’s the title of a 6/24/09 lecture by “Breakthrough Inst. Senior Fellow” Dr. William Chaloupka. The blurb indicates a position identical to that espoused by S&N in their TNR “Green Bubble”:
“Environmentalists and climate scientists have done great work raising public awareness of the risks of climate change, but in moralizing against consumption, in insisting that the global poor cannot live as we live without ecological collapse, and in insisting that organics, recycling, and public transit are moral acts, greens have unwittingly created a powerful cultural backlash.”
America has seen its “Culture Wars” (social- “liberals” vs. “conservatives”),
and its 1990s “Science Wars” (see that term on Wikipedia).
The 1990s Science Wars involved the extent to which “Science” is a
social construction, a source of Epistemological Authority used to
enforce arbitrary Power Relations. A distorting oversimplification
would frame it as “postmodern/relativist Subjectivism” vs. “Objective reality”.
S&N’s Breakthrough Inst. is now officially re-opening those Science Wars:
“[Dr. Chaloupka] will argue that environmentalists [must] … stop seeing nature and science as stable foundations and sources of authority for their politics, and halt their moralizing about carbon footprints and the like, which alienates potential allies. Instead, Chaloupka says, greens must embrace a new cultural politics, one that is nimble, strategic, and …
“
Yikes … and, apparently, is unanchored to any previous notions
of the Foundations of Ethics. Transhumanism . . . just do it!
I suggest Breakthrough Inst. test its new Technology for downloading
human consciousness into immortal silicon by starting with S&N.
(Oops, I forgot — they don’t believe in testing.) Techno-Optimism means
never having to say you’re sorry — for irreversible planetary “experiments”
on unwilling participants who never signed the “Informed Consent” forms
required by those Freedom-hating Regulatory Nazis at your University’s
Institutional Review Board.
Well as a scientist, I can’t afford to “alienate potential allies”.
And since “nimble” science no longer “[h]as stable foundations”,
how about I trade-in my now-politically-inconvenient theories like Evolution,
and welcome my new allies in the Intelligent Design movement.
(When Steve Fuller testified in Kitzmiller v. Dover, he argued that
Intelligent Design was indeed a “scientific” theory, and moreover,
the school district should support an “affirmative action” program
to teach Intelligent Design.)
Ok … so that means Earth is only about 6000 years old …
so to avoid “cultural backlash”, we also need to toss-out that
paleo-climate data … so now we can’t validate our climate models
over a broad range of conditions, and … PRESTO!
There’s no longer persuasive evidence that AGW presents significant risks!
Why worry? Be happy!
My cognitive dissonance is gone … along with my ethical integrity!
(You too can be happy … join the Breakthrough Inst. ….
[Political-] Operators are standing by ;-)
Since we can no longer use Ethics and
“science as stable foundations and sources of authority for … politics”,
it seems we must, instead, use our “new cultural politics”
as a stable foundation for Science!
Sigh. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water
after the Bush-era politicization of science.
Clearly, we need new “sources of authority” to prevent politics from
distorting science. Hmm … is there an Honest Broker in the house?
Fortunately, Roger Pielke, Jr. is up next in Breakthrough Inst’s
lecture-circuit batting order (7/1/09). But now I’m confused:
How can the Referee play in the game, without an ethical conflict of interest?
I know Pielke Jr. is ready, willing, and able to call “Foul” on Kofi Annan,
and the Nobel Laureates at the recent St. James Symposium.
But Pielke Jr. is silent on repudiating S&N’s “New Bubble” nonsense.
Methinks this Honest Broker doth engage in extraordinarily Selective Prosecution.
Hello everyone!
This evening I have found a very cool cartoon about the office plankton everyday life.
I recommend this for all to pitch up your mood.
I helped))
You can watch this toon <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOyuf2MEwtE
here
Dont be sad – be smile))
beware and don’t click the link for “ggstarling” June 17, 2009 at 7:23
Spammer, maybe worse. Results … about 417 for ggstarling spam