Sudipta Saha - My Blog

Even though Climate Change is a well-established and proven fact in most of the world, there remain some people who think such a phenomenon does not exist. In spite of insurmountable evidences proving otherwise, some people believe its all fake. Who are these people? – they are the deniers.
It’s true that debate still exists on the severity of climate change, but no scientific debate exists over whether it exists or not. It may not be very surprising, however, to find conspiracy theorists in this issue as has been the case with many others. However, there’s a difference. While most conspiracy theorists only make it as far as the odd prime-time Discovery documentary on crop-circles, UFOS etc. or maybe at most an extremely rare newspaper article, climate change deniers exist among the policymakers of the world, i.e. the policymakers in the USA.
So, how is it possible, that such an issue, an issue which holds our future at stake can be so divisive? What are the deniers like and what drives them so relentlessly to argue against the consensus? And most importantly can they be converted?
There exist a wide range of deniers. From the truly outrageous ones who call it a UN plot to take control over the USA, to the less outrageous ones who try, but mostly remain unsuccessful, to present some sort of scientific evidence to prop up the shaky, if not non-existent foundation of their side of the argument.

So why are the deniers so strong in some parts of the world? The reason’s simple: the world’s most powerful firms are on their side, or at least most of them. They are the fossil fuel companies. Their influence over policy making in the USA and propaganda among the general people gives them the power to not only fuel genuine deniers but also create new ones.
The companies and the coalitions they are part of have large amounts of money to spare. They use this on advertising and on lobbying –and often corrupt lobbying. For example, during the summer’s House of Representatives debate on cap-and-trade legislation, lobbyists working on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) — a front group of big utilities and coal companies, sent forged letters to members of Congress. These letters were supposedly from organizations representing blacks, Hispanics, women and senior citizens and they urged the congressmen to not support the climate legislation. In another case, Friends of Coal (FOC), a front group created by the West Virginia Coal Association whose mission is to “inform and educate West Virginia citizens about the coal industry” and “provide a united voice” for the industry, i.e. to make dirty coal seem appealing, started selling coal to children. They started handing out colouring books in schools which asks children to unscramble statements about the “advantages” of coal, such as “Than coal other cheaper is fuels” (”Coal is cheaper than other fuels”). Kids also learn that coal is “important” and “provides jobs for lots of people!” It also says that coal doesn’t harm the air as it is “cleaned before being burnt” Absolutely outrageous! The full book can be found at:Let’s Learn About Coal

But it’s not only such lobbies and coalition that make the deniers strong. The thing that I think makes them so strong is that they seem to really believe that what they are saying is actually true, and its very hard to prove to them otherwise. Since such people make up a chunk of the domestic media in the USA (specifically FOX), and because they are present in the highest circles of power, their beliefs are naturally quite contagious. Now that wouldn’t be a problem if they would actually listen to the evidence in support of this fact. However, the cookie doesn’t exactly crumble like that.
Dealing with denialism is one of the hardest things to do, if not impossible. While there is no grain of truth in such conspiracy theories, the deniers tend to believe there is no grain of truth in the climate change “hoax”. Moreover, most consider internationally accepted scientific evidence to be false. Seriously, when that happens, it’s really hard to continue debating with them. Instead of trying to explain the behaviour of the deniers, let me just paste some excerpts of some of my encounters with such people:

The first two examples are from a debate in one of the discussion pages in the Global Youth Panel which was not initially meant for debating climate change itself, but rather its solutions.

Jen(denier): The purpose of this desire to clean up the world is actually
World Government coming from a side wind. Anyone else who wanted to tell you –
how to live – what to drive – what to farm – who can farm it would be told to
go jump in the lake.

So all you do is tell a bunch of young people that their
parents got it all wrong and now it’s their turn to clean it up and they think
wow what an opportunity – We can fix this up.

Well I do not doubt that the weather changes (as it always
has done) There have been hot times and cold times before if you research this
truthfully and don’t mess with the figures like they are doing right now. So
how do you control the World? Take the control of your country away from their
own Government – If you tried to do that outright people would get up in arms –
so you make up a tremendous lie that sounds very plausible and bingo there you
go.

I do not expect that you will hear me because you are
already caught up in the web but after it’s all done and dusted you may realise
you have been hoodwinked. I have travelled the world and have been in places
like New Delhi and Buenos Aires, I am aware that there are places that need to
clean up their act but world control is not the answer. I would prefer to spend
the money being spent on this facade on helping the poor and oppressed.

Leon: If you have been in New Delhi you should be aware that India has been able to have it’s gigantic population growth partly thanks to the extra river downflow. This extra downflow was thanks to global warming and changed albedo becouse of black carbon on snow.
Once these glaciers have melted and as monsoon patern change, over 1,5 billion people will be at risk..
Climate change not a real threat you said? Think again!..

Jen: that my friend is all rubbish fed to you by who?
Leon: If you don’t like it it’s not true! Well I’ve spend some time in India and Nepal and have many friends there. A basic need for life is water. More fresh water, more life. Less water, less life.
I could show you 1000’s of peer reviewed scientific papers, but I don’t think you’ll ever be able to have a normal conversation about this. I think I’ll stop trying.

Sudipta(Me): And yet again comes the “totalitarianism” theory from “Jen”.
Think about your life now: The oil that you consume, the thing that your life runs on is coming from countries you dont even know. They can increase prices and take the money that you so love away from you. They can stop the supply and bring your imagined “independence” to a screeching halt.
Now think about another life: You pay half the electricity bills you paid before because the govt has encouraged you and has shown you the way to become more efficient. They aren’t gaining anything – its you who are gaining. The little electricity that you do consume is produced by your OWN country from resources that can NEVER be taken away from your country, nor their prices increased. After a few years, your electricity bill becomes negligible as costs of building the renewable energy plants are covered up and only their minute running costs are incurred. The car you drive does not depend on expensive oil. And for this, a few years ago you just had to pay a small tax to bring about this REAL independence. Besides that, those taxes went to YOUR OWN govt for YOUR long term welfare and not to some of the most authoritarian states sitting in some far away places and controlling YOUR life by controlling the thing that your life depends on.
Now choose which life is better.

Second example:

John Connor(denier):
We should TEST the lead in laboratories with REAL, unbiased data. Maybe use ALL of the relevant data in our computer models. Then we can see what MIGHT happen. But when we are unsure of both the cause and the effects of such warming, then it is certainly not time for a government to come and use its police power to forcibly take away liberty and property from its people to “solve” it.

Me: So you are implying that: The data collected by climatologists all over the world is not REAL, climatologists are falsely testing data.
So, when will you say that the data is REAL, that the TESTS are real. These are being done by the best in the field, and to imply that all of these are false and we should do it some other way is completely outrageous

Leon: Just ignore or delete this guys coments he must be part of the dinial industry:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/dec/07/george-monbiot-blog-climate-denial-industry
since he just posts the same lies al over this discusion.

Besides this, I should also mention something from Joe Romm’s blog, who has been labeled by Time Magazine as a Hero of the Environment and the “The Web’s most influential climate-change blogger”

The denier wrote to Romm:
I have been doing enormous amounts of research in this global warming (caused by man) theories and have concluded that there is not ONE shred of evidence to back it up. Can you PROVE to me that global warming is being caused by mankind?

Romm replied:
This one is easy. Either you believe in science — i.e. we went to the moon, you go to the doctor, you have IT equipment you rely on — or you don’t. If you don’t, I can’t “prove” anything to anybody. If you do, then the IPCC reports — which are nothing more than a literature review by the top scientists in the world, commissioned by and summarized for policymakers, signed off by every friggin’ govt in the world — are as much proof as a human being could possibly want.

Denier replied:
Sorry Joe but your email back to me is not proof of evidence. As for the IPCC report, I don’t buy into what they say. That is not proof. And yes, I very much believe in science which is why I don’t believe in humans have caused global warming. But my question is simple, what scientific proof can you show me, and I am not talking about some report from the UN, that humans are causing the Earth’s temperature to rise. Also, what is the right temperature for the Earth to be at?

Joe Romm writes in his blog – “Yes, well, the deniers, they believe in “science,” they just don’t believe in scientists or hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific articles or scientific “evidence,” which brings me to Mercurius’s list of things the deniers will accept as evidence:”

Finally, the thing essential for debating with deniers – the rules of the debate: I’ll just post a few; the whole list by Mercurius, which is extremely hilarious, can be found at http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/08/01/the-rules/

1) Nothing that was recorded by instruments such as weather-stations, ocean buoys or satellite data. Since all instruments are subject to error, we cannot use them to measure climate.
2) Nothing that has been corrected to account for the error of recording instruments. Any corrected data is a fudge. You must use only the raw data, which is previously disqualified under rule #1. Got that? OK, moving along…
3) Nothing that was produced by a computer model. We all know that you can’t trust computer models, and they have a terrible track record in any industrial, architectural, engineering, astronomical or medical context.
4) Nothing that was researched or published by a scientist. Such appeals to authority are invalid. We all know that scientists are just writing these papers to keep their grant money.
5) Please, spare me your conspiracy theories. It’s not my fault that AGW is a giant hoax perpetrated by Big Green to take over the world in a socialist plot. I’m just trying to uncover the truth here, with the assistance of a lot of commentators, media personalities, corporate executives and hired scientists who just happen to share similar political views to my own.

I guess that just shows that the best thing to do is to ignore the deniers if they start following the predictable path. I would strongly recommend further reading at the link posted by Leon at the debate – its awesome and sheds a very bright and penetrating light on the denialist industry: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/dec/07/george-monbiot-blog-climate-denial-industry

Sudipta Saha

A few days back, I visited a website named www.onebillionbulbs.com. There they have a calculator that can give estimates of how much money and carbondioxide we can save by changing light bulbs. Using that I found out that changing a 60W indascent light-bulb, used 8 hours a day, saves 79 kgs of CO2 from being emitted, annually.

I took this as a base figure. Then I randomly selected some people from my friend’s list and saw the number of friends they had. Seeing wide variations, I assumed that one could have 150 friends. If this person, through his status in facebook, and through other methods could convince some of his friends to change the light bulbs, it would help a lot.

I assumed that 50% of the friends would change 3 60W light bulbs that run 8 hours a day with energy-saving ones. Each would save 79X3 = 237 kgs anually. Therefore 75 of them would save 237X75=17,775 kgs.

If the people who change their light bulbs, in turn tried to convince their friends through facebook, it would be even better. Considering that these people also have 150 friends, and 50 of them are mutual(i.e. already know about this message), the message will be passed onto 75X100= 7500 new people. If 50% of these take the same action, they will save (7500X50%)X237=888,750 kgs of CO2 anually.

Already, in this model situation, 906, 525 kgs of CO2 has been saved, that is around 907 tonnes.

The site mentioned at first also says that saving 5966 kgs of CO2 amounts to removing 1 car from the roads for a year. So saving 888750 kgs anually means removing around 150 cars from the roads for one year.

And its only the beginning. This cycle can go on and on and on, and save many more kgs of CO2. Plus, we could change all the light bulbs and not just three. Its not that we will be saving the world- not even changing all the light bulbs will do that if people dont act in other ways. But atleast we are doing something. Its much better than doing nothing.