The War on Science... a War on Earth... and by Christmas?

The U.S. military leadership is in unified agreement that climate change is real, that it is human caused, and also that it poses a clear and present danger to the US and especially its armed forces. "The Pentagon's thinking is revealed plainly and publicly in its own 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, which features no fewer than eight direct, specific, and unambiguous evaluations of climate change as it relates to geopolitics and military strategy."

See also: The Pentagon's Guide to Overcoming Climate Change Denial.  And note this: the U.S. military officer corps is the third best-educated clade in American life, after university professors and medical doctors. The senior ranks are filled with brilliant men and women... (plus about 20% blithering... but no comment about that.)

 Ah, but the U.S. Officer Corps is no longer respected in the heartland.  As of November 2013, 23 percent of Americans said they "didn't believe in" climate change.  Which will be about as effective as not believing in a bullet that's been fired at your nose.  No wonder a cult-like tenor has set in, waging war not just on science but every other clade or profession of knowledge and skill in American life. (Name one exception.)

(Multiple datasets have confirmed it was the warmest October on record for the globe, keeping the planet on a course toward its toastiest year.)

To be clear, the unequivocal position by the U.S. military has had some effects upon the Fox party line.  Facts like Russian bases erupting along the Arctic Ocean and the opening of the Northwest Passage to summer shipping are pretty undeniable… so Hannity and company have veered to changing the message: "All right, the climate is changing… but… but… climate has ALWAYS been changing and that don't mean we gotta do anything!"

In fact, that's a lie, top to bottom. The last 6000 years has been among the most stable, climate-wise, in the last 20 million… and even so, small perturbations like the 1500s Little Ice Age wrought horrible havoc on nations and peoples. Any astrophysicist will show you how closely Earth skates along the inner edge of our sun's "goldilocks" or habitable zone… and hence why we can afford only traces of greenhouse gas.

But the greatest sign of stunning low-IQ is how Fox-viewers never notice the change in catechism!  From "there's no warming!" over to "all right it's hotter: but prove that it's human generated!"  It's like the millions of Glenn Beck followers who never once asked "WHICH eight foreign governments did you say George Soros toppled?"

These and dozens of other, never asked questions show that this is the greatest know-nothing campaign against a sapient, scientific civilization in 150 years. Possibly since the Inquisition.  And you have to ask: what do Rupert and his partners hope to gain?

While the vast majority of scientists in climate, atmospheres and weather agree on the essentials of human induced climate change, there are some areas wherein intense argument and discussion rage.  Such as whether the steady and dramatic arctic warming trends (leading the U.S. Navy to plan how to counter 12 new navigable ports bring built by the Russian Navy) might reach a "tipping point," releasing megatonnes of methane from both permafrost and undersea hydrate ices.  If that happened, the burst of greenhouse gas would make Al Gore look like a pollyanna.  But can it happen?

Well, it will have to be investigated by Europeans and Asians, because Legislatures in the U.S., Canada and Australia have been deliberately sabotaging the research we need, in order to settle these matters.  There is no greater treason to humanity, of course, than banning objective research into a potential civilization failure mode.  And if the worst does happen, there won't be a human being on Earth who will admit to ever having been a republican.

== Skeptics vs Deniers ==

Let's drill down into one of the top denialist rationalizations... that they are doing science the service of Skeptical questioning.  That it is about "skeptical-free minds posing questions that science should answer." 

In fact, this is a lie based on a powerful truth -- that science does need to be incessantly poked by vigorous critics, in order to function well and evade many types of observer bias. In fact, that process continues, completely outside the denialist cult. And here is where I describe how to tell the difference.

Skepticism and questions? Sure. Berkeley's Richard Muller showed how to do that. Muller revealed how aggressively competitive science is, normally. Indeed, he shrugged off some intemperate reactions  and stuck to his guns, demanding answers... till finally the climate science was good enough to satisfy his pre-set criteria. At which point he said: "okay I'm convinced."  What he did NOT do was move the goal posts, in service of a dogma. 

(This story is typical among scientists, the most competitive and smartest and (generally) sanest members of our civilization, and the folks against whom Fox is most openly at-war.)

No, this is about dogmatic cultists refusing even to negotiate. How can they refuse even to discuss RandD efforts that would be economic win-wins? Arm-waving that any measures to improve energy efficiency  will mean "impoverishment" and "shivering in the dark," they ridicule even the possibility of "compromise" investments -- Things We Ought to be Doing Anyway (TWODA).  Masures that could increase efficiency and save consumers billions? (As the 2009 CAFE standards have done?) 

Measures we should take, out of simple, rational precaution... just in case the scientists who actually know stuff turn out to be right, after all.

Read that several times. Can anyone defend such a reflexive stance? Pushed by the exact same forces who proclaimed "cars don't cause smog" and "tobacco is good for you."

Ask this: Who on Earth benefits from continued energy inefficiency? That small group happens to perfectly overlap with the funders of the cult.

See a way to tell the two apart, here: Distinguishing Climate Deniers and Skeptics.

 == Historical Context ==

In Pope Francis and the GOP's Bad Science, Michael Specter (author of Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives) writes:

“The Church has, for decades, taken the position that faith and science need not be opposed to one another. As the Catechism states, “methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God.”

“Political leaders never used to care who scientists voted for or whether they believed in God. Scientists were not seen as Democrats or Republicans. (This change did not begin with Ted Cruz and his Luddite colleagues.) In 2006, I wrote a piece for The New Yorker on the Bush Administration’s war on science. It noted that “Vannevar Bush was a conservative who opposed the New Deal, and not quietly. Yet President Roosevelt didn’t hesitate to appoint him, or to take his advice. 

"In 1959, after Dwight Eisenhower created the position of science adviser, in the wake of Sputnik, the Harvard chemist George B. Kistiakowsky assumed the post. Jerome Wiesner, a Democrat who subsequently became president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sat on the Science Advisory Committee—which met each month with Kistiakowsky and often with the President. When John F. Kennedy took office, Kistiakowsky and Wiesner simply switched roles.” None of that would be conceivable today.”

== And pertinent... ==

Lessons from history: Apparently extensive drought destroyed the indestructible Assyrian Empire. A lesson for those os us downstream who are facing similar problems. (Or in frantic-psychotic denial.)  

Wow, unpleasant to contemplate: “The global debris layer created by the end-Cretaceous impact at Chicxulub contained enough soot to indicate that the entire terrestrial biosphere had burned. Preliminary modeling showed that the reentry of ejecta would have caused a global infrared (IR) pulse sufficient to ignite global fires within a few hours of the Chicxulub impact. This heat pulse and subsequent fires explain the terrestrial survival patterns in the earliest Paleocene, because all the surviving species were plausibly able to take shelter from heat and fire underground or in water.” 

== And Science News From the Kurzweil Files ==

In radio terms, “full-duplex” refers to the ability to transmit and receive signals simultaneously, as in cell-phone conversations. Till now it required a magnetic-based “recirculator” the size of your palm. Now an advance may let itbe miniaturized, freeing bandwidth.

Either we grab this power for the people, or we meet Big Brother. University of Washington electrical engineers have developed a way to automatically track people across moving and still cameras by using an algorithm that trains the networked cameras to learn one another’s differences. The cameras first identify a person in a video frame, then follow that same person across multiple camera views.  – Seriously, read the first two pages of TheTransparent Society.

Nick Bostrom thinks three looming technologies might pose “existential risks” nanotech, synthetic biology and super artificial intelligence.  Notably in this talk at UC Berkeley, promoting his new book SUPERINTELLIGENCE: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, he downgrades “last week’s” obsessions — nuclear war and ecological degradation.  One interesting assertion is that   a key may be to get these things “in the right order.” Certainly if we get super intelligence first — and assuming we get a soft landing into a pleasant and accommodating kind of AI, then it might help us resolve all the other threats.

“It’s an open question” whether we’ll get super-intelligence via artificial (AI) systems or else by enhancing biological powers of thought.

== The War by Christmas ==

It would be one thing if the fanatics bent on expanding Christmas beyond all reason were all about proselytizing the messages of that bearded-beaded hippie, Jesus. At least that would be un-hypocritical. But why the all-out assault on the best and most-pure holiday in the American calendar... Thanksgiving?  The only one not ruined by commercialization or polarization.  That is, till this year ended every last pretense.

Like Halloween, Thanksgiving is spreading around the world purely on its merits, without any of the aggressive hype that is being used by the forces of Christmas... who are now blasting past Thanksgiving and Halloween with jingles and "black" door-buster days, determined to spread the "cheer" of fanatical greed and crass-manipulation past Columbus Day (now "Indigenous Peoples' Day" -- a topic for another time) and the equinox, with their gaze set upon the real objective...

...Independence Day.

That movie didn't lie.  We are under attack.  Ho-ho-ho.

Ocean Fertilization redux… plus the politics of science

My last posting about Climate Change remediation got a lot of attention, positive and negative,  so let me emphasize: I do not consider any form of "geoengineering" to be a substitute for responsibly investing in energy efficiency and finding ways to maintain a great civilization without ruining our planet. Even if a few such methods are found that work well, without crackpot flaws and/or gruesome side effects, that won't let us off the hook from our shared and individual responsibilities, which include seeking alternate, sustainable forms of energy to replace the irresponsible spewing of greenhouse pollutants into our atmosphere. Those who have been lured into participating in a War on Science must be introduced to its value. But the cynical men who are financing this cult are enemies of humankind.

Only now… some additional insights. A variant on ocean fertilization has been proposed by my friend William Calvin, one of the smartest guys I know. Bill agrees with me that the best approach for geoengineering and partial remediation of carbon driven climate change would be to emulate and enhance the method that Nature herself already uses, to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere.  That means doing it via natural processes at-sea, forming carbon rich solids and letting these settle as sediments to the ocean bottom.  (While, as a side-benefit, stimulating new fisheries.)  See Calvin's Proposal: Emergency 20-year Drawdown of Excess CO2 via Push-Pull  Ocean Pumps.

Earlier we discussed the drawbacks of the bludgeon-like initial attempts at ocean fertilization, that have created crude plankton blooms by dumping iron powder into currents.  We also saw that care must be taken to make sure that (as when arid land is irrigated) the new zones of fecundity must be "well-drained" like the Grand Banks and Chile, and unlike the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, where "fecundity" can translate into  a poisoned morass of algae and jellyfish.  My conclusion: if you want to emulate the main life-process that removes CO2 from the air, do it by lifting submerged nutrients to higher, sun-lit realms, exactly as Nature does it.  Several methods have been proposed and I showed a couple of them way back in in EARTH (1989).

Let me pause to add that there are non-living process that do the same thing, in parallel.  Even more effective at drawing down atmospheric CO2 is the weathering of continental rocks by the rain cycle, washing silicates to sea via river estuaries, reacting and combining with dissolved carbon and sealing them away in sediments without intervention by biology. (Indeed, this is the principal driver of the "Gala Balance" that makes a natural ocean world self-regulating.)  I have never seen any proposals to expand continental, river-carried weathering… though I imagine a lot of dust will go to sea if we continue to spread deserts… or if desertification results in nuclear war.

But let's get back to Bill Calvin's concept.  He starts with what I've been pushing… systems that emulate natural upwellings by bringing up nutrients from below, using either windmills or wave powered systems.  (Have a look: some are very clever: especially using 3000 abandoned oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.)

He then deals with a serious problem, that most of the CO2 sequestered by a plankton bloom does not either sink or feed fish, but simply returns to the air after the plankton dies.  Calvin solves this by having another windmill-powered tube situated down-current from the upwelling one.  This second one pumps the carbon rich surface water back down again.  I'll let him explain:

Calvin's push-pull pumps:  "An easy-to-visualize method to do push-pull pumps uses floating windmills. Long pipes hang 15 to 30 stories down into the slowly moving depths. One windmill operates traditionally, pulling deep water up to the surface.  The nutrients in this cold water create a sustained bloom of algae (and algae thrive in cooler water). The other windmill pump pushes the enriched surface water down to where it cannot resurface for millennia. Pumping down stores the carbon in the brand-new algae as well as canceling out whatever carbon dioxide was first pulled up from below the thermocline. That’s the first big payoff from going with push-pull pumps."

"Even more importantly, it sinks the 240x larger amounts of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from the feces and cell debris. (Algaculture throws out the dissolved part of their organic crop.) DOC ordinarily becomes carbon dioxide within a week or two and then escapes into the air as winds stir the surface layer. Stashing it as well is the second big step up in efficiency achieved by push-pull pumps."

These things merit discussion.  Do have a closer look.  Because reducing CO2 at the source will no longer suffice.  We have to push for that!  But it will take more.

See my article: Defining Climate "Deniers" and "Skeptics." Without any doubt it is possible to be a skeptic who helps science by critiquing the flaws in any standard model. Such skepticism, propelled by curiosity and the natural competitiveness of science (indeed, science is the most ferociously competitive of all human endeavors) is natural and wholesome.  Alas, 95% of those calling themselves "climate skeptics" do not fit this description.  Their stance is driven by political loyalties and participation in an ever-deepening War on Science and everything that it stands for. And the worst example of all is...

== Politics and Science ==

The Science Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives -- continuing its almost blemish-free record of jibbering inanity, with members from the majority party almost universally unqualified and propelled by fanatical dogmas.  Take Mississippi Republican Rep. Steven Palazzo, who chairs the Space Subcommittee. His revision of the Administration's NASA budget request would slash the requested Earth science budget by a third (from about $1.8 billion to $1.2 billion) next year.  This from the party that proclaims "we need more research!" in order to determine whether human activity is promoting climate change and global warming.

(This year's Fox-declared dogma is to backpedal and admit (at last) that major global warming is obviously taking place, but continuing to declare human causes to be "unproved." And further proclaiming that lemming-herd-like scientists are all cowardly-timid yelpers after teensy grants. Even though half of all climate researchers are doing great, earning nearly all of their funds from perfectly safe research into weather prediction, having accomplished the spectacular feat of transforming the old, two hour weather report into a ten day miracle. Geniuses, chivvied by their opposites.)

Keeping true to form, the targeted slashing of science continues. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which supports the development and commercialization of new energy technologies, would receive $50 million, $215 million — or 81 percent — less than what was enacted in fiscal 2013.

This is not the science-loving GOP of 1980, but some aberration that has sabotaged Earth science for twenty consistent years. Indeed, they several times tried to remove Earth observation and ocean/climate studies from the mission statements of both NASA and NOAA.  Can any modern person rationalize this?  Or convince himself/herself that this has anything to do with "conservatism" anymore?

Read also how the Space Subcommittee Republicans demand that funds be shifted away from asteroidal research, which offers the possibility of accessing vast wealth and resources, -- a new Gold-Platinum Rush in space -- while providing a useful intermediate mission for astronauts to develop deep space skills.  Instead they prefer an utterly pointless return to the sterile-useless-heavy Moon, and then armwave talk of a Mars Mission that this generation is nowhere near ready to even design.

Who - on Earth or anywhere - would try so hard to ALWAYS be wrong?

== Science Miscellany ==

Astronomers from 11 different institutions in the UK have joined forces to hunt for alien life, setting up a network to coordinate their activity. The UK SETI Research Network will fund research that considers new ways to find extraterrestrial intelligence. The group will also buy listening time on radio telescopes.

NASA image shows nearly ice-free Alaska on a clear day.

NASA seeks backyard astronomers to help chart asteroids.

A telescope for your eye: new contact lens allows user to switch between magnified and normal vision.

An interesting article reviewing the early days when the discoverers of pulsars first thought that the signals might be coming from Little Green Men.

Wearable computers for soldiers could stop deaths by friendly fire.

Cool images of sand reacting to sound at varied frequencies.

==And Finally==

Striking correlation between infection and mood disorders: Researchers have found that every third person who is diagnosed for the first time with a mood disorder had been admitted to hospital with an infection prior to the diagnosis. That notion adds another facet to the "hygiene hypothesis" that links a variety of autoimmune conditions to an inflammatory response caused by the loss of healthy bacteria in the gut.

Changes to the English language so subtle you don't notice; i.e. from "they started to walk" to "they started walking."

"Standard IQ tests are problematic on many levels — not least, because they do very little to tell us about the quality of our thinking. Looking to overcome this oversight, psychologist Keith Stanovich has started to work on the first-ever Rationality Quotient test." An interview that forges into deep territory, revealing just how difficult it is for humans to do the thing we are most proud-of.

Distinguishing Climate "Deniers" From "Skeptics"

A fair number of people have written in response to my previous posting - The Real Struggle Behind Climate Change - A War on Expertise - griping that I do not get a crucial distinction between climate-change "Skeptics" and "Deniers."

Several claimed to be rational, educated fellows who regret the shrill anti-intellectualism of Fox News. Yet, they still defend the core notion underlying the anti-HGCC (human generated Climate change) movement -- the premise that virtually 100% of the thousands of  scientists in a given field can be suborned, corrupted, or intimidated simultaneously  into supporting a nonsensical, baseless theory.

A baseless theory that thousands of "skeptics" happen to be able to see through, all at the same time.

"We skeptics just want to get our questions answered," one person wrote. "Until then, of course, society should do nothing rash."

That sounds so reasonable, who could refuse?

Well, in fact, after two decades of seeing "let's not do anything rash" used as a talking point excuse for doing nothing at all? No, it doesn't sound reasonable.

But let's focus on the core matter at hand.

What factors would distinguish a rational, pro-science "skeptic"  - who has honest questions about the HGCC consensus - from members of a Denier Movement who think a winter snowstorm means there's ni net-warming of the planet?

Is such a distinction anything more than polemical trickery?

Well, in fact, it happens that I know some people who do qualify as climate change "skeptics."  Several are fellow science fiction authors or engineers, and you can quickly tell that they are vigorous, contrary minds, motivated more by curiosity than partisan rigor. One who I could name is the famed physicist Freeman Dyson.

(In fact, if truth be told, there are some aspects of HGCC that I feel I want clarified -- that seem to be poorly-justified, so far. I am an ornery, contrarian question-asker, of the first water!)

After extensive discussions with such folk, I found a set of distinct characteristics that separate  thoughtful Skeptics from your run of the mill, knee-jerk Denier dogma puppet.

Here's the first one:

--- WHO IS AN EXPERT?----

Skeptics first admit that they are  non-experts, in the topic at hand. And that experts know more than they do.

Sound obvious? Especially regarding complex realms like atmospheric studies, or radiative transfer, or microcell computer modeling.  But this simple admission parts company from...

... Deniers, who wallow in the modern notion that a vociferous opinion is equivalent to spending twenty years studying atmospheric data and models from eight planets.
(Note: this is important.  Since the Neolithic, human civilizations have relied on specialists, a trend that accelerated across the 20th Century.  Want an irony? As coiner of the term "age of amateurs" I've been helping to push a new trend toward more distributed expertise and citizen-empowerment!  Yet, I also avow - as "Skeptics" do - that a nation has to start by respecting knowledge and those who have it.)

--- THE NEWS I NEED FROM THE WEATHER REPORT --

Next, the Skeptic is keenly aware that, after 4,000 years of jokes about hapless weathermen who could not prophecy accurately beyond a few hours, we recently entered a whole new era. People now plan (tentatively) as far as 14 days ahead, based on a science that's grown spectacularly adept, faster than any other.  Now, with countless lives and billions of dollars riding on the skill and honesty of several thousand brilliant experts, the Skeptic admits that these weather and climate guys are pretty damn smart.

The Skeptic admits that this rapid progress happened through a process of eager competitiveness, with scientists regularly challenging each other, poking at errors and forcing science forward. A rambunctious, ambitious process that makes Wall Street look tame.

Deniers also share this utter reliance on improved weather forecasting. They base vacations and investments on forecasts made by...
...by the same guys they call uniformly lazy, incompetent, corrupt hacks. Miraculously, they see no contradiction.

--- A LITTLE HUMILITY ---

Skeptics go on to admit that it is both rare and significant when nearly 100% of the scientists in any field share a consensus-model, before splitting to fight over sub-models.  Hence, if an outsider thinks that there appears to be "something wrong" with the core model, the humble and justified response of that curious outsider is to ask "what mistake am I making?"  -- before assuming 100% of the experts are wrong.

In contrast, Deniers glom onto an anecdotal "gotcha!" from a dogma-show or politically biased blog site.  Whereupon they conclude that ALL of the atmospheric scientists must be in on some wretched conspiracy. Simultaneously. Uniformly. At the same time.

--- THE YOUNG GUNS OF SCIENCE ---

Now dig this. The Skeptic is no pushover!  She knows that just because 100% of those who actually know about a scientific subject are in consensus, that doesn't mean the consensus-paradigm is always and automatically right!  There have been isolated cases, in scientific history, when all of the practitioners in a field were wrong at once.

Still, the skeptic admits that such events are rare.  Moreover, a steep burden of proof falls on those who claim that 100% of the experts are wrong.  That burden of proof is a moral, as well as intellectual geas, as we'll see below.

The Denier, on the other hand, knows no history, knows nothing about science, and especially has no understanding of how the Young Guns in any scientific field... the post-docs and recently-tenured junior professors... are always on the lookout for chinks and holes in the current paradigm, where they can go to topple Nobel prize winners and make a rep for themselves, in very much the manner of Billy the Kid! (Try looking into the history of weather modeling, and see just how tough these guys really are.)

This is a crucial point. For the core Denier narrative is that every single young atmospheric scientist is a corrupt or gelded coward. Not a few, or some, or even most... but every last one of them! Only that can explain why none of them have "come out."  (And note, Exxon and Fox have even offered lavish financial reward, for any that do.)

Oh, I admit that it's easy to see why the Denier can believe this.  He imagines that all of the Young Guns are either cowed, intimidated, or suborned by greed for measly five figure grants... because that is the way things work in the Denier's own business and life! 

He has no idea that most scientists are propelled by adventure, curiosity and sheer macho-competitive balls, far more than they are by titles or money. If all the post-docs in atmospheric studies have timidly laid down, then it is the first time it has happened in any field of science. Ever.

Oh, but the Denier thinks they are all  just greedy, conniving little putzes. Sure, this is a natural human mistake, to assume that others are like yourself.  But it is a mistake.

---

* Sorry... but this is a point to reiterate: I am not saying that all young scientists are noble and brave. I've known plenty who weren't.  But I have served in almost a dozen scientific fields, and I know that the best of the Young Guns would be screaming now, if all those "holes in the theory" were real.
They have the knowledge, the tools and the ambition. Their failure to "bark in the night" means something! Their acceptance of the HGCC model means something. It means a lot more than any number of glib spin-incantations from Sean Hannity. *

---

The Skeptic realizes all of this.  She takes it into account.  She adds it to the burden of proof borne by the other side. But let's move on.

The Denier claims that the corruption of 100% of the experts -- (upon whom he relies for his weather report) -- is propelled by "millions pouring into green technologies"... without ever showing how a space probe researcher studying Venus at JPL profits from a contract going to a windmill manufacturer in Copenhagen.  But I'm repeating myself, so hold that thought for later.

In contrast, our Skeptic, still fizzing with questions, hasn't finished "admitting things" first.

--- WHO ARE THE MORE LIKELY CONSPIRATORS? ---

For example, the Skeptic openly admits that he knows who the chief beneficiaries are, of the current status quo.

Those who pushed a wasted decade, delaying energy efficiency research and urging us to guzzle carbon fuels like mad. The guys who benefit from keeping us on the oil-teat are... foreign petro-princes, Russian oil oligarchs, and Exxon.

The Skeptic admits that these fellow have Trillions (with a T) staked on preserving that status quo -- on preventing America from moving toward energy efficiency and independence.  He admits that a conspiracy among fifty petro oligarchs seems a lot more plausible than some convoluted cabal to "push green technologies" -- a supposed conspiracy involving tens of thousands of diverse people, most of them nerdy blabbermouths, squabbling over far smaller sums of money.

--- THE TOBACCO CONNECTION ---

Consider some eerie parallels of methodology with the Great Big War over Tobacco.  Some of the very same consulting groups who formulated Big Tobacco's  "deny, delay, and obfuscate" strategy  - that gave that industry ~40 years to adjust to growing societal awareness of its problems - are working on the Energy Denial Front today, with precisely the same agenda. As one analyst recently put it:

"I think that the main driver for this movement is that when you compare the US economy "before" and "after" acceptance of human-induced warming contributions, one of the most significant differences will be the value of owning particular stocks.  It's impossible to dump onto the market a trillion dollars or more worth of stocks in industrial sectors that generate much of the CO2, without those stock prices dropping through the floor.  But with enough smokescreens raised to delay public acceptance, there is far more time to gradually unload stock, and perhaps even reposition the companies in the most vulnerable industries. 

"This strategy became especially crucial for them, when their earlier gambit - investing Social Security trust funds in the stock market - fell through.  This would have allowed brokers to unload half a trillion dollars in failing assets on millions of naive new stockholders.  We now know retirees would have lost hundreds of billions."

 This parallel with Big Tobacco is not only eerie, but puzzling.  In the end, Tobacco faced fierce ire and severe liability judgments that they escaped only through fast-footed political maneuvers.  This raises a fundamental issue.

If the Denier Movement obstruction leads to billions in losses and millions of refugees, will the top Deniers then be liable, under common and tort law, for damages?

This appears to not have been discussed anywhere that I know of.  But it makes the Skeptic/Denier distinction crucial. 

Those who merely ask scientific questions WHILE helping push for energy independence will be safe enough.  On the other hand, those who directly and deliberately obstructed reasonable precautions and progress toward efficiency may face a very angry and litigious world, if the expert forecasts prove right.  Preventing action upon expert advice is legally culpable.
In effect, they are betting everything they own. 

--- THE ROLE OF PROPAGANDA MEDIA ---

Further, the Skeptic admits something pretty darned creepy and suspicious -- that the main "news" outlets pushing the Denier Movement are largely owned by those same petro-moguls.  (Just one Saudi prince holds 7% of Fox, while other princes own smaller shares, plus a lot of Rupert Murdoch's debt, stock and commercial paper. Russian oligarchs and international oil companies own more.)  Because of this, the Skeptic has moved away from getting any of his news or sense of "reality" from propagandists who are paid to keep America divided, weak, passively addicted to dependence, respectful of aristocracy, and mired in "culture war."

The Denier, in contrast, suckles from the Fox-Limbaugh machine.  He shrugs off any notion that oil sheiks, Russian oligarchs or Exxon moguls could possibly have any agenda, or ever, ever connive together.  They are pure as driven snow... compared to weather scientists. Right.

Elaborating a bit: the Skeptic has noticed that the Denier Movement is directly correlated with a particular "side" in America's calamitous, self-destructive Culture War.  The same side that includes "Creation Science."  The same side that oversaw the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, based on mythological asset bubbles and magical "financial instruments."  The same side that promised us "energy independence" then sabotaged every single effort, including all of the energy-related research that might have helped us get off the oil-teat. (And that research gap is a bigger smoking gun to pay attention-to than carbon credits.)

While the Denier sees this association of parallel anti-intellectual movements as a good thing, that enhances the credibility of the Denier Movement, the Skeptic has the mental courage to be embarrassed by it. Even while remaining a conservative, she is pulling herself away from all that.

--- WHY IT'S HARD TO GET THE SCIENTISTS TO ANSWER ---

Having admitted all of those things, the Skeptic now feels sufficiently distanced from madmen and reflex-puppets to express legitimate curiosity about a scientific matter much in the news.

Moreover, he knows that this is his perfect right!  We do not live in a society where elites are gods.  Not the rich or even scientists. The Skeptic refuses to get caught up in the reflex anti-intellectualism being pushed by the faux-right.  But he also knows that amateurs can be smart, and that curiosity was God's greatest gift to man.

Moreover,  our Skeptic feels like a smart guy! He's generally pretty well-educated and good in his own field.  Above all, he is a free citizen of the greatest and most scientifically advanced republic ever! And so, by gum, having admitted all that stuff (see above), he now wants his curiosity satisfied!  He wants the atmospheric experts to answer hard questions about some things that SEEM contradictory between the data and the model.

Fair enough.

--- A FINAL MILESTONE ---

Ah, but there is one more thing our poor Skeptic has to admit, if she truly is honest and ready to start peppering the experts. She needs to acknowledge that atmospheric scientists are human.

Furthermore, having tried for twenty years to use logic, reason and data to deal with a screeching, offensive and nasty Denial Movement, these human beings are exhausted people.  Their hackles are up. They have very, very important work on their plates. Their time is valuable and, frankly, they see little point in wasting any further, trying to reason with folks who:

-- deny that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas --

-- then deny human generated burning of carbon fuels has increased greenhouse gas content in the atmosphere --

-- then claim the increase won't affect temperatures --

-- then claim there is no warming --

-- while the US Navy is furiously making plans for an ice-free arctic --

-- then claim humans have no role in the warming --

-- then admit we've caused it, but claim it's already too late, and anyway they'll have a longer growing season in Alberta --

-- then shout that "we can't afford" efforts to wean ourselves of greenhouse emissions...
...even though the things that would address HGCC happen to be stuff we should be doing, anyway, to gain energy independence, increase productivity, reduce the leverage of hostile petro powers, and a dozen other important things.

Mr. or Ms. Skeptic, can you see how wearing it has been, dealing with a storm of such BS?   Can you admit that the professionals and experts may not, at first, be able to distinguish sincere skeptics, like you, from the maniacs who have been chivvying and screaming at them (on puppet-orders from Fox and Riyadh and Moscow) for years? 

HGCC "Skeptics" like you are saddened to see that many of the scientists are prickly, irritable and sullen about answering an endless stream of rehashed questions, only a few of which aren't blatant nonsense.  But you Skeptics - the smart and honest ones - understand what's happened.

And so, you'll cooperate about helping the experts feel safe to come out and share what they know.  And maybe then they will answer some of the Skeptics' inconvenient questions.

--- SO WHAT'S A SINCERE AND ENLIGHTENED SKEPTIC TO DO? ---

This is when the honest Skeptic recites what I suggested earlier.


"Okay, I'll admit we need more efficiency and sustainability, desperately, in order to regain energy independence, improve productivity, erase the huge leverage of hostile foreign petro-powers, reduce pollution, secure our defense, prevent ocean acidification, and ease a vampiric drain on our economy. If I don't like one proposed way to achieve this, then I will negotiate in good faith other methods that can help us to achieve all these things, decisively, without further delay and with urgent speed.

"Further, I accept that "waste-not" and "a-penny-saved" and "cleanliness-is-next-to-godliness" and genuine market competition used to be good conservative attitudes.  But the "side" that has been pushing the Denial Movement - propelled by petro-princes, Russsian oligarchs and Exxon, hasn't any credibility on the issue of weaning America off wasteful habits. In fact, it's not conservatism at all.

"And so, for those reasons alone, let's join together to make a big and genuine push for efficiency.

"Oh, and by the way, I don't believe in Human-caused Global Climate Change!  But in case I am wrong, these measures would help deal with that too.

"So there, are you happy, you blue-smartypants-eco-science types? Are you satisfied that I am a sincere citizen-skeptic, and not one of the drivel-parroting Deniers?

"Good, then now, as fellow citizens, and more in a spirit of curiosity than polemics, can we please corner some atmospheric scientists and persuade them to enter into an extended teach-in, to answer some inconvenient questions?

"(Oh, and thanks for the vastly improved weather reports; they show you're smart enough to be able to explain these things to a humble-but-curious fellow citizen, like me.)"As I said earlier, when I meet a conservative HGCC skeptic who says all that (and I have), I am all kisses and flowers. And so will be all the atmospheres guys I know. That kind of statement is logical, patriotic and worthy of respect. It deserves eye-to-eye answers.

But alas, such genuine "skeptics" are rare.

--- WHY IT'S ALL FOR NOTHING ---

Alas, I really have wasted my time, here.  Because, while the species of sincere, conservative-but-rational HGCC skeptics does exist - (I know several, and kind-of qualify as one, myself) - they turn out to be rare. 

For the most part, those calling themselves "skeptics" are nothing of the kind.  More often than not, they are fully-imbibed, koolaid-drinking Deniers, who wallow in isolated anecdotes and faux-partyline talking points, egotistically assuming that their fact-poor, pre-spun, group-think opinion entitles them to howl ""corrupt fools!" at 100% of the brilliant men and women who have actually studied and are confronting an important topic...

...the very same people who the "skeptics" now count on to help them plan activities as far as two whole weeks into a future that used to be murky beyond two hours' time.

There are words for such such people. But none of those words are "skeptic."

David Brin

http://www.davidbrin.com

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