Comments on: Why Action on Energy Policy is Not Enough http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/?p=4275 Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:36:51 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: jfleck http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/?p=4275&cpage=1#comment-9270 jfleck Sat, 08 Dec 2007 09:38:28 +0000 http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheusreborn/?p=4275#comment-9270 One of the failings of the current discourse about climate is that it "doesn't want to burn too many words on adaptation," because of the fear that discussing adaptation will reduce political will and energy for necessary greenhouse gas reduction efforts. Implicit in this failing is the argument Todd (wrongly) made that attention to adaptation is tantamount to "pooh-poohing efforts to transform the energy system". It is not. The damage caused by the error was nicely captured in the Christian Science Monitor yesterday by Peter Spotts: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1207/p07s02-woeu.html One of the failings of the current discourse about climate is that it “doesn’t want to burn too many words on adaptation,” because of the fear that discussing adaptation will reduce political will and energy for necessary greenhouse gas reduction efforts. Implicit in this failing is the argument Todd (wrongly) made that attention to adaptation is tantamount to “pooh-poohing efforts to transform the energy system”. It is not. The damage caused by the error was nicely captured in the Christian Science Monitor yesterday by Peter Spotts:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1207/p07s02-woeu.html

]]> By: Roger Pielke, Jr. http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/?p=4275&cpage=1#comment-9269 Roger Pielke, Jr. Fri, 07 Dec 2007 06:47:51 +0000 http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheusreborn/?p=4275#comment-9269 Thanks Todd, one of the themes that I've tried to emphasize on this blog over the past four years is that adaptation is important, and a complement to GHG mitigation. Another is that policy arguments should be well grounded, regardless of the merits of the end goal. Some folks don't like either message, especially it seems people monomaniacal about greenhouse gases, and that is how I took your smarmy hip-hop tooth decay comment. If I misinterpreted, apologies. Thanks Todd, one of the themes that I’ve tried to emphasize on this blog over the past four years is that adaptation is important, and a complement to GHG mitigation. Another is that policy arguments should be well grounded, regardless of the merits of the end goal. Some folks don’t like either message, especially it seems people monomaniacal about greenhouse gases, and that is how I took your smarmy hip-hop tooth decay comment. If I misinterpreted, apologies.

]]> By: Todd Neff http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/?p=4275&cpage=1#comment-9268 Todd Neff Thu, 06 Dec 2007 20:33:09 +0000 http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheusreborn/?p=4275#comment-9268 Roger, My comments were one-dimensional, maybe. But now you're taking my criticism of your criticism of Bali scientists' mitigation-boosterism as a manifesto of my worldview. In the interest of brevity (at the Camera, where I'm not anymore, we're pretty limited as far as word count), I just didn't want to burn words on adaptation. I'm certainly all for adaptation, foremost not continuing to build megacities in the paths of hurricanes and so forth. But I bristle at the notion that somehow working our way out of the dig-up-and-burn phase of human evolution is so impossibly difficult (it will be a bitch, no question) that we needn't seriously discuss it, or relegate ourselves to adaptation-ueber-alles now that the a-word is all the IPCC AR4 rage. There are a plethora of reasons to be bold and creative about mitigation as well as adaptation. Charles Wilkinson, a superb law professor here at CU you know a lot better than I do, teaches his classes of law students about the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act and the '90 CAA acid precip amendments. Broadly speaking, the message from Congress was clean up, period. Don't care if the technology is there -- and by the way, do it faster than you think is possible. And we did. I'd like to see that kind of legislative optimism, foresight and courage with regard to GHGs, as I think we'll find our lower-carbon society will also be a healthier and richer and more satisfying one. Roger,
My comments were one-dimensional, maybe. But now you’re taking my criticism of your criticism of Bali scientists’ mitigation-boosterism as a manifesto of my worldview.

In the interest of brevity (at the Camera, where I’m not anymore, we’re pretty limited as far as word count), I just didn’t want to burn words on adaptation. I’m certainly all for adaptation, foremost not continuing to build megacities in the paths of hurricanes and so forth.

But I bristle at the notion that somehow working our way out of the dig-up-and-burn phase of human evolution is so impossibly difficult (it will be a bitch, no question) that we needn’t seriously discuss it, or relegate ourselves to adaptation-ueber-alles now that the a-word is all the IPCC AR4 rage. There are a plethora of reasons to be bold and creative about mitigation as well as adaptation.

Charles Wilkinson, a superb law professor here at CU you know a lot better than I do, teaches his classes of law students about the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act and the ‘90 CAA acid precip amendments. Broadly speaking, the message from Congress was clean up, period. Don’t care if the technology is there — and by the way, do it faster than you think is possible.

And we did.

I’d like to see that kind of legislative optimism, foresight and courage with regard to GHGs, as I think we’ll find our lower-carbon society will also be a healthier and richer and more satisfying one.

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