Foresight, nearsight, poor sight, sigh...

Here, Oregon lawmakers illustrate the breadth of their forward looking-ness, as do some citizens (in their comments) about the future of sustainability in our state.  Obviously Oregon is no longer the home of forward thinking and innovation in terms of public services, policies, and rhetoric.  The enemy is indeed us...

God will save us from climate change: U.S. Representative - thestar.com

I stole the premise for this post from WaterWired (Thanks WaterDoc) because it is interesting how language can be interpreted. I think it's interesting that the passage (as it has been translated in whatever edition Shimkus reads) could also be read to mean that God won't destroy the earth, but that doesn't automatically mean God won't prevent humans from destroying ourselves. After all, loving parents are often faced with the choice of being highly protective of their kids or giving them the freedom to learn life's lessons, in sometimes painful ways.

God will save us from climate change: U.S. Representative - thestar.com

U.S. Representative John Shimkus, possible future chairman of the Congressional committee that deals with energy and its attendant environmental concerns, believes that climate change should not concern us since God has already promised not to destroy the Earth.

Shimkus, an evangelical Christian and a Republican member of the House from Illinois, on Tuesday signalled his desire to become chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

The Energy and Commerce committee is among the most powerful in the U.S. Congress, with a wide-ranging purview over legislation touching on energy policy, environmental initiatives and public health.

Shimkus already serves on the committee. During a hearing in 2009, he dismissed the dangers of climate change and the warnings of the scientific community by quoting the Bible.

First, he noted God’s post-Flood promise to Noah in Genesis 8:21-22.

“Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though all inclinations of his heart are evil from childhood and never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.

“As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease.”

“I believe that’s the infallible word of God, and that’s the way it’s going to be for his creation,” Shimkus said.

Then he quoted Matthew 24:31.

“And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other.”

“The Earth will end only when God declares it’s time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth. This Earth will not be destroyed by a Flood,” Shimkus asserted. “I do believe that God’s word is infallible, unchanging, perfect.”

Following the Republican wave in the recent Congressional elections, the committee will shift from Democratic to Republican leadership.

On Tuesday, Shimkus sent a letter to his colleagues burnishing his credentials by saying he is “uniquely qualified among a group of talented contenders to lead the Energy and Commerce Committee.”

The Genesis of Idiocy

Here is a great posting from Elizabeth Royte illustrating how truly people believe there is a sucker born every minute, and how, as directed by the Almighty,  you must take advantage of those suckers:

New charity water on the scene: this time from Israel

Belief vs. science, duh

Climate-change deniers versus the scientific societies of the world: Who should we listen to?

Dr. Peter Gleick

President, Pacific Institute

"My last post said that climate-change deniers have never produced an alternative scientific theory that adequately explains the compelling evidence of climate change from around the world...."

Read more here...

Fixing the Communications Failure

The January edition of Nature (Nature 463, 296-297 (21 January 2010) | doi:10.1038/463296a; Published online 20 January 2010)  included a column entitled "Fixing the communications failure" in the context of how to convey scientific information or how science can more effectively be communicated in the "debate" forum.

This is more information along the cultural bias theme I started in a previous posting, but the disturbing thing here is that this synopsis of social psychology research shows that it doesn't matter how much a person knows about a subject, what matters is if that person looks like a person that the audience can relate to based on their cultural bias.  In short, if you're going to talk to hicks and try to convince them of something, you'd better look and sound like a hick.

While, this does not necessarily shed new light on the communications conundrum, after all, public speakers are told and told again to know their audience, it does add a twist.  For example, if you happen to be a person that has done all the research and has the state of the art science to bring to the table, you may not have a lightning bug's chance in a kid's bedroom of making your point if you trigger an audience or part of an audience's cultural bias.  This can be a reaction based, stupid as it may be, on whether or not you have facial hair, or whether or not you can even grow facial hair.  Whether you wear plaid, twill or polyester....it makes you want to try on a few disguises, eh?  Hollywood makeup artists and costumers might have a whole new calling in the science world.

Rhapsody and Scientific Reality

Is this the real life?  Is this just fantasy?

Caught in a landslide, No escape from reality.

Open your eyes,

Look up to the skies and see.... 

 - Freddie Mercury

Belief In Climate Change Hinges On Worldview

When it comes to climate change, some look at the facts presented and see a coming catastrophe, others see a hoax. This difference in interpretation, social scientists say, has more to do with each individual's existing outlook than the facts.


Having read/seen the above, I fear I am teetering on the brink of another "people are stupid" diatribe.  But I will try to resist.  NPR provides a synopsis of research showing how people delude themselves into interpreting facts in such ways as to support their own private world view.  In some ways this world view is not so private because a lot of the biases that lean people towards one interpretation over another are derived from their cultural background.  And cultural background is not limited to whether you are of Polish, or English, or Central American descent, or whether you fly the Confederate flag in your yard.  Cultures are created within businesses, schools, neighborhoods, churches...you name it.

I exchanged blog comments recently with a learned person about the bias in regulatory types toward requiring permits for activities that are, in the bigger scheme of things, relatively benign and that have socially redeeming characteristics.  Ideally, relatively benign actions that are socially redeeming ought to be easy to take.  However, because the topic of discussion (greywater) involved something that is a subset of a regulated substance (sewage) and because of the culture in which regulators grow up (writing permits and enforcing rules), they have a career-long bias towards wanting to actively regulate a population or a series of actions, even when that regulation cannot be practically achieved because they charge fees too low to cover the so-called service.

It calls to mind that old game show, "What's my line?" and makes me wonder if it is actually more effective to have an in depth understanding of an audience's biases than to actually have facts at hand.  Are we really that shallow as a society?  Or should I ask, are we really that shallow as a set of societies?  How do we bridge the cultural biases to promote actual, productive movement on the polarizing issues of the day?

Faith, belief and climate change

I recently had an online "argument" with a friend of a friend.  This occurred in one of those ubiquitous social networking sites that can really suck you in if you let them.  I would not have continued engaging said friend of a friend without be egged on by my friend, but I do have to wonder if any progress was made.

In short, this was a discussion that encapsulated the climate change argument.  I argued on the side of science, this friend's friend argued on the side of "it's bogus."  Literally.  First it's bogus because it's not real.  Well, there is consensus amongst climate scientists.  That's bogus because they left out scientists that are skeptical.  Well, the discussion and skepticism currently focus on how much of an effect and how soon are things going to fall apart.  That's bogus because they are all computer models.  Well, there are measurements, real effects observed in nature....and on and on.  Finally we both got tired and seemed to agree to disagree although I am left with the feeling that, as with the debate fomented by religiosos about evolution, this was an exercise in butting my head against a faith-based wall.  But this person was not spouting your traditional faith-based rhetoric about how a deity will save us or that this is the end of the world.

So what is the faith that supports this unyielding belief that climate change is not real in spite of overwhelming evidence and in spite of brilliant people working hard to understand and communicate the issue?  My gut reaction is that it is fear.  Fear of change, fear of the unknown, fear of being helpless, fear of losing money, fear of losing jobs.  If I am right, and fear is the root motivator of the anti-climate change group, then isn't that ironic?   The way I understand it, it is also fear that motivates climate scientists and climate change actions.  Because what is more frightening than drowning a huge part of Bangladesh and having to figure out how to help all of those people?  What is more frightening than the prospect of many US coastal communities being affected?  What about water supplies shifting and moving?  If the prospect of climate change is too scary to even begin to believe, why doesn't that spur people to avoid the possibility of it coming to fruition?  Even if we ignore ecosystems, wildlife and ancient cultures that are extinguished, isn't the possibility of that kind of economic disaster a big enough motivator?

Questions, more questions...and I haven't even gotten to the point of my original title for this post.  I guess I'll save that for another time.