One Liners
I saw a cartoon strip in the journal of the Centre for Alternative Technology which struck a chord with me. I haven’t got it any more but, as I remember, it was on the theme of ‘Why I hate parties’. Circulating and chatting as you do, the author, once she says she works at CAT, has to listen to a succession of clueless one-liners from people eager to tell her why she’s wasting her time.
As an ordinary person actively concerned with environment I get the same thing. Happily gabbing about this and that in the pub, I’ll suddenly get hit with, ‘I’ll start to worry about man-made carbon emissions when cows stop farting’, or, ‘There’s no point in me limiting my carbon emissions because China’s are going through the roof’, or, ‘It’s snowing in April – are you still going to tell me the climate’s getting warmer?’ One guy recently inflicted on me that old chestnut of Clarkson’s about the long distance travels of the battery installed in the Prius. Recently I even heard, on the radio, the one about how all the people in the world would only take up a space the size of the Isle of Wight if they all stood together. The touching thing is that they give you that wise eye which says, ‘My dear self deluding tree-hugging fairyland friend, how can you still cling to your illusions in the face of such obvious common sense?
Rather than bring a light-hearted evening down by babbling on about environmental complexity I usually ask, ‘Anyone know any nob jokes?’
And maybe start to blog about it.
Why I Think It’s Important
I’m not going to set out a case for being ‘green’ here. I will try to say how I start to think about it. So:
It isn’t unusual for a species to change its habitat from one which gives it life into one which doesn’t. Deer in a lush woodland enthusiastically munch shoots until there are none left to grow into trees: the woodland declines and the deer population goes down with it. Silver birch trees spread over a heath, having a lovely time until their own leaf mould, shade, warmth and associated fungi change the area into something more suited to oak trees. It’s a familiar thing.
We humans are a species. There are a lot of us, so we should at least be open to the possibility that what happens to other species might happen to us too. Why should we be exempt? It makes sense for us to be on the lookout for signs that it might be happening. It’s risk management.
If cavemen ever wondered about these things I guess they would have thought their habitat so vast in comparison with their puny selves that their impact on it was negligible - before dismissing the matter from their thoughts. I suspect this comforting view has continued in many minds right up to the present. But with our vastly increasing numbers and our large ‘footprint’, I’m not banking on it being the case.
It’s not about saving the planet. The planet doesn’t need saving. It works the way it does and its constituent parts react to conditions as they alter. It’s not a thinking thing and it won’t do us any favours. It doesn’t have to be human-friendly – it hasn’t been for most of its existence. We can try to avoid hastening it on to a stage where it isn’t once more - or not. The planet won’t care either way.
Update, July 2015: See the Daily Mash for an important statement by Planet Earth itself on this very subject!
Update, July 2015: See the Daily Mash for an important statement by Planet Earth itself on this very subject!
Unlike the deer and the tree, we are able to visualise alternatives, choose between them, then plan accordingly. Sadly, we can choose to behave as if we don't have that ability and to think like a deer or a tree instead.
One Liners Revisited
The quality of discussion about environment is abysmal.
‘It’s snowing in April. Are you still going to tell me the climate’s getting warmer?’ People really do still try to make this ‘point’ from time to time, but I’m sure most of us by now understand the difference between local weather and long term climate trends. The thing is beautifully put to bed by Armstrong and Miller here
A new version of it has been around during this year (2014). The claim is that global temperatures have not risen during the past 18 years and therefore global warming is not a genuine trend. I think it’s horse manure, but I’m not going to argue the point here. My concern is about getting a better quality of discussion rather than pushing a particular point of view. If you Google something like ‘climate not getting warmer 18 years’ you can find enough stuff to make your own mind up. And look out for some good examples of dodgy selection and presentation of data too - people choosing where to start and stop measurements so as to support what they want to believe.
‘I’ll start to worry about CO2 when cows stop farting’. This one has been around a long time, and I’ve had it said to me within the last 6 months. The gist is that the natural gaseous output from the innocent moo cow dwarfs any reduction we can bring about through regulating our own emissions. The implications being, I suppose, ‘So why bother?’, and, ‘It’s a natural thing, it’s been going on forever and has done us no harm’.
Before arguing that point, let's note that it’s not a point. It’s just telling us there’s another thing to worry about.
Anyway, are cattle emissions that great, and if so, why? Well, we aren’t talking about a few wild animals are we? If we do think cows are trumping us to oblivion then we should look at the vast prairies of mega-industrial scale beef and milk production in the Americas, Europe and elsewhere.
So are cows a major greenhouse gas emitter? Well as far as I can make out, they contribute about 20% of the world’s methane output, not just from trumps but also burping and breathing etc. And to this we should add the output of other ruminants such as sheep. There’s much less methane in the atmosphere than CO2, but it’s a way more powerful greenhouse gas. Then again, it breaks down more quickly. Once again the issue is well covered by internet sources. Here’s one.
The thought to hang on to, though, is that methane produced by cattle and livestock is a result of human activity so you can’t dismiss the need to control our emissions by pointing to it. Rather, you’ve just added another thing to the worry list: it is one of our emissions. Speaking personally, if dealing with it means going on a vast burger eating binge and not replacing the cows we eat in the process – I’m up for it.
And if you want something else to worry about, methane is also released by melting ice. Of course the warmer it gets, the more ice melts …
Here’s a succinct article about the composition of the atmosphere and its history:
and also see:
Update, New Year 2015: Just before Christmas I heard a comedian (didn't catch his name) talking about how a new research has shown that beavers are putting loads more methane into the atmosphere than we previously thought. He went on to make exactly the kind of crappy non-point I'm moaning about - how stupid it is, he says, that we disfigure the landscape with wind turbines when these little mammals mock our efforts with megatons of global warming gas.
Well, here's an article about it in International Business News,which gives a link to take you through to the original report. Beavers' output is said to be 15% of 'bovine output'. So put that together with what has been said above on the subject and you get closer to the real, less dramatic picture.
Another chestnut of the CO2 debate is the one about volcanoes. This one suggests that our greenhouse emissions are minuscule compared to the immense volumes of the stuff pumped out around the planet by volcanoes. This being so, our efforts at control can have no noticeable effect. There’s no problem dealing with this one. It’s wrong. See:
This link is to a website which challenges those climate deniers who, unable to accept the possibility that climate change might be happening, grab uncritically at any old stuff they think will support them. It deals with a whole list of what it calls myths, including some already mentioned here. The website makes it clear what its aims are and claims to give proper scientific evidence and sources. I’m sure you’ll want to check out its validity by following up those sources and looking at others as well, so you can make up your own mind. But please remember that a troll-type twerp peddling a conspiracy theory or a a tabloid journo knocking out a think piece doesn't necessarily qualify as 'another source'.
Please note I'm not trying to say 'Climate change is certain because these people are silly and their myths are wrong'. Just that, if you do want to disprove climate change, you need to do better than this.
The Off Switch
The Earth is a mix of materials and living things which interact with each other. At the present time all this interaction produces the conditions we humans need for life - gases to breathe, light and warmth at the right levels, atmospheric screening to keep us from harmful rays, stuff to eat and medicate with, and so on and so on. Those things aren't just 'there': they are being generated by that mix.
We know from experience that we can mess up this support system: at the local level for instance, in the 19th and 20th centuries, smog in British cities made the air unbreathable, killing many and making many more sick and miserable. At the global level we recently had the ozone hole, letting through radiation which was harmful to us, and which I understand is now on the mend because remedial action was taken - showing that we can take action to put things right when we want to.
These are not difficult ideas to think about and are not, as far as I'm aware, controversial. Yet at some point, many people start to bark. Those crappy one liners are uttered by otherwise rational people who insure their cars and wash their hands after using the lavatory.
Of course, it can be rational to question current thinking about CO2. For instance if interpretation of data can be shown as mistaken, or if newer, better research explains and invalidates the earlier stuff. This is scientific practice, where you take an idea, test it to see if it works, and put it out there to see if it works when other people do it. Those of us who are not scientists can follow these developments and try to form a view.
It's not rational to try to dismiss it out of hand by dishing up a one liner about cows, car batteries, beavers or volcanoes, as though it were gospel. That's barking; it's not a counter argument to the scientific consensus. In fact, it's something quite different: it's an off-switch. Thinking about global warming involves thinking about troubling things. Choosing to believe a simple one liner closes down the troubling thoughts and enables one to get a good night's sleep.
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