Archive for the ‘climate change’ Category
Professional Ignorance
The mammogram kerfuffle over recommendations for middle aged women is but the latest data point in a disturbing trend : professional ignorance.
I define the term thusly :
Willful ignorance of subject matter experts and scientific data in favor of emotion-driven populism, especially in the practice of lawmakers and professional policy makers.
While it’s easy to hang the rise of professional ignorance on the Republican party in its current form, this is a cross-party problem that was around long before Palin and Bachman rose to public popularity. To be sure, the issue of mammograms for 40-year olds was “resolved” by a democratic amendment explicitly stating that medical professionals would be ignored when setting health care policy. Splendid!
The goal of health reform is to reduce health care costs. Eliminating medically unnecessary treatments (such as routine mammograms for 40-year old women) is a very obvious way to cut costs. Yet when presented with the opportunity, our brave legislators proudly ignore science and reason in favor of an emotional knee-jerk reaction. Do I smell truthiness?
The quintessential example of professional ignorance comes from our ongoing national debate over energy policy and climate change. It’s perfectly reasonable (expected, really) to have a vibrant debate over a subject to central to our daily lives. But as Alexis de Tocqueville observed,
“When we can’t agree on what the facts mean, what we have is vibrant debate; when we can’t agree on what the facts are, what we have is cognitive anarchy.”
When professionals in all levels of power reject overwhelming scientific evidence to justify their policy positions, we have a problem. We can’t possibly make wise policy decisions if we don’t start from a common view of the facts.
For better or worse, this trend of ignorance will subside. Either by natural forces (i.e. climate change) or by human forces (i.e. the collapse of the dollar) we will be educated and discover our folly. But maybe, just maybe, we can all agree to act like adults for awhile and reject ignorance.
(Fingers crossed.)
Filed under climate change, culture, politics : Comments (0) : Dec 3rd, 2009
Update on Climate Crises
We need to get serious. Consider:
Filed under climate change : Comments (0) : May 23rd, 2009
Earth Overshot Day
Today marks the day in the year when the human race has collectively used one year’s worth of natural resources. To put it another way, we are on a path to use 125% more resources than the earth can generate in 2008.
You don’t need a science degree to understand that this is not sustainable.
I’ve noticed a strange trend in the public dialogue (particularly in the U.S.) about sustainability. Most people take the fact that living sustainably is difficult in our society and use that to discredit the very premise that sustainability is important or a legitimate concern.
In short, we’ve all got our heads in the sand and we’re proud of it!
Take, for example, gasoline prices. Burning gasonline is a highly unsustainable activity. Not only are we running out of oil, but the contribution to CO2 levels in the atmosphere is accelerating global climate change. In other words, we should probably find a way to burn less gas. In spite of this, politicians are scheming for ways to drive down prices and thereby encourage burning more gas. Huh?
It’s never going to be easy to convert our high-energy lifestyle to a low-energy mode. It’s never going to be cheap. But we had better start now while we still have a little bit of capital left to spend! (Oh wait, I think we just lost that this week as well.)
Filed under climate change, environment : Comments (2) : Sep 23rd, 2008
Milwaukee : 12th Most Sustainable City
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My home for the last 2.5 years. And the U.S.’s 12th most sustainable city?
SustainLane is a new website that uses contributions submitted by citizens around the country to rank cities on 16 attributes of sustainability. By these measures, Milwaukee ranks #12. This is an improvement from #16 two years ago.
Given the empahsis on sustainability in the city and at the state level, I would expect this ranking to improve year over year. We might not catch Portland, but I bet we could make the top 10 in the next decade.
For reference, here are the current rankings for 2008:
- Portland, OR
- San Francisco, CA
- Seattle, WA
- Chicago, IL
- New York, NY
- Boston, MA
- Minneapolis, MN
- Philadelphia, PA
- Oakland, CA
- Baltimore, MD
On Milwaukee!
Filed under Milwaukee, climate change, environment : Comments (2) : Sep 22nd, 2008
The new Chevy Volt – Bastard Child of a Twisted Mind?
It’s hard to believe that the Chevy Volt came from a company like GM which is led by the most unapologetic global climate change denier, Bob Lutz. Lutz appeared on The Colbert Report and not only trashed the idea of global climate change, but trashed his own product, the Volt.
ThinkProgress has a whole writeup on the odious Bob Lutz.
Filed under climate change, energy, environment, technology : Comments (0) : Sep 18th, 2008
