This morning it is twenty below again and I find myself wishing for global warming. Or at least a little Minnesota warming since we've pretty much had enough of winter this year. I mean, well, you know what I mean.What scares me is reading articles like the one in a recent issue of Popular Science where we learn that there are people coming up with ideas on how to modify the atmosphere in order to make it colder. Purportedly the U.S. and China are leading the charge on that one. No one knows for sure what impact those experiments will really have, including the possibility of another ice age.
So a book like The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won't Tell You About Global Warming by Roger Pielke Jr. offers some good medicine for what ails us.
Colleen Mondor's review at Amazon.com states:
Pielke’s area of expertise is the crossroads where environmental studies and politics meet, and clearly he is very frustrated by how the hard cold facts of science have become subservient to the whims of political fortune. In carefully crafted chapters that rely heavily on widely acknowledged truths, he examines everything from carbon dioxide emissions to the recent climategate controversy. Pielke excels in pointing out the minutiae the climate discussion finds itself repeatedly bogged down in, compared to the larger issues of global warming, regardless of the cause, which are irrefutable. From Kyoto to Copenhagen, Gore to George W. Bush to Obama, he addresses the changing political winds, the myths used to justify weak political will, and the irrevocable relationship between environmental policy and the economy. For navigating a treacherous field with grace and aplomb, Pielke deserves much praise. Whether readers will feel reassured or not after reading his measured words and patient call for a broad-based climate policy will depend on future political response. Copious endnotes and sourcing material included.
At the heart of the issue is the politicizing of everything, making it difficult for truth to be seen with any clarity. Last fall I sat with some people involved in a study regarding emissions in California. There are California legislators who want to restrict or eliminate hot rodding because many of these vintage cars do not have the latest emissions technology installed. The study showed that one boat shipping good from overseas produces more emissions in 24 hours of idling than all the hot rods in California produce in a year. Yet will we stop imports because the ships pollute?
Here's what another Amazon.com reviewer states about the book:
Pielke's style is soft spoken but he is not afraid to make strong judgements. He proposes an "iron law of climate policy" that basically says that no climate policies that cause substantial, immediate economic pain will ever be implemented. If you accept his iron law (and I do) then it is clear that all the CO2 control efforts that are supposed to be implemented via cap and trade or other unpleasant government mandates or taxes will never see the light of day. Yet Pielke believes that CO2 control is important and he proposes solutions that don't violate his iron law.
The book is filled with well-presented useful information. His discussion of climategate, the publication of numerous private emails exchanged between important climate scientists, is the best I've ever seen.
Just a few thoughts in response to a cold day in Northern Minnesota.
