Since I started blogging again, I've tried to revive Organic Matter without the wonkiness that used to characterize the site. So far, if success were salsa, mine would best be described as 'mild.' I even forgot to include a photo in my last post, not that I have one to illustrate any of the ideas I was writing about. If YouTube, philosophy, and climate change have one thing in common, it's that they aren't very photogenic. Anyway, I've created a whole new category to describe the deepest fathoms of my failure. And I intend to plumb these depths with fervor.

This all happened because of a letter which I was compelled to write in response to an op-ed in my parents' hometown newspaper, the Redding Record Searchlight. In his piece, Keith Ritter cites Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger's new book, Breakthrough, to restate and reargue the tired canard that "technology will save us." His argument could very well be a corruption of Nordhaus and Shellenberger's these - I haven't read the book myself, and I'm hesitant to let Ritter put words in their mouths. Like most of his ilk, he ignores economic realities, including entrenched subsidies for carbon-based fuels, and an utter lack of public funding for renewable energy development. The point is, his piece so infuriated me that I couldn't keep myself from writing to the paper. And having been published, I likewise cannot keep myself from tooting my own horn on the Internet. The text of my letter is after the fold, which is after a completely unrelated photograph.

This is a pretty interesting video (I can't figure out how to embed in Drupal) featuring an examination of the risks/rewards of action on climate change. Some of you will feel a nostalgic tingling when he busts out the grid on the whiteboard. That's because his analysis is an adaptation Pascal's wager, which you probably heard of back in your college philosophy class.

I think that the idea of choosing between columns rather than gambling on rows is valuable, but the author's wager is hardly any more bulletproof than Pascal's. Probably the biggest problem is actually mathematical: he does not (and I would contend cannot) attribute values to the four cells, or to the probability of each row being true. It seems obvious to me that a skeptic would assign very different values to each of these variables than I would, and that any final calculus will probably only back up each individual's pre-exisitng opinion.

But what do I know? Watch it and let me know what you think.

Hello Friends…

Scientists from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) have announced measurements showing Arctic sea ice is hitting major lows. (http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/nasa-findings-on-global-warmin%29)

This past summer, Greenpeace explorers succeeded in making the first summer trek to the North Pole to document the impacts of global warming firsthand and to call attention to the plight of the polar bear. As part of the expedition, the explorers also collected data on ice thickness, snow cover and snow density and took snow samples for scientists at NSIDC.

NSIDC’s satellite data analysis shows that Arctic perennial sea ice, which remains all year-round, has shrunk by 14 percent between 2004 and 2005. These changes in Arctic sea ice are being linked to global warming and changes in wind patterns. The overall decrease in winter Arctic perennial sea ice totals 280,000 square miles - an area that is the size of Texas!

The good news is, scientists say we can avoid the worst if we act now. That's why Greenpeace is putting Congressional candidates in the hotseat. Find out more about how you can get involved www.greenpeace.org/usa/houseparty/

It would be trite of me to try to adequately address anything surrounding hurricane Katrina in the short time I have to slap together a post, but I did want to 1) draw attention to a couple things and 2) get a post up here, since I haven’t posted anything in several days. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to deal with Katrina more properly soon. Instead, I’m going to point to two non-related things on the ‘net, each of which I would like to say more about, but for neither of which I have adequate time to do so.

The first is a recent editorial from the New York Times, dealing with potential changes to National Park policy. This is something that I with I had an actual news piece or other press release on, just to verify the substance of the editorial, but alas I do not. Even so, it sounds pretty bad:

Within national park circles, this rewrite of park rules has been met with profound dismay, for it essentially undermines the protected status of the national parks. The document makes it perfectly clear that this rewrite was not prompted by a compelling change in the park system's circumstances. It was prompted by a change in political circumstances - the opportunity to craft a vision of the national parks that suits the Bush administration.

Some of Mr. Hoffman's changes are trivial, although even apparently subtle changes in wording - from "protect" to "conserve," for instance - soften the standard used to judge the environmental effects of park policy.

But there is nothing subtle about the main thrust of this rewrite. It is a frontal attack on the idea of "impairment." According to the act that established the national parks, preventing impairment of park resources - including the landscape, wildlife and such intangibles as the soundscape of Yellowstone, for instance - is the "fundamental purpose." In Mr. Hoffman's world, it is now merely one of the purposes.

The second is something I’ve been meaning to post on for a long time, but about which I haven’t really been able to come up with anything novel to say other than “whoops!” The fact is that the number I cited for Portland, Oregon’s alleged progress with climate change was apparently dead wrong. I guess somebody forgot to carry the one, or some other “trivial” error. I intended to say more, but it’s been a bit since I looked at the press release, and the website is apparently undergoing some server issues. I’ll try to say more later today if the site is back on line.

In order to offer credit/a disclaimer, this was brought to my attention by Rich Page, who works with the Cascade Policy Institute (I’ve included a link even though the site is down as of this posting), the same organization that I believe discovered and published the error.

Even global warming skeptics secretly know the truth.

Via Environmental Economics.

There’s been a big hubbub this week on the science blogs about Bush’s recent remark suggesting that ‘intelligent design’ ought to be taught in public schools alongside evolution. What caught me most off-guard about the quote is that other people were so shocked by it. I think it’s my zealous following of any news regarding climate change that has made me so jaded about this administration’s willingness to utterly ignore scientific evidence, even widely acknowledged facts, in favor of political pressure, religious fundamentalism, or good old money.

From a policy perspective I’m not even convinced yet that this is as big of a deal as Bush’s willful ignorance of climate change. Hear me out.

My rudimentary understanding of education policy is that curricula requirements are developed primarily at a state level. I think a major part of this perception is due to the recent state-level controversy about the teaching of ‘intelligent design’ in Kansas. Conversely, Bush has the power to abrogate any international treaty that Congress deigns to make regarding restrictions to carbon emissions specifically or climate change in general.

If I’m right, then while Bush’s opinion about ID is an unpleasant reminder of the current administration’s ideology, it has little weight as far as the direction of education policy in America, especially in light of the fact that Bush’s belief puts him at odds with his own science advisor:

None of the coverage that I could find, however, made a very simple contrast between Bush's remark and prior statements on "intelligent design" by presidential science adviser John Marburger. As I have previously reported, Marburger told a group of science reporters earlier this year that "Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory." Thus, my follow-up question to Bush would have been, "Mr. President, are you aware that your very own science adviser says 'intelligent design' doesn’t qualify as science? Don't you consult with him about these things?"

Anyway, for better informed commentary than mine, as well as a list of the multitudinous other blogs that have dealt with this issue, check out PZ’s coverage at Pharyngula.

Several days ago (when it was actually published) I was planning to recommend this post at RealClimate.org, which deals with the implications of record-breaking climatic events. I never got around to it, but over the days since then I’ve accumulated a number of links to compelling news items, each of which has reminded me of the RealClimate post in question. In the order of their publication, here they are:

August 1^st - Global Warming Making Hurricanes Stronger

August 3^rd - Dramatic Collapse of Antarctic Ice Shelf Linked to Global Warming

August 4^th - ‘Strange Things’ Along Pacific Coast Waters

None of these items are necessarily related to Rasmus’ post at RealClimate, but the message to me is that a few randomly distributed out-of-the-ordinary climatic event may be shrugged off as random chance or even a slow trend (as we might see with natural climatic shifts), but thick clusters of climatic oddities indicate rapid change.

Eventually I’m going to get in trouble for blogging things that are two weeks old, but that’s what happens when you’re busy. In truth, I only found this article a couple days ago, though it’s another week and a half older than that:

A small but growing body of research is finding that elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, while increasing crop yield, decrease the nutritional value of plants. More than a hundred studies, for example, have found that when CO2 from fossil-fuel burning builds up in plant tissues, nitrogen (essential for making protein) declines. A smaller number of studies hint at another troubling impact: As atmospheric CO2 levels go up, trace elements in plants (such as zinc and iron, which are vital to animal and human life) go down, potentially malnourishing all those that subsist on the plants.

At first I thought of the results I’ve seen from FACE experiments, but those results only address levels of nutrients that crops need to survive. As CO₂ levels increase, so too does plant growth until another nutrient becomes limiting, a role often taken by nitrogen. This leads to plants with low levels of nitrogen and other nutrients, which to summarize the more in-depth coverage of the Grist piece, is not so good.

The really important part, to my mind, is the fact that this turns the pro-warming stance of groups like the Greening Earth Society completely on its head. The fact aside that the FACE experiments don’t support the idea of a post-climate-change agricultural boom and the formation of a new Eden, this new research suggests that even the food that we will be able to produce in a carbon-rich atmosphere is likely to be less nutritious for us, as well as for the rest of the biosphere on which we depend.

How many different ways can climate change be cast as a human health issue rather than “just” an environmental one?

After reading the bad (though not surprising) news that the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that EPA doesn’t have to regulate CO₂ as a pollutant, my first instinct was to track down the actual text of the opinion and totally take it apart. I was saved a great deal of time and no small number of gray hairs when I discovered that Chris Mooney had already done so.

The only thing that I can think of to add to Mooney’s deconstruction is the actual text of the Clean Air Act § 202(a)(1), which reads:

Sec. 202. (a) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (b)-
(1) The Administrator shall by regulation prescribe (and from time to time revise) in accordance with the provisions of this section, standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines, which in his judgment cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare. Such standards shall be applicable to such vehicles and engines for their useful life (as determined under subsection (d), relating to useful life of vehicles for purposes of certification), whether such vehicles and engines are designed as complete systems or incorporate devices to prevent or control such pollution.

Emphasis mine.

This post, in addition to being quite compelling, reminded me fondly of an early post here at Organic Matter – enough that I thought I’d make a note of it for anyone who didn’t catch it at Worldchanging (you mean to tell me that you don’t read Worldchanging?!?).

While I talked about the ridiculousness of talking about terraforming another planet before bothering to learn how to live sustainably on Earth, Jamais talks about terraforming the Earth itself (although Mars does get honorable mention in the comments):

[...] Even if every human and human artifact disappeared tomorrow, the changes we've made to the water, soil and atmosphere would continue to exist for decades, centuries, even millennia. The question isn't how can we stop changing the planet, the question is how we can do so more wisely, avoiding the changes most harmful to the planetary ecosystem, and applying greater recognition of the long-term effects of our changes.

[...] We're already making big changes, only without any foresight or design; to paraphrase Stewart Brand's 1968 epigram, we are already terraforming Earth, and might as well get good at it.

Each of the ideas that Jamais goes on to discuss has significant drawbacks, due to either environmental uncertainty or economic cost – or both – but the thrust of his argument is twofold:

(1) willful ignorance of our climate problem has created a situation in which significant warming is already built into the climate system, and we have no choice but to adapt to a warmer Earth regardless of the degree to which we abate carbon emissions; and

(2) the most extreme consequences of climate change are potentially so dire that we must be willing to consider measures that might otherwise seem too expensive or risky.

I don’t mean to suggest that hanging a circular mirror over 600 miles in diameter between the Earth and our sun is necessarily cost effective, but I’m always glad to know that people are thinking of innovative ways to deal with complicated problems. It’s clear that emissions reduction is our first defense against a changing climate, but we also know that we’re already guaranteed to face at least another ~0.5°C of warming, so we’d better have the technology to deal with it.