Ninety percent of engineering is an exercise in fact gathering, making assumptions, and defining critical boundaries. The other ten percent probably involve some form of awkward social communication, gadget hunting online, or feet gazing while slowly shuffling about. Kidding. It's really only about five percent of our day. But since our mindset is so fact based, it's hard to turn off that part of our brain in other aspects of our lives.
Take climate change. News stories on the topic, the few that exist before the comics section or at all, still feel compelled to insert words like "alleged" when reporting on the topic. Or they quote quasi-scientists funded by Big Oil or Dirty Coal to provide the opposition view. While I am definitely in support of high caliber journalism, and many big papers (I'm looking at you, Gray Lady) generally write well on climate change, the lack of facts and the abundance of rhetoric is too often unsettling and dangerous. I think if more of the public had the facts in their hands, there would be much less resistance to curbing the climate change activities in our lives. As an engineer who has read many of the reports on the latest climate science, it's sobering to comprehend even the very basic, top-line findings of the reports. It appears that as we learn more about the climate system worldwide, while inputting the latest emissions figures from around the world, that the climate is actually warming at a much faster pace than even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted in 2007!
How could this be? -- Say many of my friends and family (especially so) back in Minnesota who just experienced a record string of cool temperatures in early June. After a few deep breaths and a slow countdown from 10, I'll say that this brings me to my next point. I don't know if people say this to get me worked up, but to put it in the most basic analogy I can, it's like saying the Lakers aren't a good franchise just because they lost a few games. It's folly to conflate a cool stretch of weather as proof that global climate change is not occurring, or to go a step further, as proof that global cooling is happening. Disregarding the utter lack of scientific integrity in that statement, it's also logically faulty. The next time it's 60 degrees in December in Minnesota, then does that prove that global warming is happening?
I think these examples prove that while weather will be weather will be weather, these extremes in temperature, rainfall, and other phenomena could be strong signals that our climate is changing. But it's important to separate the normal statistical variation from the overall trend which, well whatdya know, is exactly what climate science does! Imagine that.
So while part of me wants to either laugh in disbelief or gouge my eyes out and cut my ears off when I hear these arguments, I think it may be part of something deeper than just wanting to piss me off. I think it's either a general distrust of science or a general illiteracy in it. I'm not saying that these people are stupid. I'm just saying that something in our system, whether it's media, politics, or education -- or a combination of all three -- something in our system must change before we as a society value factual data enough to take stock in it. Even when it's staring us in the face. Especially when it's staring us in the face.
As an engineer, I value facts. As a profession, perhaps we do this at the expense of other important considerations, be they political, economic, or social. But that's why we also have to be so smart in communicating the facts, laying out the impacts, and expressing the dangers of inaction. That's why I'm glad we have some brilliant journalists, honest politicians, and concerned citizens (and scientists!) on our side. But we need to be sure that we don't miss the boat on climate change. While a certain level of understanding exists among that relatively small group, we can't assume that it exists elsewhere, even among friends and family.
Now back to the mumbling awkward hello's while staring at my feet that I need to do to make up my required 5 percent for the day...I love engineering!
08 June 2009
Fight global warming? Why?
Disclaimer: I don't try to be preachy, sometimes it just happens ;o)
My experience thus far in our nation's capital has been one of the best of my life. I've gotten to know a lot of smart, ambitious people who are working for the 'good' side. And by the 'good side' I mean the objectively good side -- not the relatively good side, dependent on the whims of industry or commerce to tell us what to view, but that really special good side, where you can actually believe in what you're working towards. Good for the Earth, for the plants and animals, and good for us people. I'm talking about all of us and everything. Even Dick Cheney. Sorta.
So yes, I'll always hold a special place in my heart for DC. I'll hopefully keep in contact with my new friends and follow their exciting careers. I'll be proud of the work I've done. But there's one giant 'if' to this equation. And that's the climate bill.
Since I work in a giant bubble/echo chamber/circular firing squad, I'm not entirely sure how much mainstream publicity this bill has gotten. Here's a quick summary. It's officially known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act, colloquially as the Waxman-Markey climate bill, after its chief architects, Henry 'The Wiz' Waxman of California and Ed 'Wunderkid' Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats. It's a whale of a bill, even for, I think, DC standards -- hundreds of pages in its current incarnation. Though it's officially billed as an energy bill, it's much more. Energy bills get passed in Congress all the time (though none as far reaching as this). This is also the first climate change bill to get out of committee with a fighting chance to pass the full chamber. So not only is it the strongest energy bill, the first climate bill, it also has provisions for energy efficiency, electricity transmission, tropical forests, you name it. Along with the good provisions, it also has its fair share of industry-friendly ones, so it's far from perfect.
The Energy and Commerce committee in the House of Representatives, as I mentioned, passed it out of their committee a few weeks ago. It's now being referred to other committees in the House, where they will take a look at it and hopefully not water it down even more. After that, it arrives on the full floor of the House. So, while getting the bill out of committee was a giant step, it's only the first in a series of even gianter steps! And I haven't even started to talk about the Senate (well, they (the Senate) haven't really started talking about it either, so I'm not slacking...).
Republicans are good at making good things seem bad. Un-American. As if the slobbering, tax-happy, pansy, treehugging Democrats were in need of a major tea-bagging. No doubt if you've heard one thing about this bill, it came from a Republican talking head or industry ad that calls it an energy tax. Or a light switch tax. It's sad, but not surprising since industry does outspend environmental groups by an outrageous sum on ads. What else do they have but opposition? A solution? Haven't seen one. The environmental community prefers to spend its money on analyses, grassroots organizing, and concrete solutions. So, before this post slips even further into a rant, I'll come back to why I wanted to write it in the first place.
Some people in the environmental community would rather see this bill fail than see it passed in what they view as a weakened, 'don't even bother with it' state. What they fail to realize is that their opposition is just the ticket for conservative opposition. "Look," Rush Limbaugh will say, "Even the environmental groups oppose this energy tax." It will fail and decades of hard work will be lost for perhaps another decade. This isn't like March Madness; we can't just wait until next year to do this climate thing. Or the next.
If only for the political calculus, we can't wait. Midterm elections are in a year and a half. If the climate bill fails this year, a handful of Senators and the entire House will be up for reelection. Do you think they would tackle such a hot-button issue during an election year? The climate champions will tell their constituents, "Well, I tried my darndest to get a climate bill passed, but it was too damned hard. [pregnant pause] But, if you reelect me, I'll definitely get it done next session." The opposition will tell their voters, "You had a champion in me, fighting against those East and West Coast liberals who wanted to take your money -- your money -- to invest in renewable energy and to protect our climate. Can you believe that? Your money! [Another pregnant pause] And if you reelect me this year, I promise, I'll tell those limo liberals what's what and keep your money in your pocket." In other words, a climate bill is not happening next year. Maybe it would happen in Obama's second term, but that's of course assuming, well, you know.
But maybe not even then -- second terms are usually for cementing legacies, not making them.
Meanwhile, the international community, without guidance from the U.S. during what should've been our shining moment, our chance at redemption on the international stage, will have abandoned any hope of a climate treaty with any teeth. And climate change will keep getting worse.
Science is not the roadblock, either. While I don't believe that science, in isolation, should tell policymakers what to do (it should inform policy, along with a suite of other considerations), science doesn't need to inform us of the urgency of this situation. Every government agency, independent research center (no, Heritage Foundation doesn't count), and international research group has produced conclusive evidence that climate change is occurring and that humans contribute to it through burning fossil fuels, deforestation, etc. We still need scientists to work on refining our picture of the future, of giving us high water marks with which our legislation and other actions can hope to achieve in time, but we don't need scientists to tell us that it's happening anymore. That ship has sailed.
Environmental legislation of the kind that shakes the foundations of the status quo is a rare beast. The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments took almost a decade to pass (thanks to the hard work of, guess who, Henry Waxman). Industry is the rock pushing the man (probably a scrawny environmentalist, but for this example, the environment in general) down the hill of 'Business as Usual.' The climate bill is orders of magnitude more difficult to pass than the CAA Amendments were, according to someone I know who worked on them. And we don't have a decade to vacillate between having a bill and not.
Because in a decade, we may be too late. True, we could be too late right now, but I think the people working on this issue care too much to stand by idly and watch the very thing they fought for go down an even more uncertain path. Even if it is a relatively weak bill, it at least lays a framework, a structure, that a truly visionary climate change fighting scheme requires to stand. The alternative is nothing. Nothing to show the world when it gathers in Copenhagen later this year to discuss a worldwide climate treaty. Nothing to show when rising sea levels displace even more people, likely in already vulnerable parts of the world. Nothing to leave as a legacy for the future.
I'm still getting started in this field, just a lowly intern working amongst thousands of other lowly interns in Washington. True, I haven't had a lot of life experience in my 23 years -- I don't know the real world. But I do know that I will continue to fight for climate action because I've been inspired by the people I've met who have almost been drawn to tears when they begin to feel their life's work slipping away, getting watered down. They are setting the bar high -- to them it's not just a job, it's a calling, and I'm not going to abandon them.
My experience thus far in our nation's capital has been one of the best of my life. I've gotten to know a lot of smart, ambitious people who are working for the 'good' side. And by the 'good side' I mean the objectively good side -- not the relatively good side, dependent on the whims of industry or commerce to tell us what to view, but that really special good side, where you can actually believe in what you're working towards. Good for the Earth, for the plants and animals, and good for us people. I'm talking about all of us and everything. Even Dick Cheney. Sorta.
So yes, I'll always hold a special place in my heart for DC. I'll hopefully keep in contact with my new friends and follow their exciting careers. I'll be proud of the work I've done. But there's one giant 'if' to this equation. And that's the climate bill.
Since I work in a giant bubble/echo chamber/circular firing squad, I'm not entirely sure how much mainstream publicity this bill has gotten. Here's a quick summary. It's officially known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act, colloquially as the Waxman-Markey climate bill, after its chief architects, Henry 'The Wiz' Waxman of California and Ed 'Wunderkid' Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats. It's a whale of a bill, even for, I think, DC standards -- hundreds of pages in its current incarnation. Though it's officially billed as an energy bill, it's much more. Energy bills get passed in Congress all the time (though none as far reaching as this). This is also the first climate change bill to get out of committee with a fighting chance to pass the full chamber. So not only is it the strongest energy bill, the first climate bill, it also has provisions for energy efficiency, electricity transmission, tropical forests, you name it. Along with the good provisions, it also has its fair share of industry-friendly ones, so it's far from perfect.
The Energy and Commerce committee in the House of Representatives, as I mentioned, passed it out of their committee a few weeks ago. It's now being referred to other committees in the House, where they will take a look at it and hopefully not water it down even more. After that, it arrives on the full floor of the House. So, while getting the bill out of committee was a giant step, it's only the first in a series of even gianter steps! And I haven't even started to talk about the Senate (well, they (the Senate) haven't really started talking about it either, so I'm not slacking...).
Republicans are good at making good things seem bad. Un-American. As if the slobbering, tax-happy, pansy, treehugging Democrats were in need of a major tea-bagging. No doubt if you've heard one thing about this bill, it came from a Republican talking head or industry ad that calls it an energy tax. Or a light switch tax. It's sad, but not surprising since industry does outspend environmental groups by an outrageous sum on ads. What else do they have but opposition? A solution? Haven't seen one. The environmental community prefers to spend its money on analyses, grassroots organizing, and concrete solutions. So, before this post slips even further into a rant, I'll come back to why I wanted to write it in the first place.
Some people in the environmental community would rather see this bill fail than see it passed in what they view as a weakened, 'don't even bother with it' state. What they fail to realize is that their opposition is just the ticket for conservative opposition. "Look," Rush Limbaugh will say, "Even the environmental groups oppose this energy tax." It will fail and decades of hard work will be lost for perhaps another decade. This isn't like March Madness; we can't just wait until next year to do this climate thing. Or the next.
If only for the political calculus, we can't wait. Midterm elections are in a year and a half. If the climate bill fails this year, a handful of Senators and the entire House will be up for reelection. Do you think they would tackle such a hot-button issue during an election year? The climate champions will tell their constituents, "Well, I tried my darndest to get a climate bill passed, but it was too damned hard. [pregnant pause] But, if you reelect me, I'll definitely get it done next session." The opposition will tell their voters, "You had a champion in me, fighting against those East and West Coast liberals who wanted to take your money -- your money -- to invest in renewable energy and to protect our climate. Can you believe that? Your money! [Another pregnant pause] And if you reelect me this year, I promise, I'll tell those limo liberals what's what and keep your money in your pocket." In other words, a climate bill is not happening next year. Maybe it would happen in Obama's second term, but that's of course assuming, well, you know.
But maybe not even then -- second terms are usually for cementing legacies, not making them.
Meanwhile, the international community, without guidance from the U.S. during what should've been our shining moment, our chance at redemption on the international stage, will have abandoned any hope of a climate treaty with any teeth. And climate change will keep getting worse.
Science is not the roadblock, either. While I don't believe that science, in isolation, should tell policymakers what to do (it should inform policy, along with a suite of other considerations), science doesn't need to inform us of the urgency of this situation. Every government agency, independent research center (no, Heritage Foundation doesn't count), and international research group has produced conclusive evidence that climate change is occurring and that humans contribute to it through burning fossil fuels, deforestation, etc. We still need scientists to work on refining our picture of the future, of giving us high water marks with which our legislation and other actions can hope to achieve in time, but we don't need scientists to tell us that it's happening anymore. That ship has sailed.
Environmental legislation of the kind that shakes the foundations of the status quo is a rare beast. The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments took almost a decade to pass (thanks to the hard work of, guess who, Henry Waxman). Industry is the rock pushing the man (probably a scrawny environmentalist, but for this example, the environment in general) down the hill of 'Business as Usual.' The climate bill is orders of magnitude more difficult to pass than the CAA Amendments were, according to someone I know who worked on them. And we don't have a decade to vacillate between having a bill and not.
Because in a decade, we may be too late. True, we could be too late right now, but I think the people working on this issue care too much to stand by idly and watch the very thing they fought for go down an even more uncertain path. Even if it is a relatively weak bill, it at least lays a framework, a structure, that a truly visionary climate change fighting scheme requires to stand. The alternative is nothing. Nothing to show the world when it gathers in Copenhagen later this year to discuss a worldwide climate treaty. Nothing to show when rising sea levels displace even more people, likely in already vulnerable parts of the world. Nothing to leave as a legacy for the future.
I'm still getting started in this field, just a lowly intern working amongst thousands of other lowly interns in Washington. True, I haven't had a lot of life experience in my 23 years -- I don't know the real world. But I do know that I will continue to fight for climate action because I've been inspired by the people I've met who have almost been drawn to tears when they begin to feel their life's work slipping away, getting watered down. They are setting the bar high -- to them it's not just a job, it's a calling, and I'm not going to abandon them.
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