Integrated Man

Swiftboating Climate Change

The assassins are about.  They're gunning for the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, and their weapon of choice is a 60 megabyte down-loadable file, courtesy of Murdock's Wall Street Journal, of hacked correspondence from the server of the University of East Anglia. Correspondence goes back thirteen years. 

I have not read any of the items, nor do I intend to.  The news stories reveal little of surprise or interest. It's not news that universities have in their midst high-strung personalities whose egos too often overwhelm their intelligence and professionalism, not unlike business and government. Nor is it surprising that researcher's might be tempted to cleanse the data of those pesky little anomalies that introduce niggling little doubts about their pet hypothesis, not unlike business and government.  Nor is it surprising that Climate Change True Believers would want to exclude Deniers from the debate, much as Deniers have wanted squelch advocates.  None of this is news, and none of it required an electronic breaking and entering to reveal known and knowable flaws in the debate. But one senses the fit and feel of another Swift-boat assault on the truth by the forces of ignorance and deceit, with the Birthers, the Tea-Partiers and the Palinista's bringing up the rear.  The timing of this so close to the beginning of the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen is more than suspect.

The Odd Couple

A few weeks ago T. Boone Pickens unveiled his energy plan to deal with our oil addiction.  At the same time, Al Gore put forth his own prescription for the energy crisis, apparently coming to the realization that the energy crisis will drive the climate crisis, because we will respond to the energy crisis by any means necessary, even at the risk of the climate.  Neither readily embraced the other's position, though both are apparently singing from the same hymnal.

Sometimes it's good to be wrong

Sometimes its good to be wrong.

Sometimes it doesn't make a difference.

Or, to borrow a title from one of the skits of the political satirists Fireside Theater: "How Can You Be In Two Places at Once, When You're Really Nowhere At All?"

Reality - The First Speed Bump on the Way to Green

I try not to go to the Connecticut State Legislature more than once a year.  When I do so, it is only because my frustration with the status quo exceeds my frustration in watching how we struggle to make progress through the legislative process.  Nor is Connecticut unique by any means. 

But there I was on February 27th, endeavoring to testify on Raised Bill 5600, Section 3, regarding a proposal to study the impacts of Climate Change on Connecticut; a bill similar, but inferior to, Bill 1432, Section 3 of last year which suffered death by calendar at the end of the legislative session.

Convergence

The New York Times’ editorial of Feb. 23^rd, “Before the Next Bridge Falls”, fell short of the mark. It focused on one issue, largely ignoring two other related issues and a fourth which encompasses all three.

We are facing a convergence of three paradigms, wrapped in a fourth. Infrastructure, climate change and constrained energy are proceeding along seemingly parallel lines, but will converge in time, and vary by place. How we deal with them will be a combination of our perception of their interrelationships, and a fourth paradigm, demographic-driven economics.

Inconvenient Truths, Asymmetric Response and Unintended Consequences

I have often thought that the most valuable contribution of Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, was its title.  Although it spoke specifically to Climate Change and our unwillingness to face its multifaceted implications, there are many inconvenient truths in our lives, and our unwillingness to address them directly accounts for many of the problems we face. 

Take Iraq for example. 

Random Reflections on: Connecting the Economic Dots

We're all familiar with the exercise of 'connecting the dots' to find the picture.  Sometimes, when the 'picture' is dynamic and evolving, it is helpful to engage in a little constructive procrastination, letting the dots fill in a little more.  It makes connection much easier; sometime almost automatic.  Like with the economy.  Like now.  The dots are dropping in fast and furious, and the picture is looking rather dark. 

"Just give me the facts, Ma'am"

2008/01/04

Remember that line, delivered by the granite-faced Sgt. Joe Friday on Dragnet?  Probably not if you're under 50 years old, but it comes to mind whenever I listen to debates on energy or the environment or the economy or globalization or (you name it) these days.  The first challenge is not in assessing the information, but assessing the individual who is conveying it.

In the civic arena there is a spectrum of participants in the public discourse on critical issues. True Believers, a term popularized if not coined by the late longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer, embrace an issue as an absolute, unquestionable truth. Theirs is often an emotional attachment, often bordering on the irrational.  Advocates may embrace the same issue, but based on fact and logic and with sufficient detachment that they will modify or even end their commitment if presented with compelling countervailing fact or logic.  Their opposite number is the Skeptic, who does not accept the prevailing conclusion, but is open to persuasion to change based on compelling fact or logic . And finally, there is the Cynic; often confused with the Skeptic, but distinguished by being impervious to reason or logic and therefore the polar opposite of the True Believer.

Clim-Ergy - It's About Time

2007/12/09

Clim-Ergy:  The combined manifestation of two phenomena - Climate Change and Constrained Energy - into a unified paradigm of impacts, and requiring a unified human response. 

I just made up that definition.  But the term and its meaning have been fermenting in my mind for about nine months since I gave a presentation on Climate Change impacts to the Joint Environmental Committee of the Connecticut Legislature, and subsequently testified on behalf of a bill to study the impacts of Climate Change as they might pertain to Connecticut.   The bill got stalled to death by the end of the legislative session, but the experience of attempting to navigate the bizarre bazaar of the state Legislature (and I'm sure that Connecticut is by no means unusual, our specific quirks notwithstanding) was instructive of why we are, and will be for the foreseeable future, in 'deep twinkies' regarding progress on either Climate Change or Constrained Energy. 

The True Price of Energy

2007/12/01

What is the true price of oil?....or any form of energy for that matter?  What is the true price of anything?  And why should we care? 

Let's start with the easy question first.  Why should we care?  Because how prices are set for the resources and services we depend upon have a direct impact on our personal wealth and well being.  When we think the process is rational, even as the result is offensive, we may "suck it up and deal with it".  But when we think we're being "SCREWed"  (a technical acronymn for Subject to Cronic Rapacious Ethical Wrong-doing) we are then motivated to look for options,....if there are any.

The November 19th issue of the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled Oil Officials See Limit  Looming on Production created a new and interesting context for the question of the true price of oil.  But first, a little background.