The Love Affair with Climate Disasters
In recent weeks, disaster porn has mutated with concerns about climate change to produce an orgy of writhing, conflated arguments. People, I know you have a lot of pent-up frustration. It’s been a rough couple of years: a global recession, climategate, the failed promise of Copenhagen and Obama.
I know how you’ve been yearning for years to hook up with severe weather so you can prove to the world once and for all that climate change and human misery belong together. But what if this is just another passing fling? What will you do when the recent spate of tornadoes, floods, and wildfires fade from the headlines?
When will you ignore the urge for instant gratification and settle down with someone you can build a future with? (On that note, you might want to rethink this relationship. It’s gotten a bit stale, no?)
Of course, that would mean you’d have to live in a reality-based world. Maybe think outside the box a little.
Unless you think you can make a go of it with your climate disaster honey. We’ll soon see how far you get.
Since you linked to the economist article on the TBI/Hartwell strategy, allow me to highlight this portion:
“There is much to like in the Hartwell analysis, but also a lot to question. While reframing the climate issue around energy and equity is undoubtedly appealing, it is not clear how effective it would be as policy. One of the reasons so much interaction and conflict between rich and poor countries now goes on within the context of climate change negotiations is that those negotiations provide the developing countries with some leverage, both moral and institutional. To go from that situation to something more like the a la carte approach of the Millennium Development Goals or the commitments to Africa made at Gleneagles would not necessarily be progress.
Another problem is that people have a great deal invested in the established world view; it will not be dismantled and reassembled easily. Brown’s pleasingly oblique approaches required back-breaking and carefully orchestrated work with shovels and wheelbarrows, not to mention the removal or flooding of the occasional insufficiently picturesque hamlet. On the question of the analagous work required to bring about the change of perspectives it imagines, the Hartwell paper is rather silent.
And then there is the question of time. Though the paper is not explicit on this, to accept that decarbonisation will require as-yet unavailable technologies to achieve deep penetration around the world is to accept that carbon-dioxide levels will get a lot higher than current policies want them to. Which might seem a good enough reason to reject the whole idea. Except that the current policies have not, as yet, made a very great deal of difference. The straight road seems to be one travelled slowly, even if it looks shorter.
You raise the very important issue of how to sustain attention over the long run regarding possible consequences of climate change, whatever the cause(s) of that change may be. Focusing on temporary events, including dramatically bad weather, gets headlines, but doesn’t guarantee any change of attitudes or practices. Moreover, whether the climate warms or cools (even if only for a couple of decades), no one yet knows how to forecast how such changes will affect a given region or country. Hence, wisdom dictates that regions and countries develop contingency plans for various climate outcomes. Crucial here is the development of the wealth required for infrastructure investment needed to prepare for various contingencies. But, such investment on the part of currently poor countries requires economic development, which in turn requires at least some use of fossil fuels. Using such fuels typically has unhappy side effects in addition to the role they play in anthropogenic climate change. The situation we are in requires input from many different perspectives. People with different world views must learn to seek the common ground needed to make possible not only effective strategies and implementations of same. Is civil dialogue possible?
Marlowe,
I don’t know why you (and some others) seem to think I have uncritical praise for this approach. I liked how the Economist piece was not an uncritical review of Hartwell, which is why I linked to it.
In all my posts, I don’t come out and say, this is the way to go! Rather, the running theme of my argument is that that these different approaches (such as hartwell) get dismissed too easily, because people are invested in the status quo policy or too stubborn to admit it has failed and maybe…just maybe…there might be another path worth having a reasonable discussion over.
But we never get that far, because so many people have a knee-jerk reaction against anything that doesn’t put climate change front and center in the debate.
Let’s leave aside for the moment the idea that people are linking extreme weather events solely “to prove to the world once and for all that climate change and human misery belong together.” Assume with me, gedankenexperimentally if you will, that at least some people are genuinely convinced that a reasonable chance of such a link exists.
What should these people do; what approach should they use that’s both ethical and practical? Put differently, what’s the up-side of one’s decision to pretend that things are less dire than one genuinely thinks they are?
Please note that this doesn’t preclude the possibility of there being real disaster pornographers out there. Where you or I choose to draw the line between hysteria and rational concern isn’t relevant to this narrow question.
“these different approaches (such as hartwell) get dismissed too easily”
to which I would counter — these different approaches are uncritically accepted too easily (because they are different?). I can only speak for myself, but I don’t dismiss them ‘easily’. Rather I haven’t seen any coherent analysis/argument that suggests it will work any better than past approaches. Is that what you mean by ‘knee jerk”?
“What will you do when the recent spate of tornadoes, floods, and wildfires fade from the headlines?”
Maybe the question should be “What will you do if they don’t (fade from the headlines)?”
I rather like the point that Clive Hamilton (I assume this Clive Hamilton) made as a comment on the Yale e360 “extreme weather” opinion piece from a week ago:
“We have heard for a long time that it is not possible to attribute any single climate event to human-induced warming. Quite so. But how many times can that claim be made? If we experience a couple of heat waves, a drought, some floods and several extreme hurricanes over couple of years, the claim that each cannot be attributable to human-induced warming starts to look like the inverse of the gambler’s delusion (nine straight tails from tossing a coin increases the chances that the next toss will produce a head).”
At some point the unusual number of tails indicates that something about the coin has changed, that there is no normal to go back to.
“We’ll soon see how far you get.” Quite.
PDA,
I’m not in the business of advising advocates how they should phrase their concerns. My field is journalism.
But for pundits and reporters, I’l refer back to this excellent Andrew Freedman post, which I also lauded here.
In his post, Freedman provides (IMO) an excellent guidepost for the tricky attribution stories.
@ PDA
The upside is the usual one of being honest. If you (not necessarily you personally) think that a reasonable chance of such a link exists say just so. Instead of saying that such a link exists period.
Um. I’m not sure how to read this post other than an attempt at “advising advocates how they should phrase their concerns,” Keith. I guess I am having a massive failure at reading comprehension here.
Thanks again for a rewarding exchange of ideas.
Via Andy Revkin’s Tumblr, I’ve learned of a related Dot Earth post he did back in 2007, where he asks at the end:
“So if quiet warnings are ignored, and the politics of fear is as empty as pornography, what is a message on climate risks and responses that is true to the science, but also effective?”
Lots of good comments on that DE thread, too.
What will you do when the recent spate of tornadoes, floods, and wildfires fade from the headlines?
Don’t know about tornadoes, but floods and wildfires aren’t going to be fading from the headlines anytime soon, nor are such events imaginary concoctions that don’t exist beyond the headlines. Like it or not, global warming does lead to more of certain types of weather extremes, as the peer-reviewed science indicates (extreme precipitation, droughts, wildfires), and using certain weather events as examples of the types of impacts to expect with global warming is appropriate, regardless of whether or not it upsets the deniers. Last but not least, discussion of weather events in the context of climate change and other types of reporting and communication on climate change are not mutually exclusive. One does not preclude or distract from the other.
I do think any story should steer clear of making attribution to specific weather events, and to make an effort to distinguish between different types of extremes, the potential (but tenuous at best) climate change link to the off-the-charts tornado barrage being a clear example. Yet labeling/broadbrushing any discussion of climate change in a story on a weather disaster as taboo, “porn”, “not reality”, etc. is silly.
as someone who does not believe that recent weather can be reliably linked to climate change, I thinke the manner in which opposing iews are communicated is qite important. Suggesting we are seeing a preview of coming attractions seems like a reasonable claim if properly hedged. !sserting that the storm is now upon us flies in the face of o ser ation and analysis. Perhaps ‘stay tuned for further developments’ would prove the wisest course for now. a
and no, I do not enjoy mobile commenting.
Ahh yes, CO2 causes bad weather, of all kinds. Flood and droughts, at the same time. Every Locale on earth moving simultaneously away from it’s climate optimum.
I understand elevated CO2 causes liberals to practice poor twitter judgement. And I have data to back it up.
You might also have said that the same poor judgement applies to conservatives, as well.
Man, that CO2 is bad stuff.
But, now Keith, you have to admit: nothing beats The Weiner :-).
It’s a bit more complicated. For example springtime ozone depletion appears to be causing significant climate change in Australia, but so are warming Pacific surface sea temperatures driven by greenhouse warming, so it’s not just one thing, but it is us.
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2011/06/eli-is-evil-bunny.html
be sure to read the comments.
Also, wrt forest fires, bark beetles in the US west are killing molto trees which then serve as fuel, and so on.
#16: The wiener is high entertainment indeed. But in my book, hypocrisy takes the cake with these kind of scandals.
@17
Some of that complexity is also natural but lets not have that get in the way of a good scary story. Over the last century rainfall has increased by 10% in Australia and whilst there has been a drought in SE Australia (currently well and truly over now) a study by Flinders University found that particulate pollution from power stations in the La Trobe Valley was affecting cloud formation and therefore precipitation. Coral bleaching in the barrier reef in 2007 was attributed to AGW but was found to have been caused by cold currents. The Murray Darling Basin has been a poster child for AGW alarmists who tend to ignore the fact that water allocations for agriculture were far to high and had a significant effect. The recent Brisbane floods were less than two previous floods but Karoly, England and Trembath played the disaster card.
Australia is a land of extremes our national anthem contains the words ” a land of drought and flooding rains”. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology relies on data from 1910 onwards because they contend that earlier records are unreliable. Our most extreme temperatures and droughts occurred in the late 1800s probably just coincidence. The adjustment of Pre 1950s temp records have all been downwards probably just coincidence.
To downplay or ignore natural attribution is hardly scientific but seems to be common practice for advocates of AGW. All to often people like you look for confirmation of the AGW hypothesis while ignoring other factors that might dilute the message.
Alarmists will earn a modicum of credibility as soon as they start attributing some good weather to AGW.
So far, according to these guys and many others, AGW only causes bad weather. Which is silly. And is why folk are rolling their eyes, And Frakking for gas.
Keith,
I didn’t know you wrote a book.
I’ve asked this elsewhere but got no response. I wonder if I’ll get one here.
As an intellectual exercise, can anyone point to a previous 18 month period that has encompassed so many extreme weather events across the globe?
kdk33 @20 can you give an example of some newsworthy good weather?
Chris,
Newsworthy? That’s a loaded adjective. How’s about three obvious benefits of warming.
Crop ranges: extended
Growing seasons: longer
Heating Oil Usage: Reduced
kdk33 I’ll give you the third one, but then how much oil equivalent does air-con use. I think you’re naively optimistic on the first two, pests are already entering the crops at earlier, more vulnerable stages and some are also showing evidence of extra generations and better overwintering and tundra don’t make good farm soil. Any answer to my question at 22?
Darn it, I forgot. CAGW is good for pests and bad for cuddly creatures. Good for weeds, bad for flowers.
Chris, you (and many others) are being silly. Warming will bring both good and bad, winners and losers. If you want to have crediblity then you need to acknowledge both. Let’s put it this way: would you like better if it were getting colder?
There are many discussions on extreme weather events and their trend with temperature. The data I’ve seen simply doesn’t support the notion that warming brings bad weather (we just had a go at this in a recent thread). If you know of data you think is convincing, I’d like to see it (because I have an open mind).
“CAGW is good for pests and bad for cuddly creatures. Good for weeds, bad for flowers.”
You do know the defining characteristic that unites pests & weeds? Adaptability. That’s how they end up being pests and weeds, they have adapted to the agricultural/urban environments that humans have created better than those that are not pests (and I happen to think some aphids are quite cuddly, couldn’t say the same for biting midges though…)
But this is mere digression – how about #22?
Chris,
Your #22 is irrelevant. The question is: is bad weather increasing with warmth. As warmists are fond of saying “one shouldn’t look at short trends”.
Is there any data you find compelling? I’d like to see it.
“Your #22 is irrelevant.”
So that’s a no then.
Of course if the data you’ve seen “doesn’t support the notion that warming brings bad weather” then you’d be able to point to previous periods of extreme weather such as we’ve seen in the last 18 months or so not related to the consistently high temperatures we’ve seen over the past decade. I note the get out clause – “one shouldn’t look at short trends” with interest and point you to the IPCC AR4 WGII Chapter 19.3.6. Or EM-DAT/CRED http://www.cred.be/sites/default/files/ADSR_2010.pdf
Chris,
That link is not working for me. I’ll try it again later, or maybe you can repost it.
Now, if you have data showing that bad weather trends with temperature I would like to see it, and I will respond.
OTOH, I will not play games with you. As I am sure you know: “no” and “irrelevant” do not mean the same thing, “short term trends” is not a get-out, So, please stop, or I will.
Chris,
I (eventually) read your link. It does not contain meterological/weather/climate data. Rather, it is disaster data and what is reported is deaths, victims, and dollar losses. All of these measures are easily confounded. For example: population grows and infrasctructure develops so similar events at different times give different results; but this says nothing about climate. Moreover, according to your source 2010 was not meaningfully different from the 2000-2009 average.
In short, I don’t know what I was supposed to learn from you link or why you find this compelling evidence of anything.
I want data showing that extreme weather events (storms, floods, droughts, that kind of thing) trend with temperature. Basically, a plot of these events on the Y-axis with temperature on the X-axis and the plot should have a significant and positive slope. If you know of any data like this, I would like to see it.