Over the years, a number of people have hassled me for trying to find the good in reasonable, if doubtful, voices in the climate change debate. This was my motivation in writing the op-ed about Douthat’s column (link here, link to blog post here). Part of my motivation is that I am a person who inherently tries to build connections between disparate points of view to see what interesting and new things emerge from the conversation. The other part is the vitriol which I and those I work with who choose to have a public profile get to endure. I don’t mind the vitriol, actually, but it is really hard to build a conversation with someone who is screaming at you – so I try to build connections to people that preclude shouting and lead to something productive. This is a serious challenge.
To illustrate, let me excerpt two e-mails I received this morning, not long after the publication of my op-ed. In doing so, I have no intention of personally humiliating anyone or personally attacking anyone (though the messages were, as you will see, a bit personal). So, I have removed the addresses and names – though the subject lines are intact. The point here is to demonstrate what sorts of things are said to people like me on a pretty routine basis. I’m not sure if these count as Over the Cliff moments or not, but here they are:
Subject: Pseudo Intellectualism
Scanned your comments in the State. It is amazing to me how academia has changed over the years, but then, again, there was Ehrlic in the 70s. He has never been right about anything but is still revered by the leftist academia. He must be brilliant. This is not about conservatives and liberals (NYT conservative comments?????). It is not about green gasses, despite your beliefs. Imagine, the whole concern is about changes of a degree over a period of a hundred years when the error of any group of instruments is not accurate to a degree and the instruments have never been standardized. I highly recommend going to Dr. Roy Spencer’s web site. It is about water vapor and the temperature of the oceans. How can I recommend to you, the great specialist of humanistic global warming, while I am only a peon on the subject? I have watched this for a number of years. There is a much higher authority than man. While man can cause pollution and really screw up localities, the great academics (you) have not figured out this global warming thing. You have spent countless years on suppositions, aberrant computer models, and criticizing the political movement that you feel superior to. Yep, you are simply a pseudointellectual democrat. Remember, Al Gore is the intellectual leader of the left. Bow down often. Get a massage. The very intellectual morons on your side are against the very technology to reduce the use of hydrocarbons–nuclear energy and the use of Yucca mountain to store the waste. Even the French and Russians and Chinese have figured this out. Science is science.
[Name Redacted]
[Address Redacted]
Darlington, SC
To this individual’s credit, he actually signed his e-mail with a name, address and phone number. So he is certainly no coward. But I am completely unsure how to address this, as it is all over the map. More or less, this message ties a political stance (liberalism, however it is conceived here) with climate change and an implicit questioning of my religious beliefs. But this says a lot – the assumption here is that I am anti-nuclear power (not really – it may be our best medium-term option), worship Al Gore (I’ve complained about a number of things he has said), I have no religious faith, and that I live in a world of suppositions instead of a world of evidence. The fact is that I have not discussed any of this in the op-ed, or anywhere else – the author is resting on a lot of suppositions, some of which are a bit offensive, to say the least.
But there is something else important here – the tone of the writer when addressing me as “the great specialist of humanistic global warming, while I am only a peon on the subject” and “great academics (you)” belies a deep-seated insecurity that, to some extent, I think those of us working on this issue must acknowledge and take some responsibility for creating. Scientists and policy-makers must take seriously the complaint that we can sound elitist and arrogant in our pronunciations – especially because this is relatively easy to address. We need to do more community engagement, make ourselves more available, in person, to talk to people about what we do and what we know. It’s easy to shout at a caricature of someone, as this writer did at me, than it is to shout at a real person who wants to have a real conversation with you.
Then there was this. Even as this person was agreeing with some of my points, he gets in a rather personal shot about me being motivated by a “paycheck-pension drive”.
Subject: “DOUTHAT” — 2 ATTACHMENTS
I tried this on you several years ago. I can see that you have not progressed.
I probably agree more with you than Douthat, but in the end I do not fully agree with either of you. You both stay on the surface, within the range of the tips of your noses, and do not address the underlying cause and effect, including for this issue. Remember, you cannot fix a leaky faucet unless you first turn off the water.
The thought has occurred to me that a fundamental reason for this is that y’all are virtually completely captives of what I call the “paycheck-pension drive.”
This will take much more than nice words. It will take action.
Don’t pout — forward this up your flagpole and to some problem-solvers.
A key point here – I was not pouting. I was trying to make my colleagues and myself accountable for our failures of communication, and to encourage my colleagues to redouble their efforts as they are, in fact, starting to work.
This writer sent me two attachments promoting his ideas on population reduction, which he sees as the fundamental problem here (he is right to identify population size and growth as a major challenge). What bothers me here is the idea that his solution is the “right” one, and mine (or anyone else’s) is therefore “wrong”. It seems to me that these are linked challenges that could be addressed and discussed in concert – we go nowhere when we get absolutist in our thinking. I fear that those of us in the global change community come off as absolutist ourselves, contributing to this sort of problem.
In any case, the vitriol to which my intellectual community is exposed all the time is very real, and not some made-up fantasy created to demonize the right/anti-global warming crowd/whatever. It is something we deal with that most of our academic colleagues do not, and something we have to learn to address productively if we are to make positive change in the world.
Is it just a conversation you want, or for people to agree with you? Because the two are somewhat different.
In your previous post, you gave the impression that your definition of a “productive conversation” is one in which the person you are conversing with agrees that anthropogenic climate change will lead to serious impacts, that business as usual is not sustainable, and the only topic remaining for discussion is which particular carbon mitigation strategies are best.
The problem is, a lot of people don’t agree with your baseline, they are just as firmly convinced that science and logic actually supports their own view, and just as frustrated that some of the other participants in the conversation don’t seem to be listening.
So what sort of conversation can you have if nobody listens?
A lot of people are angry and frustrated that the world seems intent on marching down what they see as the wrong path. They see this path as irreversibly damaging and expensive – especially to the developing world. And they are angry that they are being *made* to comply, and being made to pay for it all via their taxes too, without their consent, without having their say, and with the constant background insinuation that they must be either ignorant fools or malicious *not* to naturally agree and comply. Anger and frustration are not conducive to polite and civilised debate.
Nobody thinks the vitriol is a made up fantasy – the fantasy is the idea that it is only *your* intellectual community that is receiving it. Do you suppose that people who openly *doubt* catastrophic anthropogenic global warming don’t receive vitriol? You, I am pleased to say, have been extremely and unfailingly polite, but I could direct you to places where views such as mine would be met by an instant torrent of incoherent expletive-filled rage.
I certainly understand why – people see us as standing in the way of them “saving the world” – but it’s still vitriol, whatever the motivation.
Personally, I think it’s more useful to engage in calm conversation, with the primary aim and definition of success being *mutual understanding* rather than agreement. The more we know about each other, and why we each feel as we do, the more likely it is that something could be worked out. Or at least, worse fights avoided.
But that sort of thing requires *positive engagement* with “the enemy”, not just with like-minded individuals who already almost agree with you. A room in which you have your own opinions reflected back at you may be a far more comfortable place to be, but does it really achieve anything?
So what sort of conversation do you want to have?
Personally, I am uninterested in conversations with people who agree with me in a knee-jerk sort of way. I don’t learn anything from them, and I don’t need my opinions parroted back to me. I am willing to discuss the scope of the impacts of climate change – I’ve learned a lot from such conversations. I am also willing to listen to anyone who has a way to make business as usual sustainable – but I have yet to see any plan that can make that happen. I think that the mitigation strategies debate is a critical one, but not the only one – certainly we have to figure out what acceptable and unacceptable impacts are, what acceptable and unacceptable costs are, and how to deal with those impacts and costs that we see as acceptable, while avoiding those we see as unacceptable. That is a lot wider scope for conversation and debate than you are giving me credit for.
I agree completely that a conversation requires people listening to one another – and this is exactly what I want. I am not sure what to do about the situations you describe (which, of course, have played out in the comments section of this blog, among many other sites) – it’s a bit like the problem with collisions between fundamentalist groups. When people really think God is on their side and their side alone, it becomes hard to negotiate with them. And I never meant to suggest that the vitriol flows only one way in these debates – I have seen and heard completely inappropriate comments from “my side” of the fence, and I will decry them just as quickly as inappropriate comments from the “other side” (I use quotes because I don’t think I fit neatly into the popular understandings of one camp or the other). Shouting is useless. Vitriol is the mark of people with nothing better to say or contribute. And I agree – I don’t care if you think you are saving the world (both sides seem to think they are saving the world, after all), it just isn’t productive or appropriate. This is why I castigate my “own crowd” in the op-ed, and in this blog post, for probably contributing to the inferiority complex (and anger) that makes some people just hate this discussion and the people involved in it – academics are not always the best, warmest communicators, you know? We need to work on our outreach, not to be better at indoctrination (or whatever), but to create the conditions for better conversations.
I am truly glad I have come off as polite on this blog – I am quite capable of being a complete a**hole, but I work hard to avoid exposing others to that sort of thing.
Mutual understanding is exactly the goal I want – it can breed mutual respect (or at least the recognition of one’s common humanity), which in turn can lead to productive exchanges. Last I checked, none of us were really in favor of burning the world down (well, OK, there are a few of the millennialist types, but what can you do about them, really?) – so we have to find some sort of common path to a shared goal. We’re a long way from that, I think . . .