I’ve been spending a lot of time in deep thought over how best to use my time and effort regarding energy and environmental issues. I’ve also thought a great deal about why it is that the side with science on its side seems to be losing ground, at least here in the US, to the deniers, and what that implies about how we should change tactics.

Aside from the obvious but very serious issues–the deniers are either ideologically driven or simply very well funded (or both), and the media’s endless addiction to the myth that giving the deniers equal footing with real scientists somehow constitutes “balance”–we have some serious problems.

All of this was on my mind even more than usual this morning, even before I read a new post on Michael Tobis’ excellent site, Only In It For The Health Insurance. In a post I can’t recommend highly enough, End Times and the Anti-Morano, Tobias directly addresses the question of what we should be doing. Please go read it.

This follows an e-mail discussion I had with a TCOE regular on the same topic, in which he made the point that the deniers have lost the argument, so there’s no point in even talking to them. We should simply build an online resource (as Tobias refers to) with rebuttals of the deniers’ talking point, and then link to the appropriate portion of that site in discussions and move on. He was persuasive enough, and I was likely beat down enough at the time, to agree.

After thinking about it for a few more days, I’m going to reverse course and say that no, it’s not nearly enough. Such a resource is undeniably necessary to counter the deniers, but it’s by no means sufficient. At the core of my reversal is the painful realization that the deniers are slowly winning the information war, the battle for the hearts, minds, and votes of the vast majority of mainstream Americans who know very little about climate change and are therefore “the” prize to be desired above all else.

For example, see Political climate for energy policies cools, which says:

Here’s what Gallup found: The number of Americans who say the media have exaggerated global warming jumped to a record 41 percent in 2009, up from 35 percent a year ago. The most marked increase came among political independents, whose ranks of doubters swelled from 33 percent to 44 percent. Republican doubters grew from 59 percent to 66 percent, while Democratic skeptics stayed at around 20 percent.

What’s more, fewer Americans believe the effects of global warming have started to occur: 53 percent see signs of a hotter planet, down from 61 percent in 2008. Global warming placed last among eight environmental concerns Gallup asked respondents to rank, with water pollution landing the top spot.

Another recent Gallup study found that, for the first time in 25 years of polling, more Americans care about economic growth than the environment. Just 42 percent of people surveyed said the environment takes precedence over growth, while 51 percent asserted expansion carries more weight. That reverses results from 2008, when 49 percent of respondents said the environment was paramount and 42 percent said economic growth came first. In 1985, the poll’s first year, 61 percent placed a bigger priority on the environment, while 28 percent ranked economic growth highest.

All those results indicate trends that pose big challenges for the environmental movement, Gallup’s researchers concluded. More pointedly, the findings signal potential trouble for policies designed to curb global warming.

“It’s a conundrum. You can’t just say to those interested in global warming that they need to do a better job of PR because they have been trying so hard,” Newport said. “Al Gore won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. He made a widely seen movie, and his book sold many copies. Yet, with all that, it hasn’t worked. You would have to say that, somehow, they’re not getting the message across.”

The Public Policy Institute of California issued a report in July, Californians and the Environment [PDF], that found (page 3):

Most residents (66%) support the 2006 California law (AB 32) that requires greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020. Support has declined 7 points from July 2008 (73%) and 12 points from 2007 (78%). The decline is sharpest among Republicans (57% 2008, 43% today).

While most see global warming as a threat (47% very serious, 28% somewhat serious) to the economy and quality of life in the state, the percentage of residents who categorize the threat as very serious has declined over the past two years (54% 2007, 52% 2008, 47% today.) Residents are divided over whether the state government should take action to reduce emissions right away (48%) or wait until the economy and state budget situation improve (46%). In July 2008, when the plan to implement AB 32 was being discussed, a majority (57%) said the government should adopt it right away rather than wait (36%).

Of course, those who have a financial interest to stop or delay any meaningful action on climate issues won’t stop at blogging and media appearances. As TreeHugger, ClimateProgress and many other sites have pointed out, Oil Lobby Arranging Town Hall Style Protests to Attack Climate Bill, and Coal lobby hires top GOP voter-fraud company to run massive “grassroots” efforts to undermine climate and clean energy action. And when they’re not doing that, they’re faking letters to elected representatives, or admitting that embracing geo-engineering is a political ploy they’ll use to delay any policy action to curb CO2 emissions.

Our time is too short and the stakes are too high to worry about anyone’s delicate sensibilities. Therefore, let me be as blunt online as I am in real life:

  • If you aren’t outraged by the things the deniers and delayers are doing, then you must be either one of them (i.e. a mindless ideologue or someone bought by the fossil fuel interests) or too stupid to use scissors without supervision.
  • If you think that this isn’t a battle worth fighting, then please make arrangements to leave your body to medical science; I think researchers would be quite interested in the first example of a living human being without so much as a trace of a heart.
  • If you consider yourself to be “concerned about the environment”, but you think that “the truth will win in the end”, and that we have the time for this mythical happy ending to appear if we’re just earnest enough stay far enough above the fray, then you’re not merely helping the deniers, you’re one of their most valuable assets. I personally know a shocking number of people who have given up the fight, not because they thought it was a lost cause, but because they thought they had “done everything that could be done”, “the deniers have already lost”, “it’s too much work”, or any one of several other, even less plausible reasons. If you’re one of those quitters, then you’re a coward, and you won’t make the same commitment the deniers (read: Liars) are making.
  • Yes, we’ve got a much tougher road than the deniers. We have to get people to think enough to understand at least the rudiments of climate science (or our looming peak oil situation) so they accept that we have to take focused action, not just sit back and say there’s nothing we can do and let “the free market” take care of it. All the other side has to do is appeal to the greed and narrow mindedness and desire for simple answers even where there are none, those ugly, destructive tendencies we all fight our entire adult lives; they’re the ones doing the equivalent of telling kids, “Brush your teeth? Why waste time? That’s what dentists are for. Here–have some more candy and another soft drink to wash it down.” We’re trying to build something, they only have to find a way to knock it down.

Right now, we in the reality-enhanced camp have a mindset that’s akin to the TV character Frasier Crane getting into a street fight with a pro wrestler and trying to convince passers by that he is (or should be) winning because he has Truth on his side. We’re a troop of Boy Scouts going into battle against the relentless, no-longer-entirely-human Borg of Star Trek fame. Or conjure up your own metaphor. The bottom line is that we can no longer afford the luxury of worrying about what other people might think about our tactics to the point we’re in effect surrendering.

Let me say something I’ve meant to bring up for a while. For the longest time I had very mixed feelings about Joe Romm. The man knows energy and environmental issues through and through, and he has more passion about fixing our problems in those areas than anyone else I can name. But he can, at times, come across like a runaway freight train, sometimes to his (and his cause’s) detriment. Like many of you who I’m complaining about in this post, I used to think he needed to soften his edge a little, mix just a bit of sugar in with the medicine, be, well, nicer. No more. If anything, I think we need more Joe Romm’s, people willing to fight that hard for all our kids (and they really are all our kids, whether or not they share our DNA) and the rest of humanity. We need pissed-off enviros, people who are “green, but with a bad attitude”.

None of which leaves me with an answer to my original question: What should I be doing? I’ve tried every angle I can think of on this site, and failed miserably. In fact, I came perilously close to quitting altogether and returning to woodworking. But then I stop in my wife’s home office to ask her something and I see her numerous photos of our virtual daughters (our three nieces), and I know that Gene Kranz, of Apollo 13 fame, was right: Failure is not an option.

If you have suggestions or want to join the fight, e-mail me directly at lougrinzo [at sign] gmail [dot] com.

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