from The Mudflats

Ship Bright started his Fresh[water] ideas for a thirsty planet blog this past July and now has readers in over 113 countries and growing. Inspired and tutored by “Mudflats” herself, Fresh[water] ideas for a thirsty planet is devoted to educating and inspiring people from all walks of life around the world to understand the freshwater issues we face as a global community, and to take action locally. His posts can be found at: http://shipbright.wordpress.com

Ship Bright is a conservation entrepreneur whose experience in the private, public, and nonprofit/non-governmental organization [NGO] sectors gives him a unique perspective on economic and environmental issues. A graduate of Bates College, Ship has earned an MBA from University of Southern New Hampshire as well as an MPA from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He worked for two Governors’ as Deputy Commissioner for the Maine Department of Conservation running the legislative program and then founded the Maine Lakes Conservancy Institute [MLCI]. His work at MLCI was highlighted by his involvement with invasive aquatic species and earned him an appointment to the Federal Invasive Species Advisory Committee which he chaired for almost two years. Most recently Ship was in Alaska working to protect the freshwater resources of Bristol Bay. He is the Principal of BrightNGOsolutions offering consulting services to Philanthropists as well as NGO organizations on board development, mission focus, strategic planning, and fundraising.

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Sarah Palin and Climate Change

Dealing with critics and skeptics of climate change can be a challenge since most of the skeptics and critics either cherry-pick their data, have the facts fit their theory, or they border on or are delusional. Just yesterday The New York Times ran an article that the World Meteorological Organization said global warming has shown NO signs of ending.   In fact, it is shaping up to be the warmest decade in the 150 years that records have been kept. Critics and skeptics had been cherry picking some short-term earlier data as proof the earth is getting colder!  >>>Annoying buzzer noise<<< FAIL!  Thank you for playing-next contestant please…

I am interested in debating the facts with people of good will, caring hearts, and intelligence, but I must admit that my human frailty is exposed in dealing with “The Whack Jobs”…and by this I mean people like Glenn Beck, who I honestly believe has just lost it, and then there is Mudflats’ and Shannyn Moore’s “Fav” Alaskan politician - Sarah Palin.

I spent last fall, winter and spring in Alaska, arriving just before she was picked as John McCain’s running mate and I left as she quit the Governorship. There are a couple things one needs to know about Alaska: 1.) it is a HUGE state and; 2.) socially it is a TINY village. With a population of around 650,000 in a state twice the size of Texas [or 18 times the size of my home State of Maine] everyone knows everyone and there are NO SECRETS. They all come out eventually. Even people who live there all their lives forget that [...and you know who you are...]

I was raised a Republican and was active in the party for many years. Teddy Roosevelt was my hero along with Abe Lincoln.  They are still my heroes, but I have become an Independent – so pigeon-hole my politics, and dismiss me as you wish. Sarah Palin is a mile wide and a half-inch deep. She is physically attractive, she is sociable, has a lovely smile, a great figure, looks great in her Naughty Monkey high heels [I learned about women's shoes in Alaska - of all places - because of her], connects with the common “Man” and has the intellectual rigor of arctic lichen.

When I was in Alaska, she used public power to conduct a private vendetta against her former brother-in-law. She weighed in on a ballot initiative to defeat a clean water referendum, she nominated an Attorney General nominee who at a men’s group meeting was heard to say, “if you can’t rape your wife, who can you rape?” [he wasn't confirmed-that was a first] and the stories go on and on. When I would travel back east and the presidential election was in full swing, I was always asked about Sarah Palin. My words of advice to my “Republican” friends then, as it is now – “keep your powder dry” about Sarah Palin, and listen deeply to what she has to say.

I worked for two Governors here in Maine – one a Republican, and one an Independent. Here is what a good leader and Governor does: A good Governor listens to the advice of the people that he or she has chosen to surround him or herself with, Legislators, and the people, and then makes up their own mind.  A good Governor takes full responsibility for his or her decisions and actions and doesn’t throw the people that he or she has surrounded him or herself with under the bus when mistakes are made.  And lastly, a good Governor doesn’t look people in the eye and feed them an entire “Bovine Scatology” story–specifically, Sarah Palin did not resign because she was going to be a “Lame Duck”. She was in the third year of her FIRST, of possibly two, four-year terms as Governor. Unless one has announced they are not going to run for a second term and thereby diminishes their political clout and capital, a Governor is not a Lame Duck. If she was term limited out, yes. She wasn’t. Anyway, what Governor just QUITS?   Potentially one heart beat away from being President, and she has a penchant for quitting when something shiny catches her eye.

She left office to go make big money because she got a huge boost of popularity from the presidential campaign and she wanted to strike while the iron was hot. I am not impressed with her leadership or intellectual skills, especially as it has to do with public, democratic, and transparent leadership. When it comes to complex multi-national global issues?… fuhgetaboutit! [tip o' the hat to Mudflats' roots]

Climate change and Sarah Palin: On Sarah Palin’s Facebook page posted last Thursday, she wrote that she wants President Obama to follow her example and “Quit” Copenhagen. Don’t go. She thinks that the world’s leading Climatologists who serve on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] are “snake oil” scientists. She claims that “dogmatic environmentalists” and “an environmental priesthood” are behind all the climatic science. She says, “Saying no to Copenhagen and cap and tax are first steps in “restoring science to its rightful place.” This from a former Governor who ignored science in her own state and instead cherry picks her facts on these issues such as protecting the world’s largest wild sockeye salmon fishery in Bristol Bay, and opposing the listing of the Polar Bear as an endangered species. See this latest report on the ESA listing from US News and World Report on moves by Sarah Palin’s handpicked successor and bearer of the torch:

http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2009/11/15/alaska-fights-to-reverse-polar-bear-threatened-listing.html

My ultimate problem with people like Sarah Palin is that they are the Pied Pipers of populist denial. She plays to the lowest common denominator in our society, cloaks herself in the flag to deflect legitimate criticism, and uses religious passion to pander to the masses about a complex subject that is really way above her head. She is leading a group of people who are thirsty for understanding these issues to “drink the Kool-Aid” and go down with her.

I can be dismissed as some sort of environmentalist (with a pejorative adjective or adverb in front of it), so don’t believe a word I say about climate change.

Instead I offer up again, what I had previously posted in October, words from the huge multi-national financial services company Allianz – certainly not a group of “Dogmatic Environmentalists” nor members of the “Environmental Priesthood”. These guys are as straight-laced, conservative, and hard-nosed business people as any you’ll find, even in Alaska.

http://shipbright.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/climate-change-epilogue-making-sense-of-it-all/

Taking on Climate Change Myths and Skeptics: Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Lead Author of the 4th IPCC Report is one of the world’s best known climate scientists and one of the most outspoken critics of climate change skeptics. Here he tackles the most common and pervasive climate change myths promoted by climate change deniers.

“I must say that from some quarters, the reaction against the idea of human-caused warming is very emotional, resulting in wild conspiracy theories and ad-hominem attacks against climate scientists.”

The scientific facts seem clear, climate change is happening and it is man-made. Still some people disagree.  Why?

“In my experience, these people primarily do not like the consequences of the scientific findings: that we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.”

Are there any scientists left that deny that climate change is happening or man-made?

“Scientists yes, but they are almost never climate scientists. A very interesting survey of earth scientists by the University of Illinois recently found that 97 percent of those who publish original research in climate science agree that humans have caused significant global warming. But the more you move away from climate science, going for example to meteorologists (who study weather rather than climate) or geologists, the more people are still skeptical.”

There are different degrees of denial and skepticism. Which is the most common and which is the most dangerous?

“One must make a distinction: many scientists from neighboring fields are skeptical in the sense that they are not sure, since they are not very familiar with the evidence. In fact, most climate scientists, including myself, were skeptical in this sense perhaps 15 or 20 years ago, and were gradually convinced by the overwhelming evidence. That’s healthy skepticism.

Quite something else are those individuals that actively go out to deny human-caused global warming in the media. This activity usually has a political background, and the arguments they present are generally aimed at uninformed lay people who are not familiar with the data. To knowledgeable people they are thoroughly unconvincing, often deceitful.”

What are the most common positions taken by climate change deniers?

“We distinguish three main types. First, the “trend skeptics” who deny that there is any climate change. Second, the “attribution skeptics”, who accept that there is global warming but deny that humans cause it. Third, the “impact skeptics” who accept there is human-caused global warming but claim it is harmless.

Amongst the trend skeptics, the most popular argument last year was that there was no global warming over the past ten years. That happened to be the case because the last ten years then started with 1998, which was an exceptionally warm year due to an El Niño event (a natural climate oscillation in the tropical Pacific) in that year.

This argument is less popular this year, since the past ten years are now 1999 to 2008, and that period shows a strong warming trend simply because 1999 happened to be a relatively cold year.

For good reason, the shortest time span for which the IPCC report gives a trend is 25 years – in that way you don’t mix-up climate trends with short-term natural fluctuations. It is a standard, unscientific skeptic-argument to confuse people about the trend by pointing to short-term variations. This faulty argument is also made about the sea level trend.

The most popular “attribution skeptic” argument is that solar variations have caused global warming. That is clearly wrong since most of the global warming happened since the late 1970s, yet solar activity has gone down over this period. In fact, in the past two years solar output has been the weakest since the beginning of the satellite-based measurements that started in the 1970s. Hence, global warming has occurred despite the sun getting a little fainter, not because it got brighter.”

How do people react when you challenge their beliefs?

“All we can do as scientists is to explain the scientific evidence soberly to the public. From some quarters, the reaction against the idea of human-caused warming is very emotional, resulting in wild conspiracy theories and personal attacks against climate scientists.
In fact, the very weakness of the skeptics’ arguments is a very good indication of how strong the evidence for human-caused warming is. If there were any valid counter-arguments, I am sure these people would have found them.”

You have been very vocal in the debate with climate skeptics. What is your motivation?

“The reason is simple. I get a lot of queries from the public and the policy world about specific skeptics’ claims. And the doubts promoted by skeptics have a disproportionate influence on climate policy, delaying the required measures. This was especially clear for U.S. government policy during the Bush-era, but it is also true elsewhere.

These delays have meant that we are now running out of time. We need to turn the tide of rising emissions within the next ten years, and we need to reduce emissions globally at a very stiff rate until 2050: at about 2 percent a year if we start now, but already at about 6 percent a year if we wait another ten years.
After that, it becomes almost impossible to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, the stated goal of over 100 countries. Had we started acting right after the Rio environment summit of 1992, when the Framework Convention on Climate Change was passed, we could have solved the problem at a leisurely pace of about a half percent reduction each year.”

What can be done about the large majority that is aware of climate change, but not acting accordingly?

“People need to be better educated not just about what the problem is, but more importantly about what the solutions are, so they feel empowered to act. Many people are not well aware of where the biggest potential for emissions reductions is in their own household and lifestyle.
Take the case of a Hollywood celebrity turning back her car on the way to the airport, because she forgot to unplug her mobile phone charger. The extra car miles of course swamped those emissions from the idle charger, and don’t even mention the plane trip.

There is huge potential for savings by insulating your house and by using only the most efficient appliances on the market. And in terms of lifestyle, cutting down on air and car travel will be the biggest contribution many people can make.

Apart from these personal actions, many people are not well aware of the political solutions: for example that we could build an energy supply system over the next decades based primarily on renewable resources. We can still contain the climate crisis, but we need to act decisively now. It is a race against time. As U.S. president Obama has rightly put it: “Delay is no longer an option.”

http://knowledge.allianz.com/en/globalissues/climate_change/global_warming_basics/rahmstorf_climate_sceptics.html

Send Allianz a Thank You for taking a stand on climate change and tell them I [shipbright.wordpress.com] sent you!  Just Click HERE.