Freeman Dyson is a noted physicist who’s argued—utterly implausibly—that carbon eating trees will save us and we shouldn’t worry about the whole climate change thing. For this, he’s been profiled in The New York Times and now dubbed a Brave Thinker by the Atlantic. But is he really that brave?
Said friend Oliver Sacks of Dyson, “He feels it’s important not only to be not orthodox, but to be subversive, and he’s done that all his life.” For whatever reason, Dyson decided enviros were the latest orthodoxy to need a thumb in the eye.
It’s a pretty common sentiment. Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner are the latest to do it, in their new book Superfreakonomics. Their chapter on climate change sits awkwardly with the rest of their work; the original Freakonomics was based on Levitt’s academic work, real data and models the authors used to make ostentatiously counterintuitive points about perverse economic incentives. But Levitt did no original work on climate. The chapter’s not about economic incentives. There’s no evidence of deep or sustained engagement with the literature or previous research on the subject. The authors just high-stepped in, cast a cursory glance around, and started condescending to the people involved in it (and stepping on rakes).
Why? What leads people to think that entire areas of climate science and policy, the subject of close study by thousands of very smart people all over the globe every day, can be overturned with facile points of logic and Silver Bullets Nobody’s Thought Of?
Well, it ain’t bravery.
The fact is, anybody who takes a poke at the Dirty F*ckin’ Hippies—anybody, for any reason—can get attention and access to media. There’s an enormous infrastructure on the right to elevate any anti-DFH voice, including random economists, physicists, meteorologists, talk show hosts, computer programmers, whatever. You don’t need any particular credentials. You don’t even have to believe what the right does; as long as you confuse the issue, they’ll amplify your voice. (Indeed, they’re embracing Superfreakonomics.)
Add to that the fact that mainstream media outlets seek one thing above all else, and that’s the unexpected, the contrarian. When it comes to climate change, that generally means taking a poke at greens (or better yet, at Al Gore). It’s even better if you’re a purported green bashing other greens. That’s the kind of media crack Nordhaus & Shellenberger dealt on their way to fame and funding. Bash the greens, no matter your qualifications or the merits of your arguments, and you will find yourself on television and in opinion sections from the New York Times to Washington Post to Wired.
Helpfully, when you offer facile dismissals of science and policy to which people have devoted their lives—“We could end this debate and be done with it,” sighs Leavitt, “and move on to problems that are harder to solve.”—they get angry, and they express that anger. Then you get to be the Brave, Persecuted Freethinker battling the Quasi-Religious Orthodoxy, and the press loves you all the more. Why else would anyone know Roger Pielke Jr.‘s name? Lomborg rode that train, along with Shellenberger/Nordhaus and Dyson. In a smaller, grubbier way, even a flack like Patrick Moore (“co-founder of Greenpeace”!) has made it work for him. It’s no wonder Levitt/Dubner thought they could do the same thing, and you can sense their hesitation now that it’s not working so well. Though it did work like a charm on the normally sharp Jon Stewart, who offered Levitt this pathetically fawning interview:
On the other hand, simply repeat the broad global consensus— climate change is an urgent problem that warrants coordinated action to reduce GHG emissions—and you get nowhere. Boooring. (I can’t tell you how many back-and-forths I’ve had with media outlets where I try to explain that the thing most people think is right actually is right, and they say, maybe so, but that’s not going to titillate our readers.)
I could start doing this crap tomorrow: Have a revelation that greens are emotional, irrational, in the grips of a cultish faith (a “secular religion”!). Realize that they’re doing everything wrong, from their message to their recommended policies. Discover that the real solution is ... I don’t know, thorium reactors, and everything else is needless hype and meddling. I could be denounced by greens and wear their opprobrium as a badge to gain entry into cable news and op-ed pages.
I would get the egoistic thrill of subversion. I’d get a hearty band of supporters on the right and thrillingly dastardly enemies on the left. I could parlay the conflict into national attention and infamy. If I was a retired physicist in my twilight years, it might even be a real kick in the pants to be back in the fray again.
Yeah, I could do all that. It would be many things, but “brave” isn’t among them.
Comments
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jestbill Posted 12:23 pm
28 Oct 2009
Your quote was taken out of context. It should not be read to say that climate change can be "fixed" without cost, but that a moralistic viewpoint that we have sinned and must pay is also wrong.
Yes, he seems to favor some temporary engineered solution like spewing just the right chemicals into the upper atmosphere. Yes, he seems to be off his nut in that regard--but (in the interview) he did not disparage the idea of human caused climate change, just the idea that it has to be solved a certain way and no other.
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setb Posted 1:14 pm
28 Oct 2009
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muellern Posted 2:05 pm
28 Oct 2009
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Dave from Canada Posted 3:15 pm
29 Oct 2009
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apsmith Posted 3:06 pm
28 Oct 2009
On Dyson - one sign he's smarter than he is brave: he has not signed this ridiculous "petition" to the American Physical Society, despite his prominent position there (as an APS Fellow):
http://www.openletter-globalwarming.info/Site/open_letter.html
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Jeremy O'Wheel Posted 6:39 am
29 Oct 2009
Yep it would be great if he spent a little longer to understand it, but he's old and fairly crazy anyway, I don't think we should really expect too much from him.
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pacem Posted 7:26 am
29 Oct 2009
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skitters Posted 8:43 am
29 Oct 2009
http://envirogy.wordpress.copm
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BrockSamson Posted 9:06 am
29 Oct 2009
On the other hand, I think it's very brave to tell people "we have to rethink and rearrange our whole way of living in order to preserve a livable climate. It will take hard work and sacrifice, and you may not truly understand the benefits in your lifetime."
It'd be nice to see someone with that message get a notice.
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gonzone Posted 10:56 am
29 Oct 2009
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isaacschumann Posted 11:28 am
29 Oct 2009
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Daniel Coffey Posted 11:40 am
29 Oct 2009
In my most recent column I take on, with a bit of fun, the "geoengineering" crowd. They are another brand of NaySayer.
That column, "Halloween and an environmental 'trick or treat', By Daniel Coffey, Thursday, October 29, 2009, can be viewed in its entirety at (http://www.sddt.com/commentary Daniel Coffey). It begins:
"Trick or Treat," is the classic refrain of Halloween revelers, a group that often, though not exclusively, consists of costumed children. Put another way, if you don't pay us off with candy, we'll do something in the form of a trick. Hmmm, is this how preschoolers begin their basic training as lawyers?
For this Halloween, up to date parents are provided another, newer set of opposing catchphrases for use at the victim's front door: "geoengineering or global warming." This phrase can be used in certain neighborhoods to extract sugar-laden goodies. Just imagine the look of horror on the faces of those at the door, perplexed, amused, baffled and yet willing to play along. Try it, you'll see."
In the column, I go on to point out one of the basic but serious conundrums presented by "geoengineering," especially proposals to use sulfur oxides (SO2) to cool the planet and avoid warming caused by CO2.
I close with "When it comes to geoengineering, in order to remove excessive carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and reduce global warming, my favorite method is and always has been trees. Trees: tall ones, fat ones, short ones, skinny ones, old ones, young ones, ugly ones, and pretty ones, just so long as they're live ones."
More important to the topic at hand, I think that the challenge represented by this book and the concepts in it ought to be a wake-up call for the environmental movement. I don't agree with the premise of the book, but I have written with some disappointment for quite some time about the ironic barriers which the environmental community is erecting to reasonable renewable energy efforts. They don't appear to believe their own message, or at least they are not acting according to the risk they say is presented.
For example, here in San Diego we see opposition to transmission, blocking perfectly ordinary, even tiny transmission and blocking wind projects, in order to favor rooftop solar. This is being done by Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club with respect to a 0.6 mile long cross-border generator tie line intended to solely carry 1250 MW of wind power produced in Mexico. Blocking these and many other renewable energy projects signals that the environmental community does not truly believe its own claims of impending danger and a need for massive, rapid, radical action. In effect, they are asking the world to give up a multitude of things people like, but they aren't willing to give up anything when it comes to what they hold dear. The verbal claims do not square with the actual behavior on the ground. Into the gap created by this inconsistent behavior, coal and what I refer to as the "petite friends of coal" can enter, raising doubts about the severity of the problem and the actions to be taken.
Likewise, in San Diego we have a tiny group of people with their lawyer who are blocking desalination but insisting on imposing a toilet to tap program for all discharged sewage water - the last step of which is conceded to be desalination. This makes the environmental community look anti-people, a move away from the tradition that environmentalists are on the side of ordinary people.
These kinds of inconsistencies are much more important than the environmental community seems to appreciate. I, for one, support the steps needed to head off global warming, but tire greatly of the obstructionist, even petty, behavior in the face of looming catastrophe. Hmmm, if they don't think its important, than why should I?
This presents no small challenge to the environmental community and their credibility, and it should not be sluffed off as nothing, inconsequential, or merely attacks from the radical right and Nay Sayers. The problem is it undercuts credibility in the minds of ordinary people who want to trust one side or the other because they don't have the independent ability to deeply research the issues, math, physics, science, and claims.
The column above says: "Helpfully, when you offer facile dismissals of science and policy to which people have devoted their lives—“We could end this debate and be done with it,†sighs Dubner, “and move on to problems that are harder to solve.â€â€”they get angry, and they express that anger." What in the world does that mean?
In sum, I think people ought to assess carefully what they are doing and saying to determine if they are congruent, or if they contradict each-other in ways which lay them open to attack.
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Dave from Canada Posted 3:13 pm
29 Oct 2009
I find it strange that anyone should expect them to speak unanimously.
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Daniel Coffey Posted 4:12 pm
29 Oct 2009
Yes, there are millions, and a few who are tying things in knots for little benefit. I'm not naive, but I am very concerned that by merely giving obstructionist behavior unfettered consent is leading to a bad public relations situation which is going to have consequences. Its easy to sidestep what I am pointing out, but its not lost on a lot of ordinary people, and that worries me a great deal.
Where is the peer pressure from environmentalists on others within their community to do the right and sensible thing? There is little shortage of suggestions for corporations, business, people in ordinary life, but none for outliers who are gumming up the works, blocking progress which is clearly needed, and wasting time, treasure and reputation.
Why? How about some focus on introspection before the external inspection becomes palpable?
I think one of the most dramatic messages in a long time was PG&E withdrawing from the US Chamber over climate change. Symbolic, yes, but also tangible and real, something others can emulate.
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Locus Posted 9:40 pm
30 Oct 2009
Freeman Dyson started studying the effects of CO2 on climate in the early 80's at the invitation of his friend, noted physicist and Director of Oak Ridge National Laborary Dr. Alvin Weinberg. It is simply ridiculous therefore to characterize Dyson as some sort of newcomer who "decided enviros were the latest orthodoxy to need a thumb in the eye."
Furthermore you say...
"What leads people to think that entire areas of climate science and policy, the subject of close study by thousands of very smart people all over the globe every day, can be overturned with facile points of logic and Silver Bullets Nobody’s Thought Of?"
Late last year NASA-GISS reported an excessively warm October. However, alert readers at websites skeptical of anthropogenic global warming quickly discovered that NASA had erroneously used September's temperatures for a number of Russian weather stations, sharply skewing the results. Now one would think that at least one of the "thousands of very smart people" could have discovered this glaring error but apparently it was only the skeptics who were willing to do the actual grunt work of examining the data. Perhaps our global warming saviors were too busy booking media appearances to crunch the numbers properly? After all poring over columns of numbers doesn't provide the same "egoistic thrill" as giving press interviews.
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eriqa Posted 2:27 pm
03 Nov 2009
If these dedicated skeptics had unearthed a pattern of mistakes, or evidence of NASA covering up mistakes, then yes, it would mean something. Otherwise, it's like gloating over finding a typo.
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witsendnj Posted 9:56 am
01 Nov 2009
In parts of the world - certainly, where I live on the East Coast of the US - the level of invisible poisonous emissions is already lethal for trees - old and young, of every species, are dying in vast numbers. Trees are the foundation of our terrestrial ecosystem, just as coral reefs as the foundation for life in the oceans. Without them all species dependent upon their shade, lumber, fruits and nuts, and shelter, will perish in mass extinctions.
The degree of denial about this is astonishing to me. I've been tracking with photographs and linking to scientific research at http://www.witsendnj.blogspot.com
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Daniel Coffey Posted 10:37 am
01 Nov 2009
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witsendnj Posted 4:56 pm
03 Nov 2009
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amazingdrx Posted 12:34 am
02 Nov 2009
The ultimate measure of coolness is who will your lifestyle attract? Joe Lieberman, Ann Coulter, "drug" Limboob, Michelle Bachman, and those weird talking heads on effnews...or Al Franken, Uma Thurman, George Clooney, Ana Marie Cox, and the cool talking heads on msnbc...
Apparently Dyson thinks it's cool to become a famous clusterfox hero based on lying about climate change, but cool to who? Uncool people. Is Dennis Miller actually funny? Of course not. He's not cool.
I saw a car show tonight where the protagonist pretended to impress a beautiful passenger with a ride in an 800 hp Corvette. Was this cool? Nope. The actress pretending to be impressed for the bit, would really have been impressed by a ride in an electric Corvette though. That would have been cool.
So be cool, stay cool, cool off the planet. Cool? Cool.
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