First, preserving self-identity is absolutely one of the strongest psychological motivations we have (I got Summa thanks to a thesis on it). The more an individual can be aware of that, the more they can control their own reactions and life. My top examples are “I’m a victim” (yep, and you will be until you change that identity), both “I’m not smart” and “I’m very smart” (a common misreading of actual capabilities), and “I’m not attractive” (because poor self-confidence is what makes people unattractive more than their physical appearance, and so that’s a trap).
Second, climate change, something I’ve been into the depths of since the 90s due to my satellite work. As I’ve told people frequently: There is no question that the Earth will survive. Life will survive. Humans will survive. The questions are what it will take for human civilization to adapt, and we may not like many of those answers.
Specifically, as the climate changes, where you can grow various types of crops changes. That alters a ton of geopolitics and economics. Another is water flow. You and I both live off the Colorado River (I think you’re in Phoenix rather than Tucson). We are not going to see the regular flows that were used to set the compact and also expanded our populations upon. So… whose farmers go out of business? My vote is that we let the Arizona cotton farms shrivel up. You may have a different perspective.
Biodiversity may increase in a hotter, more CO2 heavy climate, but getting there is gonna be a hard for a lot of the population.
As for the politics of “stopping it” (too late), my argument is a bit simpler. The dependence on fossil fuels drives most of our geopolitics these days. Maybe… we shouldn’t be so dependent?
Excellent comment! I believe fossil fuel alternatives and learning face the same fundamental problem: inefficiency. Learning inherently leads to dead ends. Things initially look promising and then fail. Successfully learning something often requires persistence through slow or negative progress until a breakthrough occurs. That is how any useful learning happens.
Now look at what will be required to move away from fossil fuels. They are known, cheap, and lucrative, just like already established knowledge. There are those incentivized to preserve the knowledge status quo. To find alternatives require inefficient exploration and the courage to be wrong. In a world of quarterly profits and incremental improvements, exploration looks wasteful. Yet, ultimately it is the only way forward when we zoom out in time.
We need to become comfortable with the inefficiency of learning to make real advances. If we wait until there is no other choice but to learn, the costs and consequences are much higher. While discussion on climate change and fossil fuels ignites a polarized reaction, the concept of budgeting for inefficient learning when its is optional is always lower cost than when there is no alternative.
Good points. Have you ever read Cadillac Desert? ( https://amzn.to/3UM57ZE ) it's about the water shenanigans out west here. (I do live in Tucson BTW) The moral of that story is we are growing things in the most unnatural areas by just pouring water on it. And it works, but at other consequences. And your point on Geopolitics is something that actually underpins and incredible amount of angst. Countries will literally dissapear as their resources go away. But, it's only been especially recently that we've had such static geopolitical lines.
Current civilization. They rise, they fall, they morph. That’s one of the crazier things in Climate Change Alarmism is how much it’s rooted in sheer terror of change, even minor change and adaptation.
If I’m a ski resort owner in Colorado, I should be scared. If I’m a cotton farmer in AZ, I should be scared. It won’t take very big changes to screw over their livelihoods.
But most of the rest of us will find ways to adapt to minor changes.
How amazing it is to learn I am wrong! How unsatisfying it is to think I am right but not be entirely sure. Science is the search for true positive statements. I love your article Unsettling Science. If only I could get my students to read it and understand it.
If you’d like, I can do a guest lecture on this topic because economics is a key area that needs this mindset. Ironically, as I pointed out in this article, all arguments against Climate Change end up in Economics and/or Geopolitics.
As added credibility, I also teach Masters level at the University of Arkansas.
I have been arguing against the climate change religion for about 20 years. I'm old enough to recall the early 70s, when the high priests of settled science were convinced we were entering a new ice age. Do you recall it, or if you are not that old, have you read it?
I’ve very familiar with the panic of the global cooling before it switched, very quickly. That happened in the early 1990s when the peacnicks who were anti-war/anti-nuclear lost their onus when the Berlin wall fell and latched onto Climate.
I so dislike it when the political activists latch onto some topic and use the mantle of science in what is always a vain attempt to ratify their political philosophy values.
Intriguing and useful. I feel there there should be a consideration of Consequence when assessing right and wrong approaches or answers. Yes, there can be more than one right answer. And also unintended consequences (proving my point). Upsides are better than downsides.
That’s a great point and something I realize I should have added is the idea of Wicked Problems which are beyond Complicated and Complex where there are not ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answers. Just better and worse.
Very nice commentary. Being able to change what I thought was absolute has been a game changer, along with realizing that wherever I'm at, that's where I'm supposed to be.
Great episode! I had forgotten about that quote, “Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.” This was an opening comment to a numerical methods course I took in grad school. Still as true and applicable as ever!
I learned something very important--and hopeful--from this: There may be upsides as well as downsides to climate change, although for the last decade or so it struck me that no one really wanted to do anything to mitigate it so maybe we should just discuss how to cope with it. Although I confess, living in Toronto, that warmer summers would be nice, and we could mitigate some of the downsides of forest fires by practicing better forest management in both countries.
What to do about the people with double-digit IQs and single-digit morality quotients? I'm not sure. Does deradicalization ever work?
Haha. That’s kind of my major thought too. So much so that I’ll call my self a climate change advocate just to avoid ‘denier’ so we can talk about adaptation.
Being right doesn't last long, therefore is a low-reward endeavor; new facts will pop up for an eternity; our brains and perception of the physical are very restricted and a human's lifetime is just a blink.
Thanks for that share. I’ve seen that paper before and it’s interesting to note that the major limitations occur at 2,000 and 5,000ppm. 5,000 being the highest that I’ve seen recorded in Earth’s history and 2,000 being about as rare as the bottom we are now in. The other element is that the issues at 2,000 are mostly because we are not adapted for that level…. yet.
The reason I say yet is because, in freediving, and other cardio types roles, there are intentional training regimens to acclimate the body to high levels of CO2 because it’s the presense of CO2, not the absense of oxygen, that triggers the feeling of suffocation. So we can build up tolerance to CO2 pretty quickly when trained intentionally.
The larger issue with the paper is that it does exactly what I described in the article where they lock all the other variables and soley adjust CO2. The challenge is that the planet is an adaptive system.
The last thing that’s always thrown me about the CO2 debate is that plants are OPTIMIZED for around 1,000 - 1200 ppm of CO2. This means that level wasn’t an outlier in the hundreds of millions of years of plant-life existence but the expectation.
In the end, it’s all a great conversation to have, not shut down. What then?
The exact same things exist in virology, where I work. COVID was a great example where they needed to apply these frameworks because they used the wrong models…. well, wrong if you wanted to figure out virology, but right if you wanted to control people.
But like Climate Science isn’t about the climate, COVID wasn’t about the virus in the end.
Two things:
First, preserving self-identity is absolutely one of the strongest psychological motivations we have (I got Summa thanks to a thesis on it). The more an individual can be aware of that, the more they can control their own reactions and life. My top examples are “I’m a victim” (yep, and you will be until you change that identity), both “I’m not smart” and “I’m very smart” (a common misreading of actual capabilities), and “I’m not attractive” (because poor self-confidence is what makes people unattractive more than their physical appearance, and so that’s a trap).
Second, climate change, something I’ve been into the depths of since the 90s due to my satellite work. As I’ve told people frequently: There is no question that the Earth will survive. Life will survive. Humans will survive. The questions are what it will take for human civilization to adapt, and we may not like many of those answers.
Specifically, as the climate changes, where you can grow various types of crops changes. That alters a ton of geopolitics and economics. Another is water flow. You and I both live off the Colorado River (I think you’re in Phoenix rather than Tucson). We are not going to see the regular flows that were used to set the compact and also expanded our populations upon. So… whose farmers go out of business? My vote is that we let the Arizona cotton farms shrivel up. You may have a different perspective.
Biodiversity may increase in a hotter, more CO2 heavy climate, but getting there is gonna be a hard for a lot of the population.
As for the politics of “stopping it” (too late), my argument is a bit simpler. The dependence on fossil fuels drives most of our geopolitics these days. Maybe… we shouldn’t be so dependent?
Excellent comment! I believe fossil fuel alternatives and learning face the same fundamental problem: inefficiency. Learning inherently leads to dead ends. Things initially look promising and then fail. Successfully learning something often requires persistence through slow or negative progress until a breakthrough occurs. That is how any useful learning happens.
Now look at what will be required to move away from fossil fuels. They are known, cheap, and lucrative, just like already established knowledge. There are those incentivized to preserve the knowledge status quo. To find alternatives require inefficient exploration and the courage to be wrong. In a world of quarterly profits and incremental improvements, exploration looks wasteful. Yet, ultimately it is the only way forward when we zoom out in time.
We need to become comfortable with the inefficiency of learning to make real advances. If we wait until there is no other choice but to learn, the costs and consequences are much higher. While discussion on climate change and fossil fuels ignites a polarized reaction, the concept of budgeting for inefficient learning when its is optional is always lower cost than when there is no alternative.
Good points. Have you ever read Cadillac Desert? ( https://amzn.to/3UM57ZE ) it's about the water shenanigans out west here. (I do live in Tucson BTW) The moral of that story is we are growing things in the most unnatural areas by just pouring water on it. And it works, but at other consequences. And your point on Geopolitics is something that actually underpins and incredible amount of angst. Countries will literally dissapear as their resources go away. But, it's only been especially recently that we've had such static geopolitical lines.
Earth will survive. Humans may, if they adapt.
I haven’t read Cadillac Desert, but I’ve heard of it. I lived in Tucson from 1993-1999.
I am confident humans will survive climate change. Civilization is what’s in doubt.
Current civilization. They rise, they fall, they morph. That’s one of the crazier things in Climate Change Alarmism is how much it’s rooted in sheer terror of change, even minor change and adaptation.
If I’m a ski resort owner in Colorado, I should be scared. If I’m a cotton farmer in AZ, I should be scared. It won’t take very big changes to screw over their livelihoods.
But most of the rest of us will find ways to adapt to minor changes.
Agree.
How amazing it is to learn I am wrong! How unsatisfying it is to think I am right but not be entirely sure. Science is the search for true positive statements. I love your article Unsettling Science. If only I could get my students to read it and understand it.
What do you teach?
Economics and finance. UVA Wise.
If you’d like, I can do a guest lecture on this topic because economics is a key area that needs this mindset. Ironically, as I pointed out in this article, all arguments against Climate Change end up in Economics and/or Geopolitics.
As added credibility, I also teach Masters level at the University of Arkansas.
I have been arguing against the climate change religion for about 20 years. I'm old enough to recall the early 70s, when the high priests of settled science were convinced we were entering a new ice age. Do you recall it, or if you are not that old, have you read it?
I’ve very familiar with the panic of the global cooling before it switched, very quickly. That happened in the early 1990s when the peacnicks who were anti-war/anti-nuclear lost their onus when the Berlin wall fell and latched onto Climate.
I so dislike it when the political activists latch onto some topic and use the mantle of science in what is always a vain attempt to ratify their political philosophy values.
I would love to have you give a lecture at UVA Wise. May I give your name to the Speakers Committee? Please send your CV to me via DLK8F@Virginia.edu.
Intriguing and useful. I feel there there should be a consideration of Consequence when assessing right and wrong approaches or answers. Yes, there can be more than one right answer. And also unintended consequences (proving my point). Upsides are better than downsides.
That’s a great point and something I realize I should have added is the idea of Wicked Problems which are beyond Complicated and Complex where there are not ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answers. Just better and worse.
You have a lot of great mantras, “learn, unlearn, relearn” is probably my favorite. Core of what you write on so well.
Thanks. This one was fun seeing the two weave together.
Very nice commentary. Being able to change what I thought was absolute has been a game changer, along with realizing that wherever I'm at, that's where I'm supposed to be.
Intentional reframing. Hard but so powerful.
Great episode! I had forgotten about that quote, “Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.” This was an opening comment to a numerical methods course I took in grad school. Still as true and applicable as ever!
Awesome and yeah, that’s one of my favorite quotes to remember.
I learned something very important--and hopeful--from this: There may be upsides as well as downsides to climate change, although for the last decade or so it struck me that no one really wanted to do anything to mitigate it so maybe we should just discuss how to cope with it. Although I confess, living in Toronto, that warmer summers would be nice, and we could mitigate some of the downsides of forest fires by practicing better forest management in both countries.
What to do about the people with double-digit IQs and single-digit morality quotients? I'm not sure. Does deradicalization ever work?
Haha. That’s kind of my major thought too. So much so that I’ll call my self a climate change advocate just to avoid ‘denier’ so we can talk about adaptation.
Being right doesn't last long, therefore is a low-reward endeavor; new facts will pop up for an eternity; our brains and perception of the physical are very restricted and a human's lifetime is just a blink.
From Ugo Bardi's Substack for your kind perusal:
https://pubs.rsc.org/va/article/4/9/1364/919578/Carbon-dioxide-as-a-pollutant-the-risks-on-human
Have fun with further research on this highly politicized topic !!!
Thanks for that share. I’ve seen that paper before and it’s interesting to note that the major limitations occur at 2,000 and 5,000ppm. 5,000 being the highest that I’ve seen recorded in Earth’s history and 2,000 being about as rare as the bottom we are now in. The other element is that the issues at 2,000 are mostly because we are not adapted for that level…. yet.
The reason I say yet is because, in freediving, and other cardio types roles, there are intentional training regimens to acclimate the body to high levels of CO2 because it’s the presense of CO2, not the absense of oxygen, that triggers the feeling of suffocation. So we can build up tolerance to CO2 pretty quickly when trained intentionally.
The larger issue with the paper is that it does exactly what I described in the article where they lock all the other variables and soley adjust CO2. The challenge is that the planet is an adaptive system.
The last thing that’s always thrown me about the CO2 debate is that plants are OPTIMIZED for around 1,000 - 1200 ppm of CO2. This means that level wasn’t an outlier in the hundreds of millions of years of plant-life existence but the expectation.
In the end, it’s all a great conversation to have, not shut down. What then?
👍👍👍
The exact same things exist in virology, where I work. COVID was a great example where they needed to apply these frameworks because they used the wrong models…. well, wrong if you wanted to figure out virology, but right if you wanted to control people.
But like Climate Science isn’t about the climate, COVID wasn’t about the virus in the end.
Nice comparison and I debated whether to use that one based on my article on masks.