Who would have guessed that a Montana superintendent’s decision to cancel a high-school talk on climate change would have attracted such media attention? Kevin St. John, the superintendent of the Choteau, MT school system, didn’t when he nixed an in-school talk that Steven W. Running, a Nobel laureate and professor of ecology at the University of Montana, was to have given to students on January 10. According to both the NYT and the AP, St. John acted under pressure from local citizens, who claimed that Dr. Running-an author of a global warming report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-would bring a “one-sided” message, as no one would be providing an opposing viewpoint. They also labeled Running’s message “anti-agriculture.”
What’s a conflicted superintendent to do? The safe thing: cancel. Later that evening, Running did give a speech on climate change, to an audience consisting mainly of adults, as a high school basketball game was going on at the same time. Students, however, were the ones most likely to benefit from the presentation, seeing as they’re the ones who will inherit the earth in the upcoming decades. A few furious and frustrated letters written to the local newspaper suggested that some Choteau residents agreed with this notion.
This event brings me to a topic that I believe is just as important as the debate over climate change science: the polarizing nature of this debate itself. Choteau is a predominantly farming and ranching town, with a population of roughly 1,800. As the NYT reports, its people have long been wary of environmentalism, and have viewed global warming as a subject strongly affiliated with liberal politics. Push the subject too hard, and you could be dismissed as alarmist. Push it too weakly, and progress might be slower than necessary, or you could simply be ignored. There are a lot of other things wrong with the world right now, after all.
Despite the difficulties of such a balancing act, significant efforts have been made to educate people on the magnitude of global warming without inspiring backlash or encouraging complacency. I’m not talking about the environmental terrorists’ global warming, or the Heartland Institute’s global warming (or lack thereof)-I’m referring to the hard facts that most scientists can acknowledge, regardless of their viewpoints on this hot-button issue. Journalist Andrew Revkin offers a comprehensive list of these facts on the blog he manages for the NYT, Dot Earth. The list is a great primer for the uninitiated or for the open-minded disbeliever. In a 2005 essay he addresses why people are becoming increasingly skeptical of environmental reporting, especially where it concerns climate change. He argues that much of this cynicism has been exacerbated by the media, who emphasize the ‘this-but-that’, ‘yay-but-nay’ angle. This makes better news, but ultimately confuses the reader. How do I figure out the trade-off between doing A today and receiving B tomorrow, when I’ve realized that there is so much uncertainty in the future? Delayed gratification-as Freud told us in Psych 101-is something we have a hard time understanding. So, Getsolar readers, what do you think are some ways to handle the debate within the debate? If you used to be skeptical of anthropogenic climate change, and are no longer, what changed your mind?
Case in point: one of my close friends has long refused to acknowledge climate change as anything more than paranoia fueled by politicized ideologues (yet can we discuss efforts to mediate its effects without bringing politics into it?), an attitude cemented over the years by the attention surrounding the subject. I think she’s slowly coming around, though…as long as I don’t link her to every article I find about drowning polar bears.
Interesting stuff, Connie–thanks. First off, I think it’s always a bad idea to try to prevent people from getting together to discuss/debate. This is what America and democracy are all about. That said, having grown up in a small town, I know how weird local politics can be.
Second, I myself believe that climate change is a real phenomenon. From what I’ve read, the theory makes sense. And where there are holes in my own knowledge base, I defer to scientists - who literally spend their lives researching the atmosphere, carbon levels, temperature fluctuations, etc. I think part of the problem with the current discourse is that, somewhere along the line, the precautionary principle got a bad rap. Yes, it’s impossible to quantify a perfect estimate of the potential impact of a 3.5-degree increase in temperature by 2100. (And yes, I do agree that the Stern Report may overestimate the impacts on a few accounts.) But individuals who focus on these unknowns and imperfections miss the overall point: the potential impact is big enough to merit a concerted effort at stabilizing the carbon content of the atmosphere between 450 and 550 ppm.
Finally, on a final side note, I find it interesting that may climate change skeptics are often pro-business and/or anti-big government. I may be generalizing here, and if I am, please call me out. But the irony is that climate change, if approached correctly, is a great opportunity to create new, revitalized sectors in an otherwise vulnerable economy. Indeed, this is already happening in many parts of the country (e.g., California). But far too often I see people splitting hairs over a few degrees instead of grabbing the issue by the horns and coming up with real, market-based solutions that take advantage of an under-supplied good: reliable, low-carbon energy.
Whew. Apologies if I’ve rambled on here. Thanks again, Connie.