Book Review: Robert Laughlin's "Powering the Future"

In the tradition of physicists writing for the layman, Robert Laughlin has emerged as a writer who pens unusually insightful and thought-provoking books. In his "A Different Universe" he explored the consequences and limitations of reductionism-based physics for our world. In this book he takes an equally fresh look at the future of energy. The book is not meant to be a comprehensive survey of existing and upcoming technologies; instead it's more like an assortment of appetizers designed to stimulate our thinking. For those who want to know more, it offers an impressive bibliography and list of calculations which is almost as long as the book itself.

Laughlin's thinking is predicated on two main premises. The first is that carbon sources are going to eventually run out or become inaccessible (either because of availability or because of legislation). However we will still largely depend on carbon because of its extraordinarily fortuitous properties like high energy density, safety and ease of transportation. But even in this scenario, simple rules of economics will trump most other considerations for a variety of different energy sources. The second premise which I found very intriguing is that we need to uncouple our thinking on climate change from that on energy instead of letting concerns about the former dictate policy about the latter. The reason is that planetary-level changes in the environment are so vast and beyond the ability of humans to control that driving a few more hybrids or curbing carbon emissions will have little effect on millennial events like the freezing or flooding of major continents. It's worth noting here that Laughlin (who has been called a climate change skeptic lately) is not denying global warming or its consequences here; it's just that he thinks that it's sort of beside the point when it comes to thinking about future energy, which will be mainly dictated by economics and prices more than anything else. I found this to be a commonsense approach based on an appreciation of human nature.

With this background Laughlin takes a sweeping and eclectic look at several interesting technologies and energy sources including nuclear energy, biofuels, energy from trash, wind and solar power and energy stored beneath the sea. In each case Laughlin explores a variety of problems and promises associated with these sources.

Because of dwindling uranium resources, the truly useful form of nuclear energy for instance will come from fast breeder reactors which produce their own plutonium fuel. However these reactors are more susceptible to concerns about proliferation and theft. Laughlin thinks that a worldwide, tightly controlled system of providing fuel rods to nations would allow us to fruitfully deploy nuclear power. One of his startling predictions is the possibility that we may put up with occasional Chernobyl-like events if nuclear power truly becomes cheap and we don't have any other alternatives.

Laughlin also finds promises and pitfalls in solar energy. The basic problem with solar energy is its irregular availability and problems with storage. Backup power inevitably depends on fossil fuel sources which sort of defeats the purpose. Laughlin sees a bright future for molten salt tanks which can very efficiently store solar energy as heat and which can be used when the sun is not shining. These salts are simple eutectic mixtures of potassium and sodium nitrates with melting points that are conveniently lowered even more by the salts' decomposition products. Biofuels also get an interesting treatment in the book. One big advantage of biofuels is that they are both sources and sinks of carbon. Laughlin talks about some recent promising work with algae but cautions that meeting the sheer worldwide demand for energy with biofuels that don't divert resources away from food is very challenging. Further on there's a very intriguing chapter on energy stored under the sea. The sea provides a stupendous amount of land beneath it and could be used for energy storage through novel sources like high-density brine pools and compressed natural gas tanks. Finally, burning trash which has a lot of carbon might appear like a useful source of energy but as Laughlin explains, the actual energy in trash will provide only a fraction of our needs.

Overall the book presents a very thought-provoking treatment of the nature and economics of possible future energy sources in a carbon-strapped world. In these discussions Laughlin wisely avoids taking sides, realizing how fraught with complexity and ambiguity future energy production is. Instead he simply offers his own eclectic thoughts on the pros and cons of energy-related topics which may (or may not) prove important in the future. Of the minor gripes I have with the volume is the lack of discussion of promising recent advances in solar cell design, thorium-based fuels and next generation nuclear reactor technology. Laughlin's focus is also sometimes a little odd and meandering; for instance at one point he spends an inordinate amount of time talking about interesting aspects of robotic technology that may make deep sea energy sequestration possible. But these gripes detract little from the volume which is not really supposed to be an exhaustive survey of alternative energy technologies.

Instead it offers us a very smart scientist's miscellaneous musings on energy dictated by commonsense assumptions based on the simple laws of demand and supply and of human nature. As responsible citizens we need to be informed on our energy choices which are almost certainly going to become more difficult and constrained in the future. Laughlin's book along with others will stimulate our thinking and help us pick our options and chart our direction.

Middle Ages March

As far as possible I try to avoid writing about the teaching of evolution and opposition to climate change in this country because of their overly politicized nature, but this piece in the NYT is one that no one can wisely ignore. It details a growing movement to conflate rejection of evolution with rejection of climate change that many people, and sadly especially conservatives, are spearheading. States are trying to introduce bills encouraging the teaching of “all sides” of scientific issues. Conservative politicians are advocating for students to know “all the facts”. But nobody is fooled by these thinly veiled promotions of ignorance...


...Read the rest of this post on the Desipundit blog

A sane Republican

“I have been to enough college campuses to know if you are 30 or younger this climate issue is not a debate. It’s a value. These young people grew up with recycling and a sensitivity to the environment — and the world will be better off for it. They are not brainwashed. ... From a Republican point of view, we should buy into it and embrace it and not belittle them. You can have a genuine debate about the science of climate change, but when you say that those who believe it are buying a hoax and are wacky people you are putting at risk your party’s future with younger people. You can have a legitimate dispute about how to solve immigration, but when you start focusing on the last names of people the demographics will pass you by.”

- Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina

The price of global warming science is eternal vigilance

John Tierney of the NYT weighs in on the hacked emails and accurately nails it

I’ve long thought that the biggest danger in climate research is the temptation for scientists to lose their skepticism and go along with the “consensus” about global warming. That’s partly because it’s easy for everyone to get caught up in “informational cascades”, and partly because there are so many psychic and financial rewards rewards for working on a problem that seems to be a crisis. We all like to think that our work is vitally useful in solving a major social problem — and the more major the problem seems, the more money society is liable to spend on it.

I’m not trying to suggest that climate change isn’t a real threat, or that scientists are deliberately hyping it. But when they look at evidence of the threat, they may be subject to the confirmation bias — seeing trends that accord with their preconceptions and desires. Given the huge stakes in this debate — the trillions of dollars that might be spent to reduce greenhouse emissions — it’s important to keep taking skeptical looks at the data. How open do you think climate scientists are to skeptical views, and to letting outsiders double-check their data and calculations?

We are all subject to the confirmation bias, and I can say from experience that we have to battle it in our research every single day as fallible human beings. But as Tierney says, when the stakes are so incredibly high, when governments and international budgets and debts and the fate of billions is going to be affected by what you say, you better fight the conformation bias ten times as much as usual.

Listen to Capt. Ramsey son:

"Mr. Hunter, we have rules that are not open to interpretation, personal intuition, gut feelings, hairs on the back of your neck, little devils or angels sitting on your shoulders..."

The damning global warming emails; when science becomes the casualty

By now everyone and his grandmother must have heard about the hacked emails of the prestigious University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU). The emails were sent by leading climate change scientists to each other and seem to express doubts and uncertainty. More importantly they also seem to display some troubling signs of rather dishonest discourse, with scientists trying to hold dangerously unfavorable opinions of journal editors who seem to be open to publishing papers that don't seem to agree with their views, and asking each other to delete emails which might signal doubt...

...Read the rest of the post on my Desipundit blog

Lindau: Who is the joke going to be on?

When the controversial and talented physicist Edward Teller was doing a PhD. with the great Werner Heisenberg at the University of Leipzig, the question asked at the end of every group meeting that focused on a complex sequence of problems was "Wo ist der Witz?", supposed to be translated as "What is the point"? but more correctly translated as "What is the joke?". The joke part of it consisted of turning a wry eye at the world, donning the hat of the court jester who laughs even as the fire that he predicted would engulf the world rages on. The question about global warming that we ask is also "Wo ist der Witz"? and we only hope that the joke is not upon us and we can actually still get the last laugh. Whether we might was the topic of discussion of a panel on global warming on the final day of the 59th Meeting of Nobel Laureates at Lindau...

...more

WHY I AM AND AM NOT A LIBERTARIAN

For many days now I wanted to pen my thoughts on what I think about libertarianism. This is mostly because I find myself often agreeing and disagreeing with libertarians. Many people who call themselves libertarians are my good friends and so these conversations are frequent and interesting. But somewhere I have to constantly ask myself which "ism" I belong to. While I never like to label myself any kind of "rian" or "ist", the expediencies of taking a position inevitably mean that one has to at least slightly lean towards one side or the other. But most of the time I find myself alternately taking sides. This does not mean I am confused but it just means that I alternately favor one viewpoint or the other based on the times. I personally think that political positions should be fluid, like dressing for the weather. The correct response should not be either-or but should consist of changing proportions of ideologies depending on the environment. I humbly think that that this position is a safe one since it at least endeavors to remind you of trying to stay unbiased, even if in practice you cannot. So here's a short account of some very simple thoughts about this matter that I have. These thoughts don't constitute any argument against libertarianism nor any sophisticated critique, lest my friends immediately rise up in arms against me. It's more a general documentation of arguments and discussions that I have had and what I have thought about them. More simply, it's a set of ramblings that I get to indulge in because this is my personal blog.

Let's begin with acknowledging that most sensible people who are not extremists are libertarians to some extent. That is, most sensible people will agree that people should be free to live their own lives in whatever way they deem appropriate, and that government should have a minimal say in their lives and decisions. First let's talk about social libertarianism. This is really short and simple, because here I am almost in complete agreement with all libertarians. I strongly oppose government intervention in matters of personal choice such as abortion and gay marriage. Leave the gay business to the gay people. I also strongly feel that, the caveats of such a policy notwithstanding, drugs and prostitution should be legal and that government should not have an authority to prosecute 'victimless crimes'. When it comes to social libertarianism, I am pretty much in lockstep with libertarian principles.

It is when it comes to economic libertarianism (not completely mutually exclusive from social libertarianism) that I start to have disagreements with my libertarian friends. Again, let's start by acknowledging that most people who have thought carefully about these matters and have a basic understanding of history will agree that on the whole, free markets rather than central command economies constitute the best system for maximizing rewards and nurturing incentives and freedom. I am for example in complete agreement that property right are of supreme importance and that such rights have been rampantly violated in case of farmers in India, both by the government and by private corporations. On the whole we need to agree and keep on arguing that free markets are best. Only self-deluded mortals (read Comrade Karat) would believe otherwise. In this context, I find close and parallels between Adam Smith's "invisible hand" and Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Both frameworks rest on ideas that constitute simplicity itself. Both frameworks lead to propitious complexity starting from very simple principles. However, Adam Smith himself did not advocate laissez faire capitalism. Several sources document this fact. Now of course because Smith does not advocate a principle does not mean that that principle is bad. But all I ask is that the same free marketers who swear by Smith's name and praise his Wealth of Nations also pay due homage to his Theory of Moral Sentiments as well as some of the lesser known parts of Wealth which advocate government intervention in areas like education. Ideally, I think it would be better if we don't swear by anyone's name.

So then, the question really boils down to when and how much government intervention should be allowed. I personally believe that for most political camps who don't take extreme positions, this is the real issue to argue about. Libertarians just like other political camps straddle a wide range of their political philosophy, with some advocating complete and unfettered free markets and others supporting government intervention in at least some endeavors. Again, the scope and value of such government intervention can be argued, but at least you have distinguished between two sub-factions there to begin with.

No other dimension of public policy encompasses libertarians' objections to government intervention so much as paying taxes, and this has been one of the major sources of contention for me. First I would like to gently clarify a point. There is a minority of libertarians who assume that the very fact they they constantly argue against taxes of every kind means that they are taking the high moral road. By default then, anyone who opposes them and actually argues in favour of this tax or that one is advocating social coercion and has already consigned himself to Hayek's famous "road to serfdom". This is unfair and uncalled for. Just because I may think that some taxes are justified does not mean that I love freedom any less than you do or that I want to impose my will on my maid or that I am ready to be enslaved by the government. Once we have clarified this source of much outrage on my part and others, let's move on to the actual issues.

When it comes to not paying taxes, my contention is very simple. If you don't pay taxes, you don't reap the rewards. This is the famous "free rider" problem. Let's say I don't think that one government endeavor or the other is not justified and therefore I don't want to pay taxes to support it. That's fine, but then why should I be entitled to any benefits that may accrue from it? If I do think that I should be entitled to its benefits, then wouldn't I be a free rider capitalizing on other people's support of government projects? There are happily many such avenues of government-sponsored human activity where there is consensus on public support. Nobody for example would question the extensive basic science research programs that have been supported in India or the US; there most people seem to agree on some notion of 'sacrifice' that they make to support the collective enterprise. But there are many other borderline cases which are hotly argued, where the free rider problem rears its ugly head. I have not yet found a libertarian who has been satisfactorily been able to answer the free-rider dilemma for me. Now in theory I can see an answer; the system can be mutually reinforcing. That means that I should be entitled to the benefits from some government endeavor that I don't support because in turn I am probably paying taxes for some other government endeavor that somebody else does not support. However, how does one exactly break down the value and scope of these two projects which will almost certainly differ in their nature and investment returns? I believe that the problem of taxes may be resolved to a large extent once we address the free rider problem. The problem of not paying taxes to support others also has another rather unpleasant dimension to it. When it comes to healthcare for instance, many people argue that raising taxes to provide universal healthcare is 'immoral'. We won't argue about the thorny healthcare issue at this point. But let's assume that this point is justified. It won't be implausible to assume then that the poor may revolt against the rich at some point, French Revolution-style. Their actions surely won't be justified, but a system in which inequality keeps on growing simply may burst at some point. I would think that preventing such a catastrophe would be in the interests of everybody.

There is no other sphere of activity that challenges libertarian principles as much as climate change, and it is here that I probably have the biggest difference of opinion with libertarians. But this should not really be so. Let's look at the core libertarian tenet again which essentially says that both socially and economically, every individual should be free to do whatever he or she wants as long as his or her actions don't trespass on someone else's freedom and rights. However, in my opinion, climate change immediately provides the biggest exception to the core libertarian tenet. When it comes to global warming, the individual's activities do harm and trespass on the rights (air, water, land) enjoyed by other individuals in remote parts of the world. Since climate change provides a very readily seen exception to the core libertarian tenet, I personally find it wondrous that libertarians would so strongly resist government intervention in mitigating climate change since such intervention would not violate libertarian principles after all.

But let's leave aside politics here. What I found depressing was that there was a minority of libertarians who so strenuously wanted to argue against government intervention in these matters that for a long time they even refused to accept the science behind climate change. A case in point was George Reisman who wrote this completely misguided essay against environmentalism that did not soundly address a single piece of hard scientific evidence in favour of climate change (link: Chetan). This inadequate understanding and appreciation of the science and the problem leads people like Don Boudreaux to completely miss the point and write flippant articles that are supposed to reassure us that "we are not going to run out of oil". Unfortunately I don't remember any libertarian taking a strong stance against this crackpot refusal of facts in the face of massive evidence. I am sure most libertarians would not be loathe to accept objective scientific facts just because they would suggest measures that seem to violate their treasured political ideals.

Even the great Milton Friedman acknowledged that, as much as the government was responsible for the Great Depression in his controversial opinion, once the Depression set in, massive government intervention was necessary and justified. Climate change today is unfortunately in a similar precarious position. All scientific indicators and the testimony of hundreds of careful and dedicated scientists point towards this fact. There is no debate about the reality and pernicious effects of climate change. We have already passed many crucial checkpoints, if not the ultimate tipping point. Are libertarian solutions to climate change possible? In theory, yes, provided they had been suggested fifty years ago. Of course we did not know anything about global warming fifty years ago so the point is meaningless. But the real point is that it does not matter now. The great problem of our times is that we have to do something right now. Large-scale legislation to curb CO2 emissions, to improve mileage efficiency, to stop deforestation and the exploitation of fisheries, to cap sources of carbon is necessary right now. At the very least, this fact should be given serious consideration by all of us. Libertarian solutions where the market "regulates itself" may be possible in principle, and while these principles may still be applicable in local scenarios, the times are past for employing them on the stage of global affairs. A typical libertarian scenario would posit that if car companies don't have better emission standards, the public would be concerned about its health and be loathe to buy cars from them, which would set in motion the self-correcting wheels of demand and supply. The simple fact that throws a wrench in this smooth clockwork solution is that by then it will simply be too late and neither I nor anyone else would really care that the market provided a 'solution'. Also, the free rider problem crops up in such circumstances too. Consider that there are two kinds of cars, one which is cheap and pollutes and another which is expensive and clean- a pretty plausible scenario. It would be tempting to imagine that in such a case, public pressure and refusal to purchase would force the polluting car company to switch to the clean car. But not so. Since the polluting car is cheap, people would wait for other people to switch to the clean car so that they themselves could drive a cheap car as well as enjoy clean air. Again, the solution in such a case if it comes at all would be excruciatingly slow and ultimately fruitless. When it comes to human nature, no "ism" can prevail.

It's also interesting that those "socialist" Europeans understand this and have refused to listen to industry leaders who would sacrifice environmental standards for further growth. The United States is still one of the few developed countries in the world who refuses to answer the clarion call of our planet. Again, every libertarian should be bothered by the fact that it does so not just to its own detriment but to that of others, an action that violates basic libertarian beliefs. At the same time, the point about the government conveniently using a crisis of some kind to heavily enforce its regulations on people is very well-taken, and the world has seen too many cases of this. That's why we need to elect better leaders. But that's not the same as questioning the concept of government leadership itself, which whether we like it or not, is going to be necessary to solve the global climate crisis. I commiserate with libertarians when they get upset about government intervention for setting environmental standards, but we are unfortunately in one of those stages in human history where we have put ourselves in a straitjacket. We have left ourselves with few other options. This is not the best solution. It may not even be a good one, but it may be the only one.

Finally, let me say that I am in complete support of libertarians' suspicion of government. Government certainly consists of human beings who constantly invest in their self interests. It would be folly to assume that such people are altruistic. Therefore there is no doubt that we must constantly be on our guard. Having a government in power is like constantly being in a fencing game. As Jefferson famously said "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance" and we would all do well to keep it in mind. But the "vigilance" part of Jefferson's quote also crucially extends to the process of electing government officials, which seems to have failed us. Much is said about not trusting the "wise men" who move about in the highest echelons of power and make decisions for their flock. But we should also remember that these men were originally deemed to be "wise" because they were chosen on the basis of the wisdom of the people. If the wisdom of the people had truly prevailed, these men would be wise indeed. So perhaps, instead of constantly laying blame on them, we should simply try to make sure that we always breathe and sustain wisdom in the process of selecting them. I don't think government is the problem. I think it's the process of creating and fostering it. And it should certainly be possible to improve on that.

CAN WE IMAGINE THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT SAYING THIS?

"Mr Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, said: "The climate package is so important that we cannot simply drop it, under the pretext of a financial crisis."

This is Nicolas Sarkozy refusing to relax restrictions needed for attaining climate change goals, and asking to accept slightly slow economic growth as a sacrifice in this process. I cannot imagine a US president or many other world leaders for that matter saying this. In Thomas Friedman's new book, Friedman interviewed Sarkozy and Sarkozy quipped that he- an avowed lover of US culture and traditions- is sad that the US is not the world leader in fighting climate change. Now Sarkozy seems to have decided to don the mantle himself.

What we need for fighting climate change is a bailout. And in this case not just the government but all of us have to bail ourselves out. The significance of 10% growth fades into irrelevance when we compare it to the expediency of stabilizing emissions. With the kind of lifestyle and policies we sustain currently, it's simply going to be impossible to fight climate change and still sustain present levels of economic growth without decisive and large-scale mandates that are prudently enforced with widespread consensus and incentives.

It is heartening to see EU leaders setting an example and not fawning over corporate wishes to sustain constant rapid economic progress, even in the face of a financial crisis. This is decisive government intervention of the right kind. The times have passed for innovative free market solutions which will gradually be driven by consumer desires and take their own time to work (although some of them would still undoubtedly play an important role). We don't want to succeed in the operation and kill the patient. The motto here is simple; slow down today, live tomorrow. Maybe the US could think again about despising those wimpy French who love accordion music. For a change, please, learn something from them. But unfortunately it's not going to be enough for just the EU to enforce climate change goals. Climate change is a true tragedy of the commons with what happens on one continent spilling over disastrously into another.

And of course, I hope we all remember that Sarkozy belongs to the conservative, right-of-centre arm of French politics. I bet the liberals are not talking much right now. Or maybe they are just happy.

TIPPING POINT




The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity
By James Lovelock
Basic Books (2007)

In this clarion call to arms, eminent scientist James Lovelock warns us cogently and eloquently of the impending doom that we have forced upon our planet by global warming. Lovelock is well-qualified to offer such gloomy predictions; it was this extremely versatile scientist who in the 1960s and 70s proposed the idea of Gaia, the notion that the earth is a self-regulating organism whose regulatory mechanisms are intimately coupled to the activities of species in its biosphere. One species- man- has tilted the balance of these mechanisms and thrown them into disarray. The species that will pay the biggest price for this deed is also man himself. Through careful speculation and excellent scientific arguments about details, he rationalized this notion until it has now become widely accepted.

Lovelock's premier argument is that global warming (which he amusingly always refers to as "global heating") has already rendered our planet incapable of the self-regulation that it has admirably demonstrated for millennia. The temperature rises which global warming are going to bring about are beyond those which the earth can endure in a homeostatic manner, and its catastrophic effects are likely going to manifest within decades. There is a horrific precedent for believing this; the same kinds of temperature rises fifty five million years ago led to catastrophic mass extinctions and sea-level rises, inducing an ice age that lasted 200,000 years. We are in danger of inducing such a global pandemic by our efforts right now. The most serious manifestation of man-made global warming is in positive feedback. Two examples suffice; the well-known melting of ice which leads to less reflection of sunlight which leads to more melting, and the heating of the upper layers of the ocean that kills algae. These algae are crucial players in maintaining cooling by the emission of sulfur compounds that serve to reflect sunlight from clouds. Lovelock documents both these effects well as well as others that are resulting from the 'double whammy' that we are serving our planet; simultaneously emitting CO2 and depriving the earth of biomass that normally absorbs it.

While the first part of the book describes Gaia and how it's been affected irreversibly by global warming, the second part basically deals with the muddle headed perceptions of energy, food sources and environmentalism that affect many in the political establishment and media, most prominently environmentalists themselves.

There is clearly a rift between environmentalists that threatens to slow down action against climate change. One section, unfortunately the bigger one, is the more vocal one consisting of organizations like Greenpeace, who have a wrong-headed and irrational perception of environmentalism. They tout phrases like "sustainable development" and "renewables" without really understanding their limitations. They participate in emotion-laden protests and demonstrations just to prove their point. Their environmentalism mainly deals with trying to save cuddly creatures and colorful birds in remote parts of the world, while there are organisms much more in need of saving, including the microorganisms and algae which play extremely crucial roles in maintaining the homeostasis of Gaia.

The second group of environmentalists is a minority, and Lovelock is one of them. They understand that global warming has already done its damage and our goal now should not be mainly "sustainable development" but "sustainable retreat". They understand that much more important than saving a few endangered species in New Guinea is to prevent deforestation and use of more landmass even in developing countries. They know that debate about saving the environment cannot be dictated by emotion. Most importantly they understand that nuclear energy is the best short-term and perhaps long-term solution for our energy needs.

When it comes to energy sources that we should pursue, Lovelock's thesis is clear and rational. Renewables (solar, wind, biofuels) may sometime make a dent in the energy equation, but renewables are not going to save us soon enough. The phrase soon enough is important here. Lovelock is a reasonable man and does not discard renewables entirely. The problem is in trying to find good energy sources as fast as we can. But each one of the renewables is currently fraught with problems of inefficiency, environmental unfriendliness and lack of scale-up plans. Solar panels are expensive and inefficient. Wind farms consume huge tracts of land, land on which forestation usually soaks up carbon dioxide, and in addition need back up from fossil fuel generators when the wind is not blowing. Biofuels struggle with maintaining energy balances and pose similar land-use problems. It will be at least 50 years before renewables make a significant contribution to our energy needs and their use becomes cheap and widespread. But by that time it will be too late. The single-most important factor here is time.

The answer is clear and rational; especially for the short term future, nuclear power is the most efficient, readily available, widely-implementable, environment-friendly and safe source of power. Even if the problem of waste disposal is not trivial, it pales in comparison with the benefits we will incur, and especially the catastrophe that we will find ourselves in if we don't do it.

While Lovelock hopes fusion will become important soon, fission is currently our best bet. We already have the technology unlike that for renewables. Its efficiency is marvelous- a good numerical argument to keep in mind is this; global CO2 emissions for a year make up a mountain that is a mile in diameter and sixteen miles in height, a behemoth. In contrast all the nuclear fuel providing power for a year will constitute a cube that is sixteen meters on a side. It was Lovelock's espousal for nuclear power that represented a break from the 'green' party line. But now, nuclear is going to be as green as we can think of. To stave off fears of nuclear waste, Lovelock has even offered to bury the waste from a nuclear reactor in his backyard and use its energy for heating his house. In addition to these facts, Lovelock also clearly describes the paranoia that the public has for nuclear power, while all the time they face risks and dangers much more damaging and insidious.

One very cogent point that Lovelock makes is about how religious faith has caused problems in enabling our stewardship of the planet. He correctly points out that all religious texts were written at a time when man and his life were the focus. At very few places in the Bible or the Koran or even the Eastern texts is there an emphasis on the planet. None of the major world religions put nature before man. Now however, emphasizing man is going to be meaningless unless we emphasize Gaia, because without Gaia we won't be around. There need to be new "religious" principles, infusing the care and stewardship of the planet into children's minds, instead of the narrow self-serving interests of man that will become irrelevant once the sea-levels rise or the North Atlantic current slows down.

The same factor- time- that makes a good argument against renewables, also makes the strongest argument against libertarian "solutions" to climate change. Libertarians argue that the free market will eventually find solutions to the climate change problem without government intervention. But even if this solution might work in principle, 'eventually' is not going to be soon enough, good enough for us. We may have a little more than 20 years to beat a respectable retreat. For that we need legislation against carbon emissions, against use of oil for transportation, against land use right now. The libertarian approach may have worked 50 years ago when we had time. Thinking about renewable sources could have saved us if we had begun 200 years ago. But now even if these solutions work, they almost certainly will come too late to save us. As they say, "operation successful, but the patient is dead". To save the patient in time, we are going to inevitably have to make compromises, sacrifice at least some of our freedom to large scale government actions. We have to operate now in a manner reminiscent of how we operate in wartime. In times of legitimate (and in these times I stress the word 'legitimate') war, citizens don't complain about sacrificing freedom because they know their lives depend on it. Now Lovelock says we face a similar scenario.

On the downside. Lovelock makes some statements which I think should be better referenced. For example, I would not completely trust his contention that most of the cancers that we are going to die from are caused by our breathing oxygen. While oxygen certainly can produce free radicals and cause damage, such a significant role should be more firmly supported by evidence.

It is very difficult to find wholesome solutions to climate change. We seem to have now done a good job of recognizing the problem in the first place. But unfortunately it's too late to implement quick fixes that will wake us up from this nightmare when we will find that everything is all right. In an age where politicians are pushing for more oil drilling, rapid action and awareness is essential. We have to beat a retreat and live to fight another day, unlike Napoleon in Russia in 1812. For that we need coherent and rational thinking and global fixes, with all the compromises that they might entail. Going nuclear, and perhaps even indulging in grandiose fixes like "space reflectors" which reflect sunlight from miles-wide arrays, may be possibilities. Lovelock sounds an alarm in his book that is backed up by evidence and grim prognostication. Gaia will do whatever it takes to establish her equilibrium, equilibrium that's inherent in the laws of her physics and chemistry, equilibrium that will be established even if it means the loss of humanity. As a pithy line in an X-Files episode once put it, "You can't turn your back on nature, or nature will turn her back on you". It's simple.

LARGE-SCALE EFFECTS OF A NUCLEAR WAR BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

Back in the days when the Cold War was simmering, one of the rather depressing activities scientists and other officials used to engage in was to conjure up hypothetical scenarios involving nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union and try to gauge its effects. Such theorizing was often done behind closed doors in enclaves like the RAND corporation. In the early 1960s, RAND's Herman Kahn wrote an influential and morbid book called On Thermonuclear War. Kahn, a portly, overweight, brilliant Strangelovian character was said to be a possible inspiration for the good doctor in Kubrick's brilliant movie Dr. Strangelove. In fact Kubrick supposedly read Kahn's 600 page book in detail before working on the movie (A recent biography of Kahn sheds light on this fascinating man)

The book ignited a controversy about nuclear conflict because Kahn's thesis was that nuclear war fought with thermonuclear weapons was winnable, thus possibly upping the ante for the nuclear powers. Kahn used many rather incomplete arguments to make the not entirely unreasonable point that while such a war would be horrific, it would not mean the end of humanity. The survivors may not necessarily envy the dead. But of course Kahn was speculating based on the then best available scientific data along with his own idiosyncratic biases. One of the biggest effects of a nuclear explosion is to send up debris in the atmosphere, and climate models in the 60s were in a primitive stage to help with predicting any such effects. Also, nuclear effects start wide-ranging fires and, on the rare occasions when the conditions are right, gruesome firestorms; a firestorm is the nearest thing to hell that one can imagine. Fires can account for up to 60% of the damage from a nuclear explosion. While the thermal effects constitute about 35% of the total effects from a typical nuclear air-burst (blast effects constitute about 50%), thermal effects unlike others can naturally sort of self-perpetuate through starting successive fires. According to some analysts, state department officials in the 50s calculating nuclear weapons effects neglected the devastation due to fire, which made their results underestimates. Any realistic simulation of a nuclear explosion has to take into account effects due to fires.

The debate about the effects of a global thermonuclear war was galvanized in the 1980s when Carl Sagan and his colleagues proposed the idea of nuclear winter, in which dimming of sunlight because of the debris from nuclear explosions would lower the average temperature at the surface of the earth. Among other effects, this combined with the resulting darkness would devastate crops, thus bringing about long-term starvation and other catastrophes. Since then, scientists have been arguing about nuclear winter.

What has changed between 1980 and now though is that climate models including general circulation models have vastly improved and computational power to analyze them has exponentially gone up. Although we still cannot predict long-term climate, we now have a reasonably good handle on quantifying the various forcings and factors that affect climate. Thus for the last few years it has seemed worthwhile to predict the effect of nuclear war on our climate. Now scientists working at the University of Colorado and NOAA have come up with a rather disconcerting study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicating the effects of a regional nuclear war on global climate. A typical scenario is a war with 50 warheads of 15 kilotons each (about the yield of the Hiroshima bomb) between India and Pakistan, a conservative estimate. There have been a few such studies published earlier but this one looks at the effects on the ozone layer, the delicate veneer that protects life from UV radiation.

The researchers' main argument is that there is a tremendous mass of soot that is kicked up tens of kilometers into the atmosphere during a nuclear explosion. The study seems to be carefully done, taking into account various factors acting to both reinforce and oppose the effects of this soot. The number they cite for the amount is about 5Tg (teragrams, a teragram being 10^12 grams) which is a huge number. They account for local fallout of the soot through rain as being about 20%. What happens to the remaining 4Tg is the main topic of investigation. According to the model, this enormous plume of soot is intensely heated by sunlight. By this time it has entered the upper layer of the troposphere and snakes up into the lower stratosphere where the ozone layer is situated, it is radiating heat that disrupts the delicate balance of chemical reactions that produce and get rid of ozone, reactions that have now been well-studied for decades. These involve the interaction of reactive species of oxygen, nitrogen and halogens with ozone that sap the precious molecule away. The bottom line is that this heat from the hot soot vastly increases the rate of reactions that produce these species and eat up the ozone at that altitude, thus depleting the layer. The soot lingers around since removal mechanisms are slow at that height. The heat also encourages the formation of water vapour and its consequent break up and reaction with ozone, thus further contributing to the breakdown. The researchers also include circulation of water vapour and other gases in the global atmosphere, and how this circulation will be affected by the heat and the flow. Nitrogen oxides generated by natural and human processes have already been shown to deplete ozone, and the heated soot will also intensify the rate of these processes.

The frightening thing about the study is the magnitude of the predicted ozone loss due to these accelerated processes; about 20% globally, 40% at mid latitudes and up to 70% at high latitudes. Also, these losses would last for at least five years or so after the war. These are horrifying numbers. The ozone layer has evolved in a synergistic manner over hundreds of millions of years to wrap up life in a protective blanket and keep it safe. What would the loss of 40% of the ozone layer entail? The steep decline would allow low wavelength UV radiation which is currently almost completely blocked out to penetrate the biosphere. This deadly UV radiation would have large-scale devastating effects including rapid increases in cancer and perhaps irreversible changes in ecosystems, especially aquatic ones. The DNA effects documented by the researchers are appalling- up to 213% increases in DNA damage with respect to normal levels, with plant damage up to 132%. In addition, the increased UV light would hasten the normal decomposition of organic material, further contributing to the natural balance of the biosphere. The phenomenon would indeed be a global phenomenon. Decomposition of the soot is thought to be negligible.

Now I am no atmospheric scientist, but even if we assume that some of these estimates end up a little exaggerated, it still seems to me that effects on the ozone layer could be pretty serious. If I had to guess, I would think that there could be uncertainty in estimating how much soot is produced, how much goes up and to what altitude, and how long it stays there. What seems more certain are the effects on the well-studied radical reactions that deplete ozone. Some elementary facts seem to reinforce this in my mind- carbon has a very high sublimation point and can get heated up to high temperatures, the energy radiated by a hot body goes as the fourth power of the temperature, and from college chemistry I do remember the rule of thumb that on an average, the rate of a reaction doubles with a 10 degrees centigrade temperature rise. The estimates of rate increases made by the authors seem reasonable to me.

What is most disconcerting about the study is that it involves a rather "small" nuclear exchange that takes place in a localized part of a continent, and yet whose effects can affect the entire world. "Globalization" acquires a new and portentous meaning in this context. India and Pakistan can both easily field 50 weapons each of 15 kilotons yield, if not now, in the near future. In addition to this global-scale devastation of the ozone layer, it would be unthinkable to imagine the more than 10 million people dying in such a conflict, as well as total devastation of public systems and the food supply. Herman Kahn might have thought that nuclear war is "survivable". Well, maybe not exactly...

Reference and abstract for those who are interested:
Mills, M.J., Toon, O.B., Turco, R.P., Kinnison, D.E., Garcia, R.R. (2008). Massive global ozone loss predicted following regional nuclear conflict. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(14), 5307-5312. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0710058105

"We use a chemistry-climate model and new estimates of smoke produced by fires in contemporary cities to calculate the impact on stratospheric ozone of a regional nuclear war between developing nuclear states involving 100 Hiroshima-size bombs exploded in cities in the northern subtropics. We find column ozone losses in excess of 20% globally, 25–45% at midlatitudes, and 50–70% at northern high latitudes persisting for 5 years, with substantial losses continuing for 5 additional years. Column ozone amounts remain near or <220 Dobson units at all latitudes even after three years, constituting an extratropical "ozone hole." The resulting increases in UV radiation could impact the biota significantly, including serious consequences for human health. The primary cause for the dramatic and persistent ozone depletion is heating of the stratosphere by smoke, which strongly absorbs solar radiation. The smoke-laden air rises to the upper stratosphere, where removal mechanisms are slow, so that much of the stratosphere is ultimately heated by the localized smoke injections. Higher stratospheric temperatures accelerate catalytic reaction cycles, particularly those of odd-nitrogen, which destroy ozone. In addition, the strong convection created by rising smoke plumes alters the stratospheric circulation, redistributing ozone and the sources of ozone-depleting gases, including N2O and chlorofluorocarbons. The ozone losses predicted here are significantly greater than previous "nuclear winter/UV spring" calculations, which did not adequately represent stratospheric plume rise. Our results point to previously unrecognized mechanisms for stratospheric ozone depletion.

FEARS AND PROSPECTS AT CLIMATE CHANGE DINNERS

Over the last two semesters, I attended four dinners on climate change and policy organised by our university, with the last one held yesterday. The speakers were quite stimulating and focused on different aspects of the issue; beginnning with the science, the psychology of inertia against climate change, the health impacts of climate change including those on mental health, the legal issues involved in climate change legislation, the thrust by (a frustratingly low number of) corporations towards sustainable technologies, and the possible uniting of people of faith and those who do not have religious faith in fighting climate change as a common cause. There was also a session on alternative technologies. The participants were all lively, articulate and intelligent and it was fun and informative to meet such a diverse group. And of course the food was delicious, in spite of being organic...

Especially thought-provoking were the speakers who focused on health effects, analysed human psychology, and the mingling of faith and lack of faith in fighting climate change. It was argued by a psychologist that our preoccupation with "more" is more a function of a desire to boost our status and one-up our neighbor than to achieve self-satisfaction. In fact self-satisfaction never comes because there is always "more" to be had. People usually acquire more not because they want more, but because they want more than their neighbor has. After discussing this point, one interesting conclusion was that if we could make being green cool and sexy and status-building, then people could automatically strive to become green as a status symbol. Arnold Schwarznegger is right when he says that the problem with the environmental movement is that it lacks sex appeal. Instead of thinking "Having a Lexus makes me look sexy and high-status", what if people start thinking "I am green. I drive a hybrid. I use low wattage fluorescent lightbulbs. My carbon footprint is lesser than my neighbors'. Isn't that really cool and sexy?". Admittedly if such a sea change in social attitude takes place, then people could indeed become greener, if still for selfish and egocentric reasons. This certainly sounds encouraging, but first of all it should not be just another fad that dies down after a few years. Secondly, we don't have too much time to ponder the implementation of such social experiments.

The speaker who talked about health effects was Dr. Howard Frumkin. He works for the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) which is the nation's main public health organisation and action platform. One interesting thing which I was not aware of was that the CDC now has started including climate change experts among its officials. And why not. After all, if climate change can have massive and widespread health effects, it is an urgent public health matter. In fact, the public health effects of climate change are already visible as millions are affected because of droughts (Georgia: check) and food shortages, hurricanes and uneven rainfall. Probably the effects because of heat waves will be the most pernicious. But the public health effects of climate change go farther; these events can also lead to wars and conflict, mental attrition leading to huge productivity losses, and loss of goodwill everywhere. Indeed, the current conflict in Darfur has been called by some as the first climate-change induced conflict. The ethnic cleansing in Rwanda has also been cited by Jared Diamond as being partly due to scarce resource allocation. There are no easy solutions to combat these effects. But cooperation is going to be a big part of any efforts. The speaker stressed the idea of co-benefits; how having a "buddy system" during a heat wave for example enables people to help themselves by helping others, save energy, and most importantly, build social capital, a key aspect of any collective action against climate change. In the end, the idea of co-benefits was exemplified by the simple photo of a 1950s mom walking her children to school. There are so many benefits inherent in such a simple action; getting exercise, reducing carbon footprints, preventing depression, ecnouraging greenery in your neighbourhood, and building social capital by interacting with people. The talk was very inspiring, and it's pretty obvious that public health effects of climate change are going to be tremendous, and sticking together is going to be a key part of survival and progress.

The speaker who talked about how people of faith and otherwise can merge together in this common cause was also very thought-provoking. I think it makes sense; as much as I know evolution is true, I would be quite ready to shake the hand of a young earth creationist if he or she thinks that conserving our planet is dictated by his or her faith. After all the basic point is compelling; even if we differ on how we got here, as long as we can agree that saving what we have is of overarching importance, we can leave aside our differences and work together to fight this planetary crisis. As much as I dislike religious faith, nobody can disagree that even now it is one of the most potent forces for rallying people together for a common cause. Famed biologist and humanist Edward Wilson has made this point clearly in his wonderful book "The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth"; saving the planet can likely be the most powerful common theme ever for bringing every kind of faithful and those without faith together. This is a clarion call to those with faith; this issue is more urgent and important than any one of those issues on the political stage which you see as being important to your faith right now. And it can very well be the only issue that will decide your very fate, but which also can unite everyone.

10 COMMON CLIMATE-SKEPTIC QUESTIONS...

...and ten answers

Even better and comprehensive is How to talk to a climate skeptic by Coby Beck

Previous posts related to global warming and climate change: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

BJORN LOMBORG'S CONVENIENT HALF-TRUTHS

A couple of days ago, I had a post about Bjorn Lomborg's appearance on Bill maher. Now Amit has a post on Al Gore and the IPCC winning the Nobel Prize in which he cites, not surprisingly, the climate change skeptic who has probably the most proven track record of being a global warming contrarian in the last decade. I am again appalled at how Lomborg, who claims that global warming proponents are "alarmists" and are enunciating half-truths, himself seems to not care too much for nuance and the big picture. His report in the Boston Globe is worth quoting here at length because of the multiple weaknesses it exposes:

"Gore told the world in his Academy Award-winning movie to expect 20-foot sea-level rises over this century. He ignores the findings of his Nobel co-winners, who conclude that sea levels will rise between only a half-foot and two feet over this century, with their best expectation being about one foot. That’s similar to what the world experienced over the past 150 years.

Likewise, Gore agonizes over the accelerated melting of ice in Greenland and what it means for the planet, but overlooks the IPCC’s conclusion that, if sustained, the current rate of melting would add just 3 inches to the sea-level rise by the end of the century. Gore also takes no notice of research showing that Greenland’s temperatures were higher in 1941 than they are today.

The politician-turned-moviemaker loses sleep over a predicted rise in heat-related deaths. There’s another side of the story that’s inconvenient to mention: rising temperatures will reduce the number of cold spells, which are a much bigger killer than heat. The best study shows that by 2050, heat will claim 400,000 more lives, but 1.8 million fewer will die because of cold. Indeed, according to the first complete survey of the economic effects of climate change for the world, global warming will actually save lives."

There are several things wrong with his statements. However, instead of pointing them out, I will simply link to the relevant post on Realclimate, which is a now well-recognised (even by the IPCC) and authoritative website manned by eleven bonafide climate scientists, including Michael Mann who produced the now-famous "hockey stick graph". The realclimate post refutes in addition to Lomborg's objections, all 9 points raised by a British judge a couple of days ago in declaring Gore's movie unworthy of screening in schools. Clearly, Lomborg needs to check multiple sources instead of just pouncing on a discrepancy or two, and then simply quoting it without investigating it further.

But what really irks me about Lomborg is that while he is right that issues and solutions need to be prioritized, he downplays the impact of climate change yet again. Also, as I mentioned in a past post, why not get all that funding for infectious diseases (which by the way are also expected to go up in some quarters because of climate change) from the war in Iraq? Also, in saying that "Gore also takes no notice of research showing that Greenland’s temperatures were higher in 1941 than they are today", Lomborg engages in a fallacy that the Bush administration is famous for perpetuating- cherry picking data and quoting it selectively to support one's claim (well-documented in Chris Mooney's book for example). Lomborg should know that this ploy is now old and boring, and we are not going to buy it.

Now let's get to what Lomborg cites as the "good" effects of global warming, about it helping cold regions. This is again a standard argument advocated by climate change skeptics. But this argument not only sets up a straw man, but is downright disingenuous. At the very least, it completely neglects the fact that climate change is a complex issue, and when its effects are unpredictable and violent, any perceived "good" side-effects can only be incidental benefits whose goodness may be far outweighed by so many things we don't know. But mainly, this argument is disingenuous because it shifts the focus from combating root causes of climate change to side-show benefits that we may (or may not) possibly scrape from it. And it is yet again cherry picking because it focuses only on one effect of climate change, neglecting the other deleterious ones.

Finally, disagreement between a couple of points does not make Al Gore and the IPCC "strange bedfellows". Science is a procss of constant inquiry, skepticism, and the perfection of data precisely engendered by disagreement. As Gore himself has noted, disagreement about details does not preempt the fundamental paradigm of global warming. Lomborg not only raises disingenuous objections, but also does not seem to understand this basic feature of scientific consensus. Far from being strange bedfellows, Gore and the IPCC are ideal ones.

Global warming skeptics need to pick a new poster boy if they possibly can for their views. Lomborg is unfortunately toeing the same line, and it's not working.

Previous posts related to global warming and climate change: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

PARADISE REGAINED?

It should be a resounding slap in the face of global warming contrarians and political opportunists, now that Al Gore and the IPCC have won the Nobel Peace Prize:

"for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change".

Now of course, that does not mean all our problems are solved, and that policy will now proceed smoothly. Fox News and others will still find good excuses to discredit the prize. They will probably even say that the prize makes Al Gore an even richer man while the rest of the world grows poorer (Update: As expected, Gore will contribute all the money to climate change research, so take that Fox). They will also speculate about the gratuitous lobbying that went on in their opinion in the deliberations. In addition, falling back on Gore's personal lifestyles is an argument which they could never let go of. Whatever.

The prize was expected and it's probably not very surprising even if a happy circumstance. There are still miles to go before we bring carbon emissions under control though, and even if we stop today, many deleterious effects will continue to be observed, and curbing those effects is going to be a complex scientific and political process. In fact, the prize also does not mean that climate change is now suddenly fully understood. But this is at least a partial vindication.

What I feel happiest about is not just that the Prize was awarded to Gore and the IPCC, but that it was also awarded to those thousands of scientists, who starting in the 1950s travelled to the farthest reaches of the planet to drill ice cores, document effects on sea level, snow cover, wildlife habitats and human populations. It's also a big thank you to those like James Hansen who have tirelessly worked in the face of political suppression to build computer models and relentlessly weed out the uncertainties (especially those caused by forcings). In fact, in my opinion Hansen himself deserved this prize, but it may been unfair to some other scientists.

Awarding one half to the IPCC for "building up" the scientific background of climate change and the other half to Gore for "disseminating" this knowledge seems like an apt split. The IPCC has constantly published reports since 1989 on climate change. It's latest report in 2007 was an encapsulation of cutting edge research and the most current conclusions it has drawn, which have not changed substantially from the 2001 report. The main contribution the IPCC has made between the two reports is to weed out uncertainties caused by "forcings"- factors including artificial ones like fossil fuel emissions and aerosols and natural ones like volcanic emissions that can either increase or decrease global temperatures. The problem previously was that some of these factors, especially those decreasing temperatures, had large uncertainties and so their potential balancing impact on CO2-induced warming could not be evaluated well. However, much progress was made between 2001 and 2006, and in its latest report the IPCC concluded that the "negative" forcings were much less than what was needed to counter the "positive" forcings. An important apparent discrepancy between ground measurements of temperature and satellite readings in the atmosphere was also resolved in the 2007 report. I would strongly suggest reading the IPCC summary. Anyone who reads it and still strongly suspects global warming needs to have immediate access to a dictionary and the mental asylum.

It is also gratifying that an Indian scientist, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri who is the head of IPCC is included in the prize. Interestingly, Gore was not very happy with his appointment eariler.

This is the first Nobel Prize for climate change as such, but it should be noted that one was given earlier for Chemistry to scientists who discovered the destruction of the ozone layer by CFCs. That research was a resplendent example of how science can starkly reveal the effects of human activities on the environment and force everyone to reconsider their way of life.

On the political front, George Bush and his yes-men can now do nothing more than concede to the grim reality of climate change, although it will be hardly surprising if they still don't. A couple of months ago, Bush stood in the White House Rose Garden and endorsed the 2007 IPCC report and human contributions to climate change. As Chris Mooney points out, he could have done exactly the same thing in 2001, when much of the science was equally well-known. But politicians and especially the current administration thrive on uncertainties in a perverted manner; while scientists thrive on uncertainties because they will improve understanding, politicians thrive on the same uncertainties so that they can cherry pick and try to discredit the entire enterprise.

The beauty of science however is that it always continues to progress, through mistakes as well as triumphs, and this is a fact which thwarts even the most powerful politicians' motives. Even if men in power can score temporary political points by discrediting science, they forget that science has simply retreated beyond the stage, where it continues to march on through the tedious work of dedicated scientists. This exact same principle applies to any other heavily politicised scientific debate, including the nonsense about creationism. As the eminent biologist Francisco Ayala says in his book about evolution, it does not really matter for science if creationism is taught in schools or whether anyone thinks evolution is a conspiracy, because research in evolution will always continue to advance our understanding irrespective of policy. Biological research on homosexuality will continue oblivious to the debate about gay marriage. Research on the benefits of stem cell therapy will continue oblivious to whatever veto the President enforces. Science will continue to thwart the contentions of conservatives about life beginning at conception. Science does not and will not care about the vagaries of politics and spin. And the heart of the reason for this inexorable flow of science is that while politics is about the affairs of humans, science is about factual truths about the world. Its course may be temporarily modified or even stopped in the rare circumstances where unreason triumphs over all (such as in the trial of Galileo), but we can be more than rest assured that since discovery is a process inherent in the history and future of the world, this process will never ever abate. Not just this prize but all vindication of climate change is a vindication of the character of science which will always progress, and we should be thankful for those scientists who keep on quietly working behind the curtains on this progress.

So there is it; the first Nobel prize for climate change. In my eyes, the biggest vindication more than anything else has been about the science. People should yet again be convinced now that the science, with all its uncertainties, is still founded on a solid basis, and this in fact goes to the heart of understanding the scientific process itself. Let's hope that the prize causes even more public awareness than before, especially on an individual basis. Combating climate change will involve changing human nature a little, and that seems impossible. But as Spencer Weart says in his excellent book on global warming, CFCs provide a good example of how humans can change deeply-rooted practices and profit making in the face of impending problems. Global warming is a bigger problem. It will just take bigger efforts. I don't see why we cannot do that.

Previous posts related to global warming and climate change: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

LOMBORG ON MAHER



The economist Bjorn Lomborg appeared on Bill Maher last Friday. As some may know, Lomborg is one of the more well-known global warming skeptics in the world, and became persona non grata in many scientific and policy circles after publishing his controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist in which he spoke spiritedly against global warming.

Now Lomborg has come out with another book disarmingly titled "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming". As in his earlier book, Lomborg's basic thesis is not that man-made climate change is unreal, but that there are more pertinent problems to solve in the world, and one has to think about the issues in a rounded manner before deciding where to spend money to cause the optimum effect.

I think his way of thinking is legitimate, but I don't agree with it. However, I think Maher and Rushdie probably castigated him a bit too much after the interview. At least in the interview, it did not seem that Lomborg was actually denying global warming, but was trying to ask that all the effects of climate change, positive and negative, should be evaluated as a sum total. In fact, he even admits that the bad effects of climate change may outweigh the good ones. Clearly, Lomborg is a very smart and articulate guy, and I don't think he is dumb enough to just negate global warming.

But what I find most disingenuous in Lomborg's argument is his assertion that all that money spent on climate change could be more productively channeled into more pertinent problems, like AIDS, poverty, and infectious diseases. What I want to say is this; you want to look for a source from which to funnel unproductive funds into these problems?? Please think of the war in Iraq. Or think of the myriad other ways in which governments and especially the US government spend taxpayers' money. If you want to spend money on these undoubtedly important problems, why pick on climate change to do it? At the very least it's disingenuous and ignores other massive sinks of crucial money in the world, and in reality it is a travesty because you want to sap funds from something that's obviously critical for future generations.

On a related optimistic note, more people from various countries now seem to think that climate change overall is bad and that humans are contributing to it.

WHY IT'S HARD TO ARGUE WITH THEM

It's obvious that both global warming and evolution are supported by reams of evidence, yet why are people so loathe to accept this? There are of course many many reasons and answers to this question, some of which I have discussed on this blog. But on a public basis, what I think is quite key is the simple fact that it's easy to dissent, but relatively difficult to justify. By "difficult" I certainly don't mean that it's actually difficult to justify the evidence for global warming or evolution. In fact that's extremely simple because the evidence is right there in front of us.

But what's dificult is to justify and explain viewpoints from a public debate standpoint. Consider a global warming debate in which a dissenter throws around a 10 second general objection, for example, "Computer models can be unpredictable because they are built on assumptions". This statement is much easier for the lay public to understand because it represents a pretty general fact that is true in many cases. Now it's the climatologist's turn to defend himself. This is going to take much more time because he or she would have to explain how it's true that computer models can be unpredictable, but how researchers take this uncertainty into account, run multiple simulations, weed out fudge factors, do statistical analyses coming up with multiple scenarios, and assign degree of confidence to predictions. This knowledge is surely out there, but it's quite obvious that the climatologist is going to take more than the 10 minutes alloted response time to explain this. And with good reason; although the punchlines of science can be simple, actually explaining science often takes time, and that too with good reason, since science wants to do as thorough a job of analysing the data and drawing conclusions as it can.
But the lay public often does not see this. What they think is that the climatologist is unable to answer the dissenter's objections in 10 minutes. They take this to mean that he cannot defend himself. In the public's eyes, the dissenter has scored points.

A similar example exists for evolution, where actually the argument should be much simpler, but unfortunately it's not. Some dissenter (or god forbid, ID guy) will say something like "The bacterial flagellum is too complex to have arisen through chance". Not withstanding the fact that this statement is just plain wrong ("change" is not operating here), we have to admit that the bacterial flagellum does at least look complicated for the layman. But now, when the biologist has to answer this objection, he needs to demonstrate how each part of the flagellum has counterparts in other organisms, how even "half a flagellum" can actually work, and how the flagellum has actually arisen as a result of a mix-and-match kind of strategy adopted by natural selection. He would also have to explain the experiments leading to these conclusions. The explanation is elegant and extremely persuasive, but naturally it will take more than the allocated 10 minutes, leading laypeople to believe that perhaps the disssenter has a point.

The reason why this situation is unfortunate is because the burden of proof is always put on the scientist, when it is actually on the dissenter who has to prove his point. But the public often does not understand this, because they don't understand the weight of scientific evidence that strengthens the scientist's positions. Understanding this evidence itself will take some reading and exploring, but what they want is a 10 minute (or less) answer. Unfortunately for the public, the very fact that something can take more time to explain means that it may be dubious. Needless to say, this is absurd for obvious reasons.

In addition to this problem, such dissenters also are usually good at rhetoric, since unlike scientists, they have spent most of their time practising it in the absence of actual evidence to support their claims. Scientists are often not very good at rhetoric since don't feel a need to be a good at that, and rightly let the evidence speak for itself. But that means that in public debates, where the public is unfortunately more easily swayed by rhetoric, they are inherently pitted on the hard side.

A similar situation also exists for people in non-scientific fields. Noam Chomsky has made the good point that he is always on the losing side in a short television debate, because the objection of the dissenter is a 10 second statement which reflects what's expressed by the conventional media. Since it's already there in the papers and on TV, people already know this, so all he has to do is to state it. On the other hand, when Chomsky needs to counter his point, he needs to reference and cite non-conventional and minority sources that the public has not heard of. Clearly, this is a more time-consuming task. Unfortunately, Chomsky has only 10 minutes to respond, so he cannot do this convincingly in those few minutes. The result is that the public goes away with a false impression that Chomsky is wrong and the dissenter is right.

This situation is rife throughout the media. It is inherent in every interview that TV channels do and every talk show where guests are invited to present their views. In each and every one of these cases, there is a potential and many times actual risk of the public getting the wrong impressions simply because someone does not have enough time to make their views clear.

There is no clear-cut solution to these problems except to educate the public through means other than the 10 minute segment shows. In that respect, the books written by Chomsky or climatologists or evolutionists and many others serve an absolutely essential and admirable function. But the public also should be informed about this very point; that they should not trust debates held in a studio that last for 30 minutes, with 10 minutes alloted to each speaker. Because in such a case, they are almost always going to get a biased impression, no matter how convincing it seems.

GOREIOUS DAYS

I just finished watching Al Gore's testimony on climate change in front of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. It's not much fun sitting through such a testimony; this one went on for 3 hours, with Gore giving his deposition for the first hour, and then answering questions categorically from every one of the 19 senators for the next 2 hours. But the topic of the testimony was so important that it was not hard to get hooked.

Gore emerged a champion from the mostly uneventful hearings. He was careful, patient, and unfailingly courteous. Gore is not the wittiest or most engaging speaker I have heard, but what he lacks in style, he makes up for in conviction and sincerity. He had immense intellectual ammunition and reserves of will. He was unanimously appreciated and praised by almost every Senator in the room, whether Republican or Democrat, and that is exactly the kind of bipartisan support climate change needs, an issue which is definitely beyond any politics. Of course, there were questions, but it was striking that nobody disagreed with his basic propositions about climate change, global warming, and man's contributions to it. This was good evidence that people have started moving beyond scientific acceptance, and on to the economic problems.

Everyone agreed...except the asinine James Inhofe. But how can anyone take Inhofe seriously now? This is the man who had called global warming as the "greatest hoax perpetrated on the American public" just a few years ago. Ironically, Inhofe has now turned out to be the one who cries wolf, and I thought he ended up making a fool of himself in the room. Not just because of his outrageous skepticism, but because of his disingenuity. Inhofe resorted to the cheap tactic, all too familiar these days, of trying to divert attention from the issue to the person. First of all, he asked four questions about climate change to Gore, which were supposed to be answered in monosyllables; Yes or No. Clearly, on a topic such as climate change, this is not possible, and this tactic itself was obviously designed to bind Gore in a straitjacket. The second and ever more tawdry ploy which Inhofe used, was to ask Gore to actually pledge that the costs of his standard of living would not exceed that of an average American family! There are a dozen good and completely reasonable reasons why Gore would not be able to do that, nor that this issue really has any bearing on climate change. Also, Inhofe magnanimously said that Gore need not do it right away; only in the next one year. This was clearly a trick to set the stage for the next whole year, when Inhofe could keep on maligning Gore and drawing attention from the real problem by trying to prove Gore as a hypocrite. Cheap ad hominem tactics indeed.

Naturally, this is a classic political trick, where you aim to gain no matter what. If Gore had not pledged, Inhofe obviously would have declared this as evidence of his hypocrisy. If Gore had pledged, Inhofe would have had a field day for the next year. Of course, Gore did not pledge such a stupid pledge. And his arguments were cogent; there are not many provisions in the United States to live a carbon-free life. As an aside, Gore did cite compromises his family makes.

Inhofe also resorted to a specious ruse of presenting the names of 100 prominent scientists who he said, "disagreed" with Gore. Gore in fact did not answer this question right away, but instead turned pensive and quiet. In a voice that reflected more concern than conviction, he said, "I am thinking of how to reach out to you senator…how to make you understand…" I think that reaction is quite appropriate for someone such as Inhofe, but in my opinion, Gore could have answered the question quite easily. The fact is, the word "diasgree" can mean many many things. It does not mean somebody disagrees with you lock stock and barrel. There are shades of agreement. Somebody may agree with you on certain matters, be skeptical about others. Somebody might agree with all your points, but choose to enunciate their conclusions in a different manner. That somebody "disagrees" with you on an issue as complex as global warming says nothing. And if Inhofe was so much intent on numbers, then Gore easily refuted him by citing the conclusions of the national academies of science of six countries, as well as the consensus of every single scientist in scientific articles published during the last decade, not to mention the conclusions of the IPCC, which is as peer reviewed as you can possibly get.

In any case, it's not much point listening to Inhofe, and although debate is an essential allowance of democracy, we all have the options of switching off our TV sets or folding up our newspapers. After this, I don't think Inhofe should even be criticised point by point.

On another note though, there is one point about which I "diasgree" with Gore, and that is about his stance on nuclear energy. Given the above qualifications, I should say that I don't actually disagree, because Gore is not against nuclear power. But I think he has not paid as much attention to it as is necessary, and he rather underestimates its potential. I have said time again that nuclear power is our best hope for future short-term energy shortages, its few problems notwithstanding. There are several clear benefits of nuclear power, as well as many misunderstandings about it, which I perhaps will talk about some other time. But in this context, kudos to senators Craig, Isakson, and Alexander, who are strong proponents of nuclear power. These men understand the science and economics behind nuclear power, and realise that it is the cleanest source of energy for the future. The initial costs are a little prohibitive, but they are nothing compared to the overall costs of using coal, which is the dominant electricity generating fuel right now.

Most of the fears about nuclear power are still misguided. There has not been a single fatal reactor accident in the US until now. Tens of thousands of people in contrast have died because of pollution due to coal. The radiation from a nuclear power plant is comparable to that from a coal power plant, both of which by the way are less than the natural background radiation that we constantly experience. Even the crictics of nuclear power who take refuge in that last bastion of doubt- the burial of nuclear waste- have to realise that it's not a technical, but a political problem. That nuclear power can be safely used is widely demonstrated by France and Japan, which get 70% and 50% of their electricity respectively from nuclear energy. The disposal of nuclear waste is an unnecessarily charged social issue, when technical solutions to the problem have existed for many years now. In fact, the disposal of nuclear waste is an issue that has been created by the US government, which has refused to reprocess the highly radioactive plutonium from spent fuel rods. After this plutonium has been taken out and used as further reactor fuel, the spent fuel then consists of short-lived isotopes. The volume as well as the danger of the spent fuel thus gets reduced, and this waste can easily be gotten rid of without worrying about vaults that have million-year shelf lives. In fact, keeping the plutonium in can increase, not decrease, the danger of nuclear proliferation, as when the short-lived isotopes have decayed, the waste gets enriched in plutonium, and now poses a real terrorism and proliferation threat.

It is heartening to see politicians wisely taking the economics and science of nuclear power into account. In any case, the objections of most senators to Gore's recommendations are based on economics, and emphatically not on science. There is almost no doubt about the science of global warming. Questions about economic feasibility exist. But so do the solutions. As it is for nuclear waste, it is going to take political and social will to resolve them. And these are things which are, as Gore says, "renewable resources".