> the global climate change forums end
> symposium. Together with other concerned citizens you will use the knowledge
> acquired during these symposia to construct a set of recommendations that
> will be sent to local, state and federal policy leaders regarding global
> climate change.
OK, so I went. About fifty people showed up, about half of what they
expected, despite the free lunch. They didn't promote it effectively.
The cryosphere talk by NASA GSFC scientist Waleed Abdalati was nice,
excellent graphics, well-thought-out coverage evenly split between ice
retreat and consequences, the consequences being threefold: sea level
rise, climate feedback, and local change in high latitudes. Abdalati is
an excellent speaker. His calm and friendly demeanor inspires
confidence.
The breakout sessions had little to do with the cryosphere. It was
mostly, with a few impressive exceptions, what one might call the usual
motley crew of earnest liberals with their usual catalog of
well-intentioned prejudices and misapprehensions. (There were no
denialists present among the forty or so attendees, possibly having
concluded that the event was of little consequence.) I couldn't resist
trying to add a little intellectual zing to some of the discussion, but
I guess it wasn't much appreciated.
I showed up mostly with the intention of getting the sentence "the coal
must stay in the ground" into the final report. (I would also settle
for "it's the coal, stupid".)
I like this formulation because it divides a complex argument into two
simpler pieces:
1) Must the coal stay in the ground?
2) If so, how do we set things up so the coal doesn't get dug up?
I made the case pretty cogently. I think some of the younger attendees
were impressed. Then I weakened my case by thinking out loud.
My new idea, which occurred to me as I spoke, is that the fossil fuel
companies have to have a way out, a soft landing. The fuel must be made
worth more to them in the ground than in the air. Because this was very
half-baked when it occurred to me, it probably made me look a bit
sillier than I actually am. The point is, as long as they have no way
out, they will remain implacable enemies of reasoned discussion, and
there are plenty of tricky details to work out.
One hates to reward those interests for their antisocial behavior, but
if you look at the big picture, they are doing what the rules of the
game require them to do; i.e., protecting the interest of the
shareholders. We won't change those rules any time soon, so we have to
offer a more benign way to protect the shareholders' interest,
methinks.
So my mission failed thanks to my own lack of political skill. The
sentence "the coal must stay in the ground" will not appear in any of
the sane, predictable summaries of conventional wisdom that emerge from
this conference, be sent to politicians, and receive predictable
responses.
Since the event was under-attended, there were two lunches for every
attendee. After an endless series of tedious plenary comments, at
almost 4 PM, I walked off with a surplus lunch packet. I stopped at
Water Tower Park to get a drink of water and swallow an antibiotic that
I'm on for a skin infection.
As I sat there on the corner of Michigan and Chicago, at the exact
center of the universe, popping my pill, a scruffy looking fellow
sitting next to me asked me if I wanted my potato chips. I never give
people spare change, but this fellow actually was asking for food. I
gave him the whole thing, sandwich, fruit salad, potato chips, and
brownie, all of it.
mt
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