15 Mar 2004 | Bryan Peters said...

I never read books anymore, but after reading the 1-page summary/plug in Times, I decided I would plunk down the money and buy it. Once I finally got around to ordering it, I read the first 20 pages in complete agreement, and haven't picked it up since. I just haven't had the time... ;)

The book is interesting, though. In comparison to any society and any era, we have more of everything - time, disposable income, comfort, body fat. We're living in the greatest timeframe the world has ever seen, and it's only getting better. But nobody ever focuses on the positive.

The writing contains a lot of stats, but all $$$ is adjusted for inflation. I wish everyone did that. When it's all put in perspective, then you realize how good you've got it.

Writing this has motivated me to pick up that book. I'll let you know how it ends...

16 Mar 2004 | dmr said...

This all makes me wonder about the world in 50 years. Surely everyone can see the house of cards that is America; "growth" can only go so far, and doesn't everyone already feel saturated? It seems to be simply a matter of time until another country with a good work ethic, fair values about human rights and a concern for *people* will take over. Can't it happen? Can't thoughtful and honest dominate consumptive, dishonest and wreckless? Dammit, I hope so.

16 Mar 2004 | Peter Davidson said...

I agree that this kind of observation gets little attention in our American society. While we are amusing ourselves with the minutiae of celebrities and their "malfunctioning" wardrobes the impending rift in the world is torn wider and wider with each terrorist bomb blast. It is not just politics. It is a fundamental difference in world view. The conflict can be defined a number of ways Religious and Secular, East and West, Christian and Muslim, Protestant and Catholic, Republican and Democrat, Jew and Palestinian, rich and poor or countless other world view conflicts. The bottom line is can we as a world learn to live a life that values and welcomes a diversity of world views. Tolerance is a slippery concept for most people. It means different things to different people. Some apply it to people and not ideas and beliefs and some apply it to ideas and beliefs and not people. Things get really dicy when there is no room for cooperative existence in a particular world view. This is what fosters hatred to the point of violence.

The "Grand Challenge" we have as communicators and designers is to communicate our values and world view in a way that informs and educates people while respecting them. If it is our path to sell, convince, entertain, inspire, evangelize, convert, liberate or save others with the same or different world view it is mutual respect and the acceptance of human dignity that is the first paving stone on which we must step.

Americans are aghast that others in the world perceive us in such negative ways but then American Idol comes on TV and suddenly we don't have time to read or discuss or understand why people could hate America and Americans so much.

16 Mar 2004 | Greg said...

In 50 years we'll all be speaking Chinese. So to speak.

16 Mar 2004 | Arne G said...

To the best of my limited reasoning, it seems that paradoxes arise when a concept is posed in manner that begs to be considered from at least two distinct frames of reference simultaneously (causing a mental flip-flop as we sequentially consider each perspective, never finding the true onetwoonearghmake...it...stop).

Im not sure The American Paradox rates as a capital P Paradox, but there does seem to be an abundance positions to observe from, and it seems our nature to militantly-assume that only one of them is real (theres some awkward language for you).

Upon re-reading what Ive just written, it probably comes off as some kind of post-modern poop (oh well, I guess its all how you look at it).

16 Mar 2004 | Don Schenck said...

Turn off your TV for a year. Stop reading the news on the internet. Heck, become Amish.

The result? You will focus on the world directly in front of you, and then it won't seem so bad.

I'm not trying to gloss over America's problems; but I'm trying to point out that for most of us, our day-to-day lives are good, we're good, and we try to do good.

Our government on the other hand ...

Like the bumper sticker says: "Trust the government? Ask any Indian"

16 Mar 2004 | Bill Brown said...

… this kind of observation gets little attention in our American society

Huh? Americans hating America is practically a cliché. As far as I have found, we've always had a conflicting view of technology that has always been trotted out with each new major development. Railroads were speeding up society, the car made people less friendly, the radio made people less social, etc.

Technology has made my life better in my short lifespan. Comparing my lifestyle to someone's a century ago makes the contrast even sharper.

16 Mar 2004 | Darrel said...

Technology has made my life better in my short lifespan. Comparing my lifestyle to someone's a century ago makes the contrast even sharper.

Well, that's a very subjective opinion. There's certainly pros and cons to each era.

IMHO, the biggest problem is that so many of us are now incredibly disconnected from the world around us. We all live in our little microcosms of our daily lives. We put little thought into where our food comes from. Where our clothes come from. Where our energy comes from. Where our trash goes. We hardly know our neighbors let alone the issues and challenges facing others on the planet.

And this is all good for capitalism. The more disconnect there is with the consumer and the source, the easier it is to keep the machinery going.

We now find candidates that bring up issues like the environment as being irrelevant, but things we can relate too...tits and gays, as somehome being critical to the stability of our society.

Our current system, if left to continue unchecked will collapse. When and how? Who knows?

16 Mar 2004 | Arne G said...

All this (and other threads in this blog) has me wondering if usability thinking breeds politically dissident thinking (or is it that dissident thinkers are drawn to usability). Just for the record: USA is #1 (just practicing for when the wiretaps take effect).

16 Mar 2004 | Don Schenck said...

Things are never as good as they seem.

Things are never as bad as they seem.

16 Mar 2004 | Bill Brown said...

IMHO, the biggest problem is that so many of us are now incredibly disconnected from the world around us. … We put little thought into where our food comes from. Where our clothes come from. Where our energy comes from. Where our trash goes.

Hmm, I see that as the biggest advantage of our way of life: the division of labor. Some have heralded it as the foundation and biggest benefit of capitalism and I'm inclined to agree. I don't want to know the details of where my food comes from and I don't want to think about what effort went into my clothes or who made them. I would prefer to think about how can I enjoy my stay on earth and live life to its fullest. We've come a long way from subsistence living and I'm never going back.

Our current system, if left to continue unchecked will collapse. When and how? Who knows?

Why is that? Or do you just know it as an article of faith—the liberal litany? I see no reason to believe that we're on a collision course with ruin or that we're a modern-day Rome.

16 Mar 2004 | Arne G said...

--
Things are never as good as they seem.

Things are never as bad as they seem.
--

Things are never as they seem? What am I to believe? (sorry..I'll stop now)

16 Mar 2004 | Darrel said...

Some have heralded it as the foundation and biggest benefit of capitalism and I'm inclined to agree.

As I stated, I absolutely agree. However, there are plenty of disadvantages to runaway capitalism as well. Since most of us don't see the disadvantages of it in our daily lives, the system will keep on truckin' until it crashes.

We've come a long way from subsistence living and I'm never going back.

You mean, well-to-do Americans have come along way. Who do you think keeps you in your state of bliss?

BTW...some of us yearn for subsistence living. Maybe not to the extreme of 100 years ago, but there is something very rewarding about just growing your own carrots for instance.

Why is that? Or do you just know it as an article of faiththe liberal litany?

Umm...it's basic math. We can not continue to consume our environment and exploit external resources and sustain it indefinitely.

I see no reason to believe that we're on a collision course with ruin or that we're a modern-day Rome.

Of course not. Again, THAT'S MY POINT. You are not unlike most consumers...content and oblivious to the cause-and-effects of our way of life. We're off balance a bit. We certainly don't need to resort to living in huts and plowing our own fields. But we need to ease back a tad.

16 Mar 2004 | Bill Brown said...

BTW...some of us yearn for subsistence living. Maybe not to the extreme of 100 years ago, but there is something very rewarding about just growing your own carrots for instance.

I say, go farm your carrots. But don't be self-righteous about it and blather on about how you're a modern-day Thoreau. Grow your carrots and enjoy them.

Umm...it's basic math. We can not continue to consume our environment and exploit external resources and sustain it indefinitely.

Hahahah. Sorry, I just had to chuckle at this statement. Someone is equating the field of economics with basic math. As a one-time economics major, I've got to disagree. I wouldn't have been a one-time economics major if it had been basic math.

Two things interfere with your explanation:

1) The Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy indicates that matter is never destroyed; it only changes form. We therefore never consume natural resources in the strictest sense. Our voraciousness only transforms matter into other matter. Thus, the constituent elements remain for us to someday either reconstitute or reuse.

2) In that same vein, you discount the inventive nature of mankind. Time and again doomsayers have predicted an exhaustion of various resources only to have been proven wrong. Either we find new sources for the same material or we invent some new process or technology that doesn't require that material any longer, instead using a more abundant resource. At one time, coal reserves looked dangerously low: "how will we power our locomotives!?!" But then we discovered oil and refined it into gasoline. It's only a matter of time before fuel cell technology or some other energy source becomes cheap enough to supplant gasoline. I don't doubt that it will.

Oh, and I'm far from oblivious to causal relationships in our economic system. Far from it, I've read widely in economics and the whole subject of specialization fascinates me. I just don't want to revert to a situation where I spend four hours a day trying to obtain food to feed my family.

16 Mar 2004 | Don Schenck said...

Pete Seeger has a song and to paraphrase:

Did you expect to see Nixon resign from office the way he did?
Did you expect to see the U.S. have to leave Vietnam?
Did you expect to see the Berlin Wall come down so peacefully?
Did you expect to see Nelson Mandela freed?

If you couldn't predict those things, don't be so fast to predict that all is gloom and doom.

16 Mar 2004 | jean zaque said...

"the constituent elements remain for us to someday either reconstitute or reuse."

uh, yeah - right. can you be a bit more specific about when "someday" might be?

16 Mar 2004 | SU said...

1) The Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy indicates that matter is never destroyed; it only changes form. We therefore never consume natural resources in the strictest sense. Our voraciousness only transforms matter into other matter. Thus, the constituent elements remain for us to someday either reconstitute or reuse.

What we're doing with our consumption is really more "conversion," to be sure, but the rate at which we convert the planet's stored energy into heat energy (ultimately) far, far outstrips the planet's ability to replenish it. So who cares if "technically" we're not destroying energy at all -- the big problem is that we're effectively taking energy we can easily find today and putting it into a multi-million-year safe deposit box.

It sounds like you're hoping we'll find a key to unlock that box in a few generations, rather than several million years. And although I hate to be pessimistic, I think you're dreaming. It takes petroleum to run the machines that dig for the minerals that help us build technology. And plastics, the foundation of much of our technology, is generally made from petroleum. Even recycling requires external energy (often from coal or petroleum) to happen.

The more complex our technology becomes, the more dependent we become on technology to manufacture it.

16 Mar 2004 | SU said...

Another thing I meant to throw in that last comment is: Who is going to crawl through the landfill to reclaim the precious elements (titanium, cobalt, gold, platinum, tungsten, vanadium, radium, etc.) we throw away daily?

Mining is very difficult, but one advantage it has over foraging through the landfill is that minerals tend to occur in dense pockets when nature aggregates them. Not so with the way we process and then discard them. These minerals may all be in the trash heap, but they're by no means located in neat "Chromium" and "Titanium" piles.

Wouldn't it have been nice if we had built things to be dismantled and reclaimed in the first place?

16 Mar 2004 | Darrel said...

The Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy indicates that matter is never destroyed; it only changes form.

Oh...well, hey...I certainly can't argue logic like that. YOU WIN!

*sigh*

16 Mar 2004 | Brad Hurley said...

I just don't want to revert to a situation where I spend four hours a day trying to obtain food to feed my family.

Actually when you think of it, most of us spend 8 or more hours a day working. I wonder how much of that goes toward food and shelter? Should be fairly easy to calculate: figure out how much you spend per year on your rent or mortgage, and how much you spend on food. My guess based on my quick calculations for my own expenses is that it's probably at least 30-40 percent of your net income (after taxes), which is getting close to 4 hours a day for food and shelter.

So, based on this totally-off-the-top-of-my-head analysis, I'm not convinced that we are devoting significantly less time to meeting our basic needs (food and shelter) than we would be if we were doing "subsistence living."

16 Mar 2004 | Don Schenck said...

Brad -- over time, NOTHING is gained. The time saved using a Caterpillar tractor to move earth is offset by time spent mining the ore, drilling the oil, shipping, pipelines, roads, etc etc.

I'm convinced: we've gained nothing.

Hospital beds and graves; that's what life is. *sigh*

16 Mar 2004 | Brad Hurley said...

Ah, right Shenck's Law of the Conservation of Time.

Time is never used up, it's just diverted from one activity to another.

16 Mar 2004 | Darrel said...

Actually when you think of it, most of us spend 8 or more hours a day working.

Technology, as Mr. Brown states, means we all tend to become more and more specialized in our work. For a lot of folks, that means more and more tedious in our work.

I'd love to spend less time WORKING for money and actually spend some time in the garden. I'm afraid technology = increased specialization = increasingly less balance in our lives.

Now, if technology brought what it has always promised...less time working, then I'd be all for it. ;o)

I'm convinced: we've gained nothing.

Sure we have...more headaches, more financial worries, more traffic jams, more polution... ;o)

16 Mar 2004 | Bill Brown said...

Okay, Darrel, since you don't buy my argument (unless you weren't being sarcastic), why don't you give a quick rundown of the "basic math" that supports your contention?

16 Mar 2004 | Bill Brown said...

Brad: you need to get a better job or not eat so finely. I spend between 8 and 10% of my income on feeding my family.

Incidentally, as my work has become more specialized, I make more money than I ever dreamed I could have, work less hours than I used to, and live in a big house instead of an apartment.

Capitalism works for me!

16 Mar 2004 | Bill Brown said...

… the big problem is that we're effectively taking energy we can easily find today and putting it into a multi-million-year safe deposit box. [emphasis mine]

We rely on petroleum and coal right now because it's the cheapest form of energy we've got. If we ran out (which isn't going to happen for a very long time as we keep finding new reserves every year), then the market would automatically increase the price of oil. If a gallon of gasoline got to $4 per gallon (or more), other energy sources become economically viable.

What sort of energy sources? Let's see. Off the top of my head: fuel cells, biomass, geothermal, steam, nuclear energy, solar, hydroelectric, wind, and many other forms that no one today has even conceived.

It sounds like you're hoping we'll find a key to unlock that box in a few generations, rather than several million years. And although I hate to be pessimistic, I think you're dreaming.

Really? It sounds like you rather like it. If you hate it, why do it? Okay, I was just being snarky there.

If I have learned anything from history, it's that past results are generally indicative of future returns. In other words, history repeats itself. Yours and your ilk's perspective is nothing new, nor is the resource situation we find ourselves in. We are, perhaps, confronted with impending shortages (impending, mind you, in the next hundred years).

How do you guys react? Teeth gnashing, beating of chests, and calling for government intervention. And me? I know that the market will take care of the problem. Why? Because it has in the past and because the mechanisms for taking care of it are so distributed and abundant that they won't fail. What mechanisms? The economic incentives to take care of the problem. Left alone, the price of oil will increase while oil companies and other entrepreneurs will look for alternatives. The oil companies will look for new sources of oil while the entrepreneurs will look for altogether new sources of energy. Why? Because either will make lots of money if successful. The oil men will maintain the status quo while the entrepreneurs could be sitting on the next Rockefeller-sized fortune. And that's very motivating.

It's also very reassuring. I don't think I'd be very happy if I thought that we were going to have to rely on government to stifle oil usage in order to effect changes in our energy needs. I'd be especially unhappy if I thought that businessmen were only interested in bilking the public and making a buck now versus complete ruin five years hence.

16 Mar 2004 | Brad Hurley said...

16 Mar 2004 | Brad Hurley said...

Whoops, my empty post was due to a bad closing tag.

Brad: you need to get a better job or not eat so finely. I spend between 8 and 10% of my income on feeding my family.

Well, I wasn't just talking about food, I was talking food+shelter, which I assume are the basic needs of subsistence living. My point is that most of us still devote a significant portion of our time to meeting our basic needs of food and shelter. Heck, here in Quebec I spend more than half of my working year just earning the money to pay my taxes! And then another several months earning enough to put food on the table and a roof over my head. Most of the remainder goes to putting a roof over my head and food on the table when I retire, and then I've got a bit left over for things like iPods and trips to France.

Do we know that hunter-gatherers spend 4 hours a day getting food, actually? I think it's less than that; see this article for example (under"Work: It's Only Human"), which cites 3-5 hours of work per day for your average hunter-gatherer.

But this is all a tangent anyway.

17 Mar 2004 | SU said...

Mr. Brown, might I recommend this report by the U.S. Global Change Research Information Office. The section called "The Economic Consequences of Long-term CO2 Increases" is especially cogent:

...over the past few decades, this social rate of time preference has been about 3 percent per year: that is, people would just as soon have $100 in cash today as $103, adjusted for inflation, a year from now.

Applying that principle...

Thus, the cost or perceived gravity of an event fifty years in the future--for example, the complete infiltration of Miami's freshwater supply by sea water--will be discounted by a factor of (1-0.03)50, or 0.97 to the 50th power, which is about 0.22. Thus, the financial impacts of an event that will come to pass in 2048 are reckoned at only a little more than a fifth as much as were the disaster to occur this year. This would not preclude the city of Miami from taking preventative action now, but it would lessen the urgency of doing so, based solely on a cost/benefit analysis. The city planners might reason that they would be better off taking the money that would be required for prevention, investing it, and using the returns to pay for importing freshwater when and if the anticipated disaster occurred.

So what's all the hoo-haa about time-preference discount rate? (emphasis mine):

Nonetheless, the calculation illustrates the point that was raised earlier: namely, in analyzing the consequences of long-term global warming, the choice of discount rate is all important. It doesn't matter whether the amount of CO2 in the air doubles (as in the simpler model) or triples (as in the more realistic one), for the economic projections remain essentially the same, if a 3 percent time preference discount rate is used. The same is likely to be true of other improvements that one might make in this or any other coupled climate-economy model. Until we can agree on a discount rate that applies to times that are far in the future, much of what is currently being done to assess the economic impacts of global warming will have at best ambiguous implications for future energy policy.

I'll also point out that, according to this report, the cheapest forms of power generation today are 1) Hydroelectric and 2) Nuclear. The top of the report details the carbon cycle and the role our behavior has been playing in changing its balance over the last century. Enjoy!

17 Mar 2004 | One of several Steves said...

IMHO, the biggest problem is that so many of us are now incredibly disconnected from the world around us. We all live in our little microcosms of our daily lives. We put little thought into where our food comes from. Where our clothes come from. Where our energy comes from. Where our trash goes. We hardly know our neighbors let alone the issues and challenges facing others on the planet.

OK, if you look at it from that perspective, maybe we are more "disconnected" from the world around us. On the other hand, 100 years ago, people in general rarely moved away from home and spent their whole lives in one location, or maybe two - the farm they grew up on, and the city they moved to. They didn't travel as much. They had no awareness of how people in other parts of the country, let alone world, lived. They had no concept how what's done in California can effect what happens in China. Actually, any number of things could be done in California that would mean absolutely nothing in China. We know and do all of those things now. Nothing happens in one part of the world that doesn't affect another.

Taken from that perspective, we're incredibly *connected* to the world around us. Do you think people 100 years ago cared about the labor conditions in Africa related to production of their Hershey's chocolate bar? No, because they weren't even aware. Thanks to technology, the benefits of capitalism that allow many people not to have to worry about their existence so they can worry about the existence of others, and many other factors, we not only are aware of the rest of the world, we can and do try to change the rest of the world.

As far as the basic assessment that our lifestyle is somehow going to be incredibly destructive: Humanity has been saying that pretty much as long as it's been writing stuff down. One day, one of those predictions will come true. In the meantime, roughly a billion predictions will be wrong. And we won't have any clue until we're buried under the glacier. Or the lava. Or the CO2 cloud. Or the mushroom cloud. Or whatever.

(That's not to imply we do nothing; you act on the best information you have, but also be aware that your improvement will likely cause some other problem.)

17 Mar 2004 | Darrel said...

On the other hand, 100 years ago, people in general rarely moved away from home and spent their whole lives in one location

That's the way a lot of people still live.

Taken from that perspective, we're incredibly *connected* to the world around us.

Not on the same level. Can you tell me where the beef in your hamburger came from? Where the trash you threw away today goes? Who made the shirt you are wearing?

We're missing this basic level of connection. We certainly may be more worldly, but technology has put this rather large buffer inbetween us. (There is also the economic buffer between people, which you could argue is partly connected to technology).

As far as the basic assessment that our lifestyle is somehow going to be incredibly destructive: Humanity has been saying that pretty much as long as it's been writing stuff down.

And since the industrial age, we've been proving that.

Bill...the simple math...we use 25% of the world's resources but have far less that 25% of the world's population. And as large, highly populated countries like China and India start moving into open capitalism and increased consumption, something has got to give. I hope you are right and that it leades to competitive alternatives to our current energy needs and such. We'll see.

17 Mar 2004 | Don Schenck said...

Yet opportunities exist. For example, www.slowfoodusa.org, where one can learn about and join the "Slow Food" movement.

(Do it!)

Local markets ... backyard or rooftop gardens ... the Toyota Prius and Honda hybrids, with more to come ...

I prefer to be an optimist. Darrel, come over to see our garden, have some slow cooked food, and we can solve the world's problems over good wine and cigars.

:-)

17 Mar 2004 | Bill Brown said...

Not on the same level. Can you tell me where the beef in your hamburger came from? Where the trash you threw away today goes? Who made the shirt you are wearing?

Are you honestly suggesting that we'd be better off if we could answer that the beef came from the Bessie, one of the six in our herd; the trash is sitting in the trash heap on our property; and my wife made my shirt after four laborious hours of sewing? I guess I don't see the joy in such a life.

Much better is the thinking that I pay $1 for the Big 'N' Tasty that comes from somewhere, $8 per month for the garbage to go somewhere, and $12 for the shirt made somewhere. Do I particularly care that McDonald's buys from Canadian herds, the trash goes to a landfill down the block (I actually live about 2 miles from the local landfill, but I can't verify that my trash is actually deposited there), or that some worker in Thailand got 3¢ an hour so I could buy my shirt that cheaply? Not really. Would I be a better person if I got worked up about these things? I don't think so.

Bill...the simple math...we use 25% of the world's resources but have far less that 25% of the world's population.

Ugh, these figures are killing me. 25% of the world's resources? What does that even mean? What does 100% constitute? The way you've framed it sounds like a zero-sum game: we're getting more than our fair share; we're stealing from the rest of the world. When you trot around these sorts of figures, it's easy to obscure the real world.

The Third World isn't the Third World because we're holding them down. They're impoverished because they can't stop fighting amongst themselves or looting each other long enough for any sort of entrepreneurial or business environment to develop. Well, that and the laws are really antithetical to commerce. Business and capitalism thrive when long-range stability is more or less guaranteed.

It's no coincidence that China and India are becoming prosperous at this time in their history and Japan became a powerhouse after World War II. There's a common denominator there available in stark reality for the Third World to see and, hopefully, emulate. Start respecting individual rights—including and especially the right to property—and get out of capitalism's way with your interventionist tendencies and you'll get a piece of the pie. And the pie will get bigger.

17 Mar 2004 | Bill Brown said...

SU: I disagree with the report's fundamental premise that human carbon dioxide production is adversely affecting the earth's atmosphere and will cause global catastrophe. The science surrounding the subject is far from certain. I don't particularly feel like rehashing that subject right now.

17 Mar 2004 | One of several Steves said...

That's the way a lot of people still live.

So? That doesn't remove the fact that we've gone from where 100-200 years ago, there was minimal migration and awareness of the world outside of the immediate neighborhood.

One can find any point to make about the modern world, and contrast it with "a lot" of people still do things the way they were done for thousands of years. It's a red herring.

Not on the same level. Can you tell me where the beef in your hamburger came from? Where the trash you threw away today goes? Who made the shirt you are wearing?

I'm assuming the beef came from a cow. In this country, it stands a very good chance of coming from a meatpacking platn owned by IBP. The trash goes to the East Irvine landfill in the foothills of the Santa Ana mountains. I can be there in a 10-minute drive from my office. I'd have to take off the shirt to figure out where it came from.

But, again, a lot of that is moot. If I lived in New York in 1850 or London in 1750 or Rome in 50 or Babylon in 850 BC, I probably wouldn't know most of those things either. (OK, maybe the trash, since that generally just went out the window. Somehow I think modern disposal methods are a touch better, and I can live without knowing where the trash goes. Literally.)

I fail to see how knowing where everything comes from and having my hands in it marks a better quality of life.

I also fail to see why that has to be the definition of "connected to the world." Again, depending on how one frames the debate, we're more connected than we ever would. Even 50 years ago, a financial crisis in Thailand would mean nothing to most anyone other than Thailand. In 1998, it caused massive market and central bank actions in the US and EU. *That* is connection.

And since the industrial age, we've been proving that.

We've been proving it ever since humans became the dominant species. Your rendering of history is highly selective and short-term. Yes, the industrial age has caused issues with environmental destruction. The tree cover in New England is also more today than it was in the 18th century. And there is plenty indication that past eras, including those halcyon days where everyone was farming their own food and making their own clothes, were hugely destructive environmentally. You going to tell me it was better for the environment when everyone just dumped their raw sewage in the streets and canals?

It's just as Don said: nothing's ever as bad as it seems, and nothing's ever as good as it seems. Just like I think Bill's faith in the market to fix everything is Pollyannish, I think the sky-is-falling rhetoric I'm seeing here is excessively Cassandraish. Both extremes are naive. Steps do need to be taken, but they have to be reasoned and rational, and not done out of panic to the cause du jour.

17 Mar 2004 | Bill Brown said...

Steve: I was with you until this:

Just like I think Bill's faith in the market to fix everything is Pollyannish, I think the sky-is-falling rhetoric I'm seeing here is excessively Cassandraish.

But Cassandra was right. Chicken Little seems more appropriate. And I don't think I am Pollyannaish, though I can understand how one might think that given what I've said here. I do believe that the free market is the best course, but I know that it's not efficient or pain-free.

17 Mar 2004 | Brad Hurley said...

I disagree with the report's fundamental premise that human carbon dioxide production is adversely affecting the earth's atmosphere and will cause global catastrophe.

You're assuming that this is the paper's fundamental premise. But the paper is actually fairly cool-headed and it doesn't actually claim that CO2 increases will cause global catastrophe; it just notes that this is a possibility.

Actually this paper was published in 1998 and is a bit dated now. A few more recent studies suggest that we may not see an effective doubling of CO2 this century ("an effective doubling" means the combined effect of CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, and other greenhouse gases expressed as equivalents of CO2), based on the fact that the rate of increase of atmospheric concentrations has been declining despite the fact that emissions are still increasing. This is good news.

Concerning uncertainty, any attempt to predict the future state of a complex system is going to have uncertainties. Nobody can claim to know what climate change will do to the economy and environment. But no serious scientist (even the most widely quoted skeptics like Pat Michaels and Richard Lindzen) doubts that increases in greenhouse gases will affect the climate. It's just that the skeptics believe the changes and impacts will be much less signifcant than what the majority of climate scientists are projecting.

Science isn't done by vote; there are plenty of examples in the history of science where the minority view proved to be right (read up on the history of the theory of plate tectonics, for example). But when you're trying to make policy decisions about how to address a potentially serious problem, it's insane to base your decisions on the views of a small-but-vocal minority when the vast majority of experts on the subject have pretty strong evidence to support their argument.

17 Mar 2004 | Bill Brown said...

Science isn't done by vote; there are plenty of examples in the history of science where the minority view proved to be right (read up on the history of the theory of plate tectonics, for example). But when you're trying to make policy decisions about how to address a potentially serious problem, it's insane to base your decisions on the views of a small-but-vocal minority when the vast majority of experts on the subject have pretty strong evidence to support their argument. [emphasis mine]

I couldn't agree with your first sentence more. Science is about theories competing with each other on the basis of conformance to reality, with the winner being the one that's closest and most explanatory.

Where science goes wrong is when it becomes politicized—when winners are decided by something other than conformance. That's what we have today: science by lobbyists.

17 Mar 2004 | Brad Hurley said...

Where science goes wrong is when it becomes politicizedwhen winners are decided by something other than conformance. That's what we have today: science by lobbyists.

Precisely: the Bush administration, for example, has decided to listen to lobbyists rather than scientists when it comes to climate change. That's what you meant, right? ;-)

Actually, there's no real way to test conformance with future projections, because the future hasn't happened yet. All we can do to look for evidence of conformance (in terms of the climate change issue) is to 1) see how well climate models replicate past climate given known conditions (answer: they do a remarkably good job, much better than the old model runs based on outdated assumptions that skeptics still trot out as straw men); and 2) look for evidence that the climate changes are currently underway that at least qualitatively conform to what one would expect from global warming theory (answer: quite a bit of strong evidence there, including pretty clear "fingerprints" of changes caused by increasing greenhouse gases, which affect the climate differently than external forcings such as changes in solar activity).

17 Mar 2004 | darrel said...

Are you honestly suggesting that we'd be better off if we could answer that the beef came from the Bessie, one of the six in our herd; the trash is sitting in the trash heap on our property; and my wife made my shirt after four laborious hours of sewing? I guess I don't see the joy in such a life.

I'm not suggesting that at all.

I'm saying if one is a bit more connected to where the products they consume come from, and how they are produced, and who the production affects, then they may make different decisions as a consumer to benefit a variety of things...such as themselves, their neighbors, the economy, the environment, etc.

BTW...how can you not see joy in self reliance? (But that's another debate...)

17 Mar 2004 | Bill Brown said...

I see lots of joy in self-reliance. When I repaired my own car, I felt great because I saving a bunch of dough and I got to understand what was going on under the hood. I love doing home improvement for the same reasons. It enables me to stretch the money I make further. It takes time, to be sure, but it's more hobby-like than necessary and I'd be willing to forego such activities if I made more money.

What I don't like is sole reliance.

17 Mar 2004 | Bill Brown said...

Precisely: the Bush administration, for example, has decided to listen to lobbyists rather than scientists when it comes to climate change. That's what you meant, right? ;-)

That's not exactly the example I was thinking, but it's just as bad. Politicization cuts both ways and I'm not a fan of double standards.

1) see how well climate models replicate past climate given known conditions (answer: they do a remarkably good job

Really? That's not the impression I get, but I'm not a "writer and editor … specializing in the subjects of global environmental change, ecology and field biology, and natural history" like you and I don't have the time to spend tracking down specifics. If you could provide some sort of citation, I'd be glad to check it out.

17 Mar 2004 | One of several Steves said...

The biggest issue with trying to pin down what's going on with climate change right now is that our reliable records are still pretty limited. Reliable temperature records only date back about 350 years, and there's now a growing line of thinking that that era was part of a "mini ice age" that lasted through the 19th century.

And there's no question that the earth goes through massive climatological changes without humans being involved. Remember that up until c. 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, much of North America was still covered by glaciers. In fact, that glaciation cycle has been pretty regular, and we're overdue for one. Unless that "mini ice age" was part of it.

Or, just maybe, we really don't have much of a clue when it comes to climate just yet.

17 Mar 2004 | Brad Hurley said...

Bill: a few references:

1. On the improving agreement between climate models and actual measured historical climate: Here's a link to one recent modeling study (summarized here in a "science brief" from NASA but with links to the published study.

2. A lot of the models cited by climate change skeptics are based on inaccurate assumptions about the growth of emissions and concentrations. This important paper shows that the rate of growth has actually declined in recent years, implying that future warming won't be as great as previously predicted. When you incorporate these slower growth rates into models, the models portray today's climate much more accurately than before (I believe Hansen mentions that in his published paper, which is linked to from the science brief).

Steve: Agreed about cycles. There was a great paper in Nature a few years ago that showed how global temperatures are related to the strength of tides, which are tied to long-term cyclical changes in the orbits of the Earth and Moon. When tides are strong, there's more mixing in the ocean and cold water is brought to the surface, causing a global cooling. When tides are weak, there's less mixing and the climate is warmer.

However, even when all the cycles and other natural factors that we know about (so far) are considered, the current global warming trend cannot be explained by natural variability alone. It's very possible that there are natural factors and cycles that we don't know about yet, I totally agree about that.

18 Mar 2004 | One of several Steves said...

However, even when all the cycles and other natural factors that we know about (so far) are considered, the current global warming trend cannot be explained by natural variability alone. It's very possible that there are natural factors and cycles that we don't know about yet, I totally agree about that.

Oh, completely agreed on that point. The changes are massive and incredibly rapid, comparatively speaking. Which is reason enough to sit and think that there must be something else going on. It's quite possible we've just got a coincidence of the earth's normal climate change coinciding with factors that exacerbate climate change, causing things to increase exponentially.

The thing I can't figure out in the response of those who believe nothing should be done is that they often exhibit behavior they, at other times, criticize. It's as if they argue against investing in the automobile because the horse and buggy is doing just fine. Sure, some industries (read: coal and oil) would get hurt by moving to alternative energy sources. People seem to forget that there would be new jobs and money created by the new energy industries. It's things like that illustrate to me that the Republican party is less of a free-market party than it is a corporatist party. At least more libertarian thinkers - like Bill here, actually - advocate leaving it up to the market and not only not subsidizing the development of alternate energy industries, but no longer subsidizing the old ones as we do now, and as the administration and Congress are trying to do more.

18 Mar 2004 | Jimmy Jack said...

Kerry for President of France

I think this t-shirt sums up the constituency that Kerry best represents and who deserves his "leadership" the most....

18 Mar 2004 | Chris Palmieri said...

A Japanese friend of mine living for a few years in the U.S. once observed, (paraphrasing) "In America food is too everything. Spicy food is too spicy, sweets are too sweet, potato chips are too salty, and portions are too big."

18 Mar 2004 | Don Schenck said...

So, to the rest of the world, the United States look like Las Vegas.

Interesting perspective.

20 Mar 2004 | Tyler Rozicki said...

So, to the rest of the world, the United States look like Las Vegas.

Essentially, yes.

Las Vegas is a very good example of the attitudes surrounding the U.S.

It serves as both a characature of the United States, and expresses very well how the U.S. views the rest of the world.