Re: Climate Change

While some claim there is insufficient documented evidence proving that anthropogenic effects are the driving force behind climate change, the opposite is true. There are many published studies that show not only that climate change is occurring, but that anthropogenic effects are the only consistent driving factor behind climate change.

  

 Photo Courtesy of http://wires.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WiresArticle/articles.html?doi=10.1002%2Fwcc.18

This image shows past, present, and future predictions of global surface temperatures. It also shows the four main forcings scientists associate with climate change. Many climate change naysayers blame what is occurring with our Earth on three of the four forcings. What is incorrect about their argument is that when one compares the three natural forcings and anthropogenic effects to global surface temperatures, the only correlation one can see is the one between increasing anthropogenic influence and increasing global surface temperatures.

The first forcing is El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). This is a cyclical pattern that occurs in the Pacific Ocean, which has profound effects on climate when it occurs. The cyclical nature of ENSO tends to increase and decrease climate temperatures; however, the effects are never permanent and the climate tends to return to a homeostatic condition, with respect to ENSO effects. Also, one can observe matching increases and decreases in temperature in both the ENSO graph and the overall global surface temperature graph. However, the aforementioned trend does not increase exponentially and typically returns to normal.

The second forcing is volcanic aerosols. Many believe that volcanic eruptions are the sole cause of climate change because they spew large quantities of ash and gas into the atmosphere. While it is true that large quantities of ash and gas enter the atmosphere and volcanic events further exacerbate the problem, they are not the sole cause of a constant exponential increase in climate change. Looking at the graph, one can see large volcanic events noted on both the volcanic aerosols graph as well as the global surface temperature graph. Overlaying the two, one would note that the events match up in both date and effect. However, as was the problem with ENSO, volcanic aerosols only affect the environment for a couple of years before the effects wear off. It does not account for the increasing trend of global surface temperatures.

The last natural forcing which scientists have studied in depth is solar irradiance. Many claim that recent sun spot cycles, in addition to other solar events, are the cause of the increase in global surface temperatures. Again, these events are cyclical in nature. Scientists have been able to obtain data and graph the cycles and their increases and decreases in temperature. Looking at the graph, one can see these warming and cooling trends. Again, overlaying the solar irradiance graph and global surface temperature graph, one can see the cyclical nature of solar irradiance reflected in an increase and decrease in global surface temperatures. However, as was the case for each of the forcings above, these effects are not permanent and they eventually return to normal.

One of the many problems with the hypothesis that natural forces are responsible for climate change is that Earth was built to withstand these changes. These three natural forces are not new to Earth as a planet. These cyclical changes have occurred since before mankind was able to measure their effects. The one forcing that the Earth has not dealt with until now is that of anthropogenic effects. The Earth was not built to withstand such effects.

Looking at anthropogenic effects, the last forcing graphed, one sees that this is the only force which is increasing exponentially. Overlaying the two graphs we notice that anthropogenic effects are increasing exponentially at the same rate global surface temperatures are. While some may say that not enough climate history is known to definitively say that humans are the driving force behind climate change, scientists know this to be erroneous. Yes, Earth as an entity goes through cyclical warming and cooling phases; however, anthropogenic effects were never a factor prior to the Industrial Revolution. Therefore, while the Earth does go through cyclical patterns, this is not what we are currently seeing. Never before have we seen an exponential growth in global surface temperatures until the post-industrial revolution era. Anthropogenic effects provide the only correlation between increased warming and the four forcings. 

Malcolm Gladwell: The Modern Public Intellectual

The definition of a public intellectual was rocked by the advent of the Internet. The pre-Internet public intellectual was able to cater to a specific segment of society, separated by race, culture, education, and access to opportunity. Much like the fall of the Berlin Wall, the invention of the Internet brought down the barriers that had kept public intellectuals safe in their academic fortresses that allowed them to speak to their expertise without worry of reaching those outside their walls.

            Post-Internet public intellectuals now live in world characterized by globalization. For an intellectual to reach the general public he or she must be able to navigate, for example, the cultural salad bowl that is the United States. This public intellectual requires a different awareness and skill set than their predecessors. He or she must be able to speak or write on a subject in such a way that it communicates and relates to each culture individually whilst being written for a general audience. In addition, this public intellectual must be able to convey complex ideas and theories in a manner in which a layperson can understand and internalize, while also maintaining a monkish focus on their area of expertise. Being articulate and possessing an ability to connect with an audience through many mediums is also a must. No longer can the public intellectual confine themselves to books, journal articles, and academic lectures restricted to their peers. Now they must be adept at blogging, podcasting, and the television interview aimed at a wider and more general audience. 

            Conversely, today’s public intellectual no longer has to come from an academic background. Where public intellectuals previously needed doctorates in their fields to be considered experts, today’s public intellectual can be self-taught, lacking degrees or professional credentials in the fields on which they expound. Malcolm Gladwell is the perfect example of this. He has a bachelor’s in history and admits that his grades were not competitive for graduate school. While he set out for a career in advertising, he was rejected and instead found a career in journalism. It was as journalist, first with The American Spectator and later with The Washington Post and The New Yorker, that he began to develop into what we would today call a public intellectual.

        Gladwell himself has set forth the theory, in his book Outliers: The Story of Success, that in order to be an expert one must devote at least 10,000 hours to a pursuit. In a 2008 interview with Lev Grossman in Time magazine, Gladwell reflected on how he really learned to be a master of his craft, which at the time was journalism. He said, “I was a basket case at the beginning, and I felt like an expert at the end. It took 10 years—exactly that long.”[i] He since applied this theory to understanding and becoming an expert in field of self-development. Gladwell has found a niche as the author of three books, the aforementioned Outliers, as well as The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.

Gladwell is quoted as saying that his goal for his writing was to “mine current academic research for insights, theories, direction, or inspiration.”[ii] He has been able to do just that, mine what he has learned about new and complex theories and ideas in the social sciences and turn them into accessible and understandable articles and books for anyone ranging from athletes to businessmen. In the process, he has become a public intellectual that can expound on these topics while appealing to a large general audience. He is able to take the complex and scientific and condense it down into a populist message that applies to an audience’s every day life. As Michiko Kakutani wrote in her review of Outliers for the The New York Times, Gladwell’s books “Both popularize scientific, sociological and psychological theories in a fashion that makes for lively water-cooler chatter about Big Intriguing Concepts….”[iii] Gladwell takes theory and makes it practical. That is what a public intellectual should strive for.

            The risk of course is that the research and theories behind these ideas are oversimplified and even dumbed down. Critics of Gladwell’s work have charged him with putting forth hypotheses that “not only rely heavily on suggestion and innuendo, but they also pivot deceptively around various anecdotes and studies that are selective in the extreme….”[iv] In addition, critics have questioned the reliability of his examples, noting that the reader is not given the context of the examples to question their reliability or timeliness.[v]

These complaints can be lobbed against any so-called public intellectual who lacks the academic training that used to be a prerequisite to being called a public intellectual. The fact is that works written for the general public will not be subjected to the same rigorous fact checking and sourcing to which an academic work will be held. Judgment of the work lies with the audience, and with critics to sort it out. However, such works often succeed in taking complex and narrow theories and looking at them in an original way and applying them to every day life. Popularizing the social science behind decision making, as Gladwell did in his book Blink, only serves to help readers. These readers can decide what works for them and what does not.

While some of today’s public intellectuals lack the academic training in their respective fields, they have found other means to supplement their knowledge. Gone are the days when the Ivy League elite cornered the market on the debate of ideas. Today’s public intellectual benefits from a more open intellectual landscape that allows everyone access to research and resources to formulate their own opinions and theories with careful study and analysis. This is true of Gladwell, who himself has talked about the efforts required to call oneself an expert. While more public intellectuals are coming to the forefront with a journalism background, they should not be looked down upon for their original field of study. They come to their subjects of interest with a journalist’s interest in discovery and fact checking. Just like the academic, they put the time and work into becoming experts on their topics and to knowing the ins and outs and the most current ideas. As the author Stephen Mack clearly states, ultimately a public intellectual should be judged on whether or not the public believes they are “hearing things worth talking about.”[vi]

One consequence of the Internet that must also be considered in any discussion of the modern public intellectual is the fact that today’s public intellectuals more often come to present an argument, not to have a debate. They are what Joseph Epstein, writing a book review in The Weekly Standard, calls “publicity intellectuals”:

For it is far from clear that we even have intellectuals any longer—at least not in the old sense of men and women living on and for ideas, imbued with high culture, willing to sacrifice financially to live the undeterred life of the mind…. Instead, we have so-called public intellectuals, a very different, much less impressive, type, whom I have always thought should be called Publicity Intellectuals. Public intellectual is another term for talking head—men and women who have newspaper columns or blogs or appear regularly on television and radio talk shows and comment chiefly on politicians and political programs; they tend to be articulate without any sign of being cultured, already lined and locked up politically, and devoted to many things, but the disinterested pursuit of the truth not among them.[vii]

While Gladwell has made a career living “on and for ideas,”[viii] there is a difference between him and his predecesors of the pre-Internet age. He can be rightly labeled a “publicity intellectual” because he has become a celebrity in the self-help field. But this comes with the territory of modern public intellectualism. The spread of ideas today requires an active presence in the media. It is the means by which the public is educated, for better or worse.

The age of the Internet means the audience has so much more power than those before. Today’s audience can investigate background of a public intellectual like Gladwell and verify or refute the claims in his or her work to make their own decision as to whether or not that person is a public intellectual to whom to listen. The Internet, in fact, has not only torn down the barriers between the academia and the public, but also the public intellectual and the public.

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[i] Grossman, Lev. "Outliers: Malcolm Gladwell's Success Story." Time. Time, 13 Nov. 2008. Web. 10 Sept. 2012. <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1858880,00.html>.

[ii] Preston, John. "Malcolm Gladwell." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 25 Oct. 2009. Web. 10 Sept. 2012. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/6416229/Malcolm-Gladwell-interview.html>.

[iii] Kakutani, Michiko. "BOOKS OF THE TIMES; It's True: Success Succeeds, And Advantages Can Help." The New York Times. The New York Times, 18 Nov. 2008. Web. 10 Sept. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/books/18kaku.html?_r=2>.

[iv] Ibid

[v] Ibid

[vi] Mack, Stephen. "The New Democratic Review: Are Public Intellecuals a Thing of the Past? (Repost)." The New Democratic Review: Are Public Intellecuals a Thing of the Past? (Repost). N.p., 14 Aug. 2012. Web. 11 Sept. 2012. <http://www.stephenmack.com/blog/archives/2012/08/are_public_inte.html>.

[vii] Epstein, Joseph. "Joseph Epstein." The Weekly Standard. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2012. <http://www.weeklystandard.com/author/joseph-epstein>.

[viii] Ibid

Climate Change

Climate change is one of the biggest issues that we as a global society face. Yet many do not know of the consequences or simply do not believe the science. Never before has humanity been faced with a problem like the one staring us in the face right now. There are so many unknowns, so many variables. Scientists cannot begin to predict the outcome from all the anthropogenic damage we have done to the planet. This is not to say that it is too late to change. But if change is to be made, society needs to understand what we are up against. This is not a problem to be brushed off in the hope that someone else picks up the slack. This is a global issue and only the global community will we be able to reverse and overcome it. But people who disbelieve the science of climate change need to understand the problem and what could happen should it go unchanged.

            The recent severity of hurricanes clearly illustrates the threat of climate change. The scientific data is there and shows a positive correlation between climate change and an increase in hurricane severity.

To date we have seen an increase in hurricane severity in the Caribbean. This is due to a slight increase in water temperature. As the warm seawater evaporates it condenses and releases energy, which powers the hurricane. An increase in water temperature will allow for the hurricane to increase in strength before making landfall. Closer to home, Hurricane Katrina showed the United States the devastation such hurricanes could wreck on a region. And it was only a preview of what is to come.

Imagine a world where hurricanes of that caliber or greater become commonplace. People will be displaced. Land will become uninhabitable. Cities will become economically unviable and populations relocated elsewhere.

Researchers have gone out into the field and taken baseline data of many potentially susceptible locations, such as Kingston, Jamaica; Fiji; and Tonga.[1] They put dollar amounts on buildings, roads, highways and other infrastructure, as well as crops and ecosystems. They have the estimated the costs and now must ask the questions. Do the costs of allowing climate change to go unchecked outweigh the benefits of ignoring and denying its existence? Does emitting our current level of greenhouse gases outweigh the costs of the lives that will be affected by an increase in hurricane severity?

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[1] http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPURBDEV/Images/840342-1264721236030/IntroductiontoExposureDataMapping_KeikoSaito.pdf