Following a broadcast on the BBC Radio 4 Analysis programme (20:30 Monday 24 May 2010) presented by Justin Rowlatt (the BBC's 'Ethical Man'), I posted the following text on the BBC's Ethical Man weblog:
"I listened to the radio programme with much anticipation. I was pleased that the issue was taken seriously in terms both of the science and the politics. There were various aspects with which I variously wholeheartedly agreed or disagreed. Three aspects, however, that I considered to be very weak were: 1) democracy is not one thing; democracy means different things to different people in different places; the UK has a system of representative democracy (hence no capital punishment despite the untested preference of the electorate). 2) Much of what is already taking place (erection of wind turbines, replacement of incandescent light bulbs, new hybrid and electric vehicles) is happening between government and industry, not by popular choice at the retail level (we will buy whatever is available)- this is about the relationship between government and corporations in which the electorate never get any say anyway. 3) Too often "the expressed will of the people" has more to do with the relationship between government and the popular press - were the red-tops to champion major lifestyle changes to ameliorate climate change, their readership would almost inevitably follow."
I wish to develop these ideas further, although this weblog is not the place where I intend to leave the text. The issues belong on my Green website.
The radio programme is reported to be currently available on the BBC iPlayer.
1. Democracy under threat?
The term 'democratic' seems to be used frequently in a wide variety of circumstances to indicate that something is politically good in some way. It seems obvious to most people who choose to live in economically-developed western countries that even the most imperfect of democracies are superior, say, to the society portrayed by George Orwell in 1984. If nothing else, this points to democracies that fall short of some notional democractic ideal. A democracy probably requires regular, popular elections (as distinct from elections by a small minority) and a voting system that delivers an outcome readily acceptable to the electorate. In the US it is considered democratic to vote for a variety of public officials beyond politicians, e.g. police chiefs. In the UK such an election is viewed with suspicion, believing that public officials should be impartial. In the UK, the rights of trades unions to require their members to withdraw their labour are enshrined in law - trades unions being seen as an example of dispersed democracy. Winston Churchill saw the dispersal of democracy amongst the institutions of a country as a process of democratisation. It is not clear to me what aspects and features of democracy would have to be suspended to effect a political programme to counter AGW (anthropogenic global warming). It is, however, clear to me that to suspend all that we call democracy would so fundamentally change the nature and fabric of contemporary UK society that inentional suspension would be beyond contemplation. More realistically, the suspension of certain aspects of the democratic political process could happen, as it did during the second world war. This does not have to be a slippery slope towards totalitarianism.
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
03 February 2010
Journalism 1: fleas on the back of democracy
It can be argued, and often is, that free and open journalism is a key function for the effective working of a democracy. News of national and international political and economic affairs is presented by journalists as a truth lieing somewhere between contextualised fact and informed opinion.
It is a disappointment, therefore, the underwhelmingly poor quality of popular (as distinct from specialist) journalism in the UK makes it easy to assess as very poor value - a high price to be paid in public attention (as well as the invasion of privacy) for such insubstantial fare. The focus on sport, celebrity, royalty, reality television shows and soap operas is bad enough. However, the self-satisfied - sometimes self-congratulatory , insular - sometimes jingoistic, ill-educated - sometimes mocking the mre highly educated, illiberal - sometimes sneering at those who try to understand people who transgress social norms, grub dollopped into porcelain and melamine dishes alike, makes it all-too-clear why "Support our Boys" and "Help for Heroes" have become national slogans regardless of the immorality, the geopolitical stupidity, and the financial burden of stationing trained killers and their support staff in a far away country called Afghanistan.
Prize-winning US journalist, writer and philosopher, on the other hand, "held no assumption of news and truth being synonymous. For him the “function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them in relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act.” A journalist’s version of the truth is subjective and limited to how he constructs his reality. The news, therefore, is “imperfectly recorded” and too fragile to bear the charge as “an organ of direct democracy.”
'Public confidence' is a euphemism for the opinion of journalists, fat cat editors, advertisers, and phalanxes of well-funded lobbyists. Public confidence in science and scientists is not a direct response to scientific findings, but is directed by journalists / lobbyists.
My comments above are (reworked Twitter) responses to the following Twitter posting that refers to a BBC so-called-news item: "Does the world of climate science need a radical rethink? Susan Watts reports on IPCC blunders: http://tiny.cc/WuwiS "
The entire article appears to me to be scurrilous, intending to create and foment the doubt it purports to report. My 'evidence' is an extended interview given by Sir David King and broadcast on Night Waves, BBC Radio 3, on the evening of Tuesday 26 January 2010. Here is the programme blurb:
"As part of the BBC Year of Science, Radio 3's Night Waves is running a special series of extended interviews with leading scientists from Britain and the rest of the world. Each month a complete 45 minute edition will be dedicated to a single scientific figure talking to him or her about their research specialism, their wider scientific views, their personal background and their involvement with broader cultural and political questions.
"In the first interview Anne McElvoy talks to David King, the UK government's chief scientific officer from 2000 to 2007 - a job which put him at the heart of one of the burning issues of our time: the relationship between scientists, the government and the general public. On his watch David King faced foot and mouth, the GM foods debate, the ratification of the Kyoto protocol and the Stern Report.
"South African born and a physical chemist by training, David King arguably did more than any other scientist to put the issue of Climate Change onto the UK's public and political map. Anne gauges his opinions on the failure of the Copenhagen summit and asks about the nature of scientific orthodoxy after the furore over the climate change emails from the University of East Anglia, where he used to work.
"And what does he think about the status of scientific knowledge in the political process, an issue brought sharply into focus by the recent resignation of David Nutt, the chairman of the government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs?
"David King is a self confessed optimist, his personal style is that of the quietly spoken diplomat but he is no stranger to controversy. He publicly criticised the Bush administration over its environmental policies and has himself been declared an embarrassment by those with different opinions over climate change."
I was fascinated to listen to the interview. I studied the history and philosophy of science at university, and still often read popular science and science history books. Therefore it was good to hear a scientist talking meaningfully about the business of doing science, the philosophy behind and theory of the scientific method, and what it was like to interface with politicians (and journalists) who had little understanding of, and even less sympathy for, the on-the-ground realities of science.
In stark contrast to my comfort with the feet-on-the-ground reasonableness of what David King had to say, I experienced the interviewer, Executive Editor of the (London) Evening Standard, Anne McElvoy, to be extremely irritating in the perpetual slant of her questions. I was unclear whether she had a specific agenda (probably partly to do with David Nutt's recent falling out with the government, but also to assert the role of journalists in the debate about climate change); was trying repeatedly to goad him (which succeeded on several occasions, and I also noted that the interview simply stopped - it did not come to an end), or was just plain ignorant (both meanings of the word). I dislike it when an interviewer is not actually interested in the answer given by the interviewee.
In one section of the interview, David King gave a clear message, supported by clear examples, that the pressure from climate change skeptics is extremely well organised, extremely well funded, and has an unswerving aim of derailing political attempts to limit climate change. There is no respect in which it would be possible to suggest that the man is paranoid. His observations, explanations and arguments were persuasive beyond assailability - which is why I wondered if the journalist was simply stupid (which she cannot possibly be) when she refused to acknowledge the absurdity of some of the positions she took.
All that said, the interview was well worth listening to, and I am disappointed that it is not available online. In contrast, Susan Watts' piece (linked above) is mere scurrilous junk!
It is a disappointment, therefore, the underwhelmingly poor quality of popular (as distinct from specialist) journalism in the UK makes it easy to assess as very poor value - a high price to be paid in public attention (as well as the invasion of privacy) for such insubstantial fare. The focus on sport, celebrity, royalty, reality television shows and soap operas is bad enough. However, the self-satisfied - sometimes self-congratulatory , insular - sometimes jingoistic, ill-educated - sometimes mocking the mre highly educated, illiberal - sometimes sneering at those who try to understand people who transgress social norms, grub dollopped into porcelain and melamine dishes alike, makes it all-too-clear why "Support our Boys" and "Help for Heroes" have become national slogans regardless of the immorality, the geopolitical stupidity, and the financial burden of stationing trained killers and their support staff in a far away country called Afghanistan.
Prize-winning US journalist, writer and philosopher, on the other hand, "held no assumption of news and truth being synonymous. For him the “function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them in relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act.” A journalist’s version of the truth is subjective and limited to how he constructs his reality. The news, therefore, is “imperfectly recorded” and too fragile to bear the charge as “an organ of direct democracy.”
'Public confidence' is a euphemism for the opinion of journalists, fat cat editors, advertisers, and phalanxes of well-funded lobbyists. Public confidence in science and scientists is not a direct response to scientific findings, but is directed by journalists / lobbyists.
My comments above are (reworked Twitter) responses to the following Twitter posting that refers to a BBC so-called-news item: "Does the world of climate science need a radical rethink? Susan Watts reports on IPCC blunders: http://tiny.cc/WuwiS "
The entire article appears to me to be scurrilous, intending to create and foment the doubt it purports to report. My 'evidence' is an extended interview given by Sir David King and broadcast on Night Waves, BBC Radio 3, on the evening of Tuesday 26 January 2010. Here is the programme blurb:
"As part of the BBC Year of Science, Radio 3's Night Waves is running a special series of extended interviews with leading scientists from Britain and the rest of the world. Each month a complete 45 minute edition will be dedicated to a single scientific figure talking to him or her about their research specialism, their wider scientific views, their personal background and their involvement with broader cultural and political questions.
"In the first interview Anne McElvoy talks to David King, the UK government's chief scientific officer from 2000 to 2007 - a job which put him at the heart of one of the burning issues of our time: the relationship between scientists, the government and the general public. On his watch David King faced foot and mouth, the GM foods debate, the ratification of the Kyoto protocol and the Stern Report.
"South African born and a physical chemist by training, David King arguably did more than any other scientist to put the issue of Climate Change onto the UK's public and political map. Anne gauges his opinions on the failure of the Copenhagen summit and asks about the nature of scientific orthodoxy after the furore over the climate change emails from the University of East Anglia, where he used to work.
"And what does he think about the status of scientific knowledge in the political process, an issue brought sharply into focus by the recent resignation of David Nutt, the chairman of the government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs?
"David King is a self confessed optimist, his personal style is that of the quietly spoken diplomat but he is no stranger to controversy. He publicly criticised the Bush administration over its environmental policies and has himself been declared an embarrassment by those with different opinions over climate change."
I was fascinated to listen to the interview. I studied the history and philosophy of science at university, and still often read popular science and science history books. Therefore it was good to hear a scientist talking meaningfully about the business of doing science, the philosophy behind and theory of the scientific method, and what it was like to interface with politicians (and journalists) who had little understanding of, and even less sympathy for, the on-the-ground realities of science.
In stark contrast to my comfort with the feet-on-the-ground reasonableness of what David King had to say, I experienced the interviewer, Executive Editor of the (London) Evening Standard, Anne McElvoy, to be extremely irritating in the perpetual slant of her questions. I was unclear whether she had a specific agenda (probably partly to do with David Nutt's recent falling out with the government, but also to assert the role of journalists in the debate about climate change); was trying repeatedly to goad him (which succeeded on several occasions, and I also noted that the interview simply stopped - it did not come to an end), or was just plain ignorant (both meanings of the word). I dislike it when an interviewer is not actually interested in the answer given by the interviewee.
In one section of the interview, David King gave a clear message, supported by clear examples, that the pressure from climate change skeptics is extremely well organised, extremely well funded, and has an unswerving aim of derailing political attempts to limit climate change. There is no respect in which it would be possible to suggest that the man is paranoid. His observations, explanations and arguments were persuasive beyond assailability - which is why I wondered if the journalist was simply stupid (which she cannot possibly be) when she refused to acknowledge the absurdity of some of the positions she took.
All that said, the interview was well worth listening to, and I am disappointed that it is not available online. In contrast, Susan Watts' piece (linked above) is mere scurrilous junk!
24 March 2008
Book Review: The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, Abacus, London, 2001
(ppb., 279 pp., 11 pp. endnotes/references, indexed, first published by Little, Brown, 2000)
It is not often that book titles manage to raise themselves out of the dust thrown up by the noise of everyday life: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker, Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The term used by Gladwell in the title to his first book The Tipping Point has now achieved common currency. The relevance to climate change and global warming could lead one to wonder, in all seriousness, whether the concept of the 'tipping point' was itself at a tipping point, ready to tip. For many years we had been either 'on the threshold' (in control) or 'teetering on the brink' (not in control). Tipping points may be less obvious, and inferred only by subsequent analysis. Why did crime in New York City plummet in the 1980s? This is one of the examples Gladwell considers in detail, identifying that a particular set of circumstances were at a sensitive 'tipping point', and a small, highly targetted effort was able to make a massive difference. An example Gladwell does not consider concerns marine clathrates - methane hydrate held in huge volumes in ocean sediments. A small rise in global temperatures currently will do little to these clathrates. However, with global temperatures predicted to rise by four or five degrees over the next forty years, even a miniscule temperature elevation could then release vast quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, setting off a rapid escalation of further, potentially catastrophic, global warming. The ocean temperature at which methane is released from clathrates is a tipping point in terms of climate change.
Most of Gladwell's examples of tipping points are focused around human behaviour. It is easy to see why the same term is used both for physical and social processes. When a transmissible disease starts to spread, the rate of social transmission is likely to change in response to a variety of social factors, such as changes in seasonal behaviour. A viral epidemic, such as seasonal 'flu, may well pass through a tipping point, both on its way up and on its way down. At the time of writing, the much-expected pandemic 'flu epidemic based on the H5N1 bird 'flu virus has not reached a tipping point, although it is understood what that tipping point would be: the point at which the virus mutates to permit efficient human-human transmission. Gladwell considers the fashion industry and how there are tipping points in the sale of particular fashion items. He also considers Paul Revere's ride that led to the American War of Independence, analysing what what made the ride a tipping point.
Gladwell identifies both that the context must be right and that the 'contagion' is contagious, 'sticky'. He also considers that three roles are necessary for a social tipping point: connectors, mavens and salesmen. The designations are supeficially attractive and may contain more than simply a kernel of truth. However, in my view, Gladwell fails to take account of the effectiveness of the vested interests of international commerce and national politics in controlling what we buy, what we watch/read, and what we think. Indeed, his message looks as though it will be attractive to a popular culture that prizes individualism: if you are smart in some way, you can make a difference. Maybe you know lots of people (connectors), maybe you are obsessed with footware or gizmos or supermarket prices (mavens), maybe you can sell beachwear to people living in Greenland (salesmen). I thought time and again: Gladwell knows the culture for which he is writing. A society in which intellect is not fully trusted, but in which people dream of escaping both from the vista of complexity revealed by science, and from the daily tedium of humdrum graft to 'stars in their eyes' silver-bullet breakthroughs.
It is valuable that Gladwell offers plenty of evidence to support his assertions. In popular social science style, the text is made up of one anecdote after another, and includes several well-worked-through examples, albeit largely from the United States. The text is well-supported (11 pages of endnotes and references) with many references to academic books and academic papers, as well as newspaper and magazine articles, albeit largely written by Americans in the United States. This US focus should be surprising as Gladwell was born in the UK and raised in Ontario. The parochialism started to irritate me, not because I hold any anti-American prejudices, but because I started to doubt that his thesis would hold as true for other societies around the world. He does offer a Polynesian example of teenage suicide. However, by this point in the book I had started to become suspicious. How much does Gladwell know about Polynesian society? How much does he understand about suicidal ideation and pyschotherapy? Again, this should be surprising because Gladwell's mother was a Jamaican psychotherapist. Although the precise example of Polynesian teenage suicide may well be valid, I was equally sure that Gladwell was well beyond his home turf.
Academic writing does not make claims beyond those that it can defend. Academic writing considers short-comings, objections and alternative interpretations. Gladwell should be familiar with academic writing because his father, Graham, is emeritus professor of civil engineering at Canada's leading University of Waterloo, Ontario. What is absent from Gladwell's book is anything critical of his thesis, anything that may refute his ideas. At two points (crime reduction in New York City, and the spread of syphilis in Baltimore) Gladwell does rehearse alternative suggestions for what took place, but only as a rhetorical backdrop for his 'white knight' tipping point solution. It is as though, for Gladwell, there is a silver bullet to be found, a tipping point that will make all the difference. The Tipping Point is a text written to persuade and convince. Gladwell is acting as maven and salesman for his own ideas. The example he cites at which he appears to me to be weakest is when considering tobacco smoking reduction behaviour. He fails to acknowledge the emotional complexity of smoking, its multitude of meanings, the meanings associated with quitting, and the fact that much smoking reduction advertising is aimed at adults. Having a degree in history, it is far from obvious that issues of suicide and addictions are areas of Gladwell's strength. Happily, however, his text appears to be much more persuasive when it comes to the commercial advertising of fashion items to a segmented US market. About this he writes well. Indeed, his entire text is written in a style that justifiably belongs to a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine.
It would seem that Gladwell applied to his book, the sub-title of which is How little things can make a big difference, the lessons that constitute his chapters. I bought the book because I had heard of it many times and was interested to learn. The book's advertising puff reads: "The International No. 1 Bestseller", a message advertising how contagious the book is.
The concept of tipping points is important, and deserves to be explored, understood and explained more fully, and above all more rigorously. Maybe is is me who at fault in hoping for a modicum of academic scepticism and balance in a popular social science text. When all is said and done, Gladwell's book is an enthusiastic and encouraging introduction to tipping points.
***
Gladwell biographical information drawn from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell accessed 24 March 2008
(ppb., 279 pp., 11 pp. endnotes/references, indexed, first published by Little, Brown, 2000)
It is not often that book titles manage to raise themselves out of the dust thrown up by the noise of everyday life: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker, Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The term used by Gladwell in the title to his first book The Tipping Point has now achieved common currency. The relevance to climate change and global warming could lead one to wonder, in all seriousness, whether the concept of the 'tipping point' was itself at a tipping point, ready to tip. For many years we had been either 'on the threshold' (in control) or 'teetering on the brink' (not in control). Tipping points may be less obvious, and inferred only by subsequent analysis. Why did crime in New York City plummet in the 1980s? This is one of the examples Gladwell considers in detail, identifying that a particular set of circumstances were at a sensitive 'tipping point', and a small, highly targetted effort was able to make a massive difference. An example Gladwell does not consider concerns marine clathrates - methane hydrate held in huge volumes in ocean sediments. A small rise in global temperatures currently will do little to these clathrates. However, with global temperatures predicted to rise by four or five degrees over the next forty years, even a miniscule temperature elevation could then release vast quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, setting off a rapid escalation of further, potentially catastrophic, global warming. The ocean temperature at which methane is released from clathrates is a tipping point in terms of climate change.
Most of Gladwell's examples of tipping points are focused around human behaviour. It is easy to see why the same term is used both for physical and social processes. When a transmissible disease starts to spread, the rate of social transmission is likely to change in response to a variety of social factors, such as changes in seasonal behaviour. A viral epidemic, such as seasonal 'flu, may well pass through a tipping point, both on its way up and on its way down. At the time of writing, the much-expected pandemic 'flu epidemic based on the H5N1 bird 'flu virus has not reached a tipping point, although it is understood what that tipping point would be: the point at which the virus mutates to permit efficient human-human transmission. Gladwell considers the fashion industry and how there are tipping points in the sale of particular fashion items. He also considers Paul Revere's ride that led to the American War of Independence, analysing what what made the ride a tipping point.
Gladwell identifies both that the context must be right and that the 'contagion' is contagious, 'sticky'. He also considers that three roles are necessary for a social tipping point: connectors, mavens and salesmen. The designations are supeficially attractive and may contain more than simply a kernel of truth. However, in my view, Gladwell fails to take account of the effectiveness of the vested interests of international commerce and national politics in controlling what we buy, what we watch/read, and what we think. Indeed, his message looks as though it will be attractive to a popular culture that prizes individualism: if you are smart in some way, you can make a difference. Maybe you know lots of people (connectors), maybe you are obsessed with footware or gizmos or supermarket prices (mavens), maybe you can sell beachwear to people living in Greenland (salesmen). I thought time and again: Gladwell knows the culture for which he is writing. A society in which intellect is not fully trusted, but in which people dream of escaping both from the vista of complexity revealed by science, and from the daily tedium of humdrum graft to 'stars in their eyes' silver-bullet breakthroughs.
It is valuable that Gladwell offers plenty of evidence to support his assertions. In popular social science style, the text is made up of one anecdote after another, and includes several well-worked-through examples, albeit largely from the United States. The text is well-supported (11 pages of endnotes and references) with many references to academic books and academic papers, as well as newspaper and magazine articles, albeit largely written by Americans in the United States. This US focus should be surprising as Gladwell was born in the UK and raised in Ontario. The parochialism started to irritate me, not because I hold any anti-American prejudices, but because I started to doubt that his thesis would hold as true for other societies around the world. He does offer a Polynesian example of teenage suicide. However, by this point in the book I had started to become suspicious. How much does Gladwell know about Polynesian society? How much does he understand about suicidal ideation and pyschotherapy? Again, this should be surprising because Gladwell's mother was a Jamaican psychotherapist. Although the precise example of Polynesian teenage suicide may well be valid, I was equally sure that Gladwell was well beyond his home turf.
Academic writing does not make claims beyond those that it can defend. Academic writing considers short-comings, objections and alternative interpretations. Gladwell should be familiar with academic writing because his father, Graham, is emeritus professor of civil engineering at Canada's leading University of Waterloo, Ontario. What is absent from Gladwell's book is anything critical of his thesis, anything that may refute his ideas. At two points (crime reduction in New York City, and the spread of syphilis in Baltimore) Gladwell does rehearse alternative suggestions for what took place, but only as a rhetorical backdrop for his 'white knight' tipping point solution. It is as though, for Gladwell, there is a silver bullet to be found, a tipping point that will make all the difference. The Tipping Point is a text written to persuade and convince. Gladwell is acting as maven and salesman for his own ideas. The example he cites at which he appears to me to be weakest is when considering tobacco smoking reduction behaviour. He fails to acknowledge the emotional complexity of smoking, its multitude of meanings, the meanings associated with quitting, and the fact that much smoking reduction advertising is aimed at adults. Having a degree in history, it is far from obvious that issues of suicide and addictions are areas of Gladwell's strength. Happily, however, his text appears to be much more persuasive when it comes to the commercial advertising of fashion items to a segmented US market. About this he writes well. Indeed, his entire text is written in a style that justifiably belongs to a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine.
It would seem that Gladwell applied to his book, the sub-title of which is How little things can make a big difference, the lessons that constitute his chapters. I bought the book because I had heard of it many times and was interested to learn. The book's advertising puff reads: "The International No. 1 Bestseller", a message advertising how contagious the book is.
The concept of tipping points is important, and deserves to be explored, understood and explained more fully, and above all more rigorously. Maybe is is me who at fault in hoping for a modicum of academic scepticism and balance in a popular social science text. When all is said and done, Gladwell's book is an enthusiastic and encouraging introduction to tipping points.
***
Gladwell biographical information drawn from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell accessed 24 March 2008
14 March 2008
Green: traffic speed and climate change
When a motor vehicle (car, van, lorry) is travelling steadily at its optimum speed for minimising fuel consumption (usually between 25 mph and 50 mph), its fuel consumption is very much lower than when it is travelling fast or changing speed. I now know this for sure because my replacement car has a fuel consumption computer. I am able to see in numerical terms, the effect on my car's fuel consumption of driving style choices that I make.
During the mid-1970s, in response to massive increases in the price of crude oil imposed by the OPEC countries (and therefore causing a significant shift in the balance of trade), the UK national speed limit was reduced in order to reduce national fuel consumption. From Wikipedia: "It was reduced to 50 mph (80 km/h) in response to the 1973 oil crisis, and restored to 70 mph (112 km/h) in 1974."
In relation to the US, I found the following paragraph here:
"In the midst of an energy crisis touched off by conflict in the Middle East (see October 17, 1973), President Richard Nixon signs the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act, establishing a maximum national speed limit. No highway projects may be approved in any State having a maximum speed limit over 55 m.p.h. The Act, part of a nationwide effort to save oil, is a result of an oil embargo imposed by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that forced Americans into long lines at gas stations. President Nixon estimates the new speed limit can save nearly 200,000 barrels of fuel a day."
Were the UK national speed limit to be reduced again to 50 mph, the consequence would be a significant reduction in greenhouse gases produced by motor vehicles. Additionally, motorists would save money because they would need to buy less fuel. Lower road speeds would permit roads to carry denser traffic, thus, perhaps counter-intuitively, reducing some congestion. Further, according to the police, excessive speed is indicated in a majority of road traffic accidents. Limiting speed to 50 mph has the chance, therefore, of reducing the number of accidents, their severity and the number of casualties. (I read somewhere that reduction in the number of casualties of road traffic accidents had plateaued, and that further measures were going to be required if the numbers were to be reduced further.) Longer journey times for lengthy journeys might mean that more journeys would be undertaken using public transport, and there might be a long-overdue increase in the use of video-conferencing, and thus a reduction in the number of journeys undertaken.
To my knowledge, no-one is talking about this proposal as an option to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport. Is there a reason for this? Am I missing something? As a first step, it would seem like an obvious and relatively cheap and pain-free adjustment that could be made.
Some further thoughts:
1. The speedometer in most UK cars runs up to 160 mph. This is bizarre because the national speed limit in the UK is 70 mph, and (with the exception of Lower Saxony) nowhere else in Europe exceeds 130 kph. The unnecessary range of the speedometer dial achieves two things: I am less clear about my precise speed because the reading is always limited to a small proportion of the speedometer dial; I am always given the sense that I am driving slowly compared with the apparent potential of the car.
2. My car has the potential to travel much faster than I shall ever be legally allowed to drive it.
3. Every morning when I commute to work, an overwhelming majority of the traffic noticeably exceeds the speed limit for substantial portions of the journey.
4. Despite huge negative attention devoted by UK motorists and news media to speed cameras on UK roads, the reality is that the number of speed cameras relative to the extent of roads on which speeding takes place is pitiful.
5. Few UK cars are fitted with cruise control. The price for retrofitting cruise control is prohibitively high. Cruise control could help motorists to observe speed limits.
6. The overwhelming majority of car advertisements in the UK emphasise using cars for fun and excitement. This is not a message that is compatible with attempting to reduce CO2 emissions and traffic. Resolving issues related to climate change requires that people stop seeing their car as a form of recreation.
7. The points I have made above impact on the daily lives of ordinary people. I suspect that many people are willing to make token efforts to mitigate climate change, provided that they are not required to change how they live their life. I believe that climate change is orders of magnitude bigger than the majority of people are appreciating. Token efforts sound to me like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. Until people realise that real change needs to take place, across a range of lifestyle issues, such as the speed at which they drive their cars, CO2 emissions are not going to fall.
Beatrice 16 May, 2008 15:11 commented...
Yes, you're absolutely right about deckcahairs on the Titanic. I think people just cannot cope with the enormity of the implications of runaway climate change and so refuse to accept it is real. There are some interesting articles about on the psychology of climate change denial eg this one by George Marshall:http://www.ecoglobe.ch/motivation/e/clim2922.htm
Postscript
Whilst what I have written above sounds a little like pious polemic, I believe it sufficiently both to have reduced my driving speed to 50 mph where the speed limit is 70 mph, and to have changed my driving style so that I accelerate only slowly and, within the limits of safety, brake as little as possible. It has taken a while to drive more sedately, detaching myself from the frantic impatience of other motorists. I sometimes resort to singing "I feel pretty" - it helps.
During the mid-1970s, in response to massive increases in the price of crude oil imposed by the OPEC countries (and therefore causing a significant shift in the balance of trade), the UK national speed limit was reduced in order to reduce national fuel consumption. From Wikipedia: "It was reduced to 50 mph (80 km/h) in response to the 1973 oil crisis, and restored to 70 mph (112 km/h) in 1974."
In relation to the US, I found the following paragraph here:
"In the midst of an energy crisis touched off by conflict in the Middle East (see October 17, 1973), President Richard Nixon signs the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act, establishing a maximum national speed limit. No highway projects may be approved in any State having a maximum speed limit over 55 m.p.h. The Act, part of a nationwide effort to save oil, is a result of an oil embargo imposed by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that forced Americans into long lines at gas stations. President Nixon estimates the new speed limit can save nearly 200,000 barrels of fuel a day."
Were the UK national speed limit to be reduced again to 50 mph, the consequence would be a significant reduction in greenhouse gases produced by motor vehicles. Additionally, motorists would save money because they would need to buy less fuel. Lower road speeds would permit roads to carry denser traffic, thus, perhaps counter-intuitively, reducing some congestion. Further, according to the police, excessive speed is indicated in a majority of road traffic accidents. Limiting speed to 50 mph has the chance, therefore, of reducing the number of accidents, their severity and the number of casualties. (I read somewhere that reduction in the number of casualties of road traffic accidents had plateaued, and that further measures were going to be required if the numbers were to be reduced further.) Longer journey times for lengthy journeys might mean that more journeys would be undertaken using public transport, and there might be a long-overdue increase in the use of video-conferencing, and thus a reduction in the number of journeys undertaken.
To my knowledge, no-one is talking about this proposal as an option to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport. Is there a reason for this? Am I missing something? As a first step, it would seem like an obvious and relatively cheap and pain-free adjustment that could be made.
Some further thoughts:
1. The speedometer in most UK cars runs up to 160 mph. This is bizarre because the national speed limit in the UK is 70 mph, and (with the exception of Lower Saxony) nowhere else in Europe exceeds 130 kph. The unnecessary range of the speedometer dial achieves two things: I am less clear about my precise speed because the reading is always limited to a small proportion of the speedometer dial; I am always given the sense that I am driving slowly compared with the apparent potential of the car.
2. My car has the potential to travel much faster than I shall ever be legally allowed to drive it.
3. Every morning when I commute to work, an overwhelming majority of the traffic noticeably exceeds the speed limit for substantial portions of the journey.
4. Despite huge negative attention devoted by UK motorists and news media to speed cameras on UK roads, the reality is that the number of speed cameras relative to the extent of roads on which speeding takes place is pitiful.
5. Few UK cars are fitted with cruise control. The price for retrofitting cruise control is prohibitively high. Cruise control could help motorists to observe speed limits.
6. The overwhelming majority of car advertisements in the UK emphasise using cars for fun and excitement. This is not a message that is compatible with attempting to reduce CO2 emissions and traffic. Resolving issues related to climate change requires that people stop seeing their car as a form of recreation.
7. The points I have made above impact on the daily lives of ordinary people. I suspect that many people are willing to make token efforts to mitigate climate change, provided that they are not required to change how they live their life. I believe that climate change is orders of magnitude bigger than the majority of people are appreciating. Token efforts sound to me like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. Until people realise that real change needs to take place, across a range of lifestyle issues, such as the speed at which they drive their cars, CO2 emissions are not going to fall.
Beatrice 16 May, 2008 15:11 commented...
Yes, you're absolutely right about deckcahairs on the Titanic. I think people just cannot cope with the enormity of the implications of runaway climate change and so refuse to accept it is real. There are some interesting articles about on the psychology of climate change denial eg this one by George Marshall:http://www.ecoglobe.ch/motivation/e/clim2922.htm
Postscript
Whilst what I have written above sounds a little like pious polemic, I believe it sufficiently both to have reduced my driving speed to 50 mph where the speed limit is 70 mph, and to have changed my driving style so that I accelerate only slowly and, within the limits of safety, brake as little as possible. It has taken a while to drive more sedately, detaching myself from the frantic impatience of other motorists. I sometimes resort to singing "I feel pretty" - it helps.
14 April 2007
Green issues 9: media discussion of green issues
Why does every other comment in the UK media regarding global warming appear to criticise either air travel or 4 x 4s, the so-called 'Chelsea tractors'? I think that reason might involve the fact that they are, for several reasons, popular targets, and also that these targets serve to distract from addressing more sensitive issues.
[To be continued...]
[To be continued...]
30 March 2007
Faith in geological processes
Too many geologists appear to have lost faith in geological processes. Instead they call upon 'satan ex machina', as explored entertainingly in the movie The Fifth Element. The dinosaurs were not hit on the head by an asteroid (or even two). If someone as much as sneezes these so-called geologists invoke a killer asteroid. Have more faith in your training! Geology happens because of geological processes. Volcanic eruptions, lava flows, plate tectonics and salt domes are examples of what is perfectly good enough to explain much of what happens here on Earth - after all, look at Venus. The latest examples of asteroid-mania is the claim by UK geologists who, feeling left out of the limelight, are insisting that fomer salt dome structures in the North Sea are the UK's own meteor impact craters. What is wrong with these people? I am starting to wonder if they have been 'got at' by Creationists.
In contrast, methane hydrates represent a real tipping point ready to topple. Global warming threatens to release these extensive greenhouse deposits, as happened at the end of the Permian, roasting the Earth for hundreds of thousands of years. This is a bona fide, if catastrophic, geological process that has rapid and far-reaching consequences. (I consider this issue in greater detail in my website: Green.)
In contrast, methane hydrates represent a real tipping point ready to topple. Global warming threatens to release these extensive greenhouse deposits, as happened at the end of the Permian, roasting the Earth for hundreds of thousands of years. This is a bona fide, if catastrophic, geological process that has rapid and far-reaching consequences. (I consider this issue in greater detail in my website: Green.)
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