The Washington Post seems to have a bizarre love-hate relationship with Global Warming Skeptics.
The paper's formal statements, its editorials, are increasingly clear that Global Warming is real, it creates real problem and danger, and we must act.
The paper's reporters often foster false controversy, writing in a style that fosters doubt as to the scientific consensus behind Global Warming.
And the OPEDs and letters ... when it comes to these valuable spaces, The Post seems dedicated to ensuring "balance" on an issue where this media ideal distorts reality.
And, today was no exception.
Today, The Washington Post continued its long-running romance with Global Warming Skeptics. (For a discussion of a Skeptics' piece last year, see J'accuse! Distorting reality in "Global Warming's Real Inconvenient Truth".)
Today, The Post chose to publish 5 Myths About Suburbia and Our Car-Happy Culture by Ted Balaker and Sam Staley in the Outlook section (an e-page section of editorials, OPEDs, and letters).
As with most skeptic material, this piece skirts the truth and uses multiple tools to confuse and distort. The less-than-complete disclosure starts with the description of the authors. This is not exactly a new problem with The Post. letter published Saturday:
Short on Disclosure
Liz Cheney's Jan. 23 op-ed column, "Retreat Isn't an Option," was directed against Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential candidacy. It was not a nonpartisan analysis of U.S. Middle East policy.
For those two reasons, The Post should have identified Liz Cheney as a Republican activist and daughter of Vice President Cheney. Had Liz Cheney left Hillary Clinton out of the discussion, Cheney's past affiliation with the State Department alone would have been sufficient
Balaker and Staley are bio'd as coauthors of The More Traveled: Why the Congestion Crisis Matters More than You Think, and What We Can Do About It. Absolutely true, but is this complete disclosure for Post readers who might have been interested in their employment by the libertarian Reason Foundation.
But to the substance ... or lack of it ... in this John Stossel-like defense of 'free market' over reality.
Balaker and Staley open the OPED as follows:
They don't rate up there with cancer and al-Qaeda -- at least not yet -- but suburban sprawl and automobiles are rapidly acquiring a reputation as scourges of modern American society. Sprawl, goes the typical indictment, devours open space, exacerbates global warming and causes pollution, social alienation and even obesity. And cars are the evil co-conspirator -- the driving force, so to speak, behind sprawl.
Poor sprawl, those nasty environmentalists are saying bad things about your 18,000 square foot McMansions and the disappearance of farms and forests for cookie-cutter 5000 square foot family homes.
These words, of course, belittle any attempt to point to sprawl and the car culture as complicit in these problems.
Yet the anti-suburbs culture has also fostered many myths about sprawl and driving, a few of which deserve to be reconsidered:
There is an "anti-suburbs" culture out there ... a menacing environment that fosters doubt about the sensibility of McMansioning of America? Sounds like a good culture to me ... well, that is obvious ...
First "myth" out of the starting block to attack is that "Americans are addicted to driving". They need to prove that everyone wants to drive (don't disagree) and that Americans drive more simply because they're wealthier (disagree).
Some claim that Europeans have developed an enlightened alternative. Americans return from London and Paris and tell their friends that everyone gets around by transit. But tourists tend to confine themselves to the central cities. Europeans may enjoy top-notch transit and endure gasoline that costs $5 per gallon, but in fact they don't drive much less than we do. In the United States, automobiles account for about 88 percent of travel. In Europe, the figure is about 78 percent. And Europeans are gaining on us.
Okay ... hmmm ... but is this fully the right comparison. Note, this is by percentage of travel but does not deal with distances. Europeans, writ large, are closer to their place of employment than Americans. And, oops, they drive smaller (much) smaller vehicles. (Note, that when it comes to their discussion of global warming, automobile efficiency (from size or otherwise) isn't mentioned, simply a desire for 'loony environmentalists' to get Americans out of their cars.) And, in Europe, the transit support is better. And, a far higher percentage of the population live where much of their life can be done by foot.
In any event, the problem is not with the tourists but with statistics.
And, after all, when it comes to statisics there is the old saying:
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.
Of course, this must be modified for the 21st Century:
Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Statistics Quoted by Global Warming Deniers
And, these guys do play with the statistics.
The key factor that affects driving habits isn't population density, public transit availability, gasoline taxes or even different attitudes. It's wealth. Europe and the United States are relatively wealthy, but American incomes are 15 to 40 percent higher than those in Western Europe. And as nations such as China and India become wealthier, the portion of their populations that drive cars will grow.
Thus, inexorably, the only thing that matters is money. Forget smart growth (with housing, shopping, employment, gov't services co-located/walkable distances). Forget linking that with public transportation. Forget fiscal penalties. Household income is THE determinant of driving miles. ... This one doesn't pass the sniff test, not even with a raging stuffed nose.
Point 2 argues that Public Transit is irrelevant for traffic congestion and ignores the counter-point, that congestion would be worse without that public transit.
Point 3: "We can cut air pollution only if we stop driving." One wants to put up straw men in making an argument, in an OPED. But, it would be nice if they actually connected that straw man to people actually alive on this planet. Is there anyone seriously arguing that eliminating cars is the only way to end pollution? In this discussion, they point to how pollution has been cut over recent decades with pollution control devices. Oops, they don't mention that they probably objected to the introduction of those mandates and, more importantly, that those mandates don't cover CO2/Green House Gas (GHG) emissions.
Point 5 is that "We can't deal with global warming unless we stop driving." Where to start with this section. First off, just how many people are calling for plug-in hybrids, electric vehicles (and simply more fuel efficient vehicles) to help reduce GHG emissions? Why do so if the only way to deal with global warming requires stopping all driving?
What should be done about global warming? The Kyoto Protocol seeks to get the world to agree to burn less fossil fuel and emit less carbon dioxide, and much of that involves driving less. But even disregarding the treaty's economic costs, Kyoto's environmental impact would be slight. Tom M.L. Wigley, chief scientist at the U.S. Center for Atmospheric Research, calculates that even if every nation met its obligation to reduce greenhouse gas, the Earth would be only .07 degrees centigrade cooler by 2050.
Geez, well, horrible Kyoto ... but, even if we did it, the reduction would only be .07 degrees centigrade cooler. Well, why use centigrade and not fahrenheit? Because .07 seems small than 'a little more than a tenth of a degree"? And, no discussion of where this might take us from 2050 to 2100? And, well, most would agree that Kyoto is not enough, that a different path forward is required.
The following paragraph ... well ... they simply disgust because they seem so reasonable in tone ...
The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change notes that during the 20th century the Earth's temperature rose by 0.6 degrees centigrade and -- depending on which of the many climate models turn out to be closest to reality -- it expects the temperature to rise 1.4 to 5.8 degrees by 2100.
To be a broken record, why is a mainstream US paper writing in centigrade when most Americans don't have a clue as to how to make the conversion? (Sad, isn't it?) Would "over 2 to over 10 degrees" concern readers more, perhaps?
What does the IPCC think the effects of global warming may be? Flooding may increase. Infectious diseases may spread. Heat-related illness and death may increase. Yet as the IPCC notes repeatedly, the severity of such outcomes is enormously uncertain.
Notice anything about every sentence? Perhaps that bolding helped. Fostering doubt is a key tool for Global Warming Deniers who hope to avoid, for whichever reasons, action. (See the recent report: Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco’s Tactics to "Manufacture Uncertainty" on Climate Change for example.)
May ... may ... may ... may ... enormously uncertain. What is the reaction they're seeking: 'Shit. I don't want to get out of my SUV if those scientists can't agree what is happening.' Doubt about an issue requiring action potentially at cost fosters inaction, paralysis.
On the other hand, there's great certainty regarding who would be hurt the most: poor people in developing nations, especially those who lack clean, piped water and are thus vulnerable to waterborne disease. The IPCC points out that the quality of housing in those countries is important because simple measures such as adding screens to windows can help prevent diseases (including malaria, dengue and yellow fever) from entering homes. Fragile transportation systems can also frustrate disaster recovery efforts, as medical personnel are often unable to reach people trapped in flooded areas.
Hint. This is sort of like the (semi) hidden racist ads against Ford. Well, there might be consequences. But, who is going to suffer. Lots of those poor people that you don't see and don't care about. And, 'really, they're at fault anyway because they build bad homes and aren't rich enough to have clean water.'
Two ways of dealing with global warming emerge. A more stringent version of Kyoto could be crafted to chase the unprecedented goal of trying to cool the atmosphere of the entire planet. Yet if such efforts resulted in lower economic growth, low-income populations in the United States and developing countries would be less able to protect themselves from the ill effects of extreme heat or other kinds of severe weather.
A funny sort of trickle-down at work here. Do something about Global Warming and, well, it will be those poor people who will suffer. And, well, the hidden is 'you're going to sacrifice to stop Global Warming, not really do all that much for your suffering in your own life, and you'll just make it worse for the poor people (you don't like to think about) anyway.'
Alternatively, the focus could be on preventing the negative effects -- the disease and death -- that global warming might bring. Each year malaria kills 1 million to 3 million people, and one-third of the world's population is infected with water- or soil-borne parasitic diseases. It may well be that dealing with global warming by building resilience against its possible effects is more productive -- and more realistic -- than trying to solve the problem by driving our automobiles less.
Okay, too late to stop it. It is going to happen far from us (US) and the effects will be limited. And, lets buy some mosquito nets so that I can stay in the driver's seat of my McSUV ...
....
Now, part of the dilemma is striving not to throw the baby with the bath water. These authors aren't always wrong. Not everything they write is off from policies that would improve the nation. For example, at the Reason Foundation, amid the advertising for their book The More Traveled: Why the Congestion Crisis Matters More than You Think, and What We Can Do About It, you will find 10 steps to stop congestion. Included in this:
- Traffic Signal Optimization: Surprisingly, many cities have yet to do this, despite huge potential benefits. Traffic signal optimization can reduce stop-and-go traffic by 40 percent, cut gas consumption by 10 percent, emissions by 22 percent, and travel times by 25 percent. A study of 26 such projects in Texas found benefits outweighed costs 38 to 1.
Ever been frustrated at a traffic light? That frustration doesn't result in higher blood pressure, but also has real impacts. These numbers might be off, but improving lights (and, thank you UK, adding more traffic circles) would improve the situation.
- Incident Management: For each minute that traffic is blocked by an accident, five minutes of congestion are added to a commute. In most urban areas, much more can be done to rapidly and effectively manage accidents.
Don't just get cops on scene faster ... but have them pushed to work hard to get traffic moving well.
- Telecommuting: Telecommuters outnumber transit commuters in 27 of the nation’s 50 largest cities. With communication technology constantly improving, companies and governments should encourage more workers to skip the commute and work from home.
As per Energize America, telecommuting is not appropriate for 100% of Americans, but there are far more people whose jobs are susceptible for telecommuting than are being allowed to do so. This is a true win-win options for millions (while cutting into the business interests of, for example, those leasing office buildings) that should be fostered.
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Thus, Balaker and Staley have published a dangerous piece ... one that, like the best (or we should say, worst) of Global Warming Skeptics, raises doubt in such reasonable terms, fighting to keep the Overton Window on Global Warming moving to the point where meaningful action is not just possible, but inevitable.
The good news is, of course, that they are the ones now fighting on the defensive.
NOTES:
NOTES:
- Consider joining Daily Kos Environmentalists.
- Answer the Call to turn us (US) away from a catastrophic path on Global Warming.
- And ... Imagine Life Differently ... Imagine it Better ... And Seek to create that better life
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