The New Yorker has been a bright spot, in many ways, in the media disaster that has been global warming reporting. Elizabeth Kolbert is not just a beautiful writer, a pleasure to read, but insightful and thoughtful about the climate crisis and energy issues. (See, for example, her wonderful The Island in the Wind.) From exposure to great literature, to amazing looks at societal issues, to insight on foreign policy, to great science report, it remains legitimately on the reading list. Sadly, on occasion, the editors chose to put out pieces that stain the quality that Kolbert (and other) bring to its pages on climate change and many other science issues.
Yesterday, I received an email entitled "Load of codswallop in the New Yorker" from a trusted acquaintance. With a link to an article entitled "Carbon Capture: has climate change made it harder for people to care about conservation?", my acquaintance commented:
In a supremely shitty piece, Jonathan Franzen shows inadvertently how the conservation community (heavily weighted toward hyper-wealthy landowners and extractive-industry billionaires) is overrun with a twisted form of climate denial.
That doesn't indicate that I headed to the (long) article with the most open of minds.
To step back, for a moment, in a generous fashion, there is an interesting core element: how can and should "traditional" conservation approaches coexist, interact with, reinforce, and benefit from climate mitigation and adaptation efforts? That is an interesting and difficult issue ... but really is not where Franzen's energy and attention is devoted.
For a moment, I questioned the use of "climate denial" is used when Franzen wrote:
As a narrative, climate change is almost as simple as “Markets are efficient.” The story can be told in fewer than a hundred and forty characters: We’re taking carbon that used to be sequestered and putting it in the atmosphere, and unless we stop we’re fucked.
Hmm ... that isn't bad a tweet summarizing the situation.
However, in reading the article this might remind one of the racist / sexist / xenophobe / etc who comments "some of my best friends are ..." before launching into an offensive diatribe.
In other words, sadly, the "Codswallop" introduction was on the mark.
A fatally flawed article?
Franzen's piece is, again, long and books could be dedicated to debunking the illogic and misguided nature within it.
Following are just a few examples of what a detailed analysis would cover.
A new museum exhibit?
In what could be the center piece of a Koch-funded Smithsonian avian exhibit, Franzen writes.
The responses of birds to acute climatic stress are not well studied, but birds have been adapting to such stresses for tens of millions of years, and they’re surprising us all the time—emperor penguins relocating their breeding grounds as the Antarctic ice melts, tundra swans leaving the water and learning to glean grains from agricultural fields.
Sure, they'll just adapt and evolve -- thinner birds, penguins with less plumage for warmer water, .... Evolution in real time. Perhaps birds will learn to evolve and adapt faster than
glaciers and icepacks are retreating.
Why bother actually reading a report that you attack?
The National Audubon Society issued a press release declaring climate change “the greatest threat” to American birds and warning that “nearly half ” of North America’s bird species were at risk of losing their habitats by 2080. Audubon’s announcement was credulously retransmitted by national and local media,
Using the words "credulously retransmitted" is a pretty serious attack, with an implication that the substance just wasn't there to support Audobon's calling climate change "the greatest threat" to birds and that it threatens habitats. (That press release based, by the way, on peer-reviewed research.) This wording certainly implies that any research done was at best shoddy. To make that sort of assertion typically requires some serious looking at the research documents and laying out clearly what the problems are.
The climate-change report was not immediately available, but from the Web site’s graphics, which included range maps of various bird species, it was possible to deduce that the report’s method
Huh ....???
The New Yorker's editors choose to publish an article that makes rather serious accusations about sloppy -- if not outright skewed -- research and analysis without the author (from the evidence in hand) having made any serious effort to read the actual research or contact the authors?
Logical leaps of faith ...
After attacking the study's modeling (again, from "deductions" about methodologies), Franzen comments in a great example of that "twisted form of climate denial":
Although, in any given place, some familiar back-yard birds may have disappeared by 2080, species from farther south are likely to have moved in to take their place. North America’s avifauna may well become more diverse. [emphasis in original]
Sure, don't worry that climate change will eliminate the habitats of the birds that you grew up with as there is a chance that the newly created habitats will have an even more pleasant and diverse set of species for your grandchildren to enjoy ...
a chance.
What kills birds?
Franzen talks about human impacts on bird populations. He mentions windows, cats, and wind turbines killing birds, but -- an article with climate in the title, seems to have forgotten that the exploitation and burning of fossil fuels kills birds along with devastating their habitats (now and into the future).
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- 5 billion birds dies in the United States each year.
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- America’s cats kill between 1.4 to 3.4 billion (yes, 1,700,000,000 to 3,400,000,000) birds per year (along with between 6.9 to 20.7 billion small mammals(chipmunks along with mice …)).
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- U.S. windows kill nearly 1 billion (calculated at 988 million or 988,000,000) birds per year.
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- Tar Sands production might be killing 166 million birds.
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- Cars kill some 60 million birds per year.
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- The mining and burning of coal kills nearly 8 million birds per year.
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- Wind turbines kill 100,000s and solar power kills 10,000s of birds per year.
Oversight of convenient omission from Franzen's diatribe against trying to address climate change and, instead, focusing on
The reviews are coming in and they aren't positive
“I think he’s talking nonsense,” says former director of conservation at the RSPB Mark Avery. “All the evidence suggests that climate change will be very harmful to birds.”
A spokesman for the RSPB says enthusiasm for bird conservation and membership was at an all time high. He says the organisation wants “massive growth in renewables”, to counteract the effects of climate change and the majority of projects, if well planned, do not threaten birds.
[UPDATE] Over at Climate Progress, published shortly after this post, Joe Romm's
The Corrections: Fixing Jonathan Franzen’s Deeply Flawed New Yorker Climate Article eviscerate's "one of the most bird-brained and hypocritical climate articles ever,"
In the distorted “through the looking glass” view of this piece, sharply reducing most air pollution ASAP would be “disfiguring” while the most sympathetic approach is allowing us to destroy a livable climate capable of sustaining a multi-billion human population and most existing species! And yes, Franzen actually argues that destroying a livable climate irreversibly will allow us to focus on preserving nature temporarily.
There is zero chance the New Yorker would publish such easily-debunked nonsense if its author were anyone other than Jonathan Franzen... . But as I came to learn — and as the New Yorker should have known — his entire essay is a stunning exercise in hypocrisy.
And, then Romm moves through the article tackling a few of the issues above and addressing others.
Partying as Titantic sinks?
… we can settle for a shorter life of higher quality, protecting the areas where wild animals and plants are hanging on, at the cost of slightly hastening the human catastrophe.
One have to wonder if Franzen's is simply an odd variant of the fatalistic choice to party on as the Titantic sinks.
“Mr Frantzen is entitled to his point of view but I think few thoughtful people will share it,” says Bob Ward. “As a 55-year-old writer, he may feel he can live out the remaining years of his life in comfort, while ignoring the risks that climate change will pose to those who are poorer or younger than him."