All analogies are imperfect, you are correct.

The point here is of course not anything general about climate policy, or even specific to climate policy, only to highlight the flawed reasoning that in a debate over action the option before us should be taken simply because it is the only option before us.

If the option before us is unsatisfactory, well, get more options.

Fundamentally you must recognize the difference between saying “the canyon won’t wait” and Krugman’s “the planet won’t wait.”

Doesn’t it seem a bit strange that we have legions of activists demanding that the entire world endure wrenching change, but we can’t be bothered to make the effort to replicate scientific “studies”? Life as we know it must be forever altered, but we can’t be bothered to make sure our thermometers are accurate?

The data from our flawed thermometers and the announded “findings” from studies which have never completed the basics of the scientific method are driving much of the political drive toward this train wreck.

I have a simple proposal. Before scientists advocate for massive social, economic and political change, how about they make the effort to start checking each others work? How about they fix their data bases and the seriously flawed monitoring system? Maybe even add a little quality control to the database management that would bring it up to the standards of the 1980s? Add a little transparency by making their data, code and methodology available for review?

I realize this might add a little work for the climate science alarmists, but the billions affected by their advocacy might think it time well spent.

In fact if we really are serious about reducing carbon emissions to levels which will make a difference, all will have to go. We are talking basically organic agriculture complete with composting, and the end of the auto industry, with all its implications in terms of lifestyle.

The movement is not prepared to admit this, or maybe does not know it, and one sees why. It is an end of the lifestyle of the late 20c, and a return to something much more like that of 1920, but computerized. A very very big deal indeed.

If the carbon issue is seen as pollution, it is likely insoluble.

However, if we add another “problem” to it, we have more chances for both mitigation and adaptation. This is the problem that soils are deficient in organic matter (leading to floods, droughts, food and water insecurity). And various strands of alternative agriculture have figured out how to turn atmospheric carbon into soil organic matter, fairly rapidly.

I’m not talking about no-till, though that helps in some places. I’m talking about the kind of biological agriculture that Pollan writes about in Omnivore’s Dilemma, where one works with basic biosphere processes rather than against them. It’s accumulating around the edges on every continent. It does not fit the technological paradigms of agriculture as an input-output system.

The problem with carbon is that it’s NOT a problem. It’s a cycle, a biological network consisting of autonomous and self-motivated creatures, many of them microscopic. Technology is not good at enhancing such systems.

Soils even depleted as they are contain more carbon than the atmosphere and forests combined. A slight increase in soil organic matter has far more leverage on the global carbon cycle than emissions reductions, desirable as they are.

However, there are no major ideological or economic or political interests organized in favor of soil organic matter. The possibility remains hidden in part because our technophile policy systems prefer convergent (one size fits all) solutions to divergent ones, silver bullets to silver buckshot to use Steve Rayner’s term. It is outside the purview of most of our major institutions. The biochar possibility has gotten more press because it is recognizable to pyromaniacs, technophiles, and diehard materials handlers.

The way to open ourselves to biological soil carbon possibilities, which vary quite a bit depending on location and environment, is through widespread monitoring (see the Challenge at soilcarboncoalition.org). Just arguing for it won’t do, because as Galbraith noted, the enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas, but the march of events.

Emissions reductions, well motivated as they may be, by themselves are just a gallant cavalry charge into the barbed wire. We need to add to these, the possibility of turning atmospheric carbon into water-holding, fertility-enhancing soil organic matter, using free solar energy without the need for expensive concentration and collection systems. Even poor people are doing this.

In other words, a few people are starting to filter across the canyon, carrying their silver buckshot. And they’re not all on the same path, or in vehicles we recognize.

http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/