Andrew Revkin, who has been covering climate change for the NYTimes for going on twenty years, stirred up a controversy with his latest piece on an emerging "middle stance"
on global warming.

On the left hand side of the dial, the likes of David Roberts, my editor at Grist, labeled this as "High Broderism," and complained that Revkin has given too much credit to Roger Pielke, Jr.,  for self-righteously claiming a dubious middle ground between alarmists (such as Al Gore) and deniers (such as fossil fuel thinktankers).

I haven’t seen a reaction on the right hand side of the dial, but in academia, Matt Nisbet has praised it to the skies as a "useful heuristic" for journalists, ignoring the fact that no reporter worth his salt would be caught dead using such a pretentious word. (Why is it that academics who can’t speak conversational English think they have the right to lecture reporters on how to write?)

Here’s my two cents. I hugely respect Andrew Revkin, but I don’t think this is one of his better pieces. Not because it’s wrong-headed–it’s not–but because it doesn’t go far enough to be very useful.

It’s a fact that many scientists who know that global warming is real nonetheless question the practicality of global measures such as the Kyoto Protocol, not to mention that of even smaller emissions-reducing measures such as AB 32 in California. It’s also true that many of these same scientists would like to see more emphasis put on taking out "insurance" against global warming, instead of trying to stabilize the global atmosphere.

But the problem is, Revkin doesn’t take us to the next logical step in the debate, which is to look–even briefly–at these sort of ideas for "insurance" against global warming.

The most obvious of these "insurance policies" is an idea that Pielke, Jr., has often mentioned on his useful Prometheus site, which is simply to find ways to keep people out of harm’s way of hurricanes.

This exact idea just happened to come up this week from Max Mayfield, who is retiring from a career of thirty-four years as an expert in hurricanes and disaster preparedness. Mayfield, known as a voice of calm and reason, is frustrated beyond belief at our nation’s inability to face the facts of hurricanes. He’s warning of 10,000 or more deaths from a direct hit by a hurricane on Southern Florida, pointing to the state’s "7 million coastal residents." On Wednesday he said:

"We’re eventually going to get a strong enough storm in a densely populated area to have a major disaster. I know people don’t want to hear this, and I’m generally a very positive person, but we’re setting ourselves up for this major disaster."

In fact, the only real "insurance" policy to prevent disaster from hurricanes that I  know of has come, appropriately enough, from the insurance industry itself, which (as discussed in a Washington Post piece linked to below) is changing its policies to discourage development in along known hurricane paths in Florida and along the East Coast.

The frustration of Mayfield and Pielke, Jr. and other scientists who want us to pay attention to the obvious steps to be taken to reduce risks is understandable, but although Revkin’s story hinted that broader attempts to reduce the risk of global warming may not be effective, it failed to show us that attempts to take out "insurance policies" have been equally ineffectual.

In that sense, it failed to advance the discussion, which is a shame, since it’s true that this debate is mired in misunderstandings (such as the idea that global warming is a problem easily solved).

That’s according to former national security advisor Richard Clarke, who was one of the first to challenge the Current Occupant over his disastrous war in Iraq. Now, in a characteristically fiery op-ed called While You Were at War,  he uses a sports metaphor from second grade to again confront "Washington’s grown-up 7-year-olds." This time he calls them out for playing a particularly stupid form of "herd ball" politics, in which all the players try to move one issue, all the while ignoring infinitely more pressing matters:

When the possibility of invading Iraq surfaced in 2001, senior Bush administration officials hadn’t thought much about global warming, except to wonder whether it was caused by human activity or by sunspots. Today, the world’s scientists and many national leaders worry that the world has passed the point of no return on global warming. If it has, then human damage to the ecosphere will cause more major cities to flood and make the planet significantly less conducive to human habitation — all over the lifetime of a child now in kindergarten. British Prime Minister Tony Blair keeps trying to convince President Bush of the magnitude of the problem, but in every session between the two leaders Iraq squeezes out the time to discuss the pending planetary disaster.

In global warming and the environment, everything seemed to change in 2006–at least in terms of public awareness. Here’s an a-to-z accounting of just some of those changes:

A IS FOR “AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH,” Al Gore’s scientific but surprisingly human documentary on the threat of climate change, which was expected to take in at most $6-7 million at the box office, but went on to gross over $45 million, the biggest documentary of the year, and the third-largest of all time.

B IS FOR BIOFUELS, which went from becoming a hippies-only fringe product to a mention in the State of the Union address. To date Washington has been focused mostly on ethanol, but other fuels requiring much less fossil energy to produce are coming to the fore, and proving surprisingly popular. Or, as the bumper sticker says: BIODIESEL: NO WAR REQUIRED.

C IS FOR CALIFORNIA, which set a new standard for pollution control by passing a bipartisan package of bills designed to cut tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2016 (and many other measures). For this Iain Murray, a fossil fuels thinktank writer for the far-right National Review, declared that “It is hard to escape the conclusion…that what California has done is to decide to join the Third World.”

D IS FOR THE DAY FIRE, or, as the firefighters called it, “The Day After Day After Day After Day Fire,” which burned for over three weeks in Southern California’s Los Padres forest, consuming thousands of acres and millions of dollars in firefighting funds, but—-thanks to mostly mild winds and massive firefighting efforts—in the end caused little property damage.

E IS FOR THE ESPERANZA FIRE, an arson fire that burned for nearly a week near Palm Springs, consuming forty thousand acres, dozens of buildings, and the lives of five firefighters.

F IS FOR FOSSIL FUELS, the burning of which gasses the atmosphere with carbon dioxide. Although much despised by both environmentalists (who worry about global warming) and politicians (who worry about dependence on unstable foreign regimes) petroleum powers 98% of the world’s cars, trucks, and planes, according to a recent Pentagon survey.

G IS FOR "THE GOVERNATOR," Arnold Schwarzenneger, who surprised nearly everyone by turning against what he called the "Stone Age…backward" views of his own party regarding global warming. Rumor has it he is building a platform on which he plans to run for the Senate in 2010 against Barbara Boxer.

H IS FOR HANSEN, James, "the U.S. government’s top climatologist," according to ABC News. In January he made headlines by complaining that the Bush administration tried to silence him from talking about global warming, and in September he made headlines by reporting that the earth will soon be as hot as it has been for a million years.   

I IS FOR the INSURANCE INDUSTRY, which this year acted on the very real threat of Katrina-sized hurricanes hitting Florida and the East Coast, by making insurance in Florida and on the shore of the East Coast more expensive and less available. Fearing a $100 billion direct hit on New York that could send a "wall of water fifteen feet tall" up Broadway towards Wall Street, Allstate has stopped writing new homeowners policies in the region.

J IS FOR THE JAPANESE AUTO INDUSTRY. Thanks to huge investments in fuel conservation (Toyota put out over $1 billion to come up with the Prius), the Japanese car industry is thriving in the 21st century where America’s is crashing. Next year Toyota will become the world’s largest automaker, according to the Wall Street Journal.

K IS FOR THE KYOTO PROTOCOL, a "cap and trade" international agreement signed by over 150 nations designed to stabilize the climate by reducing greenhouse gas emissions below l990 levels. Although some nations–such as the U.K.–are on course to meet their Kyoto targets, two of the biggest emitters, the U.S. (at about 25%) and China (at about 15%) have refused to sign on.

L IS FOR JAMES LOVELOCK, the chemist, inventor, and ecologist famous for formulating the Gaia Principle, who thinks we are headed for the earth’s "second stable state," which will be about fourteen degrees hotter than today. He says that "means roughly that most life on the planet will have to move up to the Arctic basin, to the few islands that are still habitable and to oases on the continents."

M IS FOR METHANE, a greenhouse gas 23x as potent as CO2. Untold millions of tons of methane lie frozen in permafrost in the far North, and under the sea as clathrate. A study published in Nature in September warned of the possibility of "a climate time bomb" if these frozen gas deposits are released, as could happen with the softening of the permafrost.
 
N IS FOR NEGAWATT, which works to "squeeze out" fossil fuel consumption between increasing innovation (such as moving from fluorescent lights to LED lights) and alternative energies, such as wind, solar, and geothermal. California has proven this concept to be viable, despite a mistaken attempt at energy deregulation, and utilities statewide will spend $2 billion in the next two years convincing Californians to save power, thus avoiding the construction of three power plants, the equivalent of taking an additional 650,000 cars off the road.

O IS FOR OUR OCEANS, which are already in crisis, even before the likelihood of acidification due to increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, which threatens pteropods, a crucial underpinning of ocean life.

P IS FOR POMBO, the Republican Congressman who worked to dismantle the Endangered Species Act, make deals with Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay, and sell off public lands, and was dismissed from his conservative district by outraged voters.

Q FOR (Council on Environmental) Quality: In 2005, the White House Council on Environmental Quality became infamous for allowing a former oil industry lobbyist to rewrite scientific reports on the Arctic. In 2006, the White House CEQ became famous for…absolutely nothing.

R IS FOR RUPERT MURDOCH, who under the influence of Bill Clinton, surprised the right-wingers on his FOX News channel by expressing fears of global warming. "If there is even a thirty-per-cent chance that the experts are right, we should do everything we can to insure against a bad outcome," he told The New Yorker. Prediction: FOX News will soon stop scoffing, and begin running tabloid-style global warming disaster scenarios.

S IS FOR (CLIMATE) SENSITIVITY, a probabilistic measure of how much the planet will warm thanks to energy already stored in the atmosphere and oceans. If respected researcher James Annan is right and the international consensus is wrong, we may avoid the worst scenarios.

T IS FOR TERRY TAMMINEN, the anti-petroleum advocate who inspired AB 32 and Schwarzenneger’s greenhouse gas emissions reductions platform.

U IS FOR THE UTILITY INDUSTRY, which despite a handful of forward thinkers calling for a carbon tax (such as Paul Anderson of Duke Energy) has taken a "see no carbon, hear no carbon, speak no carbon" position on global warming.

V IS FOR THE VOTERS of America, who by turning the Congress over to the Democrats, will allow the nation to face the facts of global warming, which has almost impossible under Republican control.

W IS FOR ANTHONY WESTERLING, a young Scripps researcher whose huge study linking global warming to wildfire, showing dramatic increases in wildfire in pine forests in mountain states, made headlines across the West.

X IS FOR…I’m thinking, I’m thinking.

Y IS FOR THOM YORKE, of Radiohead fame, whose chart-topping Grammy-nominated solo outting The Eraser was the first good record about global warming.

Z IS FOR GENERAL TONY ZINNI, the former CENTCOM commander now retired from the Marines, who harshly criticised the Bush administration’s rush to war in Iraq, and speaks now about climate change and the need for "environmental security." Some want to see him on a ticket with Al Gore for 2008.