Climate Change / Language ethics

The other half of the use of "perjoritive" language to add emphasis to a point, for example "all the worlds scientist agree" and other "dramatic" terms as so well outlined above by a reputable scientist are best described by Orwell.

From: "Why I Write" by George Orwell, the section Meaningless Words (pp109 to 110):

Quote:

In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly even expected to do so by the reader. When one critic states, 'the outstanding feature of Mr. X's work is its living quality', while another writes, 'The immediately striking thing about Mr. X's work is its peculiar deadness' the reader accepts this as a simple difference of opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once the language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies 'something not desirable'. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the finest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

End quote.

Being put on the endangered species list.

"I have found myself increasingly chastised" made me think of what a fraught rhetorical word "chastised" itself is, to bring into open political debate:

tr.v. chas·tised, chas·tis·ing, chas·tis·es
1. To punish, as by beating. See Synonyms at punish.
2. To criticize severely; rebuke.
3. Archaic To purify.

That number 3 is what I was thinking, from the concept of chastity, being preserved as naturally clean and pure or else having that good, pure state restored to you by authority, through a (painful but required) process of beating out the evil. Another definition I saw said, "usually applied to a child or subordinate."

Which taken together, describes School, of course -- the institution we sponsor to chastise society's children -- and so the use of it here, coupled with what Lorraine is blogging today, gives me something new to think about.

Maybe "we" as modern culture learn that this is what being good means? So we subconsciously carry the good-through-public-punishment mindset schooled into us, into our adult society of citizenship and careers and perpetuate it on each other and expect to have it done to us, that by continuing to allow School to define Good and enforce it as the Public Chastiser, we ourselves can never graduate beyond it?

I do get worked up about climate change because I do think it will dominate my son's life, mostly in a very negative way. And I think if nothing is done, it WILL create catastrophic consequences at least in some regions. But I don't use the terms catastrophic, irreversible, tipping point or the like all that often because I fundamentally feel these are fatalistic terms and I am at heart someone who thinks we can always DO SOMETHING when faced with problems. I have always tried emphasizing that some of the worst scenarios are unlikely and that the "conservative" estimates are bad enough to inspire action.

I will add, though, that "tipping point" is not exclusively used by those who have a political agenda. I have heard this exact phrase being discussed among climate scientists as something that may well be true. But as with several details of the subject, whether there is a "tipping point" what that "tipping point" might be and how bad the other side is are controverisal in the field. I think melting of the permafrost is a fairly frightening concept because of the amount of greenhouse gas THAT will release. I don't believe it is, but it COULD be a critical "tipping point."

I have tended to emphasize actions that can mitigate the problem while hopefully producing other benefits as well: reforestation, alternative energy programs, energy efficiency. I don't like emphasizing scare tactics. But I will say, sometimes the basic data is enough to scare the bejeebus out of me even without these terms being thrown around.

From the January 1, 2007 NY Times comes this quote from another so-called "nonskeptical heretic:"

“Climate change presents a very real risk,” said Carl Wunsch, a climate and oceans expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It seems worth a very large premium to insure ourselves against the most catastrophic scenarios. Denying the risk seems utterly stupid. Claiming we can calculate the probabilities with any degree of skill seems equally stupid.”

Many in this camp seek a policy of reducing vulnerability to all climate extremes while building public support for a sustained shift to nonpolluting energy sources.

I largely agree with this with the addition that considerable public support in some areas exists for these shifts and now is a good time for us to be making those shifts. Some time ago I wrote about some of the options other nations are taking and some options our nation can take as well as some good (in my opinion...and I've made some money on them!) alternative energy companies and ways how consumers nationally or locally in NYC can opt for green energy credits at a small price or, according to one friend's experience, even a small decrease in cost. The change can begin now.

By Terrence Joyce, Senior Scientist, Physical Oceanography and
Lloyd Keigwin, Senior Scientist, Geology & Geophysics

Source: http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/viewArticle.do?id=10046

Quote:

For the ocean, our data coverage is wholly inadequate. We can't say now what the overturning circulation looks like with any confidence and are faced with the task of predicting what it may be like in 10 years!

Efforts are now underway to remedy this. Global coverage of upper ocean temperature and salinity measurements with autonomous floats is well within our capability within the next decade as are surface measures of wind stress and ocean circulation from satellites.

The measurement of deep flows is more difficult, but knowledge about the locations of critical avenues of dense water flows exists, and efforts are underway to measure them in some key locations with moored arrays.

Our knowledge about past climate change is limited as well. There are only a handful of high-resolution ice core climate records of the past 100,000 years, and even fewer ocean records of comparable resolution. Better definition of past climate states is needed not only in and of itself, but for use by modelers to test their best climate models in reproducing what we know happened in the past before believing model projections about the future. We are not there yet, and progress needs to be made on both better data and improved models before we can begin to answer some critical questions about future climate change.

Researchers always tell you that more research funding is needed, and we are not any different. Our main message is not just that, however. It is that global climate is moving in a direction that makes abrupt climate change more probable, that these dynamics lie beyond the capability of many of the models used in IPCC reports, and the consequences of ignoring this may be large. For those of us living around the edge of the N. Atlantic Ocean, we may be planning for climate scenarios of global warming that are opposite to what might actually occur.

End quote.

We've done reasonably well in mitigating the worst of the ozone hole consequences, and in dealing with that environmental problem we have developed new technologies and jobs. We can do the same with climate change.

The quotations above, from Hulme and Joyce, those pertaining to climate change, have been selectively extracted in a manner that distorts their meaning. This is a common approach, one that stifles constructive debate in an area where rational dialogue is sorely needed.

Climate change has somehow migrated out of the realm of pragmatic issues that the human species faces and into the realm of ideology.

The preferred distortion flavors are twofold: 'extreme environmentalists', who insist upon instantaneous radical changes to behavior, and 'extreme deniers' who insist that no behavioral modifications whatsoever are necessary to adapt to climate change.

The irony of this occurring with the use of quotes from Hulme is that he is protesting precisely such co-opting by the 'extreme environmentalists', except that in this case, his quotes above have been hijacked in the 'extreme deniers' sense. Not obscenely so, but in that vein.

Scientists want to understand, to the best of our ability, what is happening, and why it is happening. Can you imagine how frustrating it is to have hours of painstaking labor, and the spirit of your creativity, summarily hijacked and oversimplified by folks who purposefully distort your results to further some personal agenda?

I hope to post a climate change primer in the future. Until then, a few key points:

It's science, and science, as with every human endeavor, has its flaws. Even gravity is only a theory. Of course the models are not perfect. Global Climate Models (GCMs) have been designed as descriptive and as predictive tools, for use in understanding the climate system. These models are capable of representing the major features of the current climate, given as input nothing more than the observed sea surface temperatures.

The largest uncertainty in climate change prediction at this time is in the human element: how many tons of the relevant gases will humans emit, and at what rate?

The next largest uncertainties in climate change prediction lie in the response of the climate system to the radiative perturbation by the gases, and these uncertainties are dominated by uncertainties in the effects of the clouds and aerosols.

Despite these shortcomings, the current warming was predicted, as was the increased variability in the atmosphere, as well as was the Arctic amplification of the warming. If anything, the models under-predicted climate change, in particular the pace of the change in the polar realms.

At this point, the observations (temperature and other data, measured with instruments) of climate change are irrefutable, especially in the Arctic. The climate is approaching the warmest it has ever to our knowledge been, and this warming has taken place over a fairly short time period, since the time of the industrial revolution. While it is still possible that some as-yet-unimagined natural variability will arise to diminish the warming, there are no signs of such.

Since we don't have any way of knowing the stability of the climate system, and since we have no replacement, it seems prudent to consider, as a collective, a more conservative approach to emissions. In particular since global warming is only one symptom of a larger pattern of poorly thought-out human interaction with the environment.

In the US, we have a democracy here, and so if everybody decides that the climate system isn't worth modifying our behavior for, that's majority rule. My hope is that people will start honestly discussing the issue, rather than skewing every interaction toward some pre-planned agenda, so that we will have the luxury of making a conscious decision on the matter.

Two questions I would like answered, are:
(1) What is so threatening about uncertainty in the distribution of the effects of global warming, as opposed to the myriad other kinds of uncertainties we deal with every day?
(2) Why is it so offensive that we consider, as a species, how we interact with our life support system, our terrarium, if you will?
And why do the people on BOTH the left and the right seem to want to avoid calmly discussing pragmatic solutions?