Fragilecologies

Tag: climate skeptics

GUEST EDITORIAL: “Thoughts on the ‘Good’ Climate Skeptic.” ELIZABETH MCLEAN, February 21, 2010

I often wonder what percentage of the people foresees events in a short-term scale and how many see it in a long-term scale? I have to admit that as an islander I use to project time on a short-term scale when I was young, but I have evolved to see things differently and I too agree that the trend of human activities are increasing the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
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I think that along the lines of the above discussed, lays the question of: ‘what is the personal value at stake?’ and why would we want to risk it? Perhaps we may have little sense of urgency as these changes are gradual and we are ephemeral, or we can be outraged and consider what mess we are generating for future generations. There is a difference in the short-term, and the long-term mentality, those that have a lot to gain today, will not be the ones paying tomorrow. Or will they?

In an earlier blog, you had elaborated on the effects of branding and the importance of the terms we use. For some reason people like to label right and left. Yet these labels can be harmful when trying to diminish the value of a consensus or a very likely and sustained finding.

Eckhart Tolle, who writes on human psychology, describes that people that have a view or an opinion — and they feel strongly about it — it is as if their opinion is tied up to their identity. Because of this, when they are opposed they feel as if their own identity is being threatened and they must defend it at all cost. So instead of having humble opinions to set forth in the middle of the table with a certain regard for possible errors, we have individuals that are too attached to their own opinions.

I believe it is natural for scientists to be skeptics, and to be ‘good’ skeptics… seeking to bring clarity and further lucidity to their hypothesis, confirming their value.

Of the images posted, the graphics of the naysayers definitely creates a polarity with no real chance of coming to a middle ground, while the graphic of the yeasayers looks more neutral and informative, placing knowledge before hand and creating a visual image.

On a different note, let me share with you a different twist on branding. In the Dominican Republic, as I am sure this holds true for other Latin American countries, children —especially girls — grow up with the complex of having ‘bad’ hair. The tight curls that are afro-like are referred to as ‘bad’, while the straight or wavy hair is ‘good’ hair. So a lot of time and effort is put into straightening and taming the ‘bad’ hair. It is only in the recent years that this misconception has been addressed and that afro-like hair is getting a ‘good’ name, becoming even fashionable. Imagine the psychology behind branding.

“Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.”

~ Baha’u’llah

February 21, 2010
Political philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) comments on the state of the blogosphere,” Mickey Glantz. 12 January, 2010

For those people who are blogosphere junkies (blogoholics) (these are people who are analogous to those addicted to buying jewelry on the jewelry channel on TV whether they need it or not) their comments are in lots of cases “nasty, brutish, and short.” They do not add any meaningful insight to a controversial issue, only a diatribe against what ever the original writer or other blog commenters have said.

The sad thing about the above is that it reflects American society at large. Everything is easily politicized and issues are immediately polarized. Just reading the comments in response to blog editorials and the comments of other commenters is a scary thing to do. In fact parents should probably rate them as to whether they are appropriate for a PG-13 rating.

Sadly, it seems that people feel free to say anything they want, in any tone they want and on any issue they want; and hide behind an fake screen name. Many comments appear to be based on gut feelings, ignorance or ignore-ance (e.g., “I don’t care what the evidence is. To me the Earth really is flat,”) but not on a careful reading or even a basic knowledge of the issue being discussed. As a result, there are many reactive, sometimes hostile, sometimes even life-threatening comments stimulated by the serious blog editorials and comments. Once a blog comment that is inflammatory enters the stream of comments, it seems that a feeding frenzy occurs with increasingly hostile comments.

The image that comes to mind is mudwrestling, a free-for-all.
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There probably is no way to clean this up and it is something our society will have to live with. Much like in the late 1800s and early 1900s when street cleaners had to clean up the horse manure each day.

But, it does show a dark side of the American public. More education won’t likely help; the commenters know what they are doing, they just may not know the deeper psychological reasons of why they are providing their comments as “nasty, brutish, and short.”

January 12, 2010
A message to climate scientists: Emails are from Mars. Letters are from Venus

The following excerpt is from an editorial I wrote in 2002 called “E-mails are from Mars. Letters are from Venus.” I believe it is relevant to the controversy swirling around the hacked files (emails and documents) of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. Those emails expose a side of science that does not receive much attention, except from an occasional writer whose manuscript might have been rejected for publication. Perhaps some of those disappointed writers, rejected research manuscripts in hand, were right to complain. Their voice collectively is now being heard around the world.

E-mails are from Mars. Letters are from Venus
Mickey Glantz

Emails are impersonal. No matter how hard one tries, transmitting warm and emotional thoughts by way of email is a difficult task. The pressure of time, the need to spell check, the pressure to type in a correct representation of one’s thoughts, the pressure to answer other emails, typing with two or three fingers in front of a 15- or 17-inch monitor – all these factors lead to an impersonal communication. An email also lacks a personal signature.

emails and Mars

Letters, on the other hand, convey a much higher level of sincerity. There is little room for correction, unless a draft is first written and then a clean copy is made. People writing letters on paper must think through what they want to say, thought by thought, sentence by sentence, before it is written down. The letter-writer must go to the trouble of putting the letter in the mail. For centuries, writing on papyrus, animal skins, or parchment has been the preferred way to communicate. By analogy, writing on stone or clay tablets is, to me, more like writing down one’s thoughts in email.

letters are from venus

With written letters, there is a tendency to rethink what has been said and therefore there is a delay in sending them – a safety period, so to speak. With emails, the tendency is to fire them off, once they have been written. One may not actually want to take the time to modify (or mitigate) his or her first thoughts. And it is so easy to hit the “send” button. Not only that, but the sender does not have to wait several days before the recipient receive the message, and wait several more days for a reply. With emails, sending and receiving messages can take place in real time, and then often do. What was not clear in the first message can perhaps be cleared up on a second or third email.

The writer of an email is also stripped of the trouble that the letter-writer must go through in order to mail a letter: address an envelope, find a stamp (remembering which is the latest stamp with the correct price on it – I don’t know what they currently cost), and then remember to get the letter into a mailbox.

It is important to be aware of the differences between emails and hard-copy letters. They are not the same. While they do convey information from one person to another, they can be very different in the depth of thought that goes into them. The level of sensitivity varies, with email tending to be less sensitive, often incomplete thoughts that can mislead or provoke the recipient. I have actually witnessed a situation in which email correspondence between people in the same office went on a downward spiral, as one misleading statement led to an equally insensitive response, and so forth, until both parties ended up completely estranged, with no further communication possible between them.

I suggest that, when writing an email, we take the time to go back and read it through and think about its content, and more importantly, its tone before sending. Try to put ourselves in the place of the recipient. This would lend a little “Venus” to our emails and mitigate their “Mars” aspect.

November 29, 2009