The key to motivating the country to combat global warming might not lie with global warming at all--it might instead lie with selling the idea in a much different way.  Ending our reliance on oil not because Greenland is melting, but because gas prices are high and oil is running out.  Moving towards a new way of powering our vehicles not because polar bears will disappear, but because growing asthma rates are keeping our kids out of school.  These are the sorts of arguments we should be employing, at least along side those of global warming (if not in the forefront).

What do people want? The immediate drama of the global-warming debate (YEAH! Everyone's talking about it!) or an intelligently prepared future for their children (YUCK! That's too much work)?
Human nature is a bitch. Altruism rarely impedes those who are supposed to know better from selling back their textbooks. Especially that yuckky (BLECH! BLECH!) physics (BLECH!) textbook. I remember helping out an engineering honors student who sold hers back because it was too heavy. If the best and brightest only care about what they can get next month, then what chance do we have?
The real question is: do you care enough to revisit the fundamentals and open your old textbooks?
Your right. It's more fun to just blame everyone else.

Denial about the severity of global warming is like saying drowning is a painless way to die.  According to scientists, global warming is the most serious problem faced by human civilization.  We are at the crossroads between heaven and hell.  The science is clear.  How bad it gets depends on what we do for the next generation.

The young need jobs.  They could be employed making gas from coal or hydrogen from sunlight.  The young want to do the work.  Should they engineer war machines or solar machines?  Adult supervision has a role to play here.   Faites vos jeux.

sunflower
I guess you didn't read my previous post.
Anybody who cares and pays attention to the science of global warming knows that the science is NOT clear. Anyone who claims to be a scientist and says it IS clear is a fraud. I know. I have bothered to go through the exercise of reducing all the historical raw data collected before 1950. There's not much and it is readily available for anyone who CARES about global warming. Where a real scientist is needed is where you run into such questions as why the temperature increase came to a screeching halt during the 1940's and 50's when everyone was burning oil as fast as possible.
'Gas from coal' and 'hydrogen from sunlight'? NO. Getting gas from coal is OK but it's dirty and expensive. Hydrogen from sunlight is science fiction.
You're right, the young need some adult supervision. Lead by example and open a physics book. Otherwise you are part of the problem.

Have you read Professor Eric Freyfogle's new book Why Conservation is Failing and How It Can Regain Ground?  I heard him talk about it on the radio.  He takes the big view -- the top 100 or so environmental groups should form a few think tanks so that they all know how to respond to challenges to their ideas (e.g. "property rights" issues) and so that the fighting and working at cross purposes is kept to a minimum.  It could also help with the energy changes we will have to face, and by extension, social changes.

As to Revkin's choices, could they both be the right choice?  Of course values should change, but whether you say effects of climate change are irreversible in 10 years or 30 years, that's a short time in which to restructure energy sources for millions of people.

OF COURSE CO2 concentration is cumulative and the resulting temperature rise is not instantaneous! That's my point!

But since it is NOT instantaneous, what is the correlation between change in CO2 production and change in mean global temperature (dT/dC)? And the time delay (constant = 1 yr, 2 yrs, or 10 yrs?). And why does a 5-year average temperature slope deviate from the CO2 slope ONLY during those decades?  Could it be that CO2 isn't the only culprit? If there are other significant global warming culprits, what are they and at what rate do they contribute? Or were we simply not measuring any of this accurately 50 or 150 years ago?

Answer these questions with some real scientific rigor, then pop off.

BTW, I'm pretty easy to google.

Ignorance is bliss. Happy plonking.

You raise a critical theme, which is the need to articulate a clear suite of strategies that -- once someone has crossed the threshold to action -- provides a sense she/he can wake up in the morning and make a greenhouse difference. Much more focus could be switched from ringing scary alarm bells to showing folks real-world escape routes. The Times is pursuing a series of stories this year on that side of the issue.

Andy Revkin "The North Pole Was Here" nytimes.com/earth

First off, I was having trouble finding Dr. Wark on-line, there are way too many of those and none with those specific qualifications (go figure). The closest I found was Candace Wark, who does fluid mechanics research.

Second of all, the effects of increased greenhouse gases are unlikely by themselves to have a DRASTIC effect on climate change. The question for all the marbles really is how severe will the GHGs effects be on positive feedback loops and masked long-term effects. By that I mean increased decomposition and output of methane from boreal peatlands, decreased albedo due to melting snow and three century long ocean turnover (with the current co2 resurfacing three centuries from now).

I don't think that there is a climate change scientist out there that does not agree that global warming is not a legitimate occurence. The question is what are the effects and the severity of effects.

James Hansen mentioned on his 60 minutes piece that the Democrats were trying to get him to speak on Global Warming and make the situation seem worse than it really was. The Republicans, on the other hand were trying to cover it up. As a scientist, he stood by his science and wouldn't go either way, but stuck by his guns. There is variation among the science, yes, but we can't doubt it.

If you go to the state of the planet website, there are some great video logs on scientists from around the world talking about climate change. There are some great pieces putting the issues in terms for the "everyman." Highly suggested!

The strategies I think are clear, but should be clearer. We need governmental mandates to curb the emissions. This is the first time in history that we are seeing anthropogenic change in both Carbon and Nitrogen cycles.

I urge everyone to realize how hard it has been to get Americans to take climate change seriously and I don't think now is the time to slow down our efforts to hail its urgency.  I am afraid at the suggestion to emphasize the "uncertainty" of the science because this has been the specific strategy pushed forward by notorious Republican pollster, Frank Luntz.  Big oil and the Right have done a great job of exxagerating the level of uncertainty in the science and the lack of consensus among scientists.  Do we really want to  continue this?

The point is don't waste your breath explaining the nuances of the science.  People will get bored and you will sow doubt in them.  The point is to make people take it personally and get emotional.  Nothing else is better for action.

Furthermore, I don't think people's acceptance of the science is necesarily tied to believing Katrina was a direct effect of climate change. We should stress it may very well be strongly related, and may be a sign of what is to come.  

And please also express other related issues that people care about: pollution, asthma, war, gas prices.  

My message to people is: Bottom line, the possible effects of climate change are much too destructive to delay action.  If it ends up being nothing to worry about, at least we are left with the added bonuses of energy independence, and cleaner, more peaceful world.

   Mother Mary Jones once said, "Don't mourn, organize."  It seems to me that trying to figure out how best to communicate with the non-environmentalist world cannot be decided away from it.  

   By this I mean, that the effective ways to frame the message will come from going out and talking to people, and listening to what they say.  

   Arise from behind your computers and hit the streets, the factories, the schools and churches (office buildings too, of course).  As we try to organize people, the message will "shake out".  We will find the best ways through experience.  

   One of the weaknesses of the environmental movement is that it functions more like a committe of experts (i said this another way elsewhere (grin)) and less like a mass based political movement.

   As to Eric Freyfogle's idea of new foundations, let me guess.  They would be composed of people professors, like him, right?  All of whom would such up large sums of money and resources to produce .... reports!!

   We are out organized by the right because we are not out organizing!

patrick