Category: Environmental politics

Climate denial, Climate science, Ecological change, Environmental politics

On the Fear of a Backlash Against Science

DC-march-for-Science-22-April-2017Assembling on the National Mall before the March for Science 22 April 2017.

‘Science is my passion, politics, my duty’  

– Thomas Jefferson

On Saturday I joined more than 20,000 scientists and supporters of science to March for Science in a soaking rain on the National Mall in D.C. The experience was exhilarating and inspiring. It was a much needed antidote to constant stream of bad news for our environment emanating from the White House and Congress. These days, I sometimes feel as though we are entering a dark time when reason and learning will be driven from the mainstream of public discourse. The March for Science showed that we have strength in numbers and that scientists can, at least for this golden moment, stand united. Continue reading “On the Fear of a Backlash Against Science”

Stephen Mulkey1 Comment
Climate denial, Climate science, Ecological change, Environmental politics, Trump damage to climate

Normalizing Disruption and Loss

fig3_american-samoa_before-during-after_2015Progressive death of coral. NOAA Coral Reef Watch.
A planet that can’t sustain its greatest reef will eventually become a place that won’t support human life.  – Tim Winton, 2017.  The Australian Marine Conservation Society.

For the first time the Great Barrier Reef has experienced two back-to-back bleaching events, which have been driven entirely by extreme sea surface temperatures. The devastation is hard to miss, unless you are not looking. Successive generations often experience the conservation phenomenon known as shifting baselines of perception. A boy’s granddad may remember when they fished for more than 15 species of fish in the Gulf of California, but the boy believes that the five remaining species are normal, i.e., a new baseline. As the disruption of the biosphere accelerates and reductions in biodiversity ensue, it will become increasingly hard for each generation to perceive current conditions as normal, assuming that they are paying attention. Continue reading “Normalizing Disruption and Loss”

Stephen Mulkey
Climate denial, Climate science, Environmental politics, Trump damage to climate

Diminishing Options and The Climate Endgame

ig19_hurricanes_05_02
One of the strongest hurricanes on record, Ivan, was photographed on September 11, 2004 from an altitude of about 230 miles by NASA Astronaut Edward M. (Mike) Fincke. At the time, Ivan was in the western Caribbean Sea and reported to have winds of 160 mph.

“Make no mistake: The election of Donald Trump could be devastating for our climate and our future.” Michael Brune, Executive Director, Sierra Club, November 2016

“This world is your world but that doesn’t mean you can always stop it from burning.”
― Oli Anderson from Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness 2016

There are many uncertainties about how the new administration will govern beginning on 20 January 2017, but it is all too clear that addressing climate change will not be on the agenda. Continue reading “Diminishing Options and The Climate Endgame”

Stephen Mulkey
Climate change communication, Climate denial, Ecological change, Environmental politics, spiritual perspective

The Election and A Call to Service in The Anthropocene

Stephen Mulkey, PhD
4 November 2016

heather-webHeather at peace. Photo: S. Mulkey, Lakes Basin, The Eagle Cap Wilderness

“Elections have consequences.” – Barack Obama, 5 November 2008.

“Donald Trump can fool a lot of people, but you can’t fool Mother Nature.” Jacob Scherr, an attorney who is the former director of the international climate program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, 3 October 2016.

Climate change is complex. Within the scientific community, there is a broad consensus about its reality and cause, but experts hold a range of opinions about its impacts and how to address it. As any public scientist can tell you, it is hard to articulate a simple and compelling description of how the change of a few hundred parts per million of a trace gas can lead to potentially catastrophic consequences. Although complex in its interactions with natural systems, it is broadly correct to say that climate change presently amplifies the ongoing disruption of the biosphere driven by the forces of habitat destruction and extractive use of natural resources. By midcentury and beyond it will increasingly be a primary driver of the global transformation of ecosystems. The changes ensuing over this and coming centuries will be tectonic, but this message of scientific complexity and consequences does not play well in Peoria. Once again, the US political process has not made understanding this most critical of issues a prerequisite for the job of president. Continue reading “The Election and A Call to Service in The Anthropocene”

Stephen Mulkey
Climate change communication, Climate denial, Environmental politics

What qualifies as scientific authority?

For The Natural Resources Council of Maine

“Listen, I’m not qualified to debate the science over climate change,” Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-OH)

“…this 97% [of climate scientists accepting human-caused global warming], that doesn’t mean anything.” Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)

“Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” Stephen Colbert, satirist

studies_consensussource Skeptical Science 
Continue reading “What qualifies as scientific authority?”

Stephen Mulkey
Environmental politics

So now what? An open letter to the environmental community after the midterm elections 2014

To my environmentally minded friends:

Clearly we are in deep trouble and truly meaningful legislative progress in the near term is no longer a reasonable expectation. Expecting progress on climate change and sustainability from Congress is off the table, now and possibly for the extended future. Compromise and wonky engagement continue to fail. With Obama we elected Miles Davis, but we got Kenny G. Continue reading “So now what? An open letter to the environmental community after the midterm elections 2014”

Stephen Mulkey
Climate denial, Environmental politics

My political rite of passage

This was originally posted on 20.02.2011 and it describes events that occurred in March 2007.  It was written a few months after the events.  I post it again here because recent events make it clear that the political circus remains alive and well.  It is as germane today as it was when it was written.

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“If one judged solely by recent [U.S.] media coverage, one would think that the deniers have a point.  In an embarrassing display of political gullibility and scientific illiteracy, news organizations have repeatedly played into the deniers’ hands: by implicitly endorsing the deniers’ unfounded accusations of fraud against scientists whose emails were stolen, by portraying a single error within a thousand page report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as reason to question the entirety of mainstream climate science, and then by abandoning the climate story over the past twelve months, even as mainstream scientists were turning out one landmark study after another clarifying the extreme peril facing civilization.” – Mark Hertsgaard in Politico

The following is my amateur attempt at literary journalism.  This was written a few months after the events described in an effort to purge myself of toxins acquired through my work. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report had been published in February 2007, and the events described below occurred in March, early in my tenure as science advisor to the Florida state commission on sustainability.  My little story is a very minor saga in the climate wars, but I offer it here for whatever instruction it may provide.  Continue reading “My political rite of passage”

Stephen Mulkey
Environmental politics

Strange logic on the Keystone XL

As the end game on the Keystone XL pipeline approaches, various pundits and editorial boards have argued that we should move forward with the pipeline.  The Keystone XL extension of an existing pipeline would carry oil from the Canadian tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries. Obama is likely to make a decision on whether or not to allow the pipeline to be built within the next month or so.  These arguments make a few key points, which I will review here by focusing on two recent editorials.  The twisted logic in these leaves me wondering if the authors really think that their audience is incapable of parsing the truth.   I find it inconceivable that thoughtful readers can endorse this pipeline while simultaneously knowing how important it is that we address climate change. Continue reading “Strange logic on the Keystone XL”

Stephen Mulkey