Let’s Think Together About Climate, Agriculture, Energy and the Environment

We need a rich conversation about the interplay of feeding people, energy sources, and stewarding the environment.  Focusing on climate alone is not getting us to the necessary depth and complexity.

Let’s posit these things are true:

• Humans thrive best when we have clean water, clean air, and natural spaces.
• Human civilization thrives when we have abundant food and energy sources. 
• Humans have a responsibility and opportunity to make decisions and behave in ways to better steward the natural world.
• Humans choices have shaped the planetary surface, and human activity affects the soil, water, and atmosphere.  We’ve burned prairies, forests, coal, oil.  We’ve made decisions which have decreased air pollution and reduced raw sewage and chemical runoff into waterways.
• Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have been steadily increasing over the past decades.  The CO2 levels have been lower and higher at different times over the past thousands of years. 
• Nothing is static on our planet, in this solar system, in this galaxy, etc.  Weather changes constantly, and climate changes have happened over the entire geological record.  We’ve had multiple cycles of glaciation and retreat.  Land masses have moved.  The orbit of the Earth around the sun has not been perfectly constant. The Earth’s magnetic field has flipped multiple times in history.
• Every complex system works on trade-offs; the laws of thermodynamics do not allow for a “free lunch.”
• Humans have a high ability to adapt to change, and technology gives us even more adaptation options.
• Affluent people have more choices and can absorb increased costs better than poor people. 
• Data doesn’t “say” anything.  Humans say things.  Human nature is loaded with biases.

What is blocking a constructive dialog about these critical issues? My thoughts:

• Labeling someone a “climate change denier” or “science denier” to end conversation rather than engaging in the difficult work of conversation about solutions is a cop-out.
• The fundamental thesis is that increasing CO2 levels is driving a global temperature increase which has many bad effects.  Weather and climate are driven by many factors, so an exclusive focus on CO2 is unlikely to address the problems well.   
• The intense focus on the “CO2 driving temperature” narrative has affected how people collect and present data and interpretation. Willfully ignoring the abundant evidence of data manipulation, skewed data presentation to favor a narrative, and glossing over spectacularly wrong predictions – see references below – leads people to conclude some aren’t interested in using genuine scientific inquiry to study the situation. We need accurate information to make decisions.  Systematically abusing the data poisons our ability to be thoughtful and test our approaches. 
• It’s not science if you only use data (or reports of data) which supports a preferred conclusion.  “Settled science” is not science at all; we have multiple examples of universally accepted “truth” which turned out to be wrong.  
• It’s foolish to make decisions about massive investments and changes in policies that affect billions of people based on the track record of predictive models to date.  We should be sober of our limited ability to build a model of something as complex as planetary weather over long periods of time.  “All models are wrong, and some are useful.” 
• Refusing to answer questions like “What is the right level of CO2?” and “What is the right global temperature?” suggests very limited thinking about the deep and difficult issues.
• Automatically ruling out any nuclear power or natural gas, even as a transition option in the next 20 years, suggests they aren’t serious about workable strategy to achieve a non-carbon energy future.
• Positing that only central government solutions can solve the problem hints at a desire for political power and control above all else.  The US is only producing 15% of carbon emissions as I write this. All the posturing and treaties and agreements in the past 30 years have not reduced the rate of global CO2 increase.  The historical track record of collectivist government approaches is largely negative and mixed at best.  

I propose we reframe the conversation around the trade-off issues, because these are where the policy decisions need to be made to support effective end-to-end solutions, and collective behaviors need to change.  Our current and default behaviors lead us to a default future scenario (even if we can’t predict it precisely).  If we can imagine a preferred future, what do we need to do differently to reach that future?  Let’s leverage our capabilities as agents of choice.

• There are many positives to a more electrified future.  What are the most efficient ways to generate, store, and transfer electrical power?  How can we radically improve the electrical grid?  What investments allow us to transition vehicles and services to electric without committing obvious and predictable errors?

• We must increase food production and efficiency to feed our growing population. Hungry people feel forced into doing horrible things. How can we accelerate our agriculture production methods to simultaneously increase food production, reduce food waste, and lower the negative impact on the natural world?  

• What are constructive ways for governments (national and local) to incentivize private innovation to create planet-friendly and economically viable solutions?  How can we create a business-friendly approach to spreading solutions globally wherever they are effective?  How can we foster many experiments that allow us to learn faster?

• We can’t optimize for everything simultaneously, and nothing is risk-free.  What should we optimize for?  What risks are we willing to take? 

• What adaptations can we make if we cannot alter the weather and climate from current trajectories?

• Automation, robotics, and AI tools destroy some jobs and produce others.  How can we tie these transitions into a conversation about stewarding the planet and caring for all people?

• The conflicting interests of geopolitics are as real as the global environment; not everyone will agree to a given solution.  How do we continue to make significant progress even if perfect cooperation is impossible?

These are difficult questions indeed.  (All the simple questions have been answered.)  Let us strive for wisdom, humility, boldness, and far-sighted willingness to work together. 

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References showcasing data manipulation, skewed data presentation, and wrong predictions:

1. “An Engineer’s Critique of Global Warming” (Burt Rutan)  https://www.burtrutan.com/category/hobbies/global-warming/
2. Tony Heller has published many critiques of NASA and NOAA manipulating past and present data to fit a “CO2 causes global warming” narrative.  Though he has loud critics, I respect Heller’s published work as he presents historical data and challenges shoddy data presentation and clickbait headlines.  He also brings forward disturbing information about where and how temperature data is collected (e.g., more than 50% of the US data published is predicted rather than measured, and until recently we had very little temperature data collection in Africa, South America, Asia, and the oceans.) Starting points:
   1. https://principia-scientific.org/tony-hellers-climate-forecast-from-three-years-ago/
   1. https://realclimatescience.com/
   1. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCprclkVrNPls7PR-nHhf1Ow
3. An example of the vigorous debate about whether CO2 and Temperature is a causal relationship, or correlated, and the challenges of getting agreement on how to measure these things.  https://skepticalscience.com/co2-temperature-correlation.htm
4. Thousands of leaked emails documenting data manipulation and shaped presentations to fit a preferred narrative https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/11/23/climategate-2-0-new-e-mails-rock-the-global-warming-debate/#1365074227ba 
5. There are many assessments of the problems in Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” film – significant errors, falsified data presentation (e.g., showing 20 feet of ocean rise rather than the 2 feet the UN study predicts), and failed predictions. One example: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/10/04/detailed-comments-on-an-inconvenient-truth/
6. An example list of climate predictions which did not come true, underscoring how difficult it is to accurately predict the future https://www.c3headlines.com/predictionsforecasts/
7. A short discussion of the challenges in creating climate models, reviewing their limited success to date https://www.hoover.org/research/flawed-climate-models
8. An example article documenting why the CO2 level may be too low https://humanevents.com/2014/03/24/the-carbon-dioxide-level-is-dangerously-low/

Reasonable people will counter with a long list of “here’s why that’s bullhockey” responses.  My point is that weather and climate are incredibly difficult to measure and predict.  This is not “settled science.” Humans are fallible.  Therefore, we need to humbly approach our decisions about policies and practices.

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Glenn Brooke is the author of the soon-coming book, “Bold and Gentle: Living Wisely in an Age of Exponential Change.”  This article is adapted from one of the chapters.

Learn more at https://encouragingpress.com