I wish Ron Rosenbaum had explored my Dot Earth posts and Times articles on how best to cover climate science as well as my blogroll. Then he might have realized that Nick Lemann's admonition to "find the argument" is only one of the vital steps required to effectively communicate a complex subject.

An equally important step is to place the areas of ongoing scientific dispute (hurricane strength , extinction impact, pace of sea level rise) within the broader context of what is not in dispute (more CO2 emissions will heat the world, changing climate patterns and raising seas for centuries to come). If that step is not taken in a story, the lure of conflict can mask the broader reality, and perpetuate policy stasis (whatever policy you might espouse).

So, yes, "find the argument." But then also "find the agreement" as well. It's not as sexy, but it may be the only way journalism can help society absorb that climate science has a herky-jerky trajectory, that some uncertainty is normal, but that a growing human influence on the planet's thermostat is not in dispute.

Another step is to discriminate between scientific and policy arguments. High-profile skeptics on climate have a hodegepodge of views on the science, but are bound by a common stance that restricting greenhouse gases is a waste of resources. On a science development, I don't seek input from policy advocates, whether from Greenpeace or the Cato Institute. On a policy story, everyone's invited.

Beautifully stated! The science issues are: i) whether or not we have anthropogenic CO2 mediated global warming (settled in the affirmative); ii) what the magnitude and varied impacts of this warming will be (not settled). The complementary policy issue is what - if anything - should be done about this.

As a layman, I'd be happy to restrict my participation to the policy debate alone. So can I ask for reciprocal respect from the scientists? It's extremely difficult to find any reference material on the natural world prepared by scientists for laymen that does not advocate a specific - usually drastic - policy position, and don't get me started on the propaganda that is currently peddled in public school science lessons.

As for the policy options, failing to reference the following facts - not theories, but facts - renders any debate worthless (see International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook, 2007).

• Annual world population growth rates 1980-2005 were between 1.4% and 1.7%.
• Annual world GDP growth was between 2.9% and 3.4% over the same period; i.e., per capita GDP increased...happy news!
• A very large proportion of world GDP growth over the period took place in China and India...more happy news!
• The income elasticity of energy demand (increase in energy demand relative to GDP) was between 0.4 and 0.8 from 1991 to 2005; i.e, GDP growth requires the consumption of energy.
• China and India rely heavily on indigenous coal (roughly 16% of the increase in global energy consumption from 2000 to 2006 was due to Chinese and Indian coal), and will continue to do so far into the future.

So let's be clear, we're not talking about SUVs, plasma screen TVs, and A/C in North America & Europe, we're talking about the aspirations of something like one third of humanity for a better life.

So, given a choice between polar bears and people? For shame if it's not obvious.

Typical Republican response. Present a false dichotomy as an excuse to do nothing.

Would that be you... the layman?

The only two policies that you seem to have imagined are:

1. do nothing and just rejoice that people are breeding and consuming more... and we'll just see how bad the environment gets...

2. Crush the life and happiness out of the world in a dogmatic pursuit of lower carbon dioxide emissions.

I honestly don't know which I'd choose, because I - like everyone else - have no idea how bad the environmental impact is going to get... I know it will be bad... but if those were my only two choices it would be tough.

Fortunately - at least for me - those blasted scientists have offered dozens of different ideas for how to maintain or even improve our current lifestyle while drastically lowering our carbon footprint.

In fact, in many cases we'll keep simply waste less while doing the exact same thing, which means more money... In other cases we'll no longer have to waste 5 years on a useless war with the transparent intent of controlling the oil trade... etc...

Not ruining life as we know it... not choosing to let polar bears eat people - or whatever nonsense policy that you (the one that demands to participate in policy discussions and keep those inventive scientist people out) have seemingly come up with.

The simple fact is most of those clever policies that both maintain or improve lifestyles while reducing the impact on the environment have been petitioned for from the start... and that is what the misinformation propaganda people (insert conservative pundent here) have managed to keep you anti-scientist people from figuring out.

I have a question for you, does it hurt you to use wind power rather than coal power? (wind energy in a class 5 wind zone or better is cheaper than coal energy is today, just so we're on the same page...)

:)

I would personally agree that the dimwit fools that make poor excuses for scientists that currently taint the upper ranks of the DOE should not be involved in policy discussions beyond question/answer sessions with elementary school children... but otherwise, I'd like to let the scientists play as well. Maybe they can find some more palatable answer than sacrificing people to polar bears.

www.dotyenergy.com

:)

My bad, I over reached.....of course scientists should participate in the policy debate, but they have no special claim to extraordinary credibility in that arena. We've seen several examples of that in the posts associated with this article: "I'm a PhD so listen to me"......the type that can kill any cocktail party within 50 paces.

And - granted - there are lots of clever ideas out there for mitigating antropogenic CO2 mediated climate change (more on this below), so the question becomes: what are the costs and benefits of the whole range of options, including the option of doing nothing? The predonderance of evidence points to doing nothing as the best cost benefit proposition: predictions of future climate states differ wildly (UK in the deep freeze, UK like Morocco in the summer), so the costs are just not known with any certainty; and, the existing cost calculations assume that individuals will just sit around and not adapt on their own as the climate changes (i.e., human behaviour as per usual is assumed out of the cost equation).

The only fly in the ointment is the risk of a major discontinuity - e.g. Gulf Stream shuts down over the space of a few decades or years - but the chances of this would seem to be about the same as a major meteorite strike. Both will definitely happen at some point in the future - the Gulf Stream has not, and will not persist forever, regardless of antrogenic CO2 mediated climate change - but the chances of occurence within a relevant timeframe are small, and - likely - we would get some kind of warning which would permit the attempt of emergency preventive measures.

But then again perhaps it's all too late. Isn't the mainstream prediction that the climate is heading for a major change even if today we completely stopped all antropogenic CO2 emissions? If so, then let's focus on adaptation: e.g., discourage reconconstruction of New Orleans, discourage construction in wildfire vulnerable areas, build a dyke around New York, and/or Bangladesh (coupled with development & governance to improve resilience to the tropical storms to which they have always been subject).

If the world restricted itself to the per capita carbon footprint of Europe - reasonable level of propserity, wind/solar/whatever, dense settlement, extensive public transit, below-replacement birthrates - we'd still be emitting far more CO2 than today. Even then, the very large scale viability of wind/solar/whatever is not clear, and do we want our landscape so blighted? Not to mention that there's a reason the European birthrate is so low: it's a depressing place to live......but nice to visit ;)

A serious and credible advocacy for reducing antropogenic CO2 while maintaining and building upon the quality of civilization, would be for massive investments in fission reactors (using the power to spilt Hydrogen out of water), coupled with massive investments in fusion research so that it's viable in time for the depletion of uranium (something like 150 years).

as wind energy.

There is no reason to suspect that Uranium prices will remain depressed forever, and as uranium starts hyperinflating (it must to encourage more mining, or the world's inventory will begin running critically low in a few years), then its cost will further burden the price of nuclear-generated power.

New nukes simply aren't cheap.

In 30 years - they are predicted to have the first working fusion reactor (30 years)... If THEIR cost estimates are accurate (they won't be) and THEIR predicted performance is achieved (it won't be), is that fission energy is ~140 times as expensive - per kWh - as wind.

As for "blighting the landscape", most places put windmills on postcards and many artistic prints feature them because they are considered "beautiful". How is this a blight? I think most buildings are ugly, should we then ban buildings? That argument is nonsense.

Our not-so-modest suggestion:

www.dotyenergy.com

:)