There'll be a hot time in Stockholm tonight

Everyone knows there are two sides to every story and so things generate their own opposites if only to fulfill the expectations, and so light creates dark, even if dark is nothing at all. 

It's a trivial notion, of course, but the practice of using the shadow of a thing to discredit or obliterate that thing has consequences that are far from trivial, because the nothing we give a name to can, at least in the emotional logic the public loves and public passion feeds on, cancel out something. Every assertion that must be blunted or countered or denounced can be reversed in sign, so to speak and used to cancel the assertion. At least it can  in a world, in an inner universe of the mind where people don't think too much or too well and can be convinced that one's image in a mirror can cancel itself out if we don't like what we see.  There must be two sides if we're to reduce a question of fact to a matter of opinion and that's just what the game is.

There must be two sides, even if all the data is on one of them. Each side has it's adherents and even if the question "is it raining?" can be answered more reliably by those standing outside, those inside an inner room with no windows have to be given equal credibility if the 'two sides' hypothesis is valid.  So when we look at the question: is the average temperature of the Earth getting higher or the question are human activities contributing substantially, the advantage to the side with the data; the side the atmospheric paleontologists, the geologists, the paleo-climatologists are on, is minimized, if not cancelled out  by the side that has the money and political connections.  We have the side with massive pertinent information and we have the Republicans, the Coal, Oil and Gas cartels who own them and a handful of  people with  dubious scientific credentials  crying hoax.

This is not a scientific problem, there is no scientific controversy, it's  class warfare, and the success will depend on things other than data and there's a battle in Stockholm today.  There's a battle here in America too, where there are always two sides and thus equal credibility independent of evidence and where questions of chemistry and physics are questions of which party you belong to, where motivated reasoning passes for objective analysis. The goal of the argument is to minimize risks to the international cartels and to the party they own.  It's not about science, it's about allegiance.

Opponents don't take these things to the laboratory, to the peer reviewed publications, they look only at selected data and cast stones at the rest.  They take it to Joe the Plumber. They take it to the Republicans. They take it to Congress. They purchase opinions. They take it to the huddled masses yearning to sound knowledgeable by crying hoax  at every bit of truth they can find and in a way there are two sides to the climate question.  The one with the trillions and the side with the data.

Global Climate Hoax?

Or not.

More than 20% of Einstein’s original papers contain mistakes of some sort, says Mario Livio in Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein.  Indeed, Darwin’s  Origin of Species contains far more of them, owing in no small part to the total ignorance of the mechanisms of heredity at the time or writing.  It was thought that the mysterious elements we now call genes simply mixed in the offspring like different colors of paint rather than like the shuffling of cards.  Yellow and blue paint may give green  until diluted by combining with one or the other color,  but Genes, Jacks and Queens are always one or the other and undiluted and a joker introduced into a deck will always turn up again sooner or later.  Darwin’s blunder was in not noticing that an advantageous mutation would under the blending model of his day eventually disappear, making  the passing on of small traits almost impossible with successive generations. 

Mountains of new data both from fossils, in the laboratory and from the comprehensive understanding of genetics proved that the blunder was only apparent when viewed in a glass darkly.  Inheritance didn’t work the way his detractors insisted  (and some still do.) As to one of Einstein’s apparent blunders, first in adding and then removing Lambda, the Cosmological Constant, the  truth seems when viewed through more modern glasses that  adding it was not a blunder but understanding it is so far an unachieved goal. 

  

Yet when we examine the kind of Denialism modern communications have  facilitated, we will find much commentary using the early pre-Mendelian uncertainties in the theory of Evolution to attack what may now be the most documented and supported theory of anything and further, a theory that gains more supporting data with every new discovery and finds wider and wider application.  We find, at least in my opinion, far less outrage about any of the proposed  explanations  of the apparently accelerating inflation of  empty space in our universe .  Astronomy was not yet advanced enough  for Einstein’s early cosmology to include an expanding cosmos, much less an accelerating expansion and he famously removed the constant, which he called ugly, from his equations as being no longer necessary. 

Still, deniers and opponents  of all sorts  exist and passionately marshal outdated observations, invalid arguments and fallacies against the science.  I don’t think I’m being venturesome by seeing patterns amongst denialists. I think there is a constellation of beliefs that seem to accompany passionate attacks on well documented  scientific and historical consensuses and they differ from the truly valid observations that consensus changes when new data appears.  There certainly is no new data refuting evolution, nor are geneticists and paleontologists moving in all seriousness away from accepting it. The same is true of  the currently accepted ages of the Earth or of the Universe.  There is no new data showing that millions were not rounded up and gassed by the Nazis and I’m convinced that there is no new data and only an assemblage of fragments of old data to argue that not only is the idea that the worldwide climate is changing but that the deforestation and   artificial introduction of  carbon and sulfur compounds  into the air are not a significant factor.  Arguments that examine only fragments of data, chosen for ambiguity are often cited without reference to other firm data that clarifies the matter. Insinuations are made of suppression for political reasons as if everyone from Communist to Libertarian would agree to delude the world for no particular gain.  Assertions are made that radiocarbon dating “is a joke” and  “is no longer trusted.” Assertions that  global warming is part of a natural cycle, contrary to observed data.  Assertions that one data set invalidates all other data with no mention of peer reviews of that set.  It’s almost monotonous.  

People, or at least a large proportion of the people who angrily deny theories and the data that support them also possess, as I mentioned, a constellation of other traits and particularly a personal attachment to belief systems political and religious.  Most people for instance, who argue in the total absence of empirical observation  and contrary to huge and growing masses of data, from physics, mathematics and geology  are certainly  religious.  Likewise, the people who write books and articles about the “hoax” of climate change tend also to have not only an affiliation with ‘Conservative’ politics and religious traditions but a propensity to assemble the same sort of arguments.  Concocted evidence of human footprints next to dinosaur tracks,  fictitious articles about oil forming magically in the deep strata,  dishonest testimony that evolutionary science is giving way to other interpretations,  books asserting  evidence against the existence of Nazi extermination camps almost always written either by heretofore unknown “experts”  often unconnected or only tangentially connected to the science in question or to science in general all grasped at  like floating straws to Denialists:  Books by Engineering professors about the Holocaust Hoax,  Articles and talks about  anthropogenic factors in climate change by aeronautical engineers,  and TV meteorologists.  Paleontologists, Paleoclimatologists, Geologists?  Not so much,  unless they work for the petroleum industry.

Certainly the history of science is the history of how theories are modified as technology allows new data; how theories are replaced by theories that explain observed phenomena, certainly -- but  giant worldwide hoaxes involving  nearly every scientist in a field including  suppression and falsification of data? I can’t think of one, nor can I think of a motivation that would affect such a widely diverse set of individuals and make them act in such unlikely  harmony.

No, as I said, not only Einstein’s work but the work of all the most brilliant pioneers of science and mathematics have contained errors, oversights and blunders.  We don’t have shoe salesmen writing anti-Newtonian diatribes. We don’t hear about Galileo’s Hoax, the mendacity of Kepler, do we and that's because they don't endanger the dearly held fictions of today's religious people or wealthy corporations.

Science progresses haltingly but the ultimate test is the agreement of theory with data even as data emerges and refines theory. Theories have been overthrown, discredited and abandoned but the level of passion involved has nothing to do with the soundness or unsoundness of a theory as history asserts in a loud voice.  If Einstein, Newton Kepler, Kelvin, Darwin, Hoyle and in fact all of them  spent their lives revising and reviewing, blundering and going back to the drawing board, none of them have been perpetrating hoaxes.  Hoaxes involving multitudes only seem apparent to certain kinds of people who share certain characteristics. Not understanding how science works is one of those characteristics. Being Republican is another.

There is no new data arguing against accepted cosmological and paleontological or anthropological theories. There is no emerging data arguing for a climate hoax, Intelligent design, a  worldwide flood  – only cranks seeking attention and the people with personal, financial and psychological reasons to become their disciples.  Yet they go on and on. Fox goes on reporting and deciding for us.

 

HOW TO SABOTAGE YOUR OWN CAUSE (AND SHOOT YOURSELF IN THE FOOT)

The climate change deniers have their legions of climate change denier trolls out in force, and the trolls have been trashing and bashing the liberal blogosphere.

If there is proof of one hypothesis, one can well understand why climate scientists want to insulate themselves from reactionaries who would waste their time and harass them at every turn.

This is how reactionary wingers divert public attention at a crucial time: Hack into a computer system (illegal by the way), steal 20,000 e-mails (illegal by the way), invent a controversy, start conspiracy rumors, slander a scientist, make news and noise, distract, distract, distract. The bastards are damn good at it too. Witness how teabagging astroturfers derailed the healthcare reform debate. Now they are stalking global climate change (they love their see-oh-two more than life itself).

Right now I am having an argument with a liberal forum that cross-posts my articles. I complained about trolls, but the forum does not believe in censorship. "The trolls should be allowed to embarrass themselves," goes the argument.

I say: “Trolls never feel embarrassment, and intelligent readers don’t need a demonstration.” Furthermore, a forum that enables trolls enables their cause and merely intensifies the distractions with self-defeating tolerance.

Why the hell are liberal bloggers having this argument? Yup, another distraction, another casualty of the climate change deniers and their trolls. The deniers and their trolls have their own blogs and websites; why should we let them hijack and disrupt ours?

YEAR OF THE MELTDOWN

Happy New Year, everyone! Americans are famous for customary greetings that bear little relevance to events or context.  By all accounts, the New Year will be anything but happy. For some, 2009 will be called, “Year of the Ox.”  In my book, it should be called, “Year of the Meltdown” … in more ways than one.

The Economy
Since the first of the year, 100,000 job cuts have been announced including: 30,000 at Circuit City, 5,000 at Microsoft, 6,000 at Intel, 2,500 at United Airlines, 11,000 at General Electric, as examples.

According to Futurist.Com, our economic problems are "deep and structural and even cultural. It has to do with energy, with lifestyle, with the shape and form of what we build, and with global politics, and more."

In Florida, for example, our local supermarkets stock oranges from California and vegetables shipped from Chile, Mexico, and Peru.  Most of this produce is grown locally, transportable to market at little cost, and far cheaper than inferior store-bought varieties.  Yet, local growers are struggling or going out of business. Why? It seems chain stores favor a procurement model that ignores long distances, higher energy costs, inferior quality goods, and impacts on local economies. Hardly a model of efficiency, one would think.

James Howard Kunstler of Clusterfuck Nation says we should "prepare for the end of current global commerce as currently conducted, prepare psychologically to downscale, take a time out from immigration, prepare for a lot of paper “wealth” to disappear, prepare for a psychology of resentment."

America’s Defense Meltdown
Our country supports an annual defense budget of $600-700 billion and rising but gets less bang for the buck with each passing year.  We have the fewest number of navy combat ships, submarines, and combat aircraft, and the smallest number of personnel in uniform at any time since the end of World War II.  Why are we spending more and getting less?

According to Winslow Wheeler, "In Congress they're interested in jobs and campaign contributions. In the Pentagon they're interested in various political and bureaucratic agendas. They're not paying attention to the lessons of combat history … we should only fight when we truly have to fight rather than pursue agendas and political dogmas and help politicians posture as patriots."

Global Climate Change
In March of 2002, a giant ice sheet known as Larson B broke away from Antarctica and went adrift. According to global climate scientists, the Antarctic continent as a whole warmed at the same rate as the rest of planet.  Local conditions, however, are another matter of special concern:  The western peninsula warmed at a rate five times faster than the rest of Antarctica. Ice sheets such as Larson B hold back the glaciers behind them.  If they were to collapse completely, scientists say, the entire western ice shelf would fall into the ocean … resulting in a 16-foot rise in sea level.

In 2009, an even bigger chunk threatens to break away.  The Wilkins Ice shelf, roughly equal in size to the State of Connecticut, is literally “hanging by a thread” and “could go at any minute,” according to the latest observations.

ExxonMobil gave $1.6 million to the American Enterprise Institute in an attempt to undercut the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a report widely regarded as the most comprehensive review of climate change science.  The Bush administration sought to further undermine public understanding of the issue by censoring the findings of climate scientists.  Thus, our government, under pressure from the oil lobby, suppressed meaningful data to influence the debate.

Apparently, a little propaganda money goes a long way.  This comment from a conservative blogger is representative of how public opinion is shaped by good ol’ boys:

CB (12-20-2008 at 9:35 AM): I am an outdoorsman and a conservationist. I support clean air, water, etc. What I object to is the leveraging of carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring gas and not a pollutant, into anti-capitalist redistribution schemes.

... and some of my best friends are [fill-in the blank].   When a conservative blogger makes a statement like this, claiming to appreciate the outdoors while debunking climate science, it reminds me of a pedophile who says: “I like children.”

Shadows of the Indignant Desert Birds
There will always be shrill voices resistant to change. Public policy debates have an aspect of “advertising jingle” to them.  A catchy melody repeats endlessly on the radio over months and years, then plays continuously inside the head long after the product has disappeared from the store: “Its not how long you make it, its how you make it long.” Once firmly imprinted, it is difficult to reshape public opinion.

Or perhaps one can look at the issue of changing public opinion from the perspective of a psychotherapist whose client engages in reckless behaviors.  An addict clearly knows the risks of substance abuse but is unable to break the habit in emotional terms, such as a chain smoker who reaches for another cigarette after being told of dire health consequences.  Even when understood intellectually, it is hard to change old habits and perceptions.

For those of us who read scientific studies, the data may seem compelling, but how do we convince others who don’t study graphs and maps, who listen only to long imprinted jingles?

And then there are lobbyists trying to protect their dirty franchises. They would have us focus attention, not on the data points clustered around a trend line, but on the statistical outliers … the confounding dodge and feint.  Once imprinted, only a catastrophe will change minds.

There will always be voices from a bygone era still hearing messages the dead have stopped sending. There will always be voices arguing, not for the common good, but from pure self-interest. Implementing public policy changes are difficult at best. We can understand these quirks of human nature with all due patience, but we are running out of time, and there is little wiggle room left.

Happy New Year, everyone.