Mike: My posting was not about the article. I discounted it upon reading for some of the reasons you mention.
I'm trying to explain the concept of a policy megaphone. No more or less than that. The reality is that this single report will be noticed and uncritically accepted by quite literally millions of people and results in an even steeper hill for geoengineering to climb. That is my only point. Cheers, d. On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 11:58 AM, Mike MacCracken <[email protected]>wrote: > Hi David—Well, I do hope you read the comments under the article you > referred us to, and then about the issue from the perspectives of some other > reporters who did a bit of investigation. For example, see the following: > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/15/goddard_arctic_ice_mystery/ and > make sure to read to the end where there is a response by the NSIDC > scientist and some discussion. It does appear that Archer (whose article was > on Daily Tech and so is his interpretation and not a report by a scientist > at UIUC) jumped to a conclusion far too soon, not being skeptical like all > of us should be, but instead picking out something that agreed with what he > wanted to see. > > Mike > > > On 1/5/09 11:22 AM, "David Schnare" <[email protected]> wrote: > > For those of you wondering what I really mean about the need for > institutional support for geoengineering, let me give you an example of how > institutions trump single voices, using the sea ice topic we've been > discussing. > > While John is doing a yeoman's job carrying the water (or perhaps we should > say the ice) on concerns about loss of arctic ice, he is one voice speaking > through little more than letters. Consider the impact of the University of > Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center, speaking through Daily Tech and > broadly communicated through the Drudge Report, as well as the AGU. Their > message: Sea ice recovery in 2008 has returned to 1979 levels, and the > thinness of the ice was important in the recovery. (Daily Tech report here: > http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834). > > There are, of course, reasons to disagree with the report, keying on ice > volume rather than area coverage, but that is not the point. Money doesn't > come from scientists, it comes from people who don't understand the > difference between area and volume and don't care -- because they care about > how the public views the issue. > > Based on the U of Ill's report, the alarm level is lower, not higher. This > is the power of institutional megaphones. > > For what it is worth, geoengineering is now getting help from The > Independent's megaphone. At least the debate is now in the public domain in > a useful way. Still not enough to get big money, but a step in the right > direction. > > David > > > > > -- David W. Schnare Center for Environmental Stewardship --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
