Americans and Climate Change: Intro and executive summary 11

We've talked a great deal on this site about how best to "frame" global warming. How can we shrink the gap between what science tells us about the dangers of climate change and the relative disengagement of the American public? How can we get the public fired up and thus spur more aggressive policy responses?

That's the subject of "Americans and Climate Change," a new report from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, based on a conference held late last year. The 200-page report can be ordered in book form or downloaded for free as a PDF (uh, PDF). (It's written by Associate Dean Daniel Abbasi, based on notes from the conference.)

Now, normally, a post like this would end here. I would recommend the report and move on.

But let's face it. None of you are going to pay $20 to order a conference report. None of you are going to read a 200-page PDF.

And here's the thing: I actually read this one. The whole thing. And it's extraordinary: lucid, insightful, and practical. So I don't want to let it pass by. (Incidentally, thanks to the NYT's Andy Revkin for recommending it.)

I contacted the folks at Yale, and they've agreed to let me reprint some or all of the report (depending on how it goes), in small chunks that are easier to read than, say, a 200-page PDF.

I hope it starts some discussion. And I hope it isn't, as my wife tactlessly suggests, the dorkiest, wonkiest thing anyone's ever done, ever.

Below you'll find the beginning of the Executive Summary, which frames the rest of the report.

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((acc_include))

Executive Summary

Why has the robust and compelling body of climate change science not had a greater impact on action, especially in the United States?

From the policy-making level down to personal voting and purchasing decisions, our actions as Americans have not been commensurate with the threat as characterized by mainstream science.

Meaningful pockets of entrepreneurial initiative have emerged at the city and state level, in the business sector, and in "civil society" more generally. But we remain far short of undertaking the emissions reductions that scientists say are required if we are to forestall dangerous interference in the climate system on which civilization depends.

In late 2005, the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies convened 110 leaders and thinkers in Aspen, Colorado, and asked them to diagnose the reasons for this posited action shortfall and to generate recommendations to address it. This report discusses findings from that gathering of extraordinary Americans.

Part I of this report is a synthesis that highlights eight selected themes from the Conference, each of which relates to a cluster of diagnoses, recommendations, and important lines of debate or inquiry. Part II describes the diagnoses and 39 recommendations from the eight working groups. The eight themes and ten of the most prominent recommendations are spotlighted below.

[I'll post these in the coming few days.]

David Roberts is staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.

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  1. Ana Unruh Cohen Posted 3:14 am
    15 May 2006

    Yes, read it!I can't say that I actually have read the whole thing, but I've read a lot. You should too, either by buying it or reading Dave's excerpts.
    You can learn more about the project and how you can participate here.

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  2. gerald spezio Posted 3:27 am
    15 May 2006

    Are you kidding?I read the whole thing, and I can't believe that anybody who is not a doubletalking corporate agent would fall for such obvious yuppie shuck and jive. What a preposterous laffer! These Yalie suits are the enemy.

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  3. David Roberts's avatar

    David Roberts Posted 3:49 am
    15 May 2006

    Gerald,The "Yalie suits" merely hosted the conference. The report is written by someone at Yale, but it is simply a summary of the analysis and recommendations of the conference participants.
    Conference participants were drawn from a broad swath of culture -- journalists, politicians, business executives, advertising and marketing people, religious figures, educators, and environmentalists.
    Are they all "the enemy"?

    www.grist.org

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  4. sunflower's avatar

    sunflower Posted 5:52 am
    15 May 2006

    Enemy?Enemy?  I'm a slow reader with slow Internet connections, but Gerald has convinced me that this must be a must read...

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  5. Tom Philpott's avatar

    Tom Philpott Posted 6:08 am
    15 May 2006

    Those Yalie suitsUnfortunately and ironically, universities -- including if not especially elite ones like Yale -- are among the last bastions of truly progressive thinking in the U.S. (Of course, at the same time they're also shot through with corporate and DoD cash.) I say ironically, because too often the academic left fails to speak in a public idiom and insists instead on addressing only itself. Sounds like these Yalie suits are addressing a public audience. Soon as David comes up with the goods, I'll give them a listen.

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  6. martianwalrus Posted 6:42 am
    15 May 2006

    Do As I Say, Not As I DoI married a person who is currently researching climate at Columbia University.  Two things strike me about this community of researchers.  One, they primarily share their (dense and often difficult to understand) research with each other while there is only a handful of spokespeople assigned to reach out to the public.  
    Two, and not surprisingly, many of these scientists, people with whom I've spoken and who have expressed their deep concern about our impact upon the environment, are engaging regularly in the very behaviours they find so alarming.  If the people actually DOING the science are not so alarmed by their findings that they are dramatically changing their own behaviours, why on earth should the rest of America, much less the world, feel alarmed?  Why should we change our behaviours?  Why stop driving, flying, leaving all of the lights on in the house, letting water faucets drip, buying excessively packaged (or packaged at all) goods, and so on?  
    I'm looking forward to reading this study because I need to know that scientists recognize that they are ambassadors to the world of sorts.  The whole world is watching them and watching to see what decisions they will make in their personal lives to offset the damage we are doing to the earth as a species.  I certainly don't claim to be perfect.  I know that quitting one's car can be harder than kicking a smoking habit.  I just wonder if we prefer to keep driving or if we're ready to dig in and do the hard if unglamorous work of changing our deadly habits in honour of future generations.    

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  7. David Roberts's avatar

    David Roberts Posted 6:48 am
    15 May 2006

    Martianwalrus,There's a whole section of the report detailing the results of the science working group: its diagnosis of why scientists haven't been more effective reaching the public, and what can be done about it. Stay tuned!

    www.grist.org

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  8. Rainerd Posted 7:09 am
    15 May 2006

    Good pointsOne might just ask these very questions about the conference itself.  Why should non-scientists avoid flying all over the country when the scientists convinced that stopping such global-warming causing activities is essential still fly themselves to Aspen to meet with each other?  I can understand the value of a good conference, but such a nationwide conference does raise some questions about how important it is to minimize flying and other high-impact activities...
    I can't speak as one who has given up flying or fuel consumption totally, so I don't want to overly criticize the conference or the people running it, but I'd be interested to hear what people think about this.  

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  9. Bart Anderson's avatar

    Bart Anderson Posted 8:58 am
    15 May 2006

    Great find!I read about half the report, and skimmed parts of the rest.  
    David and Tom are right -- this is an important report, with some excellent thinking.  There was not an attempt to reach a consensus, so the disparate viewpoints remain in the report.  As a result, the report is much more interesting than the usual conference summary.
    I notice that the tone of the report is



    intellectualized

    reasonable (overly reasonable, perhaps)

    cautious

    bureaucratic (action to proceed through formal organizations, along defined processes)


    However, we're told  on page 1 that: Reverend and former Congressman Bob Edgar brought the house down at our Conference in Aspen when he recited the arresting Martin Luther King, Jr. quote that opens this report. Ironically, when the group was looking for vision, they did NOT turn to the many academic reports about race relations from the 50s and 60s.  They turned to a stubborn individual who said, "No more."  
    This brings to mind the quote from G. B. Shaw:A reasonable man adapts himself to his environment. An unreasonable man persists in attempting to adapt his environment to suit himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
     

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  10. John Fish Kurmann Posted 9:53 am
    15 May 2006

    Understanding the disconnectI think the disconnect between the science and the responses undertaken so far are attributable to many factors--as is usually the case--but this is the most fundamental factor in my view: Most people do not believe that any other way of life is really possible, and don't believe that changing their own  behavior will make any real difference. They cannot believe this because they hold in their heads--whether consciously or unconsciously--the assumption that our destructive actions are driven by human nature. They assume we are behaving shortsightedly, greedily, selfishly, and destructively because people are inherently shortsighted, greedy, selfish, and destructive. As long as you hold that assumption to be unquestioned truth, why would you change your behavior? Even if you are somehow so enlightened as to somehow be able to rise above "human nature,"  hardly anybody else will join you and the destruction will continue. Why make your own life more difficult if it's not going to make any real difference?
    Until enough people understand that we are not humanity, that it is possible for human cultures to live without destroying the world, and without perpetual growth, I'm convinced we will not be able to solve our ecological crisis.

    The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.

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  11. bookerly Posted 6:04 pm
    15 May 2006

    Media

      I have read the report, and it is nicely written, but it tiptoes around what are some of the main problems.
      Where do people get their information?  From radio and (mostly) television.  What do radio and television tell us?  Radio is dominated by extreme right wing humorists (pretending to be commentators) who tell us to ignore the whole thing.
      Television is about the same (except that they pretend to be reporters).  Most of the time, they give equal or greater play to the idea that global warming isn't 1) real 2) serious 3) understood 4) known yet.
       Why do they do this?  Because automobile, gas and oil companies give them billions of dollars to do so (called advertising).
       When will they tell the truth?  When the money to lie stops coming, or the government orders them to do so.
       When will most Americans start believing in the seriousness of global warming?  When they start hearing the truth.
    patrick

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