In recent months, climate change skeptics have ramped up their efforts in the media and Congress to misrepresent the scientific consensus on global warming….
In response, scientists must communicate their research methods and findings more broadly and more effectively. More than 2,000 economists and scientists recently called on “our nation’s leaders to swiftly establish and implement policies to bring about deep reductions in heat-trapping emissions.” That is a step in the right direction.
But scientists do not have a bully pulpit. President Obama does — and the public desperately needs him to use it.
That’s the opening from a must-read HuffPost piece, “It’s Time for President Obama to Set the Record Straight on Climate Change,” by Dr. James J. McCarthy and Timothy Wirth. They focus on a crucial point I’ve made many times before — only Obama can move the needle on climate science messaging.
McCarthy is the Alexander Agassiz professor of biological oceanography at Harvard and immediate past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and board chair of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Former Colorado Senator Wirth is president of the UN Foundation and has served as undersecretary of state for global affairs.
The president clearly understands the urgency to act on global warming. Shortly after the election in November 2008, he said his administration would chart a course to reducing U.S. emissions of heat-trapping gases 80 percent by 2050 — the amount that climate scientists say is necessary to avoid catastrophe. “The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear,” he stated. “Delay is no longer an option.”
Since taking office, the president has spoken frequently about the role of clean energy technologies in creating millions of new jobs and revitalizing the economy. His fiscal stimulus bill put tens of billions of dollars into strategic investments in these technologies, and his administration has taken other important steps, including a rule that will make the new car and light truck fleet 40 percent more fuel efficient by 2016. He has brought members of Congress, business leaders, and others to the White House to build support for comprehensive climate and energy legislation.
These are all important steps and represent a complete reversal from the policies of the previous administration. An increased commitment to energy efficiency, renewable energy and other clean energy technologies is essential to U.S. leadership in the clean energy economy of the 21st century. But there is one issue on which the president can, and should, say much more: the strong scientific evidence on human-induced climate change and its impacts on the United States, and the rapidly closing window for action.
Last year, on behalf of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, an expert team of scientists summarized the science of climate change and the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future, and called the evidence of a warming climate “unequivocal,” primarily due to the use of fossil fuels – coal, oil, and gas – and the loss of forests. The report emphasized that “sizable early cuts in emissions would significantly reduce the pace and the overall amount of climate change. Earlier cuts in emissions would have a greater effect in reducing climate change than comparable reductions made later.”
As the president travels around the country, he should alert citizens to these mounting costs of inaction. As temperatures rise, so do their consequences, and so does the importance of reducing emissions. Midwestern farmers could face more frequent days of extreme heat, heavier spring rains, and wider-ranging crop-damaging pests. California faces temperature increases that will affect agriculture, worsen the risk of large wildfires, and reduce the winter snowpack that is so important to year-round water supply.
The president should bring together scientists and others with relevant expertise for a White House summit on climate science, the urgency of action, and the opportunity for timely solutions. The headliners of this event should include the president and the government’s own experts — people like White House science adviser John Holdren, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco — each of them superb scientists in their own right.
In addition, the president’s secretaries of defense and homeland security should communicate to the public that climate change has the potential to produce serious threats to national security. It could endanger global water and food supplies and flood coasts with rising seas; these impacts, in turn, could trigger mass migrations and violent conflicts. The bottom line: Climate change is likely to exacerbate the conditions that foster violent extremism, with weakened and failed states being especially vulnerable.
President Obama just brokered a new treaty limiting nuclear weapons with Russia, moving another step toward his long-term goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons. Now it is time for him to step up his efforts on another major threat to the future of the planet. The president should deliver a major speech on climate change to the American public, using all the props and charts he can muster to bring the message home. The public interest requires it.
The scientific community has long known that emissions from burning fossil fuels are changing Earth’s climate. President Obama is uniquely qualified to cut through the fog created by misleading and manufactured controversies by telling the American public the truth. As he leads, our country will respond.
Hear! Hear!
Related Posts:
- President Obama explains the science behind climate change and extreme weather
- Obama: “To create more of these clean energy jobs “¦ means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.”
- Obama at MIT: “From China to India, from Japan to Germany, nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to producing and use energy. The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy. I am convinced of that. And I want America to be that nation”¦. There are going to be those who make cynical claims that contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence when it comes to climate change, claims whose only purpose is to defeat or delay the change that we know is necessary.”
- Nature editorial: “Scientists must now emphasize the science, while acknowledging that they are in a street fight.”
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
My favorite Obama quote (as best I remember): After an interview during the campaign, he was asked what he thought of the question, “What have you done to reduce your carbon footprint?” and he said something very like, “You know, when somebody asks me that I want to say ‘Listen, it’s not going to make any difference if I change a f**kin’ lightbulb. It’s a collective thing.”
When I heard that, I knew he really understands the society-wide changes that are necessary for humankind to survive. And I’ve thought he has been strategically building a base with success on other fronts – health care chief among them – to attack climate change.
Now is the time. We haven’t a moment left to lose. That’s why I’m going to Washington tomorrow, to ask President Obama to do what only he can – lead the world in a transition to clean energy.
Anybody who can’t go tomorrow please sign the petition at gwenet: http://www.change.org/global_warming_education_network/petitions/view/obama_please_educate_and_lead_on_climate_change
Obama has risen to the occasion before. This may be the most important test of his presidency, and let’s hope he becomes as inspired as Joe and so many commmenters here have.
It is perfectly clear: We badly need Obama.
Major voices such as Al Gore, James Hansen, and Joe Romm have spoken over and over again to good effect, but it has not been enough to thoroughly motivate the American people and their politicians. It is past time that our president gives his voice to the cause.
Science is out and props and charts are in.
What a shame. People don’t trust props and charts anymore.
The time for this speech is after Kerry Lieberman and Graham have released their bill and it is being debated in the Senate and House-right now the media are focused elsewhere-principally financial reform.
Unfortunately, Obama seems to mostly use his “bully pulpit” to avoid talking about climate change, and instead to speak in terms of “energy independence” and “economic growth”, as for example in the State of the Union speech:
In my view that is very, very wrong “messaging”.
There are not really “those who disagree with the overwhelming evidence on climate change” — or at least there are very, very few who genuinely know anything about the evidence and honestly “disagree”.
What there are, rather, are “those” who deliberately lie about the evidence and “those” who are ignorant dupes of the liars.
Obama really needs to use his “bully pulpit” to explain to the American people that they are being deliberately, systematically lied to about the grave danger of global warming, and he should name names when he talks about the liars.
And he should not legitimize the liars by suggesting that theirs is an honest “disagreement” about the science and that they can be persuaded by arguments about building a “clean energy economy”.
ExxonMobil and Koch Industries don’t want a “clean energy economy”. It is precisely to obstruct and delay the advent of a clean energy economy that they and the rest of the fossil fuel corporations have waged a highly successful generation-long campaign of deceit and denial.
ExxonMobil wants to go on raking in 100 million dollars per day in profit from the consumption of fossil fuels, for as long as they can get away with it. And they are going to continue bribing politicians and funding phony-baloney “conservative” think tanks full of frauds and cranks to spew pseudo-science and pseudo-ideology to keep the American people ignorant and confused about AGW for as long as they can get away with it.
And Obama should not shy away from telling the American people just exactly how bad AGW already is, and how vastly worse things will get if we fail to take urgent action. He should, in a word, be an “alarmist” — because the reality of AGW is more than “alarming”. It is terrifying.
I’m not sure I want to hear the President on the subject of the science of global climate catastrophe brought on by greenhouse gas emissions. I think there are too many details and too much room for small errors that will get jumped on. On the other hand, the President can give a speech on moral issues that is absolutely in key, on pitch and harmonious. This is where he may be able to be persuasive. If he can motivate climate action as a part of America’s destiny as a moral nation then he could really contribute.
Hay Obama, lead the Nation,
Give us climate education!
If we eat a lot less meaty,
Will we get a climate treaty?
Make your voices heard on Earth Day.
It is not too late, but the door is closing.
Prof. McCarthy was my housemaster when I was a student at Harvard. He’s going strong!
The President should describe the concepts of natural capital and human capital and how we are rapidly destroying the extraordinary bounty of natural capital freely given to us and how intense investment in human capital– poverty reduction, education, jobs, health care, quality of life — will be the major strategy for undoing the great harm we have done and continue to do; and, the potential for great optimism in the future if we act immediately with determination and purpose; keeping in mind the accelerating affluence and advances human civilization.
I am taking a class in on the social aspect of sustainability and one of the recent topics discussed was how difficult it is to get the message right. For a complicated issue like climate change, it is so easy to over simplify and at the other extreme overwhelm anyone. It takes time, effort and an open mind to figure it out for oneself. And even then, one has to take a leap of faith and take a stand for the sake of our families, our friends, our communities, our countries and our world.
I hope Mr. Obama, brilliant orator and motivator that he is, can rally those of us who are for the environment, but more importantly, I hope he can convince those who are on fence.
For those who don’t want to act because they want more proof, I wish I could do a time travel or alternate universe thing and show them our future if we don’t do anything. I’d love to see myself what the future holds if we delay any longer or don’t do anything at all.
It’s true, we don’t have a crystal ball, but we do have common sense and if the price is that high and the cost is inconvenience, a bit of scrambling, resetting our thinking, and I understand, affordable, WHY NOT? WHY NOT? WHY NOT?
Accepting the inevitable political punishment the President would receive by giving an honest speech on this issue would require great courage on his part. Check. Not giving a landmark speech on this would be missing the opportunity of several lifetimes–never has America faced an issue of this moral magnitude. Destiny calling?
Along with the usual props, the President could invite all the publishing US climate scientists to attend. Let them sort themselves into three categories: a) everything is ok; b) we are in serious trouble; c) hell and high water. 74% of the public still “strongly or somewhat trusts” scientists as a source of information on global warming (page 10 of 23 of the link below). Hard to imagine Spencer and Pielke will have much company over on the everything is ok side of the auditorium.
http://e360.yale.edu/images/digest/The_Climate_Change_Generation_2010-1.pdf
Ideally, it would be more than just a speech; it would be a full media campaign, centered on a speech. In other words, there would be several bits in speeches prior to the Big One, and the press secretary would specifically call out some media which promoted lies in covering those prior bits – that would put the media on notice not to do so with the big speech. The Big Speech itself would be heavily promoted, to get as many viewers as possible. Then, after the big one, there would be a couple of weeks of pushing good voices onto media talk shows – that would include scientists, pundits/bloggers, politicians, etc. who are ready to take on the lies head-on.
Each of these steps is crucial to nipping the he-said-she-said media bias in the bud, and replacing false balance with real fact-based balance. With all of this together, there could be a real turnaround in the dialogue.
Washington on Earth Day
I agree that the President should use the bully pulpit regarding climate change — clearly and frequently.
And, I’ll be in Washington tomorrow (Earth Day) to do my part, along with the GWEN folks and others, to voice my encouragement for him to do so, rain or shine.
Cheers,
Jeff
All these are great points, especially Homunq’s (#13).
Back when I was a Psycho Sports Parent and I coached and my daughter played 10 seasons of ice hockey, she and others did speed skating for many years and could out-skate any hockey players of any age or gender they ever came across because of the efficiency of their stride.
Some colleagues used these techniques to go around the country and give skating clinics for a day, weekend or even a week in the summer. But the hockey players always reverted to their deeply ingrained bad skating habits as soon as the skating coach left town. (Conversely the teams I coached had Olympians and speed skating national champions as the skating coaches at every practice and game.)
This has nothing to do with anything; I just wanted to mention it.
Oh wait! This has everything to do with Homung’s comment – this has to be an ongoing campaign. While speeches, documentaries, TV programs and one-day movements are all great, they need to fit into the context of ongoing education and an unrelenting, daily campaign that comes to use all mediums daily. TV weathercasters doing half-hour specials few ever see also need to speak about climate change as close to daily as possible.
Wirth (who I knew in Colorado and whose PhD is from Stanford while Gary Hart’s is from Oxford – where are the PhDs on the right?) is absolutely right and so are all the supportive comments above, especially Homung’s.
I suspect that President Obama has a plan. (So far he has, and it’s been a good’un.)
I think he felt that health care was the big issue that needed to be fixed first and financial regulation second. Not until those two issues were dealt with and economic recovery well underway would people be receptive to fixing long term problems. (The recent drop in public concern over global warming was likely an effect of people worrying about their personal finances.)
Today it’s looking like financial reform is a soon-happening thing. I’d expect climate to be the next big thing. It’s something that needs to get done before the end of this Congressional session.
Great comments #10 -15. It sure looks like:
This is the season
To win with reason.
We need a progressive’s version of the shrubs “Shock and Awe.”
Humanity First, status quo, NO!
One more chant of your choice for me Jeff.
Thank you, Leif, (North West)
During the campaign, Science Debate 2008 went down in flames, despite the backing of a large number of concerned individuals, industries, scholars and academic institutions. I voted for Obama to be a transformative figure, but at the moment, the words from him I most remember are “I have no investment in controversy.” I still hope tht he will find the will to speak up on the threat of global warming, but I’m not holding my breath. If Science Debate’s fate is any indication, nothing will happen.
Let’s face it, it’s not just climate change: there’s also resource depletion, ocean acidification, species loss, white-nose in bats, colony collapse disorder in bees and a host of issues too numerous to mention. In spite of all of this noone in government is rasing a warning. I think folks are just too overwhelmed to wrap their brains around it all.
Thanks to you, Joe and everyone who can participate in the weeks actions in DC. Hopefully something will come of it all.
Here’s a list of some of Obama’s environmental accomplishments over the last year.
—
Increased gas mileage standards for cars and light trucks 40 percent, from today’s 25 mpg to 35 mpg by 2016. The announcement in May came as part of Washington’s bailout of Detroit.
Blocked Bush administration rules to open the California coast and 77 federal sites near Utah’s Arches and Canyonlands national parks to new oil and gas drilling.
Begun a process in December in which the Environmental Protection Agency will, for the first time, restrict the amount of greenhouse gases industry can release.
Signed a bill in March establishing 2.1 million new acres of federally protected wilderness, the largest wilderness bill since President Bill Clinton signed the Desert Protection Act in 1994. The bill bans logging, mining and road-building on federal forests and deserts in nine states, including portions of Joshua Tree and Sequoia national parks and ancient bristlecone pine forests in the eastern Sierra.
Announced tougher new national smog standards from the EPA this month.
Reversed Bush administration rules allowing more snowmobiles in Yellowstone and fewer federal agency reviews of endangered species.
Issued EPA rules requiring large U.S. ships to cut soot emissions by 85 percent.
Signed a stimulus package that included more than $50 billion in funding and tax credits for renewable energy projects. It includes billions to weatherize federal buildings, provide grants to companies building solar and wind farms and fund research on biofuels and other technologies.
—
In addition to that list he has recently curtailed some of the mountain top removal activity.
Obama has put scientists back in charge of the science, rather than know-nothing twenty-somethings. We now have a president who openly acknowledges global warming and is turning the country around from denial-direction in order to deal with the problem.
—
If you look at Obama’s style, it’s not one of making a lot of noise but one of getting stuff done. You can bet he has lots of very capable people working hard to get a good climate bill passed so that he can sign it.
And if you look at Obama’s overall accomplishments in his first 14 months in office you will be hard pressed to find a more transformative president except possibly FDR. And FDR had a much stronger wind behind him.
Thanks to Bob Wallace for the above list.
I am reminded of a story in a Chicago paper (can’t remember if it was the Tribune or Sun Times) back before the ’08 elections that talked about the young(er) State Representative Obama. He wanted to get to know people and one of the best ways of doing that, apparently, was to get in on the weekly poker games. Knowing nothing about the game at the time, he read a book. The paper mentions that how, week after week, AS HE LEFT WITH EVERYONE’S MONEY, his fellow legislators thought of him as a nice guy but a little naive.
The man’s style makes it easy to overlook what he is really getting done.
He needs to do something and he needs to do it soon.
Warming Holes–I’m looking for info on “warming holes”, areas of warming minimums, such as one over the U.S. Midwest. It is discussed in the excellent book, “Understanding Climate Change” (S.C. Pryor, Ed., Indiana U. Press, 2009. Looks like climate change could be a hard sell in the Midwest over the next century, with some models predicting a longer growing season, warmer winters, slight increase in precip, even agriculture increasing humidity (as if “rain follows the plow” is coming true). Increased flooding looks to be the main worry for the Midwest, though it’s an opportunity for those who want to see more natural restoration of river valleys….