I recently came across an old copy of Arthur Koestler’s “The Case of the Midwife Toad”. Originally published in 1971, it’s an exploration of a rather tragic footnote in the history of evolutionary science. Back in the early years of the 20th Century (prior to the understanding of DNA, but after Mendelian genetics had become well known), there was still a remnant of the biological community who preferred the Lamarckian idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics over the Darwinian idea of natural selection of random mutations. One of the vanguard for the Lamarckian idea was Paul Kammerer whose specialty was the breeding of amphibians that apparently few others could match. He claimed that he could get his toads and salamanders to acquire characteristics that were useful in the new environments in which he raised his specimens. This was touted loudly (in the New York Times for instance) as proof of Lamarckian inheritance and Kammerer was hailed as a ‘new Darwin’. It all ended very badly when one toad specimen was found to be faked (by who remains a mystery), and Kammerer killed himself shortly afterwards (though there may have been more involved than scientific disgrace).
The details of the experiments and controversy can be read online (with various slants) here and here, and a more modern non-replication of one of his experiments is described here. However, the reason I bring this up here is much more related to how the scientific community and Koestler dealt with this scientific maverick and the analogies that has for the climate science and its contrarians.
There are (at least) four points where the analogies with climate science are strong: First, there were clear philosophical motives for supporting Lamarckism (as there are for denying human effects on climate change) (see below). These are strongly articulated in Koestler’s book, and it is obvious that the author feels some sympathy with that argument. Second, there is idealization of the romantic notion of the scientist-as-hero, sacrificing their all (literally in Kammerer’s case) for the pursuit of truth in the teeth of establishment opposition (cf Svensmark). Third, there is the outrage at the apparent dirty tricks, rumours and persecution. Finally, there is the longing for a redemption – a time when the paradigm shift will occur and the hero will be proven right.
Enough time has passed and enough additional scientific evidence has been gathered however to show that Kammerer’s ideas are never going to be accepted into the mainstream. Therefore, we can use this episode to highlight how people’s misunderstanding of scientific process can lead them astray.
So let’s start with the non-scientific reasons why Kammerer’s ideas had resonance. Martin Gardner in Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (1952) puts it well (p143):
Just as Lamarckianism combines easily with an idealism in which the entire creation is fulfilling God’s vast plan by constant upward striving, so also does it combine easily with political doctrines that emphasize the building of a better world.
The point is that without Lamarckianism, none of the striving and achievement of a parent impacts their progeny’s genetic material. That was a depressing thought for many people (what is the point of striving at all?), and hence there was a clear non-scientific yearning for Lamarckian inheritance to be correct. I use the past tense in referring to these almost 100 year-old arguments, but Koestler’s book and more recent attempts to rehabilitate these ideas tap into these same (misguided) romantic notions. (Odd aside, one of the most positive treatments of this “neo-Lamarckianism” is by Michael Duffy, a frequent climate contrarian Australian journalist). Note that I am distinguishing the classic ‘inheritance of acquired characteristics’ from the much more respectable study of epigenetics.
The scientist-as-hero meme is a very popular narrative device and is widespread in most discussions of progress in science. While it’s clearly true that some breakthroughs have happened through the work of a single person (special relativity is the classic case) and someone has to be the first to make a key observation (e.g. Watson and Crick), the vast majority of scientific progress occurs as the accumulation of small pieces of new information and their synthesis into a whole. While a focus on a single person makes for a good story, it is very rarely the whole or even a big part of the real story. Thus while Koestler can’t be uniquely faulted for thinking that Lamarckianism rose and fell with Kammerer, that perspective leads him to imbue certain events with much more significance than is really warranted.
For instance, one of the more subtle misconceptions in the book though is how Koestler thinks that scientific arguments get settled. He places enormous emphasis on a academic tour that Kammerer made to the UK which included a well-documented talk in Cambridge in which the subsequently-notorious specimen was also in attendance. In fact, Koestler devotes a large number of pages to first-hand recollections of the talk. Koestler also criticises heavily the arch-protagonist in this story (a Dr. Bateson) who did not attend Kammerer’s talk, even though he presumably could have, while continuing to criticise his conclusions. The talk is in fact held up to be the one missed opportunity for some academic mano-a-mano that Koestler presumably thinks would have settled things.
Except that this is not how controversial ideas get either accepted or rejected. Sure, publishing papers, giving talks and attending conferences are all useful in bringing ideas to a wider audience, but they are very rarely the occasion of some dramatic denouement and mass conversion of the skeptical. Instead, ideas get accepted because of the increasing weight of evidence that supports them – and that usually comes in dribs and drabs. A replication here, a theoretical insight there, a validated prediction etc. Only in hindsight does there appear to be a clean sequence of breakthroughs that can be seen to have led inexorably to the new conclusions. At the time, the landscape is far more ambiguous. Thus in focusing on one specific talk, and on its reception by one particularly outspoken opponent, Koestler misses the wider issue – which was that Kammerer’s ideas just didn’t have any independent support. The wider community thus saw his work (as far as I can tell) as a curiosity: possibly his findings were correct, but his interpretation was likely not, and maybe his findings weren’t all that reproducible in any case?
This remains the issue, if Lamarckian evolution were possible, it should have been viewable in hundreds of other systems that were much easier to replicate than Kammerer’s toads (nematodes perhaps?). Absent that replication, no amount of exciting talks will have persuaded scientists. In that, scientists are probably a little different from the public, or at least the public who went to Kammerer’s more public lectures where he was very warmly received.
In these circumstances, it is not surprising that Kammerer’s more vocal opponents would occasionally give vent to their true feelings. Koestler is particular critical of Bateson who, in retrospect, does appear to have gone a little far in his public critiques of Kammerer. However, Koestler perhaps doesn’t realise how common quite scathing criticism is in the halls of academe. This rarely gets written down explicitly, but it is nonetheless there, and forms a big part of how well some people’s ideas are received. If someone is perceived as an exaggerator, or an over-interpreter of their results, even their most careful work will not get a lot of support.
Koestler ends his book with the familiar refrain that since modern science is incomplete, alternative theories must continue to be pursued. He states that since “contemporary genetics has no answers to offer to the problem of the genesis of behaviour”, the replication the key experiments (which he clearly expected to vindicate Kammerer), would very likely make biologists ‘sit up’ and have a long-lasting impact on the field. This notion fails to take into account the vast amount of knowledge that already exists and that makes certain kinds of ‘alternative’ theories very unlikely to be true. The link between this optimistic expectation and discussions of climate change is persuasively demonstrated in this pastiche.
There is one additional characteristic of this story that has some modern resonance, and that’s the idea that once someone starts accepting one class of illogical arguments, that leads them to accept others that aren’t really connected, but share some of the same characteristics. Some people have called this ‘crank magnetism‘. In Kammerer’s case, he was a great believer in the meaningfulness of coincidences and wrote a book trying to elucidate the ‘laws’ that might govern them. Koestler himself became a big proponent of parapsychology. And today there are examples of climate contrarians who are creationists or anti-vaccine campaigners. Though possibly this is just coincidence (or is it….?).
Of course, the true worth of any scientific idea is whether it leads to more successful predictions than other theories. So I’ll finish with a 1923 prediction that Kammerer made while he was on a speaking tour of the US: “Take a very pertinent case. The next generation of Americans will be born without any desire for liquor if the prohibition law is continued and strictly enforced” (NYT, Nov 28).
#441 SecularAnimist: I already do, in Maryland — I buy 100 percent wind-generated electricity through the local utility PEPCO. It is more expensive than PEPCO’s “standard” mix which is about 80 percent coal-fired with the remaining 20 percent coming from gas and nuclear (Calvert Cliffs). But as Barton says, it’s worth it.
So how are you dealing with the interruptions in electricity during the day? Or are you actually relying on the coal to provide your baseload and instead using funnymoney accounting such that when the wind blows the provider buys that wind power but doesn’t actually burn any less coal???
You have checked into this, right? I mean, a power company would never charge you a premium for a product if it didn’t help, right?
Ask your power provider how many fewer coal plants they would have to build if all their residents went to wind power. The answer might surprise you.
“Nick, you are misquoting” – jcbmack
Where have I misquoted? I quoted you, accurately, as saying:
“Also the green movements are even more dangerous than the denialists at times” (#93)
You have, IIRC, made very similar claims, without evidence, on other threads. Back your claim up or retract it.
“I see I am not welcome here. That is your loss.” – John A. Davison
We will just have to try to bear up under this crushing disappointment.
Matt, you know your request in #451 is unreasonable. If someone is on the grid, you can’t identify where every frigging electron that traverses their house will be from. What matters is that the green producers are supported, that they are producing power and that they are eliminating the need for more coal-fired power plants. That the wind is sometimes calm probably doesn’t surprise much of anyone except maybe you. What is more, it certainly doesn’t invalidate the contribution that green power generators are making to solving the problem of climate change.
Re: Barton (440): “I’d like to be the first to state on this blog that I will pay MORE in electric bills if I know the power is coming from renewables”
I already do: http://www.bullfrogpower.com/
Ray (454), matt’s question might be a teeny smarty pants (though that makes for fun reading…) but hardly unreasonable. He’s merely asking about the degree of reality of wind power replacing coal power, which is less than the panacea like it is often described. When the wind powered kWh’s decrease lower than the subscriptions, the fill-in comes from coal power. Now how much (but not whether) the wind power is displacing coal power is a matter of the power company lowering the production from coal plants and then being able to bring it back on line in a timely fashion as the wind dies down; or buy it from some other producer — who likely didn’t reduce its coal production.
I’m sure you know this and I don’t mean to be pedantic. I’m just pointing out that while it is good in a rah-rah manner to proclaim, “I just bought a CFL so I’m saving the world!” (everything helps presumably), there is room for a rational assessment of the actual degree and the effectiveness.
Re matt @451, I happen to live in a jurisdiction where 75% of electrical generation capacity is from nuclear, hydro, and wind. The remaining 25% is from two domestic coal-fired plants, only one of which is close enough to supply any power to the grid in the region where I live. The specific supplier I purchase electrical power from operates only hydro and wind plants, and actually builds new capacity to meet demand as they gain customers. Aside from actually reducing my use of electricity, which I also do, short of installing my own solar or wind equipment, what more would you suggest I do?
> relying on the coal to provide your baseload and
> instead using funnymoney accounting
Funny accounting: imagining accounting for individual carbon dioxide molecules — or electrons — to claim none that you’re responsible for came from fossil fuels. That’s not what carbon-neutral means. It’s a shared world. Change what you can.
458 Hank, wonderful. I note they didn’t ask what happens when more wind is blowing – why, less coal is burned! That a plant exists is essentially irrelevant to CO2 emissions and the coal plants already exist. Hydro and fossil are the two main ways to level the load, but levelling the load isn’t going to break the CO2 bank.
Levelling can be made far more efficient with the building of an electrical backbone so power can be shipped with less loss. The sun is shining/wind is blowing, somewhere. What’s the fatal flaw in a solar/wind/hydro system with a backbone, and fossil spare capacity kept around for contingencies, with nuclear hybrid tech to add to all types of thermal plants? Add in some wave power and geothermal and whatnot. The more different types of generation and the longer the efficient reach from production to user, the less overcapacity is required.
Matt, please drop the *DORKY* insinuation that “all power MUST come from a single source”. You’re deliberately destroying the multi-faceted system in order to “prove” … what? We ALL agree that wind alone or solar alone or hydro alone or waves alone or ______ alone would be prohibitively expensive because of the required overcapacity.
By the way, nuclear alone would be incredibly expensive since it, like renewables (except hydro), is best run as flat-out as is safe. With fuel being so small a portion of the cost, nobody wants to run a nuke at less than the maximum which is prudent. An offline nuke costs almost as much as one going full blast. Goose and gander, Matt.
Captcha sez, “reply greatly”
Rod, in my experience, human actions don’t make things perfect. They make things better or they make things worse. To contend that because something doesn’t make things perfect it is worthless is not just “smarty-pants,” it’s flat dishonest and counter-productive.
It seems that the denialist tactics run a predictable course
1)It’s not happening.
2)It’s happening, but it’s not our fault.
3)It’s happening and maybe we’re doing it, but it’s not that bad.
4)It’s happening and maybe we’re doing it and maybe it will be bad, but doing something about it will be too hard/impossible.
I’m afraid I have zero sympathy for any of these lines of argument. 1) is not tenable. 2) is ignorant and irresponsible; 3) doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, and 4) is damned pathetic.
matt, 451. Uh, when has there NEVER BEEN ***anywhere*** on the planet, no wind?
Now in my neck of the woods, there are not coal deposits. Not a lump. Not even a power station burning it. Yet we still have coal-powered electricity coming in the house.
It’s called “An Electricity Grid”. It’s quite the modern convenience, as opposed to the old days when you had to go out and pick your own electrons to power your computer…
Re #461: “Uh, when has there NEVER BEEN ***anywhere*** on the planet, no wind?”
Not the operative question. Ask instead about the variation in wind over the distances – on the order of 1000 miles – which existing/practical transmission grids can transport power.
So for a practical example, say you’ve got wind power capable of providing, in average wind conditions, 50% the power needed by the WSCC (the western US, basically) grid. The turbines are well distributed across the area. Given weather variability, on how many days of the year will the wind power be only 25% of what’s needed? 10%?
As has been pointed out in past threads, improving energy storage technologies will do a lot to facilitate adopting renewable energy generation technologies such as wind, solar, tidal and so forth. And fortunately, as has also been pointed out previously, this is more of an engineering problem than a science problem because scientific breakthroughs are not needed, just refinement of already demonstrated technologies. Flywheel, pumped storage, compressed air, and molten salt are just several of the approaches that have been demonstrated for storing energy. And, of course, many off-the-grid systems use battery banks to ensure 24/7 power is available.
If you feel that energy storage is unrealistic/uneconomical then check out the website for Beacon Power. Their off-the-shelf unit is a compact, reliable 25 kwh flywheel which can be used both for energy storage and grid load regulation. Installations are under construction which will have as many as 200 of these flywheel units working together. There is every reason to believe that such systems will become more cost-effective, more reliable and have greater capacity in the near future.
While there is a lot of truth in the old saying “There’s no horse so dead it can’t be beaten” isn’t there anyway we can stop rehashing discussions we’ve had multiple times? Renewable and sustainable energy generation is in our foreseeable future, and the faster we wean ourselves from fossil fuels the better. If you are unhappy about those realities, go and have a good cry and then come back to the forum with ideas about how to make the enormous transition as efficiently as possible. We need all the good ideas we can get.
Cheers – Phillip
> degree of reality
Make a list of all the different things that can be improved. Anyone old enough to remember when rare-earth magnets first became commercially common? All of a sudden audio speakers could be made really small, yet still sound good.
Improve the efficiency of electric transmission and you don’t just get a better grid. You get better generators and motors, with better electromagnets and better winding wire. Come up with other ways to take electrons out of any system (whether a better way of changing the relation between a current-carrier and a magnetic field, or biomimicry of photosyntesis). Stronger materials lighten and shrink everything that we can build now, improve everything we can barely build safely (big heavy fast flywheels), and make dreams possible (skyhooks? vacuum-“filled” rigid airships?).
If someone were to lay out a database with all the varieties of tech, all the current limiting factors, and all the economics, we might notice particular key items that could be slightly improved that would give us the most bang for the buck by improving a lot of different things slightly.
But to do that we’d probably need much better databases and spreadsheets.
Ray, was your #460 responding to my #456? If so, I missed it completely. What does your four steps have to do with assessing how effectively utilities handle a somewhat unpredictable variable supply with a varying load??
Re #463: “If you feel that energy storage is unrealistic/uneconomical then check out the website for Beacon Power. Their off-the-shelf unit is a compact, reliable 25 kwh flywheel…”
Now how exactly are we supposed to check out the “uneconomical” part, when they seemingly can’t be bothered to post the price of their units?
Even if you do have a price, you still wind up with the same meteorological/statistical problem: how much extra capacity and/or storage do you need to build into the system in order to provide a specified quality of service? How much will it cost? It’s not a dead horse, but a real live engineering problem.
I don’t think you can just handwave epigenetics away from Lamarckian inheritance. There is, for example, mounting evidence that suggests that epigenetic changes with respect to obesity can be passed through multiple generations. This is — in terms of anticipated outcomes — pure Lamarckian. Mechanistically, of course, it’s different to what Lamarck had in mind, but that’s not the point; what’s important is that some of Kammerer’s results could actually have been examples of epigenetic inheritance.
(To put it another way, if someone in the 1930s had suggested that a tendency to obesity was partly affected by the diet of the individual’s grandparents, they would have been ridiculed as Lamarckian. Whereas in reality, the processes of inheritance weren’t quite as simple as people thought.)
There is, sadly, an incredible tendency amongst scientists to resist change. When Koestler wrote about the trouble caused by the “scientific backwoodsmen” in another (and less controversial) work, “The Sleepwalkers”, he hit the nail on the head. Similarly, Schopenhauer pointed out that all truth is first ridiculed, and then violently opposed, before being accepted as self-evident. The only exceptions are when a discovery is made before fixed opinions have been formed (and scientific reputations staked upon their conclusions).
(Not that any of this means that climate sceptics are right when they stand against the weight of scientific opinion — just because all truths are ridiculed, it doesn’t follow that everything that is ridiculed is true!)
James says: “It’s not a dead horse, but a real live engineering problem.”
Yup. But at least it isn’t a “science experiment” as the engineers are fond of saying to me. An engineering product can be… well, engineered. There’s a technology, which we can improve. Moreover it is a technology where materials science can make great contributions, and materials science is advancing rapidly.
Rod, I am just pointing out the irony of denialists spending a decade preventing action on climate change and then wringing their hands because it’s too late. We’re playing catchup. The most critical thing now is to gain back as much time as possible, so any action, however small, that makes things better is welcome
“There is, for example, mounting evidence that suggests that epigenetic changes with respect to obesity can be passed through multiple generations. This is — in terms of anticipated outcomes — pure Lamarckian.” Bemused
Not really. Lamarck believed that striving to achieve an adaptive advantage was key to IAC. I suppose you could say that people “strive” to be obese by eating too much, but it certainly isn’t advantageous. Lamarck would not have expected obesity to be inherited unless these conditions were fulfilled. Lamarck also believed in an innate drive toward complexity in evolution – a kind of vital force. It’s these teleological features that made Lamarckianism attractive to non-scientists (I could justifiably use much ruder epithets) such as Koestler. Incidentally, Darwin thought IAC likely to be true – he just thought natural selection was more important.
“There is, sadly, an incredible tendency amongst scientists to resist change.” – Bemused
Again, not really. There is a (necessary, creative) tension between conservatism and innovation in science. Quite rightly, scientists do not throw away decades’ work because of a single apparent anomaly; but when convincing new evidence (particularly new kinds of evidence) becomes available, change can be very rapid. Review the history of continental drift – once sea-floor spreading was demonstrated from magnetic stripes on the sea-bed, detected by new technology, continental drift was accepted very rapidly, and developed into the subdiscipline of plate tectonics. More recently, consider the rapid (perhaps even too rapid) acceptance of the acceleration of cosmic expansion.
Re #468: “There’s a technology, which we can improve.”
Yes, and a cost associated with that technology, which could be calculated (for current technology), or estimated given realistic future improvements. The same applies to other technologies. But very few people seem interested in making such realistic estimates, or considering them in the rare cases where they’ve been made. They’d rather pick (or dismiss) some particular technology on ideological grounds, then “cook the books” to support their choice.
Recommended reading on alternative energy solutions:
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security
By Mark Z. Jacobson
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Stanford University, Stanford, California
Energy & Environmental Science, 2009, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Abstract:
Of particular interest to the discussion on this thread is the article’s detailed discussion of “intermittency and how to address it”, summarized as follows:
The article also analyzes the relative opportunity costs of different technologies:
From the conclusions (emphasis added):
Ray, so, are you saying we should not assess how effectively, at the engineering and implementation levels, utilities handle a somewhat unpredictable variable alternative supply such as wind turbines with a varying load??? We don’t have enough time??
Nick (471), I agree with your point, but in the long run — usually a very long run. I don’t think that refutes Bemused’s point at all. Science came around to plate tectonics but only after 40-50 years of vilifying and/or shunning Wegener and his theory. An interesting read of J. Marvin Herndon’s thoughts on supporting contrary scientists (he has a counter theory to plate tectonics!) is here: http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0510/0510090.pdf
Rod B 399… good points.
SecularAnimist (473), the Prof’s load-leveling techniques are logical but seem to brush away major practical difficulties. Sounds like he just kinda magically puts down this humongous totally new grid — and in all the correct spots the first time. And I think “smart meter” means Charlie can not recharge his EV when he might need to because the wind die-down told his station’s smart meter, “no electricity. Come back later”, though a really sophisticated and robust grid might mitigate that.
T. Boone Pickens is looking at 8+ years for his wind farm. Plus there is no physical reason why nuclear plants can not be constructed (form concept to on-line) in 10 years or less. Maybe also for hydro, though hydro is a little more dicey for 10 years for most locales. Why did not he assess natural gas? Or did I just miss it? Or is it close enough to coal to not matter much?
None-the-less it looks like a decent study, worth looking at.
#461 Mark: matt, 451. Uh, when has there NEVER BEEN ***anywhere*** on the planet, no wind? Now in my neck of the woods, there are not coal deposits. Not a lump. Not even a power station burning it. Yet we still have coal-powered electricity coming in the house. It’s called “An Electricity Grid”. It’s quite the modern convenience, as opposed to the old days when you had to go out and pick your own electrons to power your computer…
You have a Popular Science level of understanding about the grid, but you need to learn more. It’s not one grid, and the reason is because the transmission lines would have to be as thick as tree trunks to make it so. If it was one grid, then when you had a massive power loss in the North East, then you’d simple expect the midwest and rest of the east coast to pick up the slack. But for them to do that, suddenly power lines flowing between the areas would need to carry 4-5X the normal power, and they’d melt. So, all the regions are gated off, the what flows between them is very limited and carefully monitored.
You actually should have asked yourself this question the first time you saw a region of the country dark while the rest was lit up. Didn’t your brain say “Huh, that’s odd. I thought all this was a single grid???”
Rod B wrote: “Ray, so, are you saying we should not assess how effectively, at the engineering and implementation levels, utilities handle a somewhat unpredictable variable alternative supply such as wind turbines with a varying load?”
What makes you think this has not already been, and is not being, assessed? What makes you think there are not already a lot of very smart people working on developing a next-generation electrical grid designed from the ground up to integrate diverse, centralized & distributed, small & large scale, baseload and intermittent energy sources, consumers and storage? Because, in fact, there are.
“Science came around to plate tectonics but only after 40-50 years of vilifying and/or shunning Wegener and his theory.” – Rod B
Until the discovery of magnetic stripes on the ocean floor, there was insufficient evidence to make a really convincing case for continental drift. I’m not in the least surprised that you reference an obvious crank, whose (non-peer-reviewed) “paper” lacks the calculations the author claims to have done, and has no references whatever. I really don’t thinkyou have the slightest idea how science works.
#462 James: So for a practical example, say you’ve got wind power capable of providing, in average wind conditions, 50% the power needed by the WSCC (the western US, basically) grid. The turbines are well distributed across the area. Given weather variability, on how many days of the year will the wind power be only 25% of what’s needed? 10%?
Interestinly, a single wind farm generates 0 watts of power about 92% of the hours in the year.
The previously noted study (http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/aj07_jamc.pdf) shows in Figure 3 how many of these geographically diverse wind farms you need to connect to get reliable power. They show that connecting 19 wind farms, spread across 5 states, permits you to get 20% of your rated power with 80% reliability (about that of nuclear, slighty worse than coal).
So, using our previously discussed cost of wiring the entire US with wind costing $6T (assuming 100% of nameplate), in actuality that cost would go to $30T if you wanted that power available 80% of the time. And that cost doesn’t include connecting the wind farms together across these 5 states. No, the current grid cannot be relied upon to do that.
#454 Ray Ladbury: Matt, you know your request in #451 is unreasonable. If someone is on the grid, you can’t identify where every frigging electron that traverses their house will be from. What matters is that the green producers are supported, that they are producing power and that they are eliminating the need for more coal-fired power plants.
No, what matters is if a specific action actually reduces CO2 in an amount that is sufficient to meet the goals IF it were adopted by a massive number of people. Driving a Hybrid Escalade doesn’t count. Offsetting an overseas vacation with carbon credits doesn’t count. Paying extra for green electricity doesn’t count. And yes, driving a Prius and installign CFL’s doesn’t count. None of these actions, if done by the entire world, reduces our carbon output enough to change the outcome. Yes it helps, but kind of like bailing out NOLA with a coffee cup helps.
So, the TEST for whether or not something is “green” should be: “If my action were replicated by everyone in the world, would it change our CO2 emissions such that disaster would be averted?”.
If someone installs solar on their roof moves to an electric car, and they reduce their electric consumption from the power company by 95%, and they eliminate gasoline consumption, then that counts. That is green. Because if the entire world did it, it would radically change our predicament.
But if the entire world paid extra for green electricity, it wouldn’t change our outcome, because there’d not be enough to sell at the current (artificially low) price.
I’m so tired of seeing SUV drivers claiming to be green because they’ve installed CFLs and they use hemp bags.
re: #480 Nick (& previous) on continental drift
Actually, many scientists did *not* villify Wegener, and there was a complex American/European split of opinion for decades, i.e., this was a *real* scientific controversy … strangely, settled quickly when the right data was obtained :-)
Naomi Oreskes’ The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science is a useful history, and the topic is much more complex than I’d ever realized before reading that.
For a short discussion of a long book, see this comment, and later comments #34 and #36 in that thread.
Nick the claim backs up itself, no references needed it is common knowledge.
John Mashey,
Thanks very much – most interesting. I’ll try to find time to read Oreskes’ book.
jcbmack@484
Tosh: no claim “backs itself up”, and this one is most certainly not “common knowledge”. If you can’t back it up – and it appears you can’t – you should withdraw it.
Matt, Uh, no. The criterion is whether the actions reduces the carbon content of the atmosphere from what it would have been otherwise. Green is a comparative, not an absolute. Does the SUV driver who uses CFLs reduce his carbon emissions. Yup. Great, now let’s work on making him want to buy a Prius.
Victory in this war is going to consist of 9 billion smaller victories–the ones that buy us time, that keep us from tipping over too many tipping points. So, small actions do matter, and the denialist argument that we can’t do anything about the threat we face is just as stupid and irresponsible as their argument that we aren’t causing it.
Nick,
it will never be withdrawn… in the beginning the “green movement,” in large part supported using ethanol processed from corn for use in the production of fuels and has ended up leading to a potential corn shortage for food supplies,made gasoline a little more expensive, and due to the energy that goes into making the ethanol the carbon footprint actually went up.
Point #2: many green movements who advertise on television and the internet claim that no clean coal exists or can exist, actually it is possible to create clean coal and utilize carbon capture that is safe and actually works.
point #3: many in the green movement have supported SO2 injection into the stratosphere, well, this is a huge mistake and not any safer than continuing to emit large amounts of CO2 and CH4. I will say that many scientists including climatologists have taken this option under serious consideration, but this is unsafe, expensive and detrimental process. Some may on the principle of scientific possibility and recent coverage in Sci Am and Nature as well as here at RC wish to dismiss this point; here I will concede with some hesitancy.
point #4:Julia Roberts and other Hollywood stars only shower one to two times a week thinking they are making a major impact on water usage and emissions, when in fact they are making absolutely no difference whatsoever. Other average citizens think that we all can just move onto plots of land, grow our own vegetables and have near zero carbon footprints, this is not feasible both due to human nature and the technology we use in medicine and military applications, etc… all contribute heavily to the carbon footprints and their summations.
point #5: At first the green movement will add to the total CO2 emission to get the infrastructure off the ground, some green people are in denial of this.
In summary I support a shift to green technology and to save the environment, however, many people have unrealistic expectations and are short sighted on how much weather and climate will continue to change both due to natural variability, external forcings, and natural systems responses to artificial forcings as well.
When I see on the internet so called conversion kits that allow vehicles to run on pure water, I am appalled at how many “green, people,” actually believe and even fall into the traps of these dubious advertisements.
Rod, Is English your second language? How, pray, do you take from anything I’ve posted here and infer that I want to crash the power grid by foregoing studies of load leveling. That extreme level of distortion only serves to damage YOUR credibility.
So we can avoid such straw men in the future, I will concede that doing stupid things is generally a bad idea. Got it?
James says: “But very few people seem interested in making such realistic estimates, or considering them in the rare cases where they’ve been made.”
Wow, another unsupported allegation. James there are plenty of folks who are doing credible studies on options ranging from nukes to hydropower. Don’t like the advocacy pieces. Fine. Do some work and look up the stuff that’s credible. Don’t tar all studies with the same brush.
Now, Nick on a separate, but related issue on the difficulties of getting the necessary green policy put in place read:
A Fierce Green Fire
By Philip Shabecoff
Add to this the energy industry spin from real scientists teaching pseudo science and complete falsehoods and we see how even a green movement that means well, might believe errant statements as a result of well put together and orchestrated “science.” Just like I can pretend to be a denialist or skeptic, many industry scientists in need of sustained employment may fake concerns about the environment and misled green people who are for the most part do NOT have upper level science backgrounds with a sophisticated understanding of what actually is, may be in the future and how to make headway to reduce emissions enough. Hybrid cars get better mileage,but as noted on RC and elsewhere, are not doing much for the environment at all. Most people do not know how efficient the EV’s were, and even the internet all but hides completely the technology that has been around for a long time, regardless of what anyone claims. It takes $, even science, it takes politics and supply demand = mass production, which makes it cheaper and breeds competition which breeds excellence (and some unethical means to get there) and makes the batteries smaller etc…
Regarding EV and battery technology: Battery Technology Handbook
By Heinz Albert Kiehne, starting on p. 137 there is discussion of 100-150 kn range, but great potential for more and the possibility beginning in the late 1800’s. I read the whole book and it offers much commentary to the technology being beyond what is actually done with it in light of supply and demand. Big part is little marketing and the brilliant engineer Henry Ford.
SecularAnimist (479), well, I don’t. I just thought I read Ray to say that this is mostly a waste of time (though we were discussing something much smaller in scope); I thought that odd and asked him to verify.
K. T. Chau: (Scholar)
Now these books do discuss experimental vehicles with the approximate given specs for vehicles like that I mentioned, and km, is smaller than mi. units, however, they both cite how the technology could have been far better had development and marketing been supported properly. The average EV did not perform as well,but this was largely due to the car industry and energy industry afraid of losing profits, a real issue to be sure, but it does not change the science or the engineering capacity we have had and could potentially have given proper funding and marketing.
So yes in the 1990’s we had the technology and it could have been improved upon and used to begin supplementing and then replacing vehicles with internal combustion engines.
Ray, it’s now probably a moot point, but to get you off the bandwagon, what matt said was, “So how are you dealing with the interruptions in electricity during the day? Or are you actually relying on the coal to provide your baseload and instead using funnymoney accounting such that when the wind blows the provider buys that wind power but doesn’t actually burn any less coal???….”
In essence asking the actual effectiveness of wind power displacing coal.
You said, “Matt, you know your request in #451 is unreasonable……..”
I was merely asking you to clarify. My English is just fine. But thanks for asking.
jcbmack Says: “Also, the green movements are even more dangerous than the denialists at times.”
“… most of the people running or belonging to the green movements have little to no scientific backgrounds”
“many green websites are misinformed and lack solid science to back them up”
“many green movements who advertise on television and the internet claim that no clean coal exists or can exist”
“many in the green movement have supported SO2 injection into the stratosphere”
“At first the green movement will add to the total CO2 emission to get the infrastructure off the ground, some green people are in denial of this”
Jacob, you are making many seemingly slanderous statements without a single reference. I assume you have proof of all your comments, or perhaps you are just pissed off at the environmental movement.
My experience has been quite different. If you want to look at the scientists working with various conservation groups (often as unpaid board members), please look at a few I work with:
http://rewilding.org/rewildit/about-tri/tri-fellows/
http://wildlands.org/about/staff_board
or even our local conservation group, Tuleyome:
http://www.tuleyome.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=61
or perhaps a foundation of which I serve on the board:
http://www.resourceslegacyfund.org/pages/a_staff.html
http://www.resourceslawgroup.com/d1.html
Clearly these groups are dominated by scientists who actively participate (mostly as volunteers) in organizations that work for the protection of the environment and who are concerned about the impact of global warming on their concerns.
In your opinion, what groups are “even more dangerous than the denialists at times” and “who advertise on television and the internet.” Do you actually have any facts, or is this just your personal opinion?
#488 jcbmack
Point #1
From the environmental group WRI
“Throughout its history, the concept of an RFS, and of increased
ethanol production in general, has encountered vigorous opposition.
Criticism has arisen from skepticism about ethanol
itself and about the environmental impacts of an agricultural
production system geared more heavily toward producing
ethanol feedstock.”
http://pdf.wri.org/beyondrfs.pdf
“The ethanol boondoggle is largely a tribute to the political muscle of a single company: agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland.”
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/15635751/the_ethanol_scam_one_of_americas_biggest_political_boondoggles/2
Point #2
The TV ads are in response to this: Coal Industry Plugs Into the Campaign
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01
NRDC press release
“Reality” Coalition Launches Campaign Debunking “Clean Coal” Myth
http://www.nrdc.org/media/2008/081204a.asp
Point #3
Environmental groups push mitigation almost exclusively. The basis for environmentalism is the ethic of not interfering with natural world when it can be avoided. Roger Pielke Jr for one has been critical of them on his blog for not considering adaptation or geo-engineering.
Point #4
This point sounds like Rush Limbaugh et al’s false portrayal of environmentalism as some weird thing that the liberal elites do in Hollywood or environmentalists are dirty hippies. Its too inane to address.
Point #5
Some green people may not know this. In any movement there are individuals who don’t know everything, but to use this to imply the entire group does not know is a non sequitur.
#487 Ray Ladbury: Victory in this war is going to consist of 9 billion smaller victories–the ones that buy us time, that keep us from tipping over too many tipping points.
Observation #1: The human race is getting fat because of a small annual weight gain sustained over decades. By midlife, an increasing number of people have gained 5 pounds a year over 10 years. They are 50+ pounds overweight due to the equivalnet of an extra saltine cracker (50 calorie) per day. It’s amazing when you think about it. Why does this happen? The same is true with money savings. With credit. With knowledge and basic decision making. In short, humans do a very poor job of sustaining change when that change requires a massive number of very small and easy things that must be done, especially when the “day or reckoning” is years away. What you suggest goes against human nature. Humans actually do a good job of improving if the improvement comes from one or two large events to fight a boogeyman that is imminent.
Observation #2. If those that have already “gotten ahead” cannot show restraint, how can you possible expect those that have not “gotten ahead” to show restraint? Al Gore, Laurie David (AIT producer), Barack Obama, etc, all use energy at alarming rates. I suspect that even James Hansen is producing CO2 at a rate that would astound people. Why do they continue to do so? It’s because they all figure “This particular task is important, and besides, it’s not very much, so this bit of CO2 doesn’t really count.”. Laurie David uses that rational to take a private jet on vacation. Obama took a chartered 757 to see his ailing grandma. James Hansen flies overseas to deliver a speech or testimony. And you know what, it’s hard to argue with that rational.
But if those beacons cannot demonstrate a shred of restraint, how can you possible ask the soccer mom that hasn’t “gotten ahead” and who drives 90 minutes a week to soccer practice in hopes her daughter might get a soccer scholarship to show any restraint? In fairness, you cannot.
Either the government fixes this by providing the solution in the form of cheap, low-impact energy (nukes, wind, etc), or you plan on nothing changing. The soccer mom won’t change on her own. Your plan of having people just decide to spontaneously do a zillion small things to help has never worked when the boogeyman is 25 years away. They have too much to lose.
jcbmack,
“It will never be withdrawn”
Whatever the evidence against it. How scientific of you.
1) “in the beginning the “green movement,” in large part supported using ethanol processed from corn for use in the production of fuels”
[citation needed]
As you must know, greens have been prominent in opposing ethanol-from-corn, which is a boondoggle for agribusiness. Some may initially have thought “That sounds like a good idea”, but quickly realised otherwise, and had no influence whatever on the Bush administration’s decisions.
2) “many green movements who advertise on television and the internet claim that no clean coal exists or can exist, actually it is possible to create clean coal and utilize carbon capture that is safe and actually works.”
This is a point of genuine contention. I’m a reluctant supporter of CCS myself, as I can’t see China and India agreeing not to use their coal at all, but there are serious arguments against, most notably that mining itself produces large quantities of greenhouse gases, particularly methane; and the fact that the coal lobby use the prospect of CCS to justify building coal-fired power stations they say they will retrofit for CCS at some time in the future.
3) “many in the green movement have supported SO2 injection into the stratosphere”
[citation needed] I have never come across anyone who could be regarded as part of “the green movement” who supported this.
4) This is a collection of trivia, none of which vould be described as “dangerous” by a rational person.
5) “At first the green movement will add to the total CO2 emission to get the infrastructure off the ground, some green people are in denial of this.”
[citation needed]
Of course building any infrastructure will cause some emissions. Even if “some green people” (what a conveniently vague phrase that is!) deny this, why is it “dangerous”, so long as they support building the infrastructure? Moreover, the most immediately effective measures to reduce emissions (cutting down on long-distance travel, car use, over-heating buildings, meat and dairy consumption) require no infrastructure at all.
In short, bilge: you have a political prejudice which you cannot support with evidence.
Rod B writes:
They shunned Wegener’s theory because it was wrong. His model involved the continents plowing through the ocean floor, which was physically impossible.
And it wasn’t ridiculed. That’s a modern myth. You can find respectful discussion of his hypothesis in textbooks (e.g. Seller’s 1965 classic “Physical Climatology”) from long before plate tectonics was accepted (see especially the list of articles Sellers has, going back decades, all of which examined the Wegener hypothesis soberly).