It's all in the marketing, baby

[veronica_rich]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today issued a definite statement that half a dozen gaseous pollutants most commonly emitted by mechanical industry and vehicles (such as carbon dioxide, NOx, methane, and other carbon bases) contribute significantly enough to global warming to possibly set them up for limits and regulation by law not far down the road. I'm all for anything that will reduce the sheer amount of crap we all have to breathe in. I think it's long past time for factories and auto manufacturers to implement measures to reduce noxious gases and particulates (though I don't believe particulate counts were amended in today's statement; they've been addressed before, though not to the satisfaction of some). The measures EXIST; it's expensive to implement them (such as the filters that would trap emissions from coal plants), but they do exist. They're not some Star-Trekkian futuristic wish.

But I can't help but be bemused by what has worked to get people to this point of acceptance: The scare of global warming. Global warming been effectively marketed as being the Greatest Danger of Our Time, which may well be God's honest truth. The trouble is, I've seen pitifully few reminders from scientists, media - ANYONE - that the Earth had been going through warming and cooling cycles for 4.6 billion years. That there's been proven 25,000- to 30,000-year "mini cycles" of cooling, then warming, then cooling (or warming, then cooling, then warming, if you like). That the cold apex of our well known Ice Age was about 12,000 or so years ago ... which just happens to be around half of a 25,000-year cycle. That there have been much more severe cycles of cooling and warming since Earth became habitable for water-based life.

(And out of all the time the planet has been fit for such life, the fraction of time that humans have created industrial pollutants? We've had that much effect in a century and some change? We think we're very impressive, don't we.)

If you thinking that leaving your phone charger plugged in unused is what is raising the temperature of the planet, is what it takes to get you to care about poisons to human and animal lungs and hearts being pumped steadily into the atmosphere, that's great. It's just that for the life of me, I can't imagine how this marketing has worked, when the decades-long pleas and marching and yelling of people AND PHYSICIANS pointing to increased incidence of cancer and heart disease and stroke - not to mention inexplicable diseases that weren't around a couple of hundred years ago - never penetrated the public's consciousness at this level. Maybe the image of the planet going BOOM! is sexier and more imagination-grabbing than watching Mom (who never smoked a day in her life) develop adult-onset asthma after living within five miles of the factory for the past 20 years.

(By the way - this global warming isn't bad for the planet. It's bad for us (though perhaps not fatal). It's bad for other animal species (though perhaps not entirely fatal). But it's not going to destroy the planet. The planet is going to chug right along until (a) another planet hits it; (b) the Sun swallows it up in 5 billion years; or (c) it burns up its own geothermal fuel and becomes a lifeless ball of rock in the far distant future. Ask a geologic scientist or a plate tectonics scholar.)

ETA: It should go without pointing out, but obviously this is all what I think. Your mileage may vary, and I don't pretend I can't be proven wrong. Nor do I mind being disagreed with. I might even think part of what you think is right. :-)

Comments

[beldar.livejournal.com]

Amen.
I tend to take the middle road on the climate change issue. No doubt it is happening -- has always been happening -- and we should use Homo sapiens' evolutionary trump card and adapt to the changes. But as to us causing it or making it worse (define worse, maybe "accelerating change" is a better phrase), it takes God-like hubris to assume we alone hold the throttle switch on an entire planet; on the other hand, a species can't run rampant like mutant termite-beavers resculpting land and rivers and generating tons of waste without it having some effects on the environment.

Global warming aside, we should be cleaner more "green" creatures because otherwise we're just pooping our bed. Less pollution and energy waste is healthier and saves money so that we can be clean happy healthy mutant termite-beavers.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

As always, I wish people cared a little more about reality and a little less about the Hollywood spiced-up version of it.

On the other hand, whoever all came up with combining global warming with endangering human health via artificially increased pollutants are bloody genius. I confess, it would be difficult to get people to care about natural global warming - "Well, what the hell do you expect us to DO about it?" - and people dying off of various and sundry diseases didn't seem to matter to most. Combine the two? You get people to yell about cutting down on the pollutants AND pay attention to the fact New York might become the new Venice.

Now if we could just find a way to get people to read plate tectonic and climate theory and enjoy it enough to learn something ...

[finding-neo.livejournal.com]

I really wish they cared more about the chemicals which are poisoning our drinking water and our immediate environment. The government should be more concerned about what is causing cancers to increase and so many other ailments. If Obama really wants to help health care, that's what needs to be done - find out the connection to why so many people are sick.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Hell, I can give them a little pocket of America to study on a small scale if they want to work on that - where I used to live. There was a whole rash of illnesses being higher in this particular area as compared to other parts of the state (for non-smokers) that didn't have such a concentration of factories and smog. I confess I'm not a scientist or doctor, so I may be simplifying things grossly, but it seemed to me there ought to be a link, somehow, among these things.

I'm just sick of health and environment being political. What I'd rather see is good comprehensive, honest science that everybody has to acknowledge for its completeness and soundness - and then hear the different proposals for fixing the problems. THAT I could understand being political.

[caniad.livejournal.com]

I agree with most of what you say here. A meteorologist friend of mine pointed out that cycles of heating and cooling are quite normal and that we might be, in part at least, experiencing one. (Case in point: Northern Europe was going through a mini "ice age" during the Elizabethan era, which explains so many paintings of people heavily muffled and wearing gloves.) I'm all for reducing airborne pollutants that are causing problems, but I wish the focus on environmental problems could shift a bit to the people who are suffering from them. I do think that we need to value our world and take care of it, but it seems a bit questionable to become vitriolic about trees and forget about the family living next to the aluminum factory.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I'm sure humans contribute to global warming - I'm just not sure it's enough to tip the scales significantly, as it were. I think we ought to be far more concerned about the immediate problems we're causing to our own health and animals, and be in favor of tighter emissions controls for those reasons. (But to be fair, as I said, that was already tried and it ended up being a failure, from what I could see.)

[roguedemon.livejournal.com]

I'm a true believer when it comes to global warming and the environment --but I also believe that what will truly make a difference is having leaders that actually care and will pass regulations. Hell, I can limit my driving all I want, but it won't do shit unless we force people to give up SUVs and adapt to owning nothing but very small cars and taking the train like they do in Europe. That's why Bush was such a nightmare. It's not about keeping things pretty as much as it is about keeping arsenic out of our drinking water. And not having people dying in the summer because they are living in old houses that never used to need AC. And so on.

The fact is, we really are causing global warming, it's been well-studied, and I wish more people would pay more attention to science. But it's not just about heat, it's about having breathable air! The whole planet will be dangerous in decades, not centuries, if we don't do something. We can all work together, it's about having the right attitude, instead of viewing the planet as a source of money to be consumed until there is nothing left.

As always, my thoughts are with you and your mother, your entire family, in fact. It's too bad this isn't fanfic and I can't control the world with my mind.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

The problem I have with the science presented behind global warming being caused by humans - and maybe this is all I'm seeing for some reason, but I like to think I get around, somewhat - is that I have seen a steadfast refusal to acknowledge the role of the planet itself in the process, along with that. Nobody has discussed the fact that the African plate is moving for the first time in ... well, let's say an age or more. Literally. How does this friction against other plates facilitate the release of geothermal heat into the oceans (and it's not just one plate that's moving)? Are the basics of plate tectonics still being taught in schools, that it's predicated on the activity of the Earth's molten composition in the first place, causing these plates to move? (I don't have kids and it's been 20 years since I was in high school, so I really don't know.) This is all behind literal Earth-changing events such as volcanoes and earthquakes and tsunamis - but it has nothing to do with raising the planet's temperature or releasing gases into the atmosphere that don't really belong on the surface?

If you're (the general "you") going to teach what humans have released into the atmosphere as harming the planet, why not acknowledge the planet's processes, in concert with that, and explain why we have these cooling and heating cycles? (I suppose maybe that would lessen people's willingness to change their habits and demand stricter emissions controls. Which is why I originally said, if this is what it takes to get Mr. Everyman to care, that's what it takes.)

Nor do I think global warming is a liberal "thing." I think it's a fact. But I also think the current explanations are a sound byte that politicians of any stripe can latch onto - and other groups, as needed. Remember how farmers and rural folk used to laugh at environmentalists as being granola nutjobs? Now they're the first ones to trot out their "concern" about global warming as being the chief reason to burn ethanol ... because it ensures good prices for their corn. (I guarantee most farmers in the Corn Belt don't really believe in global warming any more than you or I believe in the Tooth Fairy. At least I do believe in it - I just question the reasons being put forth for its existence.)

The one fact nobody can argue with is that we're harming ourselves. If we die off as a species, the planet will keep turning and adapting - some of the species we've endangered might even repopulate. So let's keep pumping crap into the air and water, and driving vehicles too inefficient and big for our needs. Who cares if people 100 years from now can breathe or breed past the poison in their bodies? Driving that mechanical penis right now is what matters! /sarcasm

(Oh, and my example about a mother was actually predicated on several cases I knew of in one city in the South alone, that I used to live near and cover for the newspaper. My own mother smoked for 40 years; I don't know how much that contributed to her specific health problem. I can't imagine it helped any.)

[roguedemon.livejournal.com]

Maybe I've just seen stuff that is more evenhanded -- I'm married to a former hard scientist, and he always seems to find the better stuff. I haven't been studying this stuff by any means, but I've always read whatever comes my way. Anyway, I never got the feeling that the earth's natural forces were being ignored in all this, just that scientists had concluded that they couldn't account for everything that is happening. But I'm sure that there is some Black/White propaganda out there, because there is on both sides. People are becoming increasingly shrill, and if I see one more add for expensive "natural" products, I'm gonna hurl.

The ethanol thing always makes me laugh, because it's such a poor solution in the first place, and really exists as a way for politicians to please farmers.

There have been signs in the environment that we are harming ourselves for a long time, but now it's actually becoming very hard to ignore. I saw a fascinating study last month about subtle brain damage in young children in communities that subsist on a diet based on fish -- nothing major, just lags in things like short-term memory, attention, concentration. But there are been things long before that -- I remember reading things about how certain species were dying off in wetlands years ago, and what that indicated about the water....

Oh well, I suppose that's enough rambling for now.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I thought fish was supposed to be brain food. I mean, I think I know the problem behind it in the modern world - mercury and other wastes get into the fishes' bodies and pollute those who eat too much of it - but isn't it ironic?

Ethanol ... oh, don't get me going. There are processes for creating it that are much more efficient than corn, but there's still the investment of planting, raising, harvesting, and transporting the feedstock. Or creating the ponds needed for algae. If it didn't require about as much petroleum-based energy to create the stuff as you get out of it, I could get more behind it. (Now I will say something good about biodiesel - I remember when the city buses where I used to live ran regular biodiesel, the black nasty smoke they would belch out. When they went to B100 and you drove behind one, you hardly knew an exhaust system existed at all.)

I'm not married to a scientist and I don't have any relatives or friends who are. I have to depend solely on my own understanding and what I can find, and while certainly not an expert, I'm a big plate tectonics and cosmology nerd. I enjoy reading about them. Even I'm hard-pressed to find things about what's going on related to simply the natural processes of Earth being Earth. If you have links online, I would look at them.

[roguedemon.livejournal.com]

I sent you the links. I have to say it's hard for me to remember how I formed all my opinions. Just reading random stuff over the years. I also remember that publications like Scientfic American were always good for presenting things to the layman. I used to save key issues, but I haven't been that conscientious for a while.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I did receive those links and I will check them out when I have a little time later this week. Merci!

[gobsmacked.livejournal.com]

I have seen some pretty convincing evidence that the Sun - or rather, sunspots - play an important role in global climatic variation.

[roguedemon.livejournal.com]

I don't think that anyone is saying that other forces are playing no role at all, but rather that we are contributing to those forces. In other words, instead of the process occurring naturally, we are causing it to be exaggerated in a way that is proving to be harmful, and could ultimately be really harmful if we don't take more action.

[gobsmacked.livejournal.com]

I don't think that anyone is saying that other forces are playing no role at all
Actually, I know many people who are under the impression that global warming is entirely the fault of human beings and especially industrialized nations. It takes a bit of research to find other contributing factors mentioned.

[roguedemon.livejournal.com]

That's fair enough. I may just be talking to the wrong people. Sometimes I make the mistake that if I know something, and my husband and friends know it, that other people know it as well.

[gobsmacked.livejournal.com]

The whole issue of global warming has been around for decades IIRC. I remember one of my uncles or cousins ranting about Reagan-era government(?) claiming that trees releasing carbon dioxide caused global warming (therefore we should cut them all down, I suppose) and I've read various Vegan propaganda which says that our evil meat-eating habits caused it (via cow farts). To this day, the messages of well-meaning celebrities and politicians concentrate on trivia or misdirection like banning incandescent bulbs as a solution. Very little of what seemed to be remembered by the average person on the street suggested global warming it was part of a natural cyclical process.
One of the very first things I noticed when I tried to research it for myself was that scientists made dire predictions about climatic disaster but were forced to admit that things weren't progressing towards the cataclysm as fast as the scientists thought they would be. This seemed to be to be the result of not properly understanding what was really going on in all its complexity.