Pflogging ... in pursuit of accelerated value creation

There is no longer much public debate about whether global warming is occurring or not. Articles like 'Mass extinction study casts cloud on future' paint a bleak picture of what lies ahead for the earth's population. But wait, if the future is cloudy, wouldn't things be cooling down?

My flippant remark is intended to reinforce that it is sometimes a bit hard to sort out sensationalism from hard science in policy-making for significant issues in society; too often, there is a 'rush to judgement' regarding major changes, when history indicates that such haste is rarely necessary, and when it is, the related decisions have as much chance to cause more problems as they do to fix the original situation. Often, the situation is simply more complicated than it appears; true science would expect that hypotheses would be developed, predictions made, experiments performed, results widely reviewed, options analyzed, and consensus established over a long period of time. But when a 'crisis' occurs, too often, this wise course is abandoned.

For example, the risks of rising ocean levels on populations living near sea level are nearly always used as one of the justifications for why we must try to respond to global warming; yet sea levels have been rising for the last 20,000 years, when they were nearly 400 feet lower than today. And statements like "Every time the tropical-sea temperatures were about 7 degrees warmer than they are now, and stayed that way for enough years, there was a die-off" in the above referenced article, imply a cause and effect relationship, even though none has actually been established.

Exchanges on such topics have become less and less informed debates on facts and data, and increasingly a political battle that is driven by personalities, celebrity advocacy, and emotional messages. Consider Al Gore who has won the Nobel peace prize for his work on An Inconvenient Truth. He can hardly be considered either an expert on the environment or a qualified climate scientist, and his hypocrisy on the environment has been well-documented. Thus, his views should thus be no more valid than any other public figure, perhaps in the same class as State of Fear author Michael Crichton (see Crichton's views summarized here). Yet for some reason, he has become the 'spokesperson' for the environment, a convenient role for him in that he neither has to achieve any particular result, or balance competing goals; he just delivers sermons, admonishing us all to change our ways (and ignoring his own advice).

Some would say that there is no longer any controversy regarding global warming. That doesn't mean, however, that there aren't still scientists with impecible reputations and active involvement on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, such as Richard Lindzen, who have expressed serious concerns about that panel's conclusions, dismissing many of their claims about global warming as junk science, arguing there is competing evidence against global warming, and disputing that the causes are man-made. There are also even more concerns about how IPOCC has conducted their business. And ideas such as managing the carbon footprint of products are often more complicated than you would think, with many nuances that are not yet well managed - yet a near stampede is underway to adopt the idea as a means of taxation, trade, and designating good and bad businesses across the world.  

A related debate regarding oil exploration in ANWR is also underway; what is common about both debates is that their focus is on the emotional aspects of such issues - such as fear of an uncertain future, concern for wildlife, or protection of a 'sensitive' environment- rather than on actual problem-solving (such as how to realistically increase energy supplies by an adequate amount for a growing world appetite for energy in the near and medium terms). The real challenge of discerning 'truth' in such debates is that questions such as this eventually come down to what (or who) to trust - the opinions of a select set of opinion-leaders, or an established and proven 'due process' for decision-making?

It is rare, in these debates, that the public is presented with just facts and data, without 'spin'. Too often, the debates devolve into ad-hominum attacks on the motives of 'big oil', or the administration, or offer unrealistic assessments of the potential of some future offered solution (hydrogen, solar, etc). Even when facts and data are presented, the average person is rarely equipped to interpret such data, without investing considerable time and energy in understanding what the data might mean. The wisdom of the crowds can be a powerful concept, but only if the crowds are well-informed, and aren't being manipulated. 

The scientific method can also help, but can take quite a while to converge on accurate and fair representations of data, and then still more time on a concensus interpretation of what the data means; yet even then, such conclusions are wrong surprisingly often. In the context of global warming, one needs to look no futher than the famous Hockey Stick Controversy, for such an example. Of course, even quoting Wikipedia itself as a valid source for such history requires the credibility of Wikipedia sources themselves to be confirmed; in matters such as this, though, Wikipedia's aggregations of viewpoints (given enough time) do seem to be a far more effective means of converging on neutral presentations of viewpoints, than competing political movements, or the media at large, appear to be. Thus, even when we do get the 'raw facts' (as the above controversy reveals), it can take a while to work through to the point that the data is trustworthy.

No one would debate the importance of such decisions; inevitably, climate change could have long-term and substantial impacts (either due to direct benefits resulting from alternative approaches, or through unneeded mitigation of misunderstood causes). Opening up access to drilling in sensitive areas is not something to be taken lightly. Impacts will accrue both on our economy, environment, and the world's population centers. Yet surprisingly, the long-term consequences of such warming could, as an overall net impact, even be beneficial to health, and even promote more food production overall - it all may comes down to where you live! We must examine both the current and future consequences of all actions, which is a difficult (and often unreliable) thing to do. Those that believe we are smart enough to manipulate the right knobs have probably not studied how often in the past we've had similarly arrogant views. Ultimately, sustainable production is indeed a legitimate goal we all should work towards... but given government and society's history of misguided manipulation, we should pursue such goals carefully and with considerable discernment; such goals will not happen overnight, or even over the next several hundred years.

What this means is that sound bites that people have often heard (like 'this is the warmest it's been in 100,000 years', or 'oil is not the answer' must be carefully scrutinized with respect to hard data from a broad review of sources. Unfortunately, in the absence of an adequate grounding in history, and unless there is an sufficient understanding of how prone the human mind is to manipulation and bias, we tend to draw conclusions too quickly. When we hear statements like the above, there are a set of questions we should be asking, like:

• What places, exactly, are we talking about? It will likely be warmer in some places, and colder in others. Oil isn't the answer for some things, but it cetainly is for others (try building a solar-powered airplane!)
• Which specific times or situations are we using as a comparison 'baseline', and how representative is that selection? Are similar periods of performance used for comparision?
• How reliable is our forecasting of the future, and how accurate have those predictions proven in the past?
• What are the counter-arguments to the assertions?
• What are the interests of the proponents of the idea? Of the antagonists?
• What if they're wrong?

You can thus tell that I'm a proponent of processes, over people, in such decision-making. For some classic, and helpful, suggestions for such processes, I would refer you to this critical thinking book. However, even when such thinking is applied (such as - I fear poorly and still politically - here), you have to still apply broad scrutiny to opinions, and never allow common sense to be displaced by titles.

For example, in answering questions such as the above within the climate change debate, we might come to ask how it was that fairly large migrations of people settled in Greenland, when it was still, well, green, within just the last 600 years, if it's 'warmer than it's ever been'. We might also ask how effective our ability has been in the past to perform accurate and standardized predictions of future global temperature trends.  I'll warn you that such forecasting is typically based upon software models that are mathematically complex, are built upon theories that themselves may not be statistically valid, and are thus extremelly difficult (and perhaps impossible) to validate. What's worse, the models are often a million or more lines of code in length, and in my experience with similar models from related settings, I seriously doubt that such code has been subjected to rigorous verification testing - at least what would be consistent with what we might do for other software involved in life-critical decision-making (despite the best assurances of 'authorities').

As another example, let's turn again to the ANWR drilling debate. You'll see the anti-drilling side saying that the available oil there really isn't all that great (which is true, relative to total global needs). The pro-drilling side counters that this is misleading, and relative to annual US needs, could be on par with the Prudhoe Bay oil field, which by itself produces approximately 16% of US oil needs. Of course, one should first decide what alternative solutions could realistically produce equivalent capabilities within the next 20 years - short of a major commitment to expanded nuclear power, there are none.

In considering the ANWR region itself, few recognize that less than 10% of ANWR would be impacted by any such drilling. The size of the proposed drilling region is a little over 3 square miles, which is smaller than the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.

The choice to drill is in the hands of the government - a government that makes more money when supply is down, and prices (and therefore related taxes) are up. Governments do indeed make far more money than oil companies on our oil consumption, yet have far less invested in collecting that money. Keep those interests in mind when you hear about choices the government is making regarding expanding energy supplies.

Thus, there are always costs and benefits associated with each decision option for energy development, such as 'to drill or not to drill', and all such costs and benefits have to be weighed on both sides of such issues. If you ask the question about whether to drill or not, it should be done in the context of proposed alternative energy sources, and what their respective value proposition is for each option; too often, the decision is really 'to expand production, or ignore the problem'. This is manipulation, not problem-solving.

As an example of how pervasively such manipulation is, consider the visual imagery often called up in the ANWR debate - pristine scenery, endangered wildlife, and wanton destruction of limited resources. The picture on the right, used in the 'anti-drill' campaigns, is indeed ANWR, and is a beautiful national resource. Very few people visit this area, but such a resource should indeed be preserved for our nation's future. Don't think this preservation is at risk from drilling in 'ANWR', though; consult the map above, and you'll see that the location of drilling is hundreds of miles from these beautiful mountain ranges.

Here is a picture of the region in which drilling would actually occur; you can also see this area in context on Google Maps.   It's a far cry from the above picture. It's certainly not something we should destroy for no reason at all, but it is hardly the same scene as in all the pictures. Why do you think they show these pictures, and talk about this beautiful area, when talking about drilling for oil in ANWR? Are we using critical thinking when considering such drilling, or are we just being manipulated?

This does not mean that we should drill wherever we want, or should do nothing about 'climate change'. We should indeed continue to understand, and consider prudent policy changes, to reduce our use of non-renewable resources and CO2 production, and make important changes to the efficiency and effectiveness of our energy exploration and utilization. However, we should not bury our head in the sand about considering realistic and safe expansion from existing reserves, in the meantime, and should agressively pursue new technology, where that can provide meaningful benefits.

One excellent and unheralded option for the latter is adopting more efficient electronics. For example, the new EE box just now entering the marketplace will only consume 5 watts of energy; imagine the impact of replacing the world's 1.2 billion computers, which currently consume an average of about 100W for processors, with similar, low-power devices like this. There are plenty of things like this that can be done to reduce computer power consumption (currently about 5% of world-wide energy needs) without panic. Or is 5% 'not worth it'? This will become a dramatic leverage point over the next twenty years for our energy needs, and will occur without government intervention; yet few have ever heard about it. I think that says a lot about what is really going on.

A broader and more intelligent use of nuclear power is also warranted, as it is far more environmentally sound than electric cars (have you done the math on battery disposal?). Such a move is long overdue, and a serious competitiveness issue for the United States. But in both these cases, a more active focus on critical thinking, by an educated population, is essential in order for us to hold our elected officials accountable - which is frankly the largest environmental problem we all face!

What should I believe, asks the traveler. What do you want to believe, answers the sage. 'Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong.' - Dandemis