The Memetic Fallacy

The fight behind climate change is very political in nature, with liberal-leaning and progressives being the main advocates of trying to fight global warming. The battle over evolution has a very religious component to it, with evolution often being advocated by atheists and creation by theists. Anti-smoking campaigns and rhetoric are nearly exclusively political now. The biggest pushers of science-based medicine are corporations whose only interest is their bottom line.

The question of whether or not climate change, or evolution, or the cancerous effects of smoking, or the efficacy of medicine are scientific questions, yet their propagation in wider culture often has very little to do with their scientific evidence. It's true that greenies and tree-huggers use climate change as a political tool to push their agenda, for example, but what does that say about the scientific validity of climate change? Very little...

Yet I have come across the argument that climate change science is an invention of leftists looking to push their political agenda. Just as I have come across that evolution is an atheist lie to deny God as the Creator, and the anti-vaccination movement is rife with claims about the science of vaccines being a Big Pharma scam. But it was a conversation with a friend about smoking that inspired me to write this post.

The notion of memes, as initially coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, is that ideas propagate in a manner akin to genes, so what survives in the realm of ideas are those that are good at being replicated. Whether or not memes are a good scientific construct is another debate, and for the purposes of this post it doesn't matter whether or not memes are a sound concept.

The memetic fallacy is a fallacy of relevance where one mistakes the reasons for its propagation as the reasons for its validity.

That climate change seems to go down a particular ideology is quite far removed from the science of it, which may lead to fabricated or exaggerated claims, but it would be a mistake to not look at where the weight of expertise lies. The propagation method may lead to embellishments or outright falsehoods, but that's not enough to dismiss the original evidence.

Likewise when it comes to evolution, the weight of expertise sits firmly on the side that it is true. That there are prominent atheists that are also evolutionary biologists or that atheists promote evolution doesn't mean that it's an idea created to undermine God and promote atheism. It might be a reason to be atheist, but that atheists promote it isn't the reason why the idea has done so well scientifically.


Perhaps like the concept of meme itself, the mistake is leaving something vital by focusing purely on its delivery. In the case of these arguments, the mistake is to leave out the content itself; that explanation of its propagation is taken as being sufficient to explain the content.

It's with good reason that we are wary of the messengers - the reputation that lawyers, advertisers, and especially politicans have received is not entirely undeserved. When there are ulterior motives, it does call into question how objective the messenger is, but is not in and of itself sufficient to dismiss the message itself as being a product of those same ulterior motives.

The Climate Change Conversation

The scientific debate over climate change is just that: scientific. It's a part of the debate that the overwhelming majority of us do not have a say in. Yet the debate over climate change doesn't end there, what we ought to do about it socially and politically are conversations where climate scientists and laypeople have just as much interest and say in how to go about it.

Should we work to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases? Put more investment into alternate energy sources? Should we even do anything at all? Should certain industries be maintained despite their causal relation because they're vital to a nation's survivability? Should the focus being on adjusting to the changes? What about protecting biodiversity?

Many of these questions have scientific components to them, the approaches should at least have some scientific plausibility to it. Virgin sacrifice or getting the world to repent for their sins in all likelihood are futile means of going about it.

But for most of that the decisions are beyond our control. Where we have power is in who we vote for, and how we react personally. We have the power to make changes in our own life, and to engage other individuals to do the same.


The worst thing to do would be to mistake the much needed conversation on climate change as a scientific conversation. There's just so much to discuss without pretending that we can be professional climate scientists.

Scientific Climate Denialism

Most of the arguments I encounter for climate denial end up boiling down to a conspiracy. The scientists themselves have manufactured the controversy so they have job security and/or get grants, or the scientists are all left-wing ideologues wishing to push their socialist agenda on the world, or that the scientists are merely puppets for government who want to use climate change to push for a greater role of government. These are the kinds of arguments that anyone can deal with, really, as they're arguments about the role of human behaviour and politics - something most of us could see whether or not there was anything even remotely plausible.

But the foundation of climate change is a scientific one, and that's one point where most of us just don't have the qualifications to assess the evidence. So when I see people arguing against climate change on scientific grounds, I wonder what the purpose in it is. Not only are they not qualified to assess the evidence, but who they're talking to isn't qualified to assess that case.

It's interesting reading those cases, because like their evolution-denying counterparts, they make it seem as if the entire case is so obviously false. If it really was that easy to show the case is falsified, then why not formalise it into a manuscript and send it off to a journal like Nature or Science?


There's just something odd about those who will argue against scientific consensus among non-experts, because if they're truly a flaw in the science the best arguing the case among laypeople is bragging rights at a future change in paradigm. Making a scientific argument among non-scientists is not going to change the science, and worse still such an argument isn't going to have the appropriate feedback that any good science needs.

If one truly believes they have a good scientific case against climate change, then they should formalise it and put it up for criticism. But to only argue among among non-experts that climate change is bad science doesn't do anything useful - unless your aim is political in nature. But then that would just be opposing climate change for political reasons, and we're back to trying to rationalise away the scientific consensus.


In any case, if you think that climate change is bad science - show that to be the case. How? By getting off the internet, and start writing papers to submit to science journals. Because, what's more likely? That climate scientists who have spent their careers researching in the field have overlooked something that you, a layperson, was able to show wrong, or that perhaps the science isn't as feeble as you make it out to be...

The Climate Conspiracy

I recently came across one of the dumbest arguments for a conspiracy against climate change. The argument goes like this:

1. Governments have it in their own interests to push what will give them more power.
2. Climate change would give governments more power.
3. Governments control the funding of climate science.

---

4. Therefore, the government is controlling scientific consensus.

Let's for the sake of argument say that what's presented is logically consistent. After all, people do work to give themselves more power and in politics this is no exception. In order to address climate change, it's going to need government intervention of some kind, because the lack of intervention is clearly not working now. And the government does fund the science, and scientific results can get tainted by the vested interests of those funding it - for example drug research done within corporations finds a lot more positive data than when the tests are done independently.

So why do I call it a dumb argument? Because the argument is so implausible that any apparently plausibility is superficial. The atom bomb was an entirely government funded and operated project, yet we got the atom bomb out of it. So right there we see that government funding doesn't necessarily mean bad science.

Likewise, it's hard to see how a collection of governments is coming together to all tow the same line. Each government agency has a separate funding path, and even the most enthusiastic enthusiastic government towards the reality of climate change is barely doing anything. Many governments who are funding the research have had very prominent people who have publicly called into question the science. In Australia, the government even tried to stop scientists speaking out on doing something about climate change.

And even if governments were behind the public façade supported climate change, it's just as easy to make an argument that they're not doing anything because it's damaging to the economy. That while it might mean more power potentially, going against those who have a vested interest in not doing anything (mining companies for example) would mean being on the end of a strong effort to take them out of politics. Life is a lot more complex than just one issue...

Then there's the matter that scientists won't necessarily go along with it. Scientists are the people who make a living by looking at the data, if all they're doing is towing a global government line, then that's no longer doing science. And besides, scientists make a name for themselves by showing something new or different - it would have to mean that those 97% of relevant experts who accept climate change is mainly caused by human activity would all be under the payroll and none had minds of their own or an eye to the data. Now that's really pushing credulity!


So while the argument is at best superficially plausible, there's one key thing missing: evidence. If what is being argued is true, then there should be serious signs that the consensus is merely a global government fabrications. Documents showing the manufacturing of the party line, science bodies only giving out funding to those who are willing to use their credentials to push the party line, that the data that's been analysed doesn't show anything that the scientists say it does.

We don't see any of that. At best, this argument is logically consistent nonsense. But but really this argument is so weak that it's amazing that apparently smart people will come up with such tripe as if they have no understanding of science, politics, or of human psychology. It's really pathetic, and unfortunately (from my experience) all too common among climate change denialists.

QFT

"If there was a real case against human influence on climate, why is so much based on fabrication" - Ian Enting

Morning Scepticism: Unfavourable Support

The argument over global warming is one of science versus anti-science. The scientific issue as it stands is well supported by those who are experts in various aspects of climate science, so to be against it is being unscientific. It doesn't matter if there are tree-hugging lefties who have no idea of the science and are arguing a political agenda, to be against global warming is to be against science and those political ideologues are incidental to the scientific validity. No matter if its a communist or even a terrorist who thinks global warming is true, it's a scientific issue and the beliefs of non-scientists should not matter one bit.

Morning Scepticism: Tofu

Take the arguments against climate change and apply them to obesity. Imagine if someone refused to acknowledge they were even obese to begin with, but conceded if they were it was probably due to natural causes. And in any case it certainly wasn't a result of lifestyle and eating habits. But the idea of obesity is just a left-wing conspiracy perpetrated by vegan tree-huggers who want to marry cows and make everyone eat tofu. So why should they cut back on steak and chocolate when there's no evidence that obesity even exists, let alone that diet has anything to do with it.

An Open Letter To The Greens

Dear Green Party,

Firstly I want to congratulate you on the success this election. Gaining the balance of power in the senate puts the party into a new position of power, and to add to that a candidate in the lower house too. Add to that nearly securing one of the two senate spots in the ACT, it's been an impressive election.

Yet this does not constitute a mandate. While there has been an increase in voter activity, the overwhelming majority didn't vote for you. The party is still seen by many as being filled with left-wing idealists, people who favour ideology over results. The ETS is a good example of this, yes it was insufficient policy but as a result there's no action at all being taken at all.

On the issue of climate change the belief in it is split down political affiliations. This is a shame that what should be a scientific issue has turned into a political one, but this is the reality that you have to deal with. Are you going to be able to work to a solution when many people don't see a problem to begin with?

Climate change is a great example of the need for pragmatism. Right now both major parties aren't going to do anything practical to address the problem, and the fear campaigns about the cost of action will prevent many from wanting there to be action at all. People will take the undesirable implications of anthropogenic climate change as seeking out whatever they can that will claim those undesirable implications as unfounded.

Same goes for policies concerning gay marriage and refugees. There's no point in being idealistic if that's going to stand in the way of making progress on both issues. Both major parties have similar policies on both issues so fighting for them on idealistic grounds isn't going to make much headway. There's no point in token symbolism if it doesn't actually create change.

And creating change is what as the party with the balance of power in the senate you are capable of. Not radical change, but incremental change. As the expression goes, Rome wasn't built in a day. It might mean somewhat isolating a percentage of your base, but it's the only way to really get things done at all.

Right now we need some action, any action really. Because trying to find the perfect solution means inaction. Nuclear has its problems, but is it really worse than pumping CO₂ into our atmosphere as we currently are by burning coal? GM crops have some issues, but if it's a technology that can lessen the environmental impacts of farming then why wouldn't it be something to look into?

Again I applaud you on the election result, and hope that you strive to look at solutions that are going to help with a prosperous and sustainable Australia. Because having ideals are useless if they don't translate into positive outcomes. Seatbelts do save lives even if they can't save everyone in a car crash...

Best regards,
Kel

Inaction On Climate Change

Consider a situation where a whole group of farmers have access to the same shared land in which to graze their cattle^[1]. But there's a problem, there are too many cattle for the resources that the land provides. Because of overgrazing, the land is heading towards a state where soon no-one will be able to graze.

If any individual cuts back, then all they are doing is disadvantaging themselves - and not even one person making a sacrifice will be enough to stop the land. And if a system such as a set reduction or proportional reduction is imposed, there will still be those who find it unfair. The people who had few cattle are being punished because of the overuse of others, and those who are overusing it are being hit the hardest.

So the situation goes on and on until the paddock is destroyed because that's the only finality available. Any egalitarian option to try and allocate resources appropriately is lost because it is being imposed on an existing situation instead of planning for a new one.


So much of the climate change political debate revolves around this sort of reasoning. It's perfectly understandable that it would, but lamentable nonetheless. Australian emissions only account for about 1% of the global total, even if we chose to do anything all it would do is diminish the quality of life. Or that no deal that doesn't include the developing nations is worth doing. Or it's up to large polluters like the US and China to cut back.

In other words, the position many in Australia take can be surmised as follows: it's not our responsibility, we need everyone in agreement, and even if we did anything it wouldn't matter anyway. No matter what our objection, it fits into that situation of unfairness or futility.

In all this wrangling it's easy to forget just why there is such wrangling in the first place. Climate change is a real scientific issue. There's a reason why this destructive inevitability is being so hotly debated while the the end of the Mayan calendar is relegated to bad disaster movies. We can decry the unscientific society all we want, but at the core there is the understanding among most that right or wrong science is something to take seriously.


The kind of action that climate change requires makes it really easy not to do anything. It makes it easy to fall into climate change denial, it would almost seem obligatory to serve at the rationalisation of the inability to do anything about it. The self-justification of taking a stand against a discipline that really they know ought to be taken seriously is evidenced by the futility of an almost no-win situation.

No wonder so much of this debate is split along political lines. Instead of separating the science from the political consequences, the science has been associated so deeply with left-wing politics that it's no wonder that so many on the political right reject it. So many times I have been accused of being a tree-hugger for taking sides on what I thought was a scientific issue. I don't care if the left or right support it, I want to know what climatologists think!

Along the same lines, it's again easy to see why skeptic libertarians are more eager to reject the notion of anthropogenic climate change. What's needed to fix the problem goes against the political ideals they hold, so why would we expect them to give up their cherished political beliefs in favour of problems? No, it must be their rejection of climate change is because climate change is wrong^[2]...


If a large asteroid was looking like it could collide with the earth, that fact would stand independently of any political action. If certain groups were opposed to this concept it wouldn't change that fact. Accusing astronomers of engaging in scaremongering, stating that NASA is just trying to monopolise funding, alleging that those dissenting against "collision theory" are being silenced in academia, saying that it would cost too much to do anything about it, making it clear it would destroy our frail economy, or even going so far as to accuse physicists of rigging the software that projects such a collision... making any of these accusations would look ridiculous and for good reason too! They are ridiculous, and they are equally as ridiculous when comparable accusations are being made against climate scientists.

The political action to be taken doesn't change the underlying facts. Climate change is not a left wing or right wing issue, it's an issue that evidentially needs to be dealt with. That it is championed by much of the left doesn't change the science underneath, that there are those who use the science to push their ideology isn't a reason to reject both^[3].

How to deal with the problem is the political issue. As game theory and history^[4] would suggest, actually coming to a solution that will address the underlying facts is not easy task. That people won't even recognise that there's a problem to begin with makes dealing with the problem even harder.



[1] - Taken from the documentary Nice Guys Finish First (available here)
[2] - The same way that a child dying from whooping cough isn't the fault of low vaccination rates against it
[3] - The IS / OUGHT distinction.
[4] - Deforestation on Easter Island for example

A Climatologist's Take On Copenhagen

Of Scepticism And Denialism

What is it about climate change that makes people think they are experts in it? I guess it doesn't matter too much, chalk one more up for Dunning-Kruger. Perhaps it's the politicising of the issue. It matters to us, so we're going to be McExperts while the few trained in the relevant sciences battle it out in academia. I'd love to be able to rip apart the claims made in "climategate" but I don't know how to address it correctly. Rather what I want to talk about is the tone of scepticism. Does the evidence warrant the conclusion?


The situation
It's important to remember what is being alleged here. That tens of thousands of scientists are colluding together in order to cook up a non-existing threat. They are subverting the general peer review process, falsifying data, and worst of all working together to lie to the public in regard to the consequences of the current lifestyle we live. Or at the very least trying to serve their own careers by getting funding.

To allege a conspiracy is a pretty big deal, especially one involving so many people. It would mean that tens of thousands of people would all have to collaborate to keep the secret. Not telling their friends or family for one, and given the public nature of this controversy would have to be lying to the public, politicians, industry groups and even to friends and family. That's a lot of people needing to keep their story straight.

But maybe there's something a little more obvious, maybe the people perpetrating the "conspiracy" are doing so unwillingly, they might all be ideologues who have reasoned to themselves that something that ain't true is - and it's something that fits with a radical political agenda that supposedly these tens of thousands of scientists all share.

It's not fair to treat it like a religion given that the people involved are the ones who have the relevant expertise to address the claims. That is to say there would be thousands of people equipped with the ability to see that the data doesn't line up. That there would be many who could see that it's fake. So there should be many with the relevant expertise who could uncover this conspiracy at any time.

This is to try and paint what the emails need to demonstrate - that they need to be significant enough to match the extraordinary nature of the narrative. It's not being alleged that the amount attributed to human activity might not be as much as before where the scientific process will correct it, but of mass fraud to hide that there's no human-induced climate change.


The smoking gun?
Now these emails are meant to be sufficient enough to demonstrate the ramifications of what's being argued. In all honesty, do these emails meet, exceed or even tend towards to the notion that there is mass fraud being perpetrated on a grand scale?

One reason I would argue against this is the nature of the scientific enterprise. It really is cut-throat and people make a name for themselves not by going with the tide but against it. They may be ridiculed and scorned by the scientific community, but ultimately if the data fits then fortune and fame beckon. It's by no means perfect, but the system has proved to work time and time again. Not to give complete trust to the process, but to recognise that on a whole the scientific endeavour has a good track record.

So the question to ask would be does the contents of the email make a sufficient case for widespread fraud? This isn't just finding damning sentences with no regard to context, but taking context into account and the significance of what is said, is there reason to suspect the entire enterprise is fraud? If someone for example said that they have doubts over AGW, is this dissenter being silenced? That is to say that such a person hasn't made such a view public through the peer review research.

This is not to try to be facetious, rather to put in perspective the level to which the evidence needs to be in order to justify the logical implications of what is being proposed. I confess, as soon as the word conspiracy is brought up, I tune out. Conspiracies beyond a few people are just so implausible. But I could be mistaken, I haven't read the emails nor do I have an intimate knowledge of the reasons for climate change beyond the basics. I await the results of the investigation. But what gets me is the denialism masquerading as scepticism, the denialists are pretending that their the sceptics and over what?


Cult of denial
I use the word cult as hyperbole, though I feel that there's something truthful in the characterisation. I say this not to offend but to explain the difference between being sceptical and labelling yourself a "sceptic". And we should be sceptical of climate change, we should be sceptical of everything. But to my mind a sceptic is one who follows the evidence where it leads them as opposed to taking an ideological position. Unfortunately my dealings with "sceptics" and seeing "sceptic" pundits in the media is that they aren't sceptical, they have an ideological position which they are adhering to.

Again I can't fault people for being ideological, they are human. What I am calling out is when the ideology is so blatant that it clouds the assessment on the issue. Now I hear you say, there are plenty of ideologues who support climate change. I agree, but it is a red herring. The question is how closely does the conjecture of ideologues match the evidence?

A couple of notes for concern is with the "sceptics" is how easily they'll tap onto anything that means climate change isn't real. I remember seeing the head of GM on The Daily Show / Colbert Report (can't remember which one) talking about a survey of scientists who doubt man-made climate change. I've also heard this brought up by a few "sceptics". But it's a poor survey. Creationists use a similar tactic to deny evolution.

Another similarity I see to the creationist movement is to label those who support Anthropogenic Global Warming as a religious cult. Similar to the creationists use of Darwin. It's something I see come up all the time, labelling anyone who believes in human-induced climate change as basically faith-based. Again, this isn't an issue of peoples beliefs but a scientific position. Is the science flawed? Is it wrong? The beliefs of the supporters shouldn't matter. It seems the logical steps followed equate to the faith of people (not everyone knows everything) with the article in question being a faith. It does not follow and "sceptics" do themselves a disservice by such a blatant error of thinking.


To get back to the emails, do the emails really implicate the entire scientific discipline of science? As put above, this is not quote mining to find the most damning comment, but taking the emails in context and using them to not misrepresent those in action. This to me is where the big question over the whole "controversy" lies. Does the evidence point to AGW being a conspiracy? Does it undermine the data presented by the IPCC and destroy what is the scientific consensus? I'm sceptical of the "sceptics" on this one. This is a dead give-away that many involved are showing their ideology, that they are looking for anything that might put a hole in what they don't want to be true.

It's quite sad that so many who are accusing others of being ideologues are showing themselves to be just what they are accusing others of. And for what? This is what I really can't grasp. The ferocity of those trying to deny human-induced climate change doesn't match with any particular ideology, yet there are indeed denialists.

Someone who is seeking the truth should be looking for good evidence to support their position, and they should be willing to change their minds if the evidence dictates. Seizing on bad evidence as proof is only serving to openly demonstrate pre-existing conclusions. It all might be a conspiracy, this might seriously impact on the IPCC position and the general scientific consensus surrounding climate change. I don't know, I have my doubts because that would mean conspiracy. But it may be the case. But right now, acting with certainty that this destroys all notions of AGW is not being sceptical in the least. It's finding something that fits the narrative of an implausible story, and that's one for the conspiracy theorists.

The Unlocking Of An ACTUAL Conspiracy

I was wrong, pure and simple. Here I was decrying the AGW deniers for their conspiracy-like ravings against anthropogenic climate change. That tens of thousands of scientists were all working together to promote a radical leftist agenda by silencing deniers, deleting contradicting data, colluding together and putting up a non-existent threat in order to serve their political agenda. I used to laugh at those creationist-like devotees of what looked like one big appeal to consequences...

That was until Climategate.

Unlike all other gates; watergate, crackergate, utegate, or the rusty squeaking gate at grandma's house, this gate was real... and it's implications startling! They were right, there was a conspiracy. The leaked emails prove everything that has ever been said about those ideologues in the IPCC and that evangelical arsehole Al Gore. And worst of all I knew it.

I knew it and I let my credulity get the better of me. My inner sceptic was saying "noooooooo" in a Cartmanesque fade to oblivion, but I didn't listen. I trusted science. pfft, I'm not doing that again. For a long time now they've been telling us that we are nothing but glorified monkeys, that we are just matter, and that we really don't matter because matter is just energy condensed. No more of that! Now that the tree ring data and temperature data don't overlap, we can't trust anything any more.

Yet I've brought this on myself before. I remember when I used to believe that man walked on the moon. I truly believed it. But one man had the courage to say something about it, and that conspirator Buzz Aldrin just punched him in the face! If he had nothing to hide, he would have produced the moon cheese that NASA would have found had they really gone to the moon.

And there was that whole period where I attributed alien abductions to hallucinations and false memories - culture infesting the consciousness and causing the sense of patternicity we all share to interpret strange experiences as out of this world. I even attributed my own experiences of sleep paralysis to natural causes. But then why do government reports of UFOs have so much blacked out? What are they trying to protect? I'm fearful for the human / alien hybrid invasion of 2012.

But back to the issue at hand. This is just the tip of the iceberg, which by the way did NOT break from a warming Arctic. There is now evidence of direct conspiracy to stop the free market. Why can't a mining company pollute the streams if it gets us a fuel source? The environmental implications of pollution are overstated, and in any case to reduce toxic pollutants is going to cost jobs. Just as happened a few decades ago, and what did the laws to regulate pollutants do? It destroyed the economy and brought society to its knees. And for what? So those damn evolutionists could show natural selection on the peppered moth.

I'm thankful for those hackers who targeted private email of a few climate scientists, because there was always that gut feeling of guilt when I left my computer on when I wasn't using it, or that I spent too long in the shower. Now I don't need to worry at all. It's all a hoax, it's all a charade, and those emails are the smoking gun that show the level of deception and fraud perpetrated by the IPCC.


But as I write this, I feel my scepticism of my scepticism resurging. Maybe I'm making mountains out of molehills (how else do mountains form except for giant moles?) and that there's not enough in there to completely discount human-induced climate change. It could just be those emails show something minor, it could be that those emails fall within the bounds of the scientific process, and that the evidence still points to us having some effect on the environment.

But then I think to myself, what is more likely. That there are tens of thousands of climate scientists in on a conspiracy. That those who have spent the time and effort to study the climate, to see how human activity affects the environment and what factors there are in how our weather system works. Those who have measured the environment at different times, trying to find patterns, work out cycles, seeing what that will do to sea levels and rain over agricultural areas. That all these people are just faking the data to push a political agenda. Or that there really is grounds to consider that human activity is having some effect on the environment.

Really it should be obvious. As Bush jr. said: "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

Five percent

12 of the last 13 years of Australian federal politics, we had a conservative government. At a time when the rest of the world was starting to take on the concern that is climate change, our leader stood proudly behind the Americans in defiance of the scientific consensus. But as the warnings from leading climatologists became more mainstream in the media, there was a communal shift behind acting. And the Australian voters stood tall and elected a heroic figure that would save the day. That man was Kevin Rudd and in his decisive stance on climate change, to save the planet and show he's a world leader in the crusade to save the planet he's pledged Australia to cut emissions by... 5%?

The global financial crisis has given our government like many others a lot to think about. So while the government is investing many billions of dollars into infrastructure and giving handouts to those who would spend it on power-consuming LCD televisions, there's simply not any room for saving the environment. Why not research into new technologies? Why not put money into training more science and engineering students? Why not try to shift our failing economy away from a commodities market and into a world technological leader?

We've been enjoying the high commodity prices, turning environmental resources into economic capital. It turns out that we along with every other nation are harming the very planet we live on, and for a long time it's been done without a consideration for the long-term consequences. Finally now we are in an age where we can actually understand the implications for our actions and we are doing as little as possible to change our actions for the better. Perhaps helping the environment is one of those non-core promises that were a mark of the Howard years.

It's such a shame that our country has such little drive to actually save our planet, it's either a rejection of the science, an appeal to the economy or a cry of our insignificance on the world stage. "What about China?" Yes what about China? What are we doing to help them stop buying our coal? Are we giving them a better product, or one that is going to maximise our profits? Is this short drive for money in the nation's long-term interest? Is the great barrier reef a concern? Is ensuring there's enough water for our population to survive a concern? How has economics factored in these long term scarcities into the cost of each tonne of export we send overseas?

We've hit that situation in Australia where there's no reasonable alternative in tackling this problem, the "left" party is proposing a paltry 5% cut and the conservatives are still out on whether such a problem exists - or if it does how many jobs it will lose. There's not much we can do at all here, Kevin 07% (only if the international community agree on a 7% cut) has shown that his environmental credentials are mute. What can we do but hope that Barack Obama turns around 8 years of American inaction and actually has the balls to make the decisions that are needed to put earth back into the balance. Can Obama do it? Yes he can. Will it happen? Probably not. But a man can dream.

Each day of inaction is one more day of doing more damage to the environment. Sure there needs to be some time in order to formulate a comprehensive plan of action, but each moment we keep this polluting system going is quickly lessenning the time we have to fix the problem. The system is geared towards polluting, we need those fossil fuels to power our society. The sooner we start looking at putting in the infrastructure to break our dependance on fossil fuels the better. Otherwise our system will become more and more reliant on resources we are depleting at a rapid pace, each day we don't act the harder it will be to act in the future. The more expensive it will be too, but that's for future generations to worry about.

The Global Warming Debate

Now I'm one to be odds with the media in general, and for the most part it's justified. Most news is just trivia, sensationalised and put forward to ignore the real issues of the time. At least there is some culpability in the news, something that can't be said the same for opinion pieces. Now blogging is entirely opinion, there is no culpability to this blog any more than the next. The same can be said for the internet in general, there's no punishment for being wrong or intellectually bankrupt, in fact we see the opposite where ignorance draws the gullible and feeble into believing what is otherwise absurd. It's the trappings of the medium and there is little any of us can do about it except strive for accuracy and hope that in the end people will inform themselves through other materials. The media is a completely different story though, the accountability of opinion is simply not there as speculation is free speech.

Today while listening to news radio there was talk on the Garnaut report commissioned by our government in order to work out set measures to tackle the climate change problem. On the radio we had journalists with no scientific training trying to defend either side without much clue as to what they are talking about. It turned into a farce when a political correspondent used a straw man about not being able to predict the weather next week as an excuse not to trust the science on climate change. And that is where the climate change "sceptics" turn out a lot like creationists, the same arguments creationists use against evolution are used by climate change deniers (they aren't really sceptics). It's bogus that these misinformed pundits have their weight of opinion thrown around as if it were credulous. Being objective does not mean showing both sides in equal light when one side has far more weighting behind it's evidence, and it's time that journalists stopped pussyfooting around controversial issues when one side is clearly backed by empirical data.

Climate change politics
It's important to recognise that the science behind climate change has been around for decades, it's not just a recent calling. Politicians and business have been ignoring the problem and neglecting to act. It's getting to the point where drastic measures are going to be needed across the globe to stem the tide. While there have been politicians who have spoken up, they were few and far between. In any case, despite scientists warning for decades very little has been done. The issue that the climate is not only changing but we are having an effect on it should be a non-issue. The climate is changing, we are having an effect on it, to what extent is uncertain and what exactly will happen is unknown.

One thing that is needed is a global solution: Australia while being one of the worst polluters per capita only accounts for a small percentage of global emissions. The two worst polluters, China and the US, are for one reason or another not seeking to be part of a global solution unless it's on their terms. Pandering to spoilt superpowers aside (a lot of the conservative objection to acting is precisely that); we are a minor contributor to the problem and without the major players backing any move it's sure to fail. And in a way they are right but it's weak way of getting out of responsibility: by shifting blame onto major polluters it neglects what we've done and what we can do about it. On the documentary Nice Guys Finish First, Richard Dawkins talked of a field that was being slowly destroyed by grazing. Each farmer only slightly contributed to the cause but as a whole it was devastating. If a farmer decided it was best to limit the numbers in his herd grazing, then it would serve no advantage because that farmer would miss out and other farmers wouldn't. It's that same deadlock with the climate crisis, it takes risk for countries to come out and try to change.

Technology doesn't happen overnight. It takes years of research and development, trial and error, failure. Working from scratch is always a risk and it could very well yield nothing of substance. To delay working towards finding new technology, for the sake of maintaining the current system, is a dangerous game. If the government doesn't invest, then it's up to private enterprise, but they won't invest unless they can justify the costs to the shareholders. Significant investment into cleaner technology to maintain our economy is vital for long term sustainability. That isn't disputed. What is under dispute is how and when investment will come about. Government can't go it alone, and neither can business. There needs to be bilateral support in order for it to have a chance of working.

Quite simply, the longer we wait the more sudden changes will be needed. Our modern civilisation is a very finely tuned organism that is reliant on certain resources in order to survive. As a result we have a centralised distribution system that is wholly dependant on fossil fuels in order to sustain itself. Any delay in making gradual changes means that the changes will have to be larger and more sudden. That risks the economy, and that risks the long-term future of our civilisation. Making smaller changes now and managing each smaller change to ease transition is really the only practical solution. Yes there will be losers in this model, and yes there will be economic downturn. But a robust economy should be able to handle that, a robust economy is one that is able to adapt to change.

If we develop the technology first, we are the economic beneficiaries when the technology is needed around the world. If we wait, we will pay a premium to cover the R&D costs that others have provided. At a time when we are having massive tax cuts, maybe a couple of billion a year could be set aside for research into a sustainable future. Same goes for fuel excise, with the federal opposition talking of cutting excise by 5c (which would be completely wiped out by profiteering and the constant rising cost of fuel), why not use the billions that 5c a litre would generate in order to fund research into transport that doesn't need petrol. That's a bit over 10% of the excise capital being put aside towards creating a sustainable future. Taking small steps like this should not be hard, nor should it be hard to sell to the people. It's sad that it takes the threat of global annihilation to gain enough attention to even consider making such changes. And the longer we wait, the more it's going to cost, and more risk will be involved. So that's why Australia shouldn't wait for the US and China, we should be masters of our own destiny.


Reporting science
Journalism has to be as objective as possible. Most of the time the way it's achieved is to show opposing opinions. The problem with reporting on scientific issues is that using the opposing opinions means garnering voices of dissent usually from outside the scientific community whose opinions should otherwise kept well away from discussions on science. For science is already objective, it's fought out in the academic arena well before ideas filter down into the public. So having a discussion on evolution with creationists is not being objective because creationists do not have equal weighting with evolutionary biologists. Just like having climate change deniers weigh in on the debate is not objective as they are going against the scientific method.

As climate change becomes more and more of an issue, political discussion of climate change will increase. Having politicians talking about the issue is bad enough already without having political commentators with no scientific training or understanding weighing in to further dilute the issue. As was shown in An Inconvenient Truth, the number of articles sceptical of global warming and the number of scientific papers sceptical of global warming were not even close to equal. This is a great disparity between those who strive to understand empirical data and those who report it to the public. It's not that they are oblivious to the scientific method (well some are), it's that the way they are taught to be objective doesn't apply to this particular field. It's important that we as consumers of the media recognise this fallibility of reporting and make a conscious effort to check for ourselves with publications that are reputable journals of scientific thought.