Last gasps for global warming “disinformation?”
Photo: bondidwhat.
Scientists have been talking for decades about the potential for human activities to create a warmer world.
Yet, in recent years, the scientific evidence for global warming has seemed controversial. Here’s climate scientist Michael Mann at Penn State University.
Michael Mann: There are a number of so-called organizations. A lot of them, their funding can be traced back to the same fossil fuel corporations. And these quote-unquote organizations, they’re often not much more than a P.O. box and an individual or two who are behind them.
Mann calls this “disinformation” – and he said he believes the disinformation trend about global warming is ending.
Michael Mann: I’m pleased and many of us are pleased to see that Exxon Mobil has announced that they are no longer going to provide funding for many of these organizations – and this was actually detailed in an extensive report by the Union of Concerned Scientists. So we shouldn’t be surprised that there’ll be some talking heads out there. We’re going to see some of that. There’s no question. And it’s important for us to keep in mind that we’re probably seeing the last gasps of this disinformation effort that I think is probably in it’s tail end now that the science just has become ever more strong as time has gone on.
Science News Headlines, brought to you by Earth & Sky
Get all your science news in one place.
Scientists report documents ExxonMobil’s tobacco-like disinformation campaign on global warming science The report indicates that the oil company “spent nearly $16 million to fund skeptic groups, create confusion.” From the Union of Concerned Scientists (Jan. 3, 2007)
Our thanks to:
Michael Mann
Director of Earth System Science Center, Professor of Meteorology and Geosciences
Pennsylvania State University
NEW! Find related content with Sphere
Dear Friends,
In one way, it seems simple.
Say YES to good but imperfect science and great scientists with “feet of clay” like Dr. Michael Mann, Dr. Jeffrey McNeely, Dr. Albert Bartlett, Dr. Joseph Baker, Dr. E. O. Wilson, Dr. Ernst von Weizsaecker, Dr. Mickey Glantz, Dr. John Guillebaud, Dr. William E. Rees, Dr. James Lovelock, Dr. Seti Shastrapradja, Dr. Michael Shelby, Dr. Humam Ghgassib, Dr. Walter Kistler, Dame Jane Goodall, HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal and so many unheralded others who have assumed their certain responsibility support good science as perfectly as they are able.
Say NO to the politicians, economists and demographers; NO to these and other masters of the universe and their minions; NO to the power-brokers, pundits and superstars of the erstwhile ‘only game in town’ known as an unbridled global political economy; NO to the seemingly endless expansion of economic globalization promoted ubiquitously by the mass media and sponsored by “deep, virtually bottomless pockets,” the likes of Exxon, ADM, the late Enron, Halliburton, Monsanto and hundreds of other gigantic, multi-billion dollar business enterprises now overspreading the surface of Earth.
Sincerely,
Steve
Thank you, Steve for clearly exposing the political agenda behind your support of global warming.
And thanks to Earth & Sky for providing a good chuckle on my way to work this morning. Hearing Michael Mann accuse others of “disinformation” regarding global warming was quite hilarious.
Dear Mark P,
Forgive me for being poorly equipped as a communicator.
What I was trying to present above has not to do with a political agenda, despite what you seem to see in my words. My support is of good science and for the people who appear to be adequately discharging their responsibilities as scientists. Certainly, these scientists to whom I make reference do not intentionally mislead the public by discrediting good scientific data; they do not select certain data and exclude other relevant data when examining research; they eschew blatant misrepresentations of peer-reviewed evidence; and they do not foment needless arguments and spread uncertainty.
How politicians, economists and demographers in our time are discharging their responsibilities to science is unclear to me.
How the masters of the universe discharge their responsibilities to science is a subject about which I am prepared to make a guess.
Good science is what it is and has not to do with magical thinking, confused reasoning, misperception, political convenience, economic expediency, social agendas et cetera.
Hopefully, these additional comments are helpful. I look forward to hearing from you again.
Sincerely,
Steve
“...Exxon Mobil has announced that they are no longer going to provide funding for many of these organizations”.
??? – http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2004230,00.html
Please look at this website.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/popup.htm
There is not consensus that human caused global warming exists. This is a hoax being perpetrated by those who wish to control human activity. If you allow the governments to take your liberty and destroy your economy, the future will be dark indeed. The earth will continue to warm and cool at its whim. You just will have no life to speak of. Those who will control humanity know nothing about anything other than politics. The dark ages could easily be revisited.
Hello Ben. I looked in several dictionaries, and in most of them found that the definition for “consensus” means “general agreement.”
By that definition, there is a consensus among climate scientists that human-caused global warming exists. There’s been a consensus or general agreement for many years now. The recent report by the IPCC is just the latest expression of the scientific consensus that global warming is real, and that humans play a primary role.
I’m not sure, but I believe the link you gave – from canadafreepress.com – is one of the organizations funded by Exxon. I tried checking their website to confirm that, but could not access their “about” page.
Dear Monaxle,
The Exxon acknowledgement comes very late in the game, but as the adage goes, “Better late than never.” This one gigantic corporation is not more than the tip of an iceberg. Billions of dollars are being spent by many huge business enterprises to prop up the world’s infinitely growing political economy. To the masters of the universe who underwrite the ubiquitous “disinformation” activities, what matters is the success of their trickle down economic system. In their thinly-veiled economic pyramid scheme, most of the wealth goes to them and to millions of their minions, while billions of human beings worldwide, and out of sight, are left in destitute circumstances without substantial subsistence. That this system of unbridled economic expansion and the unrestrained per human consumption by “the wealthy few” of limited resources in a finite world is patently unsustainable is not something the masters of the universe want anyone to talk about.
I trust you see that our silence and their denial of good science makes them golden.
Oh, please, to all of this. It hasn’t been THAT many decades since the scare-of-the-moment was global COOLING.
Hello Keith, there was never a global cooling scare, at least not in the past several decades. Im not sure where or how that story began circulating, but it isnt true.
The truth is that, in the 1970s, scientists became confident about their belief that ice ages have an astronomical origin. In other words, a combination of cycles related to Earths orbit and spin combine to cause ice ages to come and go. These are called the Milankovitch cycles. Its true that, in the 1970s, stories circulated that another ice age was on the way. But on the way meant 10,000 years from now. This was a big deal then! No one felt very confident before that that ice ages were cyclical. So scientists were pleased and proud to have figured that out.
But no one felt scared of an ice age due in 10,000 years. There was no global cooling scare. I know people sometimes say that now. But its just not so.
I was there, and I remember.
All the best,
Deborah
Perhaps I am one of many elders in a not-so-great generation who are playing out a patently unsustainable endgame with the global political economy by acting as if it is the only game in town.
Except for the masters of the universe, few people are apparently aware that my ‘omega’ generation could be the latest group of proverbial “builders” of a modern-day Tower of Babel….....now nearing the end of its construction.
Why is money from the leftist PEW Charitable Trust better than money from Exxon-Mobil? Mann’s hockey stick has been debunked. That anthropogenic global warming is a hoax is evidenced by the fact that its supporters are no longer debating the science but have been reduced to supercilious name calling.
Funny that especially americans think that global warming is fake. Everyone else in the world agrees that we destroy the earth. America has 5% of world population , but cause 25 % (!!!!) of the worlds pollution. No wonder they want to think that is does not exist. One of the first things that bush when he became president was to quit the climate conference. Isn’t that noble?
The unrestrained consumption of finite resources in a finite world is unsustainable. It is something that “the powers that be” (oil companies and their allies) do not want anyone to know about. Peak Oil is No. 1 on the list. Give them credit for a masterful job of disinformation on these two world changing events (Peak Oil and Global Warming) that we are about to unleash on our children.
In fact it started Dec 2006 See the report on MSN Money.
http://video.msn.com/v/us/Money.htm?g=F527978A-B4ED-4F2F-92FC-50DEECC1C999&t=s216&f=15/64jubak&p=hotvideo_money%20top%20ten&fg=
If you google global ice age you will find many articles regarding the natural warming an cooling of the planet. The more i read the more i am convinced that the global warming scare is just that, a scare. Sure the planet is warming but according to many scientist this is as natural as rain fall. So I will continue to ignore the “chicken little, the sky is falling” approach.
Martin,
You might want to do another google search, putting in the words “carbon dioxide, parts per million.”
Bruce, I already did. Are you aware that carbon dioxide levels have been much higher than they are now and fluctuate from lows as low as 200ppm to over 2000 ppm and these fluctuation occurred over 18,000 years ago before we all had cars to drive. Read up my friend.
I was very disappointed in this edition because it did not define disinformation, but rather painted all dissent from the currently popular view as disinformation. Opponents of the current view were all dismissed as “talking heads” or it was implied that anybody diverging from Dr. Mann’s view were simply corporate shills.
That is BAD science. Science is, above all, about questioning and skepticism. Challenge everything. It’s currently quite politically hazardous to question human-caused global warming: it would be political suicide for any politician outside the US to question it, and it’s becoming that way inside the US as well. So its even more the duty of scientists to step up and ask hard questions.
My understanding of the current state of understanding is that there is little question the globe is warming, but a diversity of opinions on what is causing it. The strongest hypothesis is that it is human burning of hydrocarbons that is the primary cause. Being the strongest hypothesis does not make it above questioning, as Dr. Mann seems (at least in these soundbites) to believe.
Let me think about this for a minute.
Back in the beginning of the global warming issue, many corporations and republicans (mostly) said, “global warming is not happening and the science behind it is flawed”. Then the saying was changed to, “global warming might be happening but there is no proof that this is a man made event”. Then it was changed yet again to, “global warming is happening, but mans part in it is minimal”. Later still, the argument changed to “global warming is probably occurring and it’s is probably mans fault, but it might not be that bad”. Finally, after running out of excuses everyone admits that global warming is occurring and that it is mans fault, but the deniers are yelling one last battle cry.
“Global warming is mans fault, it will cause problems worldwide and it will hurt many more than people than it will help, but the cost to correct the problem is too much. Even if we were to incur the costs now, we wont see the benefits because it will take hundreds of years.
I can only hope that our grand children will understand that what we did was for OUR own good. We screwed them, so that we could live our lives without worrying about how it affects others and we let them carry the costs to correct our mistakes. Kind of like Medicare and Social Security, but I am sure that they will understand our greed.
Hello everyone, we just posted our entire interview with Michael Man as the first podcast in Earth & Sky’s new Clear Voices podcast series. You’ll find it here.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/060407.html
“Are you aware that carbon dioxide levels have been much higher than they are now and fluctuate from lows as low as 200 ppm to over 2000 ppm and these fluctuations occured over 18,000 years ago?”
No, Martin, I have to confess that I am not aware of the fact. It’s my understanding that CO2 levels are higher now than they have been in the last 600,000 years and that this exponential increase is greatly due to human activity.
All my life I have interest in a wide range of sciences and of course in more recent years Ive had some particular interest in the sciences involved concerning global warming. Ive read and continue to read many reports on the subject and listen very closely to reports presented on television and other media. And what I find disappointing about what I observe is the narrow focus generally taken when coming to conclusions about whats involved in significant global temperature changes.
For example, there are those who will point to the CO2 levels and its correlation to global temperature changes and the amount of CO2 we all put into our atmosphere. No doubt that the science confirms that humans are contributing to this at higher levels that ever, but the real issue is to what extent on a global basis. Is it 80%, 50%, 25%, 2% or a fraction of 1%? Ive not seen any comprehensive science that has actually given a good answer as yet. How much do the oceans contribute; how much does world wide organic decomposition contribute; how much do volcanic activity contribute; how much does our Sun and its own weather cycle contribute; how much might the tides of the earths mantel effect it or any changes in the earths magnetosphere? Etc. etc.
There is much that affects our earths short term and long term global weather patterns and I just dont see any science that has yet encapsulated much of what involved in our very complex global weather systems. What I do see is something that is very common about we humans of the present as in the past, which is much fear being generated from conclusions based on what little we happen to learn in the short term with no real understanding of the whole picture.
A thought I recently had of my own had to do with concern over the polar ice caps melting away and that having some contrition to global warming. So, if we lose the reflective effect of the ice caps, well have more liquid water on the face of the earth. And if the oceans the atmosphere tend to be warmer, it seems to me there would be more evaporation of that water into the atmosphere, which would seem to me to create more average annual cloud cover. Wouldnt that cloud cover, besides some of the additional storms that may be involved, also provide a similar reflective effect that the polar ice caps did. And so, I might argue that the earth has more than one way to regulate its global temperatures to sustain life . . . even human life. Whatever set of conditions that is causing the polar ice caps to melt, its not something that began over-night. . . even in geological terms. As in the past, the earth will take care of itself and as our ancient relatives had to do, well have to learn to adjust as best we can. And interestingly I feel, we don’t have as much control as we like to believe. ;-)
Theres nothing to fear except fear itself.
Was it just me or does anyone else think there was some irony in Michael Mann dissing everyone who ever doubted the CO2 Global warming theory.
Seems to me that trying to dismiss them by associating all of them with oil and gas lobby groups (like there’s no environmental lobby groups ,self interest or conflict of interest on the other side) when its his contribution to the IPCC panel (the Mann hockey stick) that has been totally trashed by interested reviewers is a little disingenuous at best.
Interesting that a guy who professes to be so interested in science won’t make his data available to other groups to review.
Hopefully if the Earth and Sky is truly about science and not one of those environmental lobby groups they will invite real scientists who have alternative views and the research to back them up on the show for their side of the story.
I might be what’ja call a diabetic, but I’m goin’ eat sugar anyway. I know for a fact that sugar in my bloodstream is as natural as carbon dioxide in the air. If you look at the big picture – like I do – there’s no denyin’ that sugar and CO2 levels always go up and down over the long course of geologic time. It’s just part of the natural cycle, so it’s important for you to realize how utterly insignificant any so-called spike in blood sugar or CO2 emissions is when you look beyond the here and now. Don’t ya know Nature’s omnipotent, self-correcting cycles totally trump puny human endeavors and aspirations? Live life with impunity, and don’t be too concerned with lifestyle change, because nothin’ you do matters anyhow. And don’t be selfish, like those self-serving scientists who perpetuate the global warming hoax to line their pockets!
To Bruce Mcfarlane … Earth & Sky is about science, not politics. We understand that a handful of scientists do not agree with the IPCC’s position that global warming is occurring now, with humans as a primary cause. We have included in our recent line-up of global warming content one piece by a well-known global warming skeptic John Christy to acknowledge the fact that there are some who still disagree with the severity of the situation. You will never get ALL scientists to agree on anything.
But as a voice for true science, Earth & Sky has now had to take a stand on this issue, like the thousands of scientists who are now also speaking out.
The vast majority of scientists DO believe that Earth is warming and that humans are a primary cause.
To believe otherwise is to believe an information “machine” that was set in motion several years ago to create a false controversy.
As a science writer for 30 years who has covered this subject since the 1970s, I watched this false controversy unfold with my own eyes.
Global warming has been discussed in the science community for decades. Scientists were predicting in the 1970s that human activities were causing Earth to get warmer. And now Earth is getting warmer.
Please open your mind to this reality. It IS a reality.
Deborah
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. After this, therefore because of this.
In the 1970s someone said carbon dioxide would make the world warmer. The world is warmer, therefore carbon dioxide is to blame.
The world is warmer. Every major dataset says that, including the data published by John Christy and Roy Spencer. (Although from 1978 into the late ’90s there was a flat line trend.)
Increasing carbon dioxide levels should make the world warmer and there is more CO2 in the air now than there was 150 years ago.
But how much warmer? And what portion of the warming that we see is due to CO2 and what portion is due to natural causes?
The question I raised in an earlier discussion of this issue still hasn’t been answered: Who is willing to say what Earth’s climate should be doing if it weren’t for human intervention? Should it be cooling? Warming? If so, by how much? (The climate hasn’t been stable for more than a million years, so it probably shouldn’t be stable now.) And, most importantly, would that natural climate change be better or worse than the human enhanced change we’re seeing now?
I could be mistaken, but I think the answers to those basic questions should have some bearing on our environmental priorities.
Climate change is a reality. It has been for hundreds of thousands of years. We should be concerned about pollution and sustainable energy supplies, but that doesn’t mean we can stabilize the climate. The climate isn’t stable, it isn’t likely to become stable any time in the foreseeable future, and there is no scientific reason to believe we can change that.
That is also reality. Until we can begin to put our effects on the climate into some meaningful context, any proactive action we take to influence the climate might be as negative as the effects we are trying to counteract. (Do we really want to go back to the Little Ice Age?)
In the meantime, people in cities around the world are choking on the rotten, polluted air, millions of tons of raw sewage are being dumped into rivers and oceans every day, industrial pollution is growing exponentially in developing countries, natural habitat is disappearing, and the oceans are being fished clean.
Climate change is going to happen. There is nothing we can do to prevent natural cimate change. How much time, energy and resources should we divert from fixing other environmental problems in the name of preventing climate change?
Hello Phil,
I remembered that someone had asked that question – “what would climate be doing without human input?” But I could not remember who. Thank you for asking it again.
Earth & Sky wants to post a blog about your very interesting question. We just haven’t had time to do that yet. So far, we’ve asked two climate scientists this question.
Both spoke of the difficulty in answering the question. There are many uncertainties.
But one, Tom Delworth of NOAA, had actually run a computer simulation on this subject. The following is his response.
Dr. Delworth said, “We use our climate models to run simulations of the past 140 years to ask questions just like this. When we supply the models with all of the relevant climate forcing agents (CO2, aerosols, solar changes, volcanoes, etc), we simulate century scale warming much like the observed.
“When we do simulations that do not include forcings from anthropogenic (human) causes such as CO2, but that do include natural forcings (volcanoes and solar changes), we simulate a slight cooling over the last 50 years or so. This is partly due to increased volcanic activity, particularly Mt. Pinatubo, that cools the climate.
“However, in the real world, this slight cooling due to natural forcing agents is dwarfed by the warming in response to forcings from human activity … “
I hope this helps answer your question, Phil. This is just one study, remember, and climate is very complex.
All the best,
Deborah
Phil asks, “How much time, energy, and resources should we divert from fixing other environmental problems in the name of preventing climate change?”
I’m not at all convinced that this is an “either-or” predicament. For starters, a little less consumption and little more conservation would go a long ways to reducing humanity’s negative impact on the environment, and to solving a whole host environmental problems.
In some ways, yes, you could say life is an experiment without a control, since humanity can’t stand outside the laboratory of Earth. But that’s not to say there isn’t strong evidence linking the spike of human-induced CO2 emissions with global warming. You say there’s nothing “we can do to prevent natural climate change.” I beg to differ. If natural means absent of human influence, we’re “preventing” or at least altering “natural” climate change as we speak. I’d like to think, though, that humanity is capable of making wise (or at least, better) lifestyle choices. Since you’re asking to see global warming in a meaningful context, I’m including this site: http://www.ilea.org/lecture.html
Sincerely,
Bruce McClure
I find it interesting:
First of all, Phil (comment #22) expresses his great worry that “any proactive action we take to influence climate change might be as negative as the effects we are trying to counteract. (Do we really want to return to the Little Ice Age?)”
Then, he concludes in his last paragraph, “There’s nothing we can do to prevent natural climate change.”
Which is it: do we or don’t we have influence on the climate?
Dear Bruce,
As I consider the recent comments blasting the good work of the IPCC, it appears to me that an unusual, remarkably transparent amount of conflicted, self-contradictory thinking is being expressed. Logic seems contrived and reasoning confused.
Could it be that many human beings have a fundamentally inadequate and unrealistic grasp of both biological and physical reality? That means to me that some very basic, widely shared and consensually validated ideas about what it means to be human are illusory….not real. We believe things about ourselves that are simply not true but, rather, borne of mistaken impressions and cortical conceitedness some call hubris.
Steve
Dear Friends,
This remarkable discussion gives rise to three humble questions and a comment:
1) In a finite world is the reality of economic globalization based upon unrestrained per capita consumption and the seemingly endless expansion of production capabilities sustainable or patently unsustainable?
2) Is the global economy not organized as a thinly-veiled, distinctly human pyramid scheme in which most of the wealth is funneled to millions of people at the top of the economic pyramid, while billions of human beings at the ever-widening and -deepening base of the pyramidal construction are left destitute, with very little?
3) Given the current scale and rate of growth of absolute global human population numbers, is there any basis whatever in biophysical reality for concluding that the small planet we inhabit can be treated much longer as if this Earth is an ever-expressive cornucopian-like teat at which the human species can eternally suckle?
Please consider the new science from Russell Hopfenberg, Ph.D., Duke University and David Pimentel, Ph.D., Cornell University on human population dynamics and the human overpopulation of Earth. The implications of the apparently unforeseen and unfortunately unwelcome evidence could be profound and call out to scientists for thorough and skillful examination, I suppose.
Always, with thanks,
Steve
Sorry for the questions above. I would prefer that it was not my lot to have ever thought to ask them.
IF only we did not have feet of clay, but actually could prevail by doing what the self-proclaimed masters of the universe believe they are doing: conquering enemies, subjugating the Earth, indefinitely sidestepping requirements of reality, defying biological limits of the human species and daring, like ‘masters’ of old, to ignore that which is imposed upon living things by the limitations of Earth’s body.
Bruce,
I am a scientist, and I am not making a dime telling people that what this planet is experiencing right now is definately a fever – caused by humans. This is not a spike in CO2 or in the climate… what is happening right now is not linear, it is exponential just like the rise in human population. Only a fool wouldn’t be able to look at the history of climate change, industry, and population and see that they are very much so related. And, of course, don’t forget to analyze what the climate and popluation situations were before and after the Industrial Revolution while you’re at it. This isn’t like a minor blood sugar spike after you eat a doughnut – this is much more serious. Compare this to what would happen to you if you ate, oh, 100,000 doughnuts. Are you a scientist? Do you have any analytical training whatsoever? If anyone is taking a position on this subject to make money and create notoriety for themselves, they are the “scientists” who are neighsaying and denying that we are systematically destroying our planet. And most people that I know that deny this is happening (including members of my own family) are denying it because it scares them to believe that it is real. Yes, the earth will survive, but if we don’t quickly and drastically change our ways, we will not, and the earth will have to start over…again. If anything is selfish, it is convincing yourself and trying to convince others that any effort you make to change things by changing your lifestyle is futile. You believe this because you don’t have the willpower to be responsible and do something about it even though it is not the path of least resistance. Every little thing that everyone does matters. The reason change is not occuring is because of people like you. Who are we to think that the Earth owes us this and owes us that – she is our mother and it is high time that we stop cutting down her rainforests and polluting her waters and air, etc, etc. We cannot continue to live in this throw away society. Where do we think all this garbage is going? Can you not see the big picture? As a whole, our society has no respect for this beautiful planet or for life itself. I just want to leave you with a quote by Mahatma Ghandi:
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
It is up to each and every one of us to start being responsible for our actions and to start caring about something other than what is most convienient for us.
namaste…
Jenny,
Thank you for your heart-felt comments, and for taking the time to express them. I want you to know that I’m in complete concurrence with what you’re saying. I believe Mahatma Gandi also said something to the effect that “there’s enough for everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed.”
Namaste,
Bruce
Dear Jenny,
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
It seems to me our society is the ring leader of a predominant world monoculture that is communicating a set of specious ideas about human beings living without regard to limits to growth of certain human activities which are occurring synergistically and overspreading the Earth in our time.
For example, we are told every day by mass media to consume more and more of whatever the economy produces. It would be one thing if the economy produced according to human needs. What is troublesome is the way the managers of the economy are themselves manufacturers of human desire. We are sold a bill of goods we do not need and would have not thought to even want.
For some time I have been trying to understand the basis for the astounding success of the manufacturers of desire. How are the masters of the universe able to ignore biophysical reality and sell others on illusory ideas that humans can consume limited resources as if they are limitless; can deplete scarce resources as if they are available in endless supply or certainly substitutable; and can propagate our species without regard to Earth’s physical limitations?
At least one way to understand this phenomenon could be by considering the seemingly irresistable power of human greed. Human greediness by its very nature denies limits at every turn. More is better; bigger is better, we are told. When have you met a “player” in our society with an amount of material wealth who stopped wanting more of it? Of the masters of the universe in our society I have met, there is one thing they share in common. Millionaires want to become billionaires. Some billionaires with ‘foresight’ can already imagine a moment in the not too distant future when the first trillionaire will be “produced” by our pyramidal economy.
Not so many years ago when millionaires were at the top of the economic pyramid, millions of people were stuck impoverished at the bottom of the ever-widening and -deepening “pyramid.” Today we have a few hundred billionaires worldwide and, not surprisingly, we have billions of people living in material destitution. The manufacturers of desire have organized what they call ‘the only game in town’ so as to take advantage of human greed…....theirs, mine, yours and everyone elses. It does not take a person with an advanced degree in rocket science to see how many poor and hungry people could exist on the surface of Earth on the day the first trillionaire is produced.
One question for us, I suppose, is this: Is the maximal expansion of the global economy sustainable or patently unsustainable, at its current scale and rate of growth?
Another question: Is the appeal to human greed by adamantly encouraging the endless increase of per capita consumption sustainable or unsustainable?
???: Is the unlimited growth of the predominant world economy in a finite world sustainable or not?
????: Who are the actual beneficiaries of economic globalization and is such an economic scheme BOTH intrinscally incompatible with democratic principles AND deleterious to the good interests of the human community?
?????: Has the time come to acknowledge human limits and accept Earth’s limitations?
??????: If not now, when?
Always,
Steve
I was perhaps a little riled up last night, and, Bruce, I appreciate your style of playing devil’s advocate, if that’s what it was. I think you bring up a great point with your quotation of Ghandi as well – greed. Steve, you also hit the nail on the head on this subject. All of this pollution, destruction, and general abuse of our planet and its resources comes from greed. And that same greed is what fuels industries and corporations (for instance, the oil moguls and energy consortiums) to get “experts” to tell everyone that all that we are doing to the Earth is not hurting it in any way. As much as I hate to say it, science can be bought. It just seems strange to me…most scientists I know don’t really believe in coincidence. To their analytical minds there is a reason for everything. But believing that what is happening now is due solely to a natural oscillation is Earth’s climate requires us to believe that the fact that it has begun when it has (i.e. since we have started adding massive amounts of contaminants to the Earth’s biosphere) is just a huge coincindence. It just doesn’t seem very congruous with normal scientific thought, which makes me think that something else is causing scientists to argue against change, be it fear or greed or maybe even something else that I can’t put my finger on.
I do not believe in being fearful. I don’t speak of the damage we are doing to the environment to create fear in others, but rather to create understanding that we need to change. Fearmongering by most of our media and our government is out of control when it comes to a lot of subjects. The government knows it can control the general population with fear, and they do so with much success. But when it comes to real threats, they could care less. I can’t imagine a larger conflict of interest in today’s world than having a president and vice president who are closely tied to the oil industry making decisions that affect the entire world right now. They are making decisions based on what will line their pockets and the pockets of their friends and families, not on what would be best for the people of the world and the environment the we exist in. Just imagine if could have spent the billions of dollars spent trying to procure oil rights for Dick Cheney in Iraq on developing renewable and clean energy sources (In case anyone missed it, and I think most people did, that is exactly what they tried to do less than two weeks into the war until the U.N. said ‘NO WAY!’ and then it was scarcely reported again. I just happened to be watching CNN for the brief few hours it was reported. Of course, now they make it seem as though their mission is and always was democracy in Iraq, and now it very well might be just that. It is what it is, and good, honorable men and women are losing their lives for it.)
I know this isn’t supposed to be political, but the greed of our political leaders is a large part of the problem when it comes to the environment and the obstruciton of propagating positive changes towards an environmentally responsible society.
Money is the evil that plagues this world. The resources are there…now we just need to rid ourselves of the greed.
Jenny, I agree that greed is an evil. There is much heartening work being done on what happiness or well-being really mean. If you’re interested, here’s a post about well-being. Well-being, hard choics and deep change It basically says that, once one’s basic needs are met, money doesn’t buy happiness. But people have a hard time accepting that fact, because it’s part of human nature to have a difficult time accepting loss.
Thank you for commenting here! Welcome.
Deborah
Jenny,
I rarely indulge in satire, unless I deem it the best way to make a point. Comment #21 reflects such an attempt . . .
Bruce
Dear Jenny,
Thanks for overcoming silence and being a clear voice for science.
The thing I fear, and it petrifies me occasionally, is that our brothers and sisters in science will not speak out, as you have done, but choose instead to perversely take refuge in silence. Top-rank scientists in the field of human population numbers appear to be engulfed by silence in our time. If that was so, would their silence not be tantamount to shirking their duties and responsibilities to science?
At least one consequence of remaining silent is that faulty reasoning, contrived logic, preternatural theories and flawed data are allowed to pass among us as if these products provided us with the best available scientific evidence.
Although apparently unforeseen and unfortunately unwelcome research of human population dynamics is emergent, these new data are virtually everywhere denied by most experts in human population science. Do scientists not have a primary responsibility to science? What, pray tell me, explains their silence?
For a scientist with knowledge to maintain silence, is that not a way of deceiving or giving a false impression? Is it not a form of lying to consciously and willfully choose NOT to speak out and tell the truth as one sees it? Of all things, it is the power of silence among scientists that I fear most.
With thank to Jenny and Deborah and Bruce and Friends,
Steve
Objectively speaking, millions of dollars have been spent on a disinformation campaign by corporate giants like Exxon-Mobil. These facts are not secret, and anyone can do a little research and find out just how much bias and misdirection has been funded. Follow the money.
Yet, most of the self-proclaimed “climate skeptics” posting on Earth&Sky see themselves as the purveyors of hard-nosed critical thinking. They dismiss public educational material made by celebrities, such as Leo’s video , because they detect “bias” and “hype”. The irony is astounding.
Even more ironic are the conspiracy buffs who claim that ‘Global Warming’ has been concocted by scientists and “liberals” to make a profit off the rest of us. It is amazing how people are willing to bend over backwards to deny simple truths that they would rather not face.
It all has the same symptoms of an addict trying to justify his/her addiction.
Thanks, Orion and many others, for your comments.
Evidence is beginning to emerge of the systematic repression and pervasive corruption of the good scientific evidence in the IPCC Report. Through many ‘talking heads’ in the mass media, cascading “disinformation” is being foisted every day upon the general public by the powerful and wealthy leaders of the predominant global political economy. These leaders and their many minions appear to have determined that the current scheme, by which the political economy is operated, must be preserved as it is, regardless of the costs. Changes to the current economic scheme are not negotiable. Their one and only ‘right’ way to manage global business activities is so well-established and so successful, they say, that suggestions for changes of the economic system cannot even become the subject of discussion. Such topics are taboo.
Even if the current scale and rate of growth of seemingly endless expansion of the global economy in a finite world is shown by science to be patently unsustainable, these masters of the universe apparently intend that we “stay the course” marked by unrestrained per capita consumption of limited resources and by unbridled extension of ever-larger scale production capabilities now overspreading our relatively small planetary home.
Biodiversity is extirpated; the environment is degraded; natural resources are depleted; Earth’s body is dissipated; and, still, these leaders of my not-so-great generation of elders tell us to pay attention only to economic growth indicators while they would have us ignore the global economy’s very foundation: namely, the Earth.
Can such a thing as a functioning human economy of any imaginable kind exist without that which is provided to humankind for its benefit by the natural world we inhabit, thanks to God?
Always,
Steve
We at Earth & Sky spoke yesterday with the IPCC office in Geneva, Switzerland. We told them that we are a radio show and website … and that we want to produce radio shows and podcasts with IPCC scientists … to help create a clear voice for the scientists who are at work on global warming.
They told us that, while they could help direct us to scientists with whom to speak, they could not help us financially. They have no budget for outreach of this kind. It’s sad! They have the info. We have the distribution outlet. But … despite what climate change skeptics seem to think … and despite our 30 years of experience in the world of raising funds for science outreach … the funding to create radio shows about global warming has been very, very hard to come by. In fact, funding to present science generally has been hard to come by.
It does seem to me that the funding for science education has gotten harder and harder to get, in the past few years particularly.
It’s pretty mind-boggling. There’s solid scientific evidence for global warming. And yet, in the U.S., government organizations seem hesitant to speak out, or support educational groups like ours that see the big picture and are trying hard to speak …
Dear Deborah,
Please do not be overly concerned. When people share an adequate understanding that the ever enlarging size, expanding scope and unbridled growth rate of the world’s predominant man-made political economy are patently unsustainable in the small planetary home where we are blessed to live, we will see shifts occurring in personal and corporate behavior. Regardless of short-term economic successes, arbitrarily and unrealistically maintaining an economic scheme that is foreseeably unsustainable in the long run cannot stand much longer, despite the expressed intentions of so many powerbrokers and their minions in my not-so-great generation.
Money will not always flow upward so as to fuel the maximal expansion of the current artificially designed, distinctly human system we call economic globalization.
Perhaps some day soon money, the kind of money now placed at the disposal of the world’s military complexes, will be removed from the plainly unsustainable global overgrowth economy and put in the service of preserving the natural world upon which we depend for our very existence.
As ever,
Steve
Dear Deborah,
The time is coming, I suppose, when the politicians, economists and demographers are brought face to face with good scientific evidence of biophysical reality already developed by top-rank scientists. They will unequivocally identify certain distinctly human global overgrowth activities: unrestrained per capita consumption of scarce resources, untethered expansion of large scale production capabilities, and unchecked propagation.
Perhaps the scale and rate of growth of these human activities, now overspreading the surface of Earth, will be seen approaching a point in human history when additional increases of our consumption, production and propagation activities worldwide are patently unsustainable on the small, finite planet God has blessed us to inhabit.
During most of my lifetime I have heard a refrain about the evils of “big government” and about the need for the size of government to be reduced. In a time when the Earth itself appear to be threatened by unbridled “big business” and by certain other distinctly human activities thought to be “required” for the continuous expansion of the global economy, could there be value in a discussion focused upon limiting economic globalization, before the very foundation of the predominant human economy is inadvertently and decidely ruined?
Always, with thanks,
Steve
The science is faulty. Please read this: http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speeches/npc-speech.html
Besides we will run out of oil long before Global Warming is a real issue. The Earth will take care of herself….she always has. We are just short lived parasites here. Buy land and stock up, your grandkids will need it when the power goes off for good.
now back to happy thoughts,
Brian
Dear Brian,
You report much with which I am in virtually total disagreement.
Human beings are many things, but I cannot say that our species is correctly described as a parasite. We possess far too many gifts for what you suggest to make sense. What is more worrisome, I believe, is what your point of view means. At least to me, you are saying we have no responsibility for our behavior because we have no control. For me, your view is not only incorrect but pernicious. Human beings are clearly capable of conscious behavior change. Whether or not we choose to exercise our splendid capacities of thinking, judging and willing for the sake of making necessary changes in behavior remains a question.
To “buy land and stock up,” as you put it, is precisely what needs not to happen. Although we are already seeing and hearing about the active pursuit of such strategies by masters of the universe in their already gated communities. Hoarding resources will likely not prove helpful to us, our children or their children for more than a fortnight.
As for the work of Michael Crichton, his stories are enjoyable; however, I do not regard him as one who has demonstrated an adequate appreciation of good science.
Sincerely and respectfully yours,
Steve
Brian cites Michael Crichton as conclusive that Climate Change science is faulty and therefore irrelevant and the issue should be ignored. Others commenting on Earth and Sky have made similar points.
To all of these climate skeptics, I sincerely ask you to engage me in a hypothetical question: “what would it mean to you if Climate Change were real — and that human beings are causing it and could correct?”
Meanwhile, I think as a debater Crichton scores some points, that ought to be addressed:
1)Crichton writes: “Lets be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right…And furthermore, the consensus of scientists has frequently been wrong…Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because youre being had.”
-there is truth in this point. issues in science are not to be decided by vote, but by investigation, evidence, and empirical validity — the ability of a theory to predict future results is the prized criteria, as it helps us understand our world.
-as always there are limits in human understanding, and the world is very complex. models of climate change are based on probabilities, predications are tenuous at best. climate scientists are very honest about this.
-to address climate change we’d need to act today, and take profound costly action – billions of dollars to transform our lives and technology (some of this would generate jobs and help the economy). Yet should we take such intense action based on such limited understandings of the world? That is the question Crichton is raising.
-But simply to raise the question is not enough. It is important to ask tough questions, but to use a tough question as the basis of an argument is simply rhetoric. To actually answer this question one must look at the evidence — which Crichton pretends to do. However, he is highly biased in his selection of what evidence to trust, and he distorts the truth with carefully crafted statements like “with the second graph demolished it is time to return to the first”. But, was the second graph — the famous hockey stick graph— really “demolished”? Not at all.
2. Crichton claims that the “hockey stick graph” has been conclusively discredited in a paper by McKitrick and McIntyre. But who is this pair? Climate scientists? nope. They are an economist and a mining executive whose “research” is paid for by the interests it serves (see http://crookedtimber.org/2004/08/25/mckitrick-mucks-it-up).
-We must wonder if Crichton is truly as disinterested and apolitical as he claims? If he is only interested in good science, why does he rely primarily on the disinformation put out by the oil lobby?
3. Crichton then attacks the IPCC report from 2001 (which is now out of date, anyhow). The IPCC report honestly explains the sources of uncertainty in climate science. Crichton takes this as an excuse to ignore what it says. Seems like someone who is not really interested in the complexity of the world, but more in justifying a position which has already made up his mind about.
-the exact opposite of what he claims to be about. In fact, most of the climate skeptics claim they are hard nosed critical thinkers unwilling to accept the “conventional wisdom” — but they do not undertake an honest examination of the evidence. They pay attention only to those facts and authors who confirm their prejudices.
If you want a good sophisticated discussion of the reality of climate science and its implications, I recommend reading EcoEquity
this website holds many facts and many lies but no one can ever tell. people should never just say something is true or false if they have no proof to back it up.
Amber, that’s right. What you’ve said is very profound. The tricky part nowadays is that people back things up from the internet … and anyone can post anything on the internet! Truth is a very difficult commodity nowadays …
Hi to Amber and Deborah,
Thanks for your comments. From the Qumran Scrolls we have learned that “Not one there is who knows the whole tale.” No person, no group of people, no website, no “ism,” no culture gets to know all there is about the tale of life or to know what is the one right way to live. Therefore, anyone who proclaims, as many are doing in my not-so-great generation, that a single lifestyle is not negotiable because it is the only way to live, could qualify as a member of the group I like to call masters of the universe. The idea that anyone knows what best for everyone seems not quite right.
At least to me, cultural diversity and behavior change are ways of the world we inhabit…..not a predominant monoculture and more fully anticipated, business-as-usual, status quo behavior. The latter manifestations are likely artificial, temporary and unsustainable; whereas, the former appear to endure and to be sustainable because they are expressions of evolutionary fitness.
Perhaps I am mistaken; but it does appear humankind finds itself in the midst of epistemological change and, as a consequence, has some thinking, judging and willing to do, so that viable change will naturally occur, changes that safeguard biodiversity from extinction, protect the environment from degradation, preserve the Earth from wanton dissipation and secure humanity from potential threats to its health, wellbeing and existence.
Sincerely yours,
Steve
Evidently, leaders in my not-so-great generation of elders have set aside concerns like long-term human wellbeing, biodiversity preservation and the integrity of “this tiny planet” we are blessed to inhabit because these noble and necessary achievements are somehow at odds with their most important of all concerns: the success of the global political economy, a system apparently based upon unrestricted consumption, unrestrained production and unbridled propagation by the human species. Could it be the ‘requirements’ of this endlessly expanding economic structure, that include unlimited per capita consumption, maximal expansion of human production and unbridled increase of human numbers, support a patently unsustainable economic pyramid scheme? That is simply to say, the way the global economic system appears to be organized and operated, wealth can be seen rapidly rising pyramidally to a minority of millions of people near the top of economic pyramid while the great majority of 6.6 billion people at the ever-widening and -deepening base of the economic pyramid work hard, but have little wealth to show for their efforts. A symbol of the economic pyramid is printed on every one dollar bill(US).
In the 1980s, this pyramid-like financial structure was called a “trickle down” economy. Most of the wealth flows upward to the few people near the top of the pyramid structure while what little remains trickles down to the many-too-many people near the bottom of the economic pyramid.
Note that more impoverished people are living on less than two dollars per day in 2007 than comprised the whole world’s human population in 1950. Over 2 million children die per year as a result of poor basic provisions for living. Millions upon millions more children go without the nutrition needed for normal growth and development.
Without doubts the predominant, artificially designed world economy is universally understood to be imperfect precisely because it has been constructed by human beings with “feet of clay.” That this distinctly human construction can be changed for the betterment of more people is evident. Reorganizing the predominant world economy for the substantive benefit of a majority of people can be appreciated precisely such changes in the scheme of economic globalization are in keeping with democratic principles. As things stand now, economic globalization is overwhelming democratic principles and practices. The global economy has been made the object of absolute exaltation by those leaders with wealth and power in the predominant culture. Perhaps the principles and processes of democracy will govern economic development in the future.
The self-proclaimed masters of the universe may believe they can live without having to accept “limits to growth” of 1) the world’s ever-expanding human economy, 2) ever-rising per human consumption of limited resources and 3) ever-increasing global human numbers; their wishes may be infinite and desires insatiable; they may hold fast to specious thinking, unsustainable activities and their adamant pursuit of a primrose path; they may choose to have their minions say anything; but, Earth is bounded in space-time, is finite and has limited resources upon which the survival of humanity and other life depends.
Whatsoever is is, is it not?
Job Prospects: Pain From Free Trade Spurs Second Thoughts —- Mr. Blinder’s Shift Spotlights Warnings Of Deeper Downside
By David Wessel and Bob Davis
28 March 2007The Wall Street Journal
For decades, Alan S. Blinder — Princeton University economist, former Federal Reserve Board vice chairman and perennial adviser to Democratic presidential candidates — argued, along with most economists, that free trade enriches the U.S. and its trading partners, despite the harm it does to some workers. “Like 99% of economists since the days of Adam Smith, I am a free trader down to my toes,” he wrote back in 2001.
Politicians heeded this advice and, with occasional dissents, steadily dismantled barriers to trade. Yet today Mr. Blinder has changed his message — helping lead a growing band of economists and policy makers who say the downsides of trade in today’s economy are deeper than they once realized.
Mr. Blinder, whose trenchant writing style and phrase-making add to his influence, remains an implacable opponent of tariffs and trade barriers. But now he is saying loudly that a new industrial revolution — communication technology that allows services to be delivered electronically from afar — will put as many as 40 million American jobs at risk of being shipped out of the country in the next decade or two. That’s more than double the total of workers employed in manufacturing today. The job insecurity those workers face today is “only the tip of a very big iceberg,” Mr. Blinder says.
The critique comes as public skepticism about allowing an unfettered flow of goods, services, people and money across borders is intensifying, including some Republicans as well as many Democrats. (See related article on page A6). The rethinking is helping free-trade foes, underscoring the urgency of helping those battered by globalization and clouding the outcome of a hot debate: Should government encourage forces of globalization or try to restrain them?
Some trade critics are bothered by the disappointing performance of Latin America since it slashed tariffs in the 1980s and 1990s while more protectionist China and Southeast Asia sped ahead. Others are struck by the widening gap between economic winners and losers around the globe. The rethinking on trade issues is the most significant since the early 1990s when many in the U.S. worried that Japan would overtake the U.S., a fear that has since abated.
Some critics are going public with reservations they’ve long harbored quietly. Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson, whose textbook taught generations, damns “economists’ over-simple complacencies about globalization” and says rich-country workers aren’t always winners from trade. He made that point in a 2004 essay that stunned colleagues. Lawrence Summers, a cheerleader for trade expansion as Clinton Treasury secretary, says people who argue globalization is inevitable and retraining is enough to help displaced workers offer “pretty thin gruel” to the anxious global middle class.
Others are finding the debate moving closer to positions they’ve had for years. Ralph Gomory, International Business Machines Corp.‘s former chief scientist who now heads the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, says that changing technology and the rise of China and India could make the U.S. an also-ran if it loses many of its important industries. Harvard economist Dani Rodrik says global trade negotiations should focus on erecting new barriers against globalization, not lowering them, to help poor nations build domestic industries and give rich nations more time to retrain workers.
Mr. Blinder’s job-loss estimates in particular are electrifying Democratic candidates searching for ways to address angst about trade. “Alan, because of his stature, provided a degree of legitimacy to what many of us had come to feel anecdotally — that the anxiety over outsourcing and offshoring was a far larger phenomenon than traditional economic analysis was showing,” says Gene Sperling, an adviser to President Clinton and, now, to Hillary Clinton. Her rival, Barack Obama, spent an hour with Mr. Blinder earlier in this year.
Mr. Blinder’s answer is not protectionism, a word he utters with the contempt that Cold Warriors reserved for communism. Rather, Mr. Blinder still believes the principle British economist David Ricardo introduced 200 years ago: Nations prosper by focusing on things they do best — their “comparative advantage” — and trading with other nations with different strengths. He accepts the economic logic that U.S. trade with large low-wage countries like India and China will make all of them richer — eventually. He acknowledges that trade can create jobs in the U.S. and bolster productivity growth.
But he says the harm done when some lose jobs and others get them will be far more painful and disruptive than trade advocates acknowledge. He wants government to do far more for displaced workers than the few months of retraining it offers today. He thinks the U.S. education system must be revamped so it prepares workers for jobs that can’t easily go overseas, and is contemplating changes to the tax code that would reward companies that produce jobs that stay in the U.S.
His critique puts Mr. Blinder in a minority among economists, most of whom emphasize the enormous gains from trade. “He’s dead wrong,” says Columbia University economist Jagdish Bhagwati, who will debate Mr. Blinder at Harvard in May over his assertions about the magnitude of job losses from trade. Mr. Bhagwati says that in highly skilled fields such as medicine, law and accounting, “If we do a real balance sheet, I have no doubt we’re creating far more jobs than we’re losing.”
Mr. Blinder says that misses his point. The original Industrial Revolution, the move from farm to factory, unquestionably boosted living standards, but triggered an enormous change in “how and where people lived, how they educated their children, the organization of businesses, the form and practices of governments.” He says today’s trickle of jobs overseas, where they are tethered to the U.S. by fiber-optic cables, is the beginning of a change of similar dimensions, and American society needs similarly far-reaching changes to cope. “I’m trying to convince a bunch of economists who are deeply skeptical and hard to convince,” he says.
Mr. Blinder, 61 years old, a Princeton college graduate with a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been on the Princeton faculty since 1971. He is known for his work on macroeconomics and a liberal bent captured by the title of a 1987 book, “Hard Heads, Soft Hearts: Tough-Minded Economics for a Just Society.” When he talked about trade in the past, Mr. Blinder emphasized its great benefits. His undergraduate economics textbook, first published in 1979, says “the facts are not consistent” with the popular notion that “cheap foreign labor steals jobs from Americans and puts pressure on U.S. businesses to lower wages.”
When Mr. Blinder went to Washington in 1993 to join President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, he became even more convinced of the benefits of free trade. He saw steel, aluminum and farming lobbyists fight for export subsidies or protection from imports, and then passing the costs to consumers. “I came out a much more radical free trader than I went in,” he says.
As a Clinton aide, he helped sell the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, although he says he disagreed with the administration pitch that it would create jobs in U.S. Economic theory teaches that trade changes the types of jobs in an economy, not the overall number. But he bowed to Mr. Clinton’s political savvy. “If he had left the salesmanship to me, Nafta would have failed,” he says.
Mr. Blinder left the White House after 18 months for the Fed in 1994, and immediately was mentioned as a possible successor to Alan Greenspan. He left in 1996 and returned to Princeton, where he still teaches introductory economics. Six years ago, he cashed in on his prominence by joining former Clinton banking regulator Eugene Ludwig in a firm that advises troubled banks and another that deciphers the Fed and other central bankers for a hefty price.
At Princeton, he began to reassess some of his views on trade. Visiting the yearly business gabfest in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2004, he heard executives talk excitedly about moving jobs overseas that not long ago seemed anchored in the U.S.
He was silent when his former Princeton student, N. Gregory Mankiw, then chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, unleashed a political firestorm by reciting standard theory but appearing indifferent to pain caused to those whose jobs go overseas. “Does it matter from an economic standpoint whether items produced abroad come on planes and ships or over fiber optic cables?” Mr. Mankiw said at a February 2004 briefing. “Well, no, the economics is basically the same….More things are tradable than…in the past, and that’s a good thing.”
Mr. Blinder says he agreed with Mr. Mankiw’s point that the economics of trade are the same however imports are delivered. But he’d begun to wonder if the technology that allowed English-speaking workers in India to do the jobs of American workers at lower wages was “a good thing” for many Americans. At a Princeton dinner, a Wall Street executive told Mr. Blinder how pleased her company was with the securities analysts it had hired in India. From New York Times’ columnist Thomas Friedman’s 2005 book, “The World is Flat,” he found anecdotes about competition to U.S. workers “in walks of life I didn’t know about.”
Mr. Blinder began to muse about this in public. At a Council on Foreign Relations forum in January 2005 he called “offshoring,” or the exporting of U.S. jobs, “the big issue for the next generation of Americans.” Eight months later on Capitol Hill, he warned that “tens of millions of additional American workers will start to experience an element of job insecurity that has heretofore been reserved for manufacturing workers.”
At the urging of former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, Mr. Blinder wrote an essay, “Offshoring: The Next Industrial Revolution?” published last year in Foreign Policy. “The old assumption that if you cannot put it in a box, you cannot trade it is hopelessly obsolete,” he wrote. “The cheap and easy flow of information around the globe…will require vast and unsettling adjustments in the way Americans and residents of other developed countries work, live and educate their children.”
In that paper, he made a “guesstimate” that between 42 million and 56 million jobs were “potentially offshorable.” Since then he has been refining those estimates, by painstakingly ranking 817 occupations, as described by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, to identify how likely each is to go overseas. From that, he derives his latest estimate that between 30 million and 40 million jobs are vulnerable.
He says the most important divide is not, as commonly argued, between jobs that require a lot of education and those that don’t. It’s not simply that skilled jobs stay in the US and lesser-skilled jobs go to India or China. The important distinction is between services that must be done in the U.S. and those that can — or will someday — be delivered electronically with little degradation in quality. The more personal work of divorce lawyers isn’t likely to go overseas, for instance, while some of the work of tax lawyers could be. Civil engineers, who have to be on site, could be in great demand in the U.S.; computer engineers might not be.
Mr. Blinder’s warnings, and his numbers, are now firmly planted in the political debate over trade, and sometimes invoked by those whose views are distinctly more protectionist than Mr. Blinder. Richard Trumka, for instance, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, cited them in an indictment of “free market fundamentalism” and a call for “more balanced trade policies that protect the rights of workers.”
Diana Farrell, head of the McKinsey Global Institute, a pro-globalization think-tank arm of the consulting firm that has done its own analysis of vulnerable jobs, calls Mr. Blinder “an alarmist” and frets about the impact he is having on politicians, particularly the Democrats who see resistance to free trade as a political winner. She insists many jobs that could go overseas won’t actually go.
Ms. Farrell says Mr. Blinder’s work doesn’t take into account the realities of business which make exporting of some jobs impractical or which create offsetting gains elsewhere in the U.S. economy. He counters he is looking further into the future than McKinsey — 10 or 20 years instead of five — and expects more technological change than the consultants do “even without the Buck Rogers stuff.”
Mr. Blinder says there’s an urgent need to retool America’s education system so it trains young people for jobs likely to remain in the U.S. Just telling them to go to college to compete in the global economy is insufficient. A college diploma, he warns, “may lose its exalted ‘silver bullet’ status.” It isn’t how many years one spends in school that will matter, he says, it’s choosing to learn the skills for jobs that cannot easily be delivered electronically from afar.
Similarly, he says any changes to the tax code should encourage employers to create jobs that are harder to perform overseas. While Mr. Gomory, the former IBM chief scientist, suggests tax breaks for companies that create “high value-added jobs,” Mr. Blinder says the focus should be on jobs with person-to-person contact, regardless of pay and skill levels — from child day-care providers to physicians.
Mostly he wants to shock politicians, policy makers and other economists into realizing how big a change is coming and what new sectors it will reach. “This is something factory workers have understood for a generation,” he says. “It’s now coming down on the heads of highly educated, politically vocal people, and they’re not going to take it.”
Michael Mann is right. False controversy has been created about global warming, but it is the proponents of global warming that have created the falsehood. This is not a scientific debate, it is a political debate and it is being pushed by a bunch of scientific bullies. You on the left have concocted this “crisis” as a means to obtain government funding. The Union of Concerned Scientists is one of those P.O. boxes that you accuse the other side of having. If there is climate change, it is the result of the same natural forces that caused the Ice Ages and the dissappearance of the Dinosaurs.
If you realy believe that emissions from automobiles are the cause of “global warming” then why don’t you with your great scientific minds come up with an alternative energy source instead of just whining and demanding that some one else solve the problem. Or beter still, why don’t you go to China and rail at the government there. What? you are afaid they might throw you into prison or have you exicuted? Well, that is the kind of government you are trying to adopt here. “Global warming” is a hoax, created by liars and bullies, designed to obtain government funding, pure and simple.
Dear Jim Ivie,
While I certainly agree with the first four words of your statement above, your remaining words give rise to the following thought.
Although it is not yet widely noticed by those people who appear intoxicated or, perhaps, deranged by excessive power and conspicuous wealth derived from the leviathan-like, global political economy, our children are already beginning to look back in anger at the way the elders of my not-so-great generation for having mortgaged their future and recklessly devoured resources they will likely need for survival, as well as for having done poorly or failed to do that which we falsely construe to them as exercises of virtue.
Always,
Steve
It is Michael Mann who is engaging in disinformation by falsely implying that all scientists who oppose the theory of man-made global warming are simply the paid hacks of the oil industry. Many reputable scientists have produced solid, scientific evidence that totally refutes the claims of proponents of man-made climate change theories. Block and Bird are also complicit in propagating Mann’s utterly dishonest charge. If Block and Bird have any integrity, they will now have on their show a dissenting scientist who can point out how it is, in fact, the supporters of man-made climate change who are benefiting financially through grants from many government and private Leftist organizations. I wonder if Michael Mann is one of them. Has he received any grants related to his activities as a hatchet man trying to discredit other scientists? It is important for Block and Bird to make clear, in the interest of honesty, that the proponents of this theory have a political, not scientific, interest in shutting down all opposition.
Rogan, we are struggling here to be as honest as we can be. I have followed the global warming story for 30 years, as a journalist, and I’m trying very hard to make sense of what is happening here, in 2007. It is very surprising indeed.
As longtime observers of this issue, we cannot – as you suggest – make it clear that “the proponents of this theory have a political, not scientific, interest in shutting down all opposition.”
That is simply not so. It’s not the truth.
The truth is that the proponents of the theory that Earth is warming due to human activity are not acting for political reasons. They are scientists. They’re acting for reasons of science.
For a moment, ask yourself, what if it’s true? What if Earth is getting warmer due to human activities? What could be happening on Earth today to convince you of this fact? What would be happening that is different from what’s actually happening now, within the scientific community?
We are not suggesting political solutions here. We’re only telling you the facts – the consensus – from the community of climate scientists.
All the best,
Deborah
How does the United Nations learn the consensus on climate change? Get hundreds of scientists with expertise on the subject, being sure they come from many countries, many backgrounds, and many age groups, and that all of them agree to the public act of spending a large fraction of their time over several years assessing the science of the world on the topic. As this writing team works through several drafts, make sure that the worldhundreds of individuals and groups, governments and nongovernmental organizations, technical experts and interested individualscritiques the growing report. Require the writing team to respond to each of the thousands of comments, in writing, based on the scientific literature. Have specially commissioned review editors watch over the process to ensure that the responses are timely, thorough, and scientifically based, and remind the members of the writing team that their responses will become public documents, so that the world can check that the final report really is the distillation of the worlds science. When the governments of the world exercise their right to be sure that the summary for policymakers of the final document is as clear and useful as possible, take the members of the science team to the meeting and give them powerchanges requested by the governments must be consistent with the underlying science.
The consensus on climate change is not something cooked up by a few scientists, or to which they flock in the hopes of fame, glory or funding. Scientific consensus is not an agreement on opinionsis Picasso better than Rembrandt, or pepperoni better than anchovies? Rather, the consensus is formed through the great efforts of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), or national academies of science including the United States National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences (NRC/NAS, which has somewhat different procedures but works equally hard to insure the quality of the results, and which provides the US Government with advice on many other topics in addition to climate change). Science is a vast, seething, exciting mixture of new ideas and old, data and models and hypotheses, striving for the truth. The IPCC or NRC/NAS fulfill their mission by developing reports under clear, carefully overseen, well-understood protocols, insisting that their members and representatives complete the task of providing the best scientific evidence to the people who paid for it. Humanity can always improve, so the consensus is not the last word, but scientific consensus as embodied in the IPCC or the NRC/NAS reports is the best information that humans have produced on the subject.
Richard B. Alley
Evan Pugh Professor
Department of Geosciences, and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute
The Pennsylvania State University
Deborah Byrd,
Thank you for responding to my post. I am glad to know that you take the time to read the comments of your listeners.
As to the content of your response, however, I must first say that you did not address my main point. Michael Manns charge is dishonest. He seeks to simply discredit the character of any scientist that takes a view contrary to the supposedly prevailing one by implying that they have been bought and paid for by big oil. This is not a scientific argument it is simply a crude ad hominem attack. That many proponents of the theory of man-made global warming respond to criticism by attacking the character of their critics should create doubt in the minds of rigorous thinkers.
You asked me, what if its true?. Perhaps, given your 30 year history of research into the subject, you are aware of a Newsweek article, The Cooling World, published on April 28th, 1975. The writer addressed the almost unanimous view among scientists that we were entering a civilization destroying ice age. What if everyone in 1975 had accepted the view that a new ice age was imminent? What if, in response to this impending crisis, the governments of the world had completely restructured their economies, curtailed use of the technologies thought to be the root cause of global cooling and encouraged the emission of massive amounts of greenhouse gases or, as was proposed in the article, the melting of the polar ice caps? Now, 37 years later, the scientists and politicians behind the theory would be patting themselves on the back an