Mar 30 2009
Why I didn’t sign the CATO Institute ad
A week ago, Patrick Michaels asked me to sign the CATO Institute’s “Mr President, That is not true” ad. I declined.
It appeared on a full page in today’s New York Times. You can see the ad at the CATO website.
Here’s the meat:
We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated. Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.1,2 After controlling for population growth and property values, there has been no increase in damages from severe weather-related events.3 The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior.4 Mr. President, your characterization of the scientific facts regarding climate change and the degree of certainty informing the scientific debate is simply incorrect.
When inactivists gripe about the rhetoric of climate activists, the chief complaint is, “Why do our enemies always tout the consensus. Science isn’t done by consensus.” I agree.
Which is what makes demonstrating a minority consensus of “undersigned scientists” a bad idea.
Sure, politicians say that “all scientists agree”, and some of them even believe it. Somebody has to let these ill-informed leaders know the full range and limitations of climatological and economical work so they are not influenced solely by lobbyists.
A right wing think tank might fill this role for economists, but it will never do so for physicists. The ad should not have mixed the two types of creatures. Better to have left off the economists.
Roger Pielke’s paper on storm damage is badly summarized in the ad. There has been an increase in property damage; by storm surge floods, for instance.
It’s due to increasing population and people building too damn close to water. This is why Roger must control for property values to make some sense of the data. But his argument is statistical. Putting that kind of thing in an ad weakens it.
CATO says the models “abjectly fail” to account for current climate behavior. Depends on what you mean by climate “behavior”.
The models do get a lot of technicalities right. If large-scale patterns are “behavior”, then the models did not abjectly fail, they did OK.
By not saying what “behavior” means, an excellent excuse is available for rejecting the ad.
Why not have said, “The models said we would get hotter but we got colder. The models cannot make accurate predictions and need to before we can use their output for decision making.”
The ad wraps by telling Obama he is wrong. This is not a man used to being called wrong. Too many thickened layers of self esteem. The negative tactic will push him to trot out his own experts to dispute the statements point by point. Opinions will not change.
Everything I have said is neither here, nor is it there. Most of it is quibbling. I wish the signers well.
I suspect the real reason I didn’t sign is that I am a contrarian.
36 responses so far
It would be great if Obama would take the bait and trot out his own experts. Nothing would do more to build opposition to the AGW scare than for the public to see a debate. Once Obama reacts, Cato should call for a major tv debate and keep calling for it until the Hansen crew has no choice but to agree.
Obama is not used being called wrong? ahaha! That’s a new one. You just had to write something like that, hey mr Briggs
.
And I disagree wholeheartedly with stan. This has nothing to do with “tv debates”. It has to do with science. Produce good science that debunks AGW and you’ll win the case. If you don’t, you’ll be equaled to the lunatics that try to make tv debates between creationists and evolutionists.
And believe me, people are just fed up of so much science denialism. And they think that AGW denial is exactly equal to creationism (and for the most part of the folks out there, it is so).
All in all, if 2009 and 2010 get even cooler, consider AGW dead.
Specially because we’re in for a big almighty recession, I mean depression. It’s the thirties again, chaps…
Contrarian, very possibly. Official Spoil Sport, absolutely! Rock on!
Agree with your points about over-stating the “failure” bit, and OHB’s ego not being able to accept being “wrong”. I posted on that before the election but it did no good.
Both points could have been handled better by CATO if they had thought about it a little more. But what the hey, why would we expect a Think Tank to do that?
You didn’t sign – but you are still a recognised AGW contrarian – and that is significant.
What we need is more people like Briggs – more thought less reaction. Using sound bites and ads to educate people is not going to win the debate.
Think about it.
Hmm. Interesting.
None of the authors referenced in the footnotes signed the ad!!! Were they not asked?
Luis,
The burden of proof to produce good science is on the AGW alarmists. And so far they haven’t produced anything but politicized garbage. They overturn the accepted history of global temperature with a study which was riddled with incompetence and fraud — and no even bothered to check the basics, much less audit it. And actually replicating a study? Forget it. Transparency and replication would too closely resemble the scientific method. Wouldn’t want any of that.
They blather on and on about unprecedented temperatures, yet they never bothered to check to see that the thermometers are sited properly. The keystone kops were more professional!
Ask to actually see a seminal study used by the IPCC in its bizarre smoke and mirrors routine to deny the impact of the urban heat island effect? They respond that the dog ate their homework! It would be comedy, if they weren’t trying to wreck the lives of billions of the world’s poor people.
And quality control? We could criticize the keepers of the data for incompetence in quality control, but first they’d have to institute some quality procedures.
Freeman Dyson was right about the alarmists. They ought to get away from the virtual world they created on their computers, leave the air conditioning and venture out in the real world to try some real science. If they did, they might actually start producing something worthwhile.
JH
I think Douglass is in fact on the list.
Harry.G. said: Using sound bites and ads to educate people is not going to win the debate.
Isn’t it sound bites and ads to educate people that got us into this AGW situation in the first place?
The purpose of the ad was to make a political statement. It might be couched in science, touted as scientific, but the bottom line is that the ad is political.
So, to judge it as a “scientific statement” and quibble with the nuance of the wording is to miss the point entirely. And to demur from signing it for “scientific reasons” is also to miss the point.
If you did not wish to join the undersigned in a political statement, that’s fine, but you should be honest with yourself (and others) about it. “I did not sign because I did not wish to take a political stand on this issue at this time” is a perfectly reasonable attitude to adopt.
Nobody has to take a political stand. It requires some sacrifice, direct or indirect, predictable or unpredictable. Nor is it in anyway dishonorable to refuse.
On the other hand, I myself would have signed it had I been asked, and I salute those who did, regardless of the outcome or response by our sad excuse for a President, who should never have been elected and is now wrecking the country, as I predicted.
I think the ad does a good job at refuting Obama’s statement: “The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.” In other words, the Cato guys aren’t claiming to have a consensus, they are just refuting Obama’s claim of consensus.
Greg Cavanagh said “Isn’t it sound bites and ads to educate people that got us into this AGW situation in the first place?”
Exactly my point. The spin is easy – the real story takes effort to disseminate.
I spent three months educating a fellow tertiary trained 30 year experienced person (electrical engineer) on the true story at my work place. I did not, could not, do it with sound bites and silly ads )quotes). I did with an educative process – sticking to the science all the time and sticking to the scientific principles – it was a hard and sometimes painful effort but not without its rewards.
You know the story about the reformed Christian/ smoker etc?
Indeed the AGW topic had gone far beyond science already .
.
In fact the scientific content became irrelevant exactly the day when the IPCC was created by a POLITICAL body (UN) , when AGW became the major weapon in the arsenal of politically motivated NGOs and when it became amplified by mass media .
The AGW today is an issue where the ignorant TV reporter talks to the even more ignorant man in the street and the politician watches with anguish wondering where the electoral dies may fall .
There is no place anymore for the Lindzens , Schmidts , Pielkes & Co – they have little to say and the little they say is not heard anymore .
The thing already developped an eigendynamics and escaped the control of its makers .
.
Who understands and cares about AR1 residuals or chaotic trajectories when the issue is to “save the planet” ?
The roads to hell in the past always started when the man in the street began to have strong beliefs and especially strong feelings and a skilled powerhungry politician whipped it all in a frenzy .
But when the landslide starts to roll it can no more be stopped by appeals to reason or careful calculations .
It needs a force of similar magnitude but reversed direction .
So the battle is the one for the feelings of the man in the street with arguments that he can understand and accept .
He must be told that media have lied to him , that unscrupulous politicians want to destroy HIS way of living , that HE will pay for the craziness and that the price is high .
He will listen to that and (perhaps) change his mind and express this change by his vote .
This single change would (will ?) kill off the AGW politics infinitely faster and more efficiently than anything a scientist may publish in some obscure paper that nobody reads .
.
In my opinion that is exactly what the CATO institute is doing and it is the right way to go .
I think that they know very well what they are doing and even if it has nothing to do with science , their most important statement is probably that “Obama is wrong” .
This hurts where it should hurt and it brings the debate where it (unfortunately) belongs now – to the politicians and to the media .
We need much more of that debate and be sure that scientific arguments will have little importance in it .
The ad was obviously a political statement, which I of course knew when asked to sign.
But in this case, the politics is about the physics, which is why the statement had to be meticulous. It was not.
Judged as a political statement, it was weak, and maybe even harmful.
If CATO wanted to show cracks in the climatological consensus, better to have limited the signers to those who, say, recently published at least one paper in a climatological journal. Just adding a bunch of names to get a lot was not a good move.
Critics—and I’m not agreeing with them—will focus on the weakest of those names, point out the large number of emeritus and retired members, and note people who do not actively contribute to climatology or atmospheric physics. They will say, “These people are not experts. I do not have to listen to them.”
They will miss Dick Lindzen’s, and other similarly prestigious names, and will not be forced to confront the main negative evidence against climate models.
Signing just for the sake of doing something was not a good idea. I thought, and continue to think, the ad will have the opposite of its intended effect. I hope I am wrong.
I for one wholeheartedly agree with you Matt.
Last week I sat next to one of our erudite Federal Members of parliament at a dinner. The subject of AGW/CC came up and he willingly admitted to being a sceptic. But when I sugessted that he may get support if he publicly supported the sceptical side he went a visible shade of white through his erzartz suntan. His explanation – the populace just wont buy it. He is connvinced by the ads and one liners that the general pouplation has bought the scam and his continued election to public office depends upon him supporting the “consensus”.
We need a better strategy to get the message through. It needs to be strategic, consistent and truthful.
“Critics—and I’m not agreeing with them—will focus on the weakest of those names, point out the large number of emeritus and retired members, and note people who do not actively contribute to climatology or atmospheric physics. They will say, “These people are not experts. I do not have to listen to them.”
Sounds a lot like the “2500 scientists” working on the IPCC.
Please don’t throw me in that briar patch! It would be terrible to have a discussion about scientists on lists compiled for political purposes. We would never, ever want the public to examine the bona fides of those “scientists” whose numbers are trotted out to argue about scientific consensus. Please, not THAT briar patch!
The elder Pielke seems to disagree with you about the science.
http://climatesci.org/2009/03/31/open-letter-by-the-cato-institute-on-climate-science/
I agree that the small print is important, but signers of the ad could focus on the bold.
“Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change.The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.”— PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, NOVEMBER 19 , 2008
With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.
Earlier this year Cato had a similar ad:
“There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy.”— PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, JANUARY 9 , 2009
With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.
http://www.cato.org/special/stimulus09/alternate_version.html
“the models did not abjectly fail, they did OK.”
A finer display of weasel words, I cannot recall.
As In “I’m OK, you’re OK…this is all OK”?
OK is a scientific justification?
No wonder we’re in such a mess.
Luis Dias: “Produce good science that debunks AGW and you’ll win the case.”
Deliberately misrepresenting the Scientific Method is a standard tactic of climate alarmists. By using that tactic, they are being dishonest.
According to the Scientific Method the burden is on those promoting the [repeatedly falsified] AGW/CO2 hypothesis, to show that their new hypothesis explains reality better than the long accepted theory of natural climate variability.
Not only does the new AGW/CO2 hypothesis fail to explain the climate, it also fails to make accurate predictions — no climate model, not a single one, predicted the past N.H. winter’s extreme temperatures.
Scientists need not “debunk” AGW, which has consistently failed to pass muster. To be credible, AGW must falsify the theory of natural climate variability — something it has totally failed to accomplish.
Luis Dias has lost the argument because he attempts to turn the Scientific Method upside down. I suspect that he uses that tactic because he has no credible evidence to support his pet hypothesis.
Now look here, Andrew. Let’s acknowledge that saying, in some senses, climate models do OK, without having to go on and on about the details, is a fair thing to say. Especially since it is the critics of the ad who will be happy to point out model successes.
And if those words are the worst excess you can recall, then you are not reading widely enough.
Thanks, Harry G.
So all of the authors were probably asked by CATO, and one agreed to sign the ad. The scientists who declined to endorse it have earned my respect for not getting involved in such political maneuver. In my opinion, scientist should be active in their research and inform the policy process. They should not be used as weapons to attack political opponents.
The debate is not and never has been a scientific one. It is a political matter. Emotion sells and politicians are past masters at telling people what they want to hear. So if you want the truth, ask a scientist. Unfortunately, this situation is now so dysfunctional that the argument is not a rational one any more, no matter how clearly and simply some may see it.
I take Briggs point that the usual mud will be thrown at signers of the ad, and I think it will in any case be ineffective, but I don’t believe it will be harmful. The more publicity the opposing view can muster the better.
My way of tackling the problem would be completely different and would involve several million pounds, a free pop concert and T-shirts with the latest temperature record printed across the front.
All proceeds from merchandise would go to a third world real life problem that has currently been overlooked;
There would be a ten-minute (each!) lecture by a few experts. (The Emp’s clothes would have to be carefully chosen for him, least he should offend). I would present the view that it is trendy to understand the science; selfish and futile to speak of the imagined crisis when there are people dying right now of preventable diseases, malnutrition and so on. Soundbites would abound. Lindzen, Ross Mckytric and Monckton are very good speakers, but the Polar bear expert would have to stay at home.
Not new ideas, but for most people who have the attention span of a gnat, it takes a pop concert and a T-shirt to sell an idea, especially a moral one. Is the truth not a moral issue?
Make that a world tour. India and the Czech Republic would be on the list of venues.
It takes only one good argument to prove the consensus wrong, but if the people aren’t listening then another way must be sought.
Distraction may still prove the best antidote and, joking aside, is still what I believe will lay this issue finally to rest. Troubles in 2009 might numb the anxiety about 2109’s imagined ones.
I commend you for not signing this piece of crap.
I am about as much of a AGW denier, skeptic, whathaveyou as can be, but CATO is flawed in exactly the same way as PETA.
They already have the answers, they are just on a mission to find the questions and the ‘credible’ sources to back up their stance. They are not interested in real truth, only ‘proving’ their preconceived political truth.
CATO doesn’t care about AGW, but the greenies do so CATO goes out of their way to show the greenies are wrong. The method? attack any publication tauting AGW, praise and over-represent any publication in dissent, and make dubious claims about halting GDP and of course point out how the main motivation of the left is to prove AGW so they can increase taxes.
If this was a real petition, one that actually mattered, was well written, accurately represented the literature and was sent to congress with a purpose other than to flash their new punchline (Mr President, That is not true) then I might even sign it.
With great respect Mr Briggs, the world needs contrarians and those signatories have expressed themselves well, in spite of your pedantry that says otherwise.
Your comparison of CATO to PETA is shonky, in fact its odious.
…my apologies for the above, I scrolled down, left my keyboard and commented on John’s posting, not your statement…however, I commend the signatories, and stand by my first sentence.
Half cocked, Ayrdale, half cocked.
And as my number one son just told me, “With all due respect” and its variants are the “snarkiest things you can say.”
Also see today’s post.
John
Couldn’t agree with you more. I feel the overt intertwining of politics and science only disrupts from the analysis and detracts those – of the ‘left’ – who are questioning the CAGW hypothesis. The argument I often hear from ‘believers’ is that those responsible for propagating ‘denial’ are powerful right wing elites with an economic and social agenda, but undeniably every government – right, left, up, down – has an agenda just as every individual does. As such I think that advertising subsidised by the CATO institute will only further concretise the minds of warmists and frighten away honest seekers.
Well ian,
I wonder if you have a better suggestion. The government is about to institute a multi-trillion dollar tax on carbon and/or a carbon derivatives market that will amount to much the same thing. The undue burden will be borne primarily by the poor who will not be able to afford heat or much of anything else. Prices on everything will go up. The economy will falter and contract even more.
The political situation is dire because the outcomes are dire. The new taxes will not effect the climate in any way. The globe is not warming, although warmer is better. The new taxes will be onerous and threaten the very existence of this country.
So what political demonstration do you approve of? What sacrifice are you willing to make for the good of yourself and your neighbors?
The phrase that keeps running through my mind is “good Germans.” You know, those who said and did nothing while fascism enveloped their country, which resulted in the worst acts of inhumanity in history.
When you come up with a political strategy to avert mass catastrophe that does not offend you or anybody else, please let me know.
Mike
This is obviously a topic very close to your heart and if you are making sacrifices for what you perceive as the greater good I must applaud you. However, please don’t even start with the ‘good german’ argument. You no nothing about me and the way in which I live out my convictions.
The ad doesn’t offend me, I just don’t believe it is going to achieve a great deal, for the reasons I mentioned earlier.
Obviously the very root fact didn’t yet sink in for many .
AGW is no more about science if it ever was .
It is about politics .
Now politics and science can uneasily coexist at best .
They don’t share the method , the goals and the means .
Actually one would be hard pressed to say what they do share .
.
While truth and the search for truth drive science , they are barely adjustable parameters in politics .
For several reasons I had to work for many years in an environment with “professional” politicians of government level .
These people really don’t care for truth .
Or more accurately what they do care for is what is PERCEIVED as truth and they ALL without exception worship the principle that “being in resonance with perceived truths leads to winning elections .”
Some would more prosaically call that demagogy but it is actually finer and more thought through than that .
If somebody brought to a politician the perfect truth with a mathematical demonstration supported by observationnal evidence that the AGW theory is the scam it is , he would throw you out by saying “So what ? Did you see the last poll ? 65 % of my voters think that the fight against AGW is a poriority .”
It reminds the famous Stalin’s “The pope ? How many divisions ?” so it’s nothing new under the sun .
.
That’s why it is the reality principle that leads us to acknowledge that AGW is politics and not science and the logics leads us to conclude that it must be fought at a political level with political weapons .
The tools are communication , sensibilisation and slogans that are not too picky with the notion of (scientific) truth .
Look at the gangsters from Greenpeace (or WWF of whatever) how they have mastered those principles as old as humanity .
And people even see them as sympathetic and nice …
Well yes , it means to methaphorically “bloody” oneself’s hands but that’s the price of the fight .
What is needed is a communication strategy and the CATO’s initiative is a step , even if imperfect , in the right direction .
I am reading right now a book that begins with a quote “Pardon your ennemies but not untill they are hanged .” what nicely summs it up .
“The government is about to institute a multi-trillion dollar tax on carbon and/or a carbon derivatives market that will amount to much the same thing. The undue burden will be borne primarily by the poor who will not be able to afford heat or much of anything else. Prices on everything will go up. The economy will falter and contract even more.”
possible, but not one shred of evidence. Am I against taxing carbon, yes. Do I think anything you mentioned is true? no.
May be a little off topic but you said “Depends on what you mean by climate “behavior”. I question whether it is not logically confused to talk about “climate behavior”? After all, what is ‘climate’ except ‘the prevalent weather’? If you think about it, what do we mean when we say that someplace has a certain ‘climate’? We mean that the weather there is predominately of a certain sort. Really, ‘climate’ is just the history of weather. So: it is weather that exhibits “behavior” and ‘climates’ are just what we call the various consistencies in the behavior of weather. On this view ‘climate’ does not exhibit any “behavior” because ‘climate’ is a logical construct consisting of generalizations over the behavior of weather. On this topic Dr. Roy Spencer wrote recently “But upon closer examination, I have come to realize that the two kinds of variability – weather and climate – maybe are not so different after all. The only major difference between the two is just one of time scale.” ref. http://www.drroyspencer.com/ March 29th, 2009. I suggest that there are errors of type being made and a distinction in level of discourse being ignored when concepts appropriate to the phenomena (weather) are applied to ‘talk about’ the phenomena (climate). Among other things, would not the statistical properties of the two domains likely be quite different?
“I suspect the real reason I didn’t sign is that I am a contrarian.”
I suspect there is a similar reason for you lining up against the world’s climate scientific community – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
Wow, you folks are incredible! Of all this crap, the best (as in worst, saddest, nastiest and most negligent) is this one: “It takes only one good argument to prove the consensus wrong, but if the people aren’t listening then another way must be sought. Distraction may still prove the best antidote and, joking aside, is still what I believe will lay this issue finally to rest. Troubles in 2009 might numb the anxiety about 2109’s imagined ones.”
Wow. What a complete and utter lack of knowledge and understanding of what’s happening around the globe (and in your own country — checked on Alaska lately?). And what a heart-wrenching lack of compassion for those who are losing their lives, their livelihoods, their food sources, their drinking water and/or their homes (or whole nations) because of the catastrophic effects of global climate change.
So you think AGW is politicized? It’s because it was politicized that we’re already in a climate change emergency. (Ask the people in Africa, the North and small island states about “consensus.” Ask the people in California and Alaska.)
You think Obama is wrecking your country already? Try this: the Republicans ensured that Obama won (how else can you explain Palin?) so that you could all blame him for the mess Bush left behind. A sly move, but totally transparent from where I sit. So that gig is up. (And you seem to have proved that theory by blaming him already!!)
Did you guys check the four articles at the bottom of the Cato Institute ad? Two by self-aligned skeptics/deniers, one that isn’t about what the ad said it was about, and one that said the exact opposite of what the ad said it said.
And I think I’ve finally figured you all out. You see, during the Cold War, you guys (or your cronies) told so many lies, distorted so many facts, and spun so much crap to keep the nuclear weapons race going that you know think that people who actually care about life on Earth are capable of doing the same thing. You are seeing the world through your own worldview, and projecting it onto people who love their children and know they can’t eat money (those coins crack your teeth and the bills just go to mush, with no nutrition in them whatsoever ).
I would exhort you all to look in the eyes of a beloved child you cherish and ask yourselves why you’re having such a hard time with the precautionary principle. But you probably think the precautionary principle applies to the economy. (If it did, you’d all be scrambling to invest in renewable energy technologies, but it doesn’t sound like you’re going there either.)
Bless them, Father, for they know not what they do.
p.s. It is true. Obama was correct. And you are all diddling while the Earth burns. Can you say methane timebomb?
JJ,
Since you mentioned the Precautionary Principle, let me ask you this. Are you a Christian? If not, explain to me the difference between the PP and Pascal’s Wager.
JJ
I don’t live in North America.
Download the IPCC’s doccument which is available on line, See if you can find the part that says:
People are “losing their lives, their livelihoods, their food sources, their drinking water…and whole nations”! In fact, show me which nation you mean, and the mechanism for how this actually works.
What IS happening, is that money is being diverted from truly worthy causes that bear contemporary attention for an imagined problem. From sensitive conservation sites to human suffering the causes are there. Many will if not already see sympathy wain for their causes.
I don’t doubt your earnest quest to fight what you believe is a noble cause, but in my informed opinion, you are mistaken in this case.
Read what an English scientist had to say on the subject ofcatastrophic climate change.
“Climate change is a reality and science confirms that human activity is heavily implicated in this change. But over the last few years a new environmental phenomenon has been constructed in this country. The phenomenon of catastrophic climate change. It seems that mere climate change was not going to be bad enough and so it now must be catastrophic to be worthy of attention. The increasing use of this pejorative term and its bedfellow qualifiers, chaotic, irreversible, rapid has altered the public discourse around climate change. I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric. It seems that it is we the professional climate scientists who are now the catastrophy sceptics! How the wheel turns!
Why is it not just campaigners but politicians and scientists too who are openly confusing the language of fear, terror and disaster with the observable physical reality of climate change, actively ignoring the careful hedging of science’s predictions?
To state that climate change will be catastrophic hides a cascade of value laden assumptions that do not emerge from empirical or theoretical science.”
“Self evidently dangerous climate change will not come from a normal scientific process of truth seeking. Although science will gain some insights into the question if it recognises the social contingent dementions of a post normal science, but to proffer such insights scientists and politicians must trade normal truth for influence.”
Mike Hulme the director 2000-2007 of the tyndall centre for climate change research
All these remarks are interesting… But what about true solutions???
Everybody can understand and share the climate change solutions issue. While the United Nations experts and negotiators have gathered in Poznan for two weeks, consumers continue to experience issues with climate change. Most of them have to improve their insulation or to reduce their petrol consumption: all can understand it is time to react in a proper way with sustainable solutions.
Cefic has just issued a cartoon for them to explain why the chemical industries promote benchmarking as a method of allocation of CO2 emission rights in the Emissions Trading Scheme.
This cartoon is a way to show that the benchmarking vs.auctioning debate is not a topic reserved for an elite of specialists. Using a humorous tone and serious arguments, the Jumping the climate change hurdle cartoon shows that we all benchmark when seeking the best value for money as we do our shopping. Comparing apples to apples is not so different an exercise than comparing CO2 performances in one industrial sector: it’s still benchmarking.
Everybody can easily understand then that it is not fair to treat all performers regardless of their efforts and appropriate investments. Some simple and entertaining pictures provide explanations using metaphorical tools (such as sports ones) and showing that companies need to be competitive to provide innovative solutions for a sustainable climate solutions management. Additional CO2 expenses that would not be allocated to favour low carbon technologies would not help efficient climate change efforts… To avoid that, climate change is definitely the tool of choice… and the cartoon a way to combine fun and learning.
This cartoon is also an opportunity for European Industries to show that they are already setting good examples of good practices to the rest of the world. Without the Emissions Trading Scheme, they are reducing their own greenhouse gases emissions year after year . But to go on doing so, they need the right tool. Welcome on board.
It is highly essential that you contribute to disseminate this cartoon or links on it. Climate change is indeed an issue that will have consequences on our lives.
You can watch the cartoon on You Tube : http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=b1kf_axslfk or on Daily Motion : http://www.dailymotion.com/Aleria2008/video/x7lnjh_changement-climatique-du-boulot-pou_news