nephyo's Xanga

Climate Crock Sacks Hack Attack Videos

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:55:15 GMT

At the risk of beating a dead horse, here's another take on the emails.

The People Speak

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:51:20 GMT

Last night The People Speak debuted on the History Channel. It was one of the most extraordinary movies I've ever seen. It is the History of the United States as we should have learned it in school. It shows who our nation's heroes really are and to whom we really owe are thanks for all the freedoms we now enjoy.

I HIGHLY recommend it. I think it's worth it for everyone to see. I don't know when it comes on again but I will be sure to advertise it on here when I find out.

Climategate and The making of Scientist Slaves

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 15:02:43 GMT

If you don't know what Climategate (aka CRUHack, Swifthack) is, see my last post that lists lots and lots of accounts of it.

My very favorite account I just read and didn't include in that post. It's the analysis of the AP. I think it is the most fair and even handed account I've read. And I'm generally very critical of the AP. Anyway, here is that account. I highly suggest you read it.

Now here's my own personal abstract polemical account of what's been going on in the general society with regards to Science and how Climategate is a part of it:

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Did you know that if you're a scientist you are no longer allowed to crack a joke?

Not only that, but you're not allowed to use any possibly misleading phrases in your work. Nor can you make any passionate phrasing of your opinions about anything. And for goodness sake don't you DARE insult anybody you don't like or disagree with. Ever.

At least... not if you write it down and certainly not where anybody can hear you.

Because it's become clear that we want to create a world that goes beyond the need for mere transparency to the creation of a kind of Scientist slave. Slaves whose every word and thought are subject to the analysis of the Public. Their every word and thought is apparently fully allowed to picked apart and analyzed, misconstrued and misinterpreted to serve political interests and they are not given leave to defend themselves. Scientist puppets who must watch every word they speak and every thought they think to make sure it does not give the appearance of a lack of neutrality or worse yet dares to contradict someone's previously established point of view.

That I think is the lesson of the so called "climategate" scandal wherein ten years of emails from scientists from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit were blatantly stolen and then mined for a few problematic lines that were then used by the Climate Denial Industry to cast aspersions on the entire Scientific Community and fuel a twisted kind of conspiracy theory narrative that would be laughable if it weren't so frequently believed.

At current there is no evidence that this was a benevolent "leak" as the story is being told by some. No insider was aghast at the horrible lies being perpetrated within CRU and as a matter of conscience had to sneak out the contents of these emails for the sake of the world. No Judge was consulted when this information was obtained. There was no just cause established or reasonable suspicion ascertained before the emails were made public. The emails were simply stolen. And most likely they were held them until just the right moment, before the Copenhagen talks in order to do maximal damage.

The emails show some carelessness bordering on stupidity by Scientists under extreme pressure by Climate Deniers and who like most people, never imagined that their personal emails would be held up to public scrutiny and review. One thing in the emails is potentially very serious and may represent a criminal act by at most four scientists. That needs to be investigated to be sure, but it not even in conjunction with all the other emails is even the least bit suggestive of a vast climate change conspiracy.

Even if all four of the Scientists in question are totally corrupt that does not say anything about all the other scientists at CRU or their data. Even if every Scientist at CRU is corrupt and all the data from there is suspect, it says nothing about the hundreds of independent Scientists and institutions around the world who have independently using dozens of different data sources come to the same conclusions. And indeed the source data is still readily available in its original unaltered form. Almost every scientist or group of scientists who analyze the data comes to the same conclusions though of course with differing levels of confidence.

The events of the last few weeks have been grotesquely insulting to all scientists everywhere. It suggests that Climate Scientists have no rights to privacy and no rights even to formulate their own opinions in private or to share them in private correspondence. They are apparently not allowed to be passionate in their beliefs or critical of each other's works not even in the privacy of their own homes.

But maybe you think it's all reasonable? Scientists should be subject to this level of scrutiny! Science must be pristine, unaltered, unblemished, absolute transparency! Science above all must be PURE!! Everything they say needs to be examined! Otherwise they might pull a fast one on us!

Well then if that's reasonable, fine. Let's apply the same exact standard to everyone. Every institution. Every individual. Every email or letter you ever wrote will be exposed to every person in the world to pick over and analyze. And why stop with emails? Let's do every phone call conversation. Let's do every online chat. You certainly should no be able to hide behind the anonymity of blogging nor should your private blog entries be safe. No Journal or Diary shall not go un-data mined. And every single conversation you have too. Let's put it all down record it, put it on paper and provide it for free to the public domain for scrutiny.

I for one can't wait to see what kinds of dirt we can dig up about a number of high profile corporations! Not to mention a goodly number of politicians. Let the data flood begin!

Actually no. That would be a horrible world. A world without privacy. A shallow world of pretense. A world of sneaking about and looking over our shoulder and fearing being stabbed in our backs. I doubt any of us would be able to stand living in a world like that. The benefit of catching some of the most evil entities red handed, though satisfying, would not be enough to justify the corruption of our world order that would entail.

That standard is unreasonable. Nobody should have their personal emails exposed to the world and picked over and picked over by reporters and anyone with a grudge against you for weeks on end. It isn't fair for regular people and it certainly isn't fair for Scientists who in any kind of rational world would hold a position of respect and regard akin to that we hold for teachers, nurses, doctors, and social workers. Oh wait. We treat all those groups pretty damn badly these days too. Sigh...

In the case of these scientists the worst we found was the suggest that certain emails be deleted though we know not the cause or whether or not they were actually deleted. I wonder how many of our email boxes would be similarly pristine when held up to the same level of scrutiny.

Transparency IS important in Science, of that there can be no doubt. But there is a point where transparency goes overboard and you're not talking about just confirming the validity of scientific exploration. At this point your demand for information starts to look more like a witch hunt with an end result of pacifying or enslaving your targets to the whims of your own beliefs.

CRUHack, SwiftHack, Climategate Links and Info

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:30:14 GMT

I know this is just the way you most wanted to spend your Friday, reading about Global Warming Scandals! What could be more fun!

Anyway, so basically over 1000 emails and 2000 documents were hacked from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU). I've been reading about this for over two weeks so I thought it would make sense just to share with you all the links and information I've found.

agnophilo and zerowing21 both posted a Video that Debunks claims about two of the most popular emails (Video)
Wall Street Journal Lists Some of the more Problematic Emails
Site where you can Read ALL the emails
Text of what I think is the Most Questionable Email
Factcheck.org's Coverage
ThinkProgress does a Detailed Timeline of the Events in the controversy
Editorial in Nature Magazine
Interview with Michael Brklacich about the Incident (Video)
Interview with George Monbiot about the Incident (Video)
Article by George Monbiot on the Incident (calls for resignation of head of CRU)
Article by George Monbiot describing the Climate Denail Industry
Michael Mann's Response Interview
Ben Santer Defends CRU and its head - click the Show Quoted Text at the top
Mike Hume Talks about what the CRU Incident Means for Science
George Marshall on the PR Disaster and poor response
Article Referring to Interview with Phil Jones Head of CRU
Peter Kelemen Discusses what CRU-hack means for Climate Science
RealClimate Response 1
RealClimate Response 2
RealClimate Response 3
RealClimate Lists Independent Data Sources that Support Global Warming
Kevin Trenberth's Defense of the IPCC Process
CRU's Official Statements on the Incident - the 2nd response talks about the "trick"
American Meteorological Society Response
Union of Concerned Scientists Response
New York Times Coverage
DailyKos Article About "Mike's Nature Trick"
EnviroKnow's Guide to SwiftHack
SwiftHack Index of Links to Information
MediaMatters discusses some of the distortions about the emails in the media
Eric Alterman discusses Climate Conspiracy Rhetoric
Statements by Congress and the Obama Administration
Another attempt to steal data
The Nation gives more links to other resources
Paul Krugman discusses why climate deniers are so angry
Reuters Interview with Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Discussion of how Climate Gate is trying to derail Copenhagen
Interview with NASA's James Hansen, climate scientist and advocate on the Incident
Several Unrelated Climate Scientists Discuss the Emails and bizarre coverage in the WallStreetJournal
Pew Research Center Provides a Detailed Document on the Subject
NRDC Explains how the emails don't change the Facts of Climate Change
Al Gore Responds to Global Warming Deniers (Video)
Stephen Colbert's Coverage of Climate Gate (Video)
The Young Turks Coverage of Climate Gate (Video)
John Stewart's Coverage of Climate Gate (Video)
Keith Olbermann Exposes how ABC Misrepresents Jon Stewart's Coverage of Climate Gate (Video)
Treehugger.com Coverage
Little Green Footballs Coverage
House Select committee's Analysis

And lastly, a Cartoon that pretty much says it all:

FOIA and Climate Change

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:19:39 GMT

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is very important. (acts I should say since there are different ones in different countries) It's one of the few powers journalists and the people have to find out the truth when it is being deliberately hidden from them. Further it allows us to go back and gain a historical understanding of what happened in the past.

I am hugely in favor of the FOIA and would like to see it expanded. But like any power granted to the people, even the FOIA can also be abused and used to mislead and deceive rather than bring out the truth.

With regards to Climate Change it's unclear which role the FOIA is serving. There is reason to suspect inappropriate behavior surrounding the FOIA requests leveled against two institutions at the heart of the climate change debate: NASA Goddard and CRU. We need to analyze what has been happening surrounding these requests and do appropriate investigations where necessary. But most importantly, we need know whether any of these behaviors cast any real doubt on whether or why Global Warming is happening.

First off here are two stories that present these FOIA questions.
"Climate Gate" Development: CEI Files Notice of Intent to Sue NASA
Researcher: NASA hiding climate data

Note the tone of these articles. The authors could hardly be more blatant. They assert with all extreme confidence that this hiding on the part of NASA is part of a deliberate conspiracy to deceive everyone on Climate Change which is all a big stupid lie.

The reason this kind of controversey with regard to NASA has gained new traction is because of a bigger crises at CRU where amongst 1000 stolen emails and 2000 stolen documents there were a couple that suggested deliberate attempts to delete emails either in response to FOIA requests or in anticipation of future FOIA requests.

As of yet the scientists involved are relatively quiet about these emails except that Michael Mann (one of the receivers of the emails) and Trevor Davies (Pro-Vice Chancellor of Research at CRU) have denied that anything relevant to FOIA requests have been deleted. In one comment on RealClimate Gavin Schmidt suggested that one of the emails wasn't even serious but that was hard to tell since the context was left out. We don't know why the writer of both Phil Jones suggested emails be deleted or whether anything was actually deleted. We do know Phil Jones has temporarily stepped down and an investigation is underway at CRU. And when we know more we'll better be able to judge about the integrity of the scientists involved. Still, despite how shadily these emails were obtained, there's definitely reason to be concerned.

But does this effect the truth of Global Warming? Does it show a hoax? According to the IPCC chair (Dr. Rajendra Pachauri) the IPCC is "a very transparent, a very comprehensive process which ensures that even if someone wants to leave out a piece of peer reviewed literature there is virtually no possibility of that happening."

But that's peer reviewed papers. Let's take the skeptics seriously. What they are claiming (right now anyway) is not that the papers are wrong but that they are ALL being based on the same wrong false information. So the deeper question becomes where is the data? Has it been hidden. Are we really getting this data solely from a few institutions like Goddard and CRU that could easily be conspiratorially doctoring the data?

Here are some answers by Gavin Schmidt in response to questions on the RealClimate blog that give light to both the answer to this question and the very nature of the FOIA requests being waged against Climate Scientists and their motivations:

-------------------------------------------------

Where can I find the raw data that the deniers keep claiming is being kept from them under the FOIA? Do they have rights to the data? Are the claims that the temperature data has been lost true?

...

[Response: Claims that data has been destroyed or lost are untrue. Claims that there is no access to the raw temperature data are untrue. There is nothing in any of the CRU archives that is particularly special or noteworthy and that isn't mostly available to anyone already via NOAA. They got access to some extra data that some National Met. Services normally only sell, or was given with the express proviso that it not be passed on to third parties. CRU is not at fault for honoring those agreements - even if everyone wishes they didn't exist. The harassment of CRU people for doing so has been twisted into the meme you are channeling, that somehow they are hiding something nefarious. They aren't, but it might not be surprising that they become aggrieved when people keep repeating that falsehood. - gavin]

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My question is, and maybe its been answered in one of the other 150 comments, but why is Jones so hesitant to release his data? Why fight FOI? Why write specifically about stonewalling any request to see his data and attempt to recreate his findings? The IPCC is basing most, if not all, its recommendations on his data. If they want to spend Trillions based on his research…his research should be avaialble to any and all who think they can discredit it.

[Response: Because, as he has explained frequently, that in order to get the maximum amount of data available they gave assurances and signed memoranda with many National weather services not to distribute raw data that the NWS's would rather sell. If you want the free stuff, you can just look at the GHCN records (which is the basis for the GISTEMP product - all of which is online and available for anyone to look at). - gavin]

------------------------------------------------

Gavin,

I hope you guys will come clean soon. I do appreciate your (finally) allowing differing views post even if it has to come through in such a personally troubling way for you.

First off, I never wish anyone ill will, however I will admit I am not exactly rooting for you at this point. I just wanted to make that clear so you understand where my opinions lie.

Second, I think that you can try to explain away a “trick” all that you like, however I think most reasonable people can understand what is going on. A “trick” used in science is putting the data into the proper context. I work with marketing people who are utterly useless when it comes to science. So I must essentially use “tricks” to put my data into proper context. I do not have to use “tricks” to change the outcome of my results.

Third, I think it is difficult to ignore several things found in the emails. They range from tax evasion (don’t deposit more than 10k at a time!) to outright bullying of the peer review process.

Fourth, and this is the point I would like you to address adequately. Yes, I said adequately and by that I mean without your usual snark and with absolute sincerity. It would appear that in the context of these emails that there is a combined effort to withhold information from those who may want to challenge your findings. Let’s not be childish and ignore it and play word games… it is now a fact. There also seems to be an aligned effort to stifle the efforts of science contrary to your opinions and findings. This may be by influencing the peer review process or controlling reviewers and editors. So, what in your opinion, can be done to ensure that there is a proper debate of the science and facts in an open and public way? I’m sure that being a man of integrity you feel that raw data should be supplied as well as all supplementary data in order to recreate results. So surely you would support complete and open debate on the subject. You don’t have to worry about being wrong. Most scientists… good scientists… are wrong most of the time. It is not about right or wrong, but more about the work you do. There is a value in climate science and most citizens have no problem offering a few bucks to support it. Do you think there is a too closed off circle tied around Michael Mann as was shown in M&M? It would surely seem that he makes a compelling point. This is why in my science-based line of work we sometimes need to go to outside independent sources. So, with all of that said, what do you think can be done to make the system better so that the people can be sure that the science from here on out is completely truthful and able to be replicated?

Thanks.

[Response: You have a very distorted view of the situation. But before addressing that, let's make some things clear. Openness and transparency aid replication and are essential to the progress of science. As far as possible, data and code should be available to everyone. Note, however, that replication of results is much more usefully achieved using independent approaches and sources of data rather than checking other people's arithmetic. Independent explorations of problems are far more fruitful in terms of learning about the details and seeing new ways of looking at things than simply running someone else's code. Open debate about uncertainties and approaches are essential (and if you ever go to a conference you will see this happening in spades).

[Response: Now that is out of the way, let's examine what is actually happening in the public sphere. There are undeniably people who fervently do not wish for results of the science to be true. This can be motivated many things - vested interest, inclination, background etc. Regardless of why that exists, it undoubtedly does. However, among the scientific community no-one doubts that humans are causing CO2 (and other GHGs) to rise, no-one is confused about the fact that there is a greenhouse effect and that we are enhancing it, and no-one is in denial of the fact that the temperatures (as predicted) are in fact warming. This information, and the vast amount of ancillary data, theory and modelling that exists has led the science community to warn that continued emissions of GHGs risk changing the climate substantially. Given the first group of people's inclination to not want this to be true, there have been (and continue to be) determined efforts to undermine the scientific conclusions. One of the most effective tactics is to continually claim that data is being hidden and that the process is not open and transparent. This is successful, not because anything is actually being hidden, but because regardless of what data is available you can always ask for more. Five years ago it was a demand than Mann make his code and data available - it was, and nothing changed. A couple of years ago the demand was for the GISTEMP data and code - that was made available... and nothing changed. The requests then moved to CRU, who because of their agreements with the Met Centers, can't release everything in the public domain. This fact has been greatly exploited by people who conveniently ignore it when making ever more harassing demands for 'the data'. Whether they get it or not, nothing will change. The target will simply be moved. Meanwhile, the real need for openness and transparency is set back because the vast majority of demands are very clearly partisan and insincere.

[Response: As for the peer-reviewed literature, bad papers (such as are described in the emails) sometimes make it through the process due to various events. Note that the papers in question are just bad - they come to unjustified conclusions based on faulty reasoning, bad analysis, and (often) a desire to get the 'right' result. This is not unique to papers that go counter to the mainstream (there are many bad papers on the other side too), but these are the ones that get picked up by the denial-o-sphere and are loudly touted in Senate hearings as if they undermined a century of work. Improving the functioning of the peer-review system so that this happens less often is a good idea - because it will lessen the chance of bad papers of any stripe wasting everyone's time. Note that peer-review is simply an (imperfect) filter that allows scientists to focus on work that has passed a least a basic screening (usually). When we have to respond to obviously flawed, but highly publicised, papers it takes us away from doing real research and focussing on issues about which there is genuine (as opposed to manufactured) uncertainty.

[Response: If people want genuine public debate over issues that matter, the way is clear: Stop fuelling fake witchhunts looking for evidence that GW is a hoax, stop continually going back to long debunked talking points, and instead engage with scientists, here and elsewhere, on real questions. You will actually find scientists of all stripes remarkably keen to talk about their research and it's implications once you get past the 'when did you stop hiding your data' type accusations. Not everyone has unlimited patience in dealing with constant attacks on their integrity that comes with being in the public eye on these issues, and so many choose not to be involved in that public debate at all. That is a shame, but it's not a mystery. - gavin]

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The last comment in particular paints a VERY different story from the one you've been hearing in the news lately. Rather than Climate Scientists in a secret cabal trying to deceive everyone, instead we see a steady abuse of FOIA to try and pressure Climate Scientists into making a mistake that will allow their opponents to gain a political advantage.

The question of data availability is striking when seen through this lens. The demand for data no longer seems like an innocent effort to get at the truth and more like a vindictive kind of attack. It's like someone peskering you and poking you over and over again. The skeptics demanded data. "Gimme your data! Gimme your data!" And they were given the data. But then they just demanded data again and they were given data again and so on. Yet whenever they get the data they don't find any smoking guns that show evil misconduct. So they are unsatisfied and so they just keep demanding for more.

Worse when a legal force beyond CRU's control makes it impossible for them to comply with the FOIA request, the sekptics cry AHA! You must be hiding something! Global warming must REALLY be happening.

But take a step back. The problem is National Weather Services have constrained CRU and said that CRU cannot release their data to the public. NWS wants to sell the data third parties so they don't want it in the public domain and part of the agreements they made with CRU contained clauses that prevent CRU from releasing the data to anyone. This creates a legal quagmire. That's the deal with the famous "raw" data that's being "hidden".

Here's the thing though, take a step back. If the skeptics really WANTED the data they could very well go to the National Weather Services THEMSELVES and ask for the raw data. They can PAY for it. You can't tell me Exxon Mobile can't afford it. And then Exxon Mobile could just as easily release the data to the skeptics that are on their side who would then analyze it and announce to the world that AHA! The RAW DATA shows that Climate Change is a HOAX!

But they don't do that. Why not? Probably because they absolutely LOVE the fact that CRU can't release the data. It makes it seem like CRU is hiding something. It feeds the conspiracy.

And that's why CRU has been scrambling to try and get letters of consent from all the National Weather Services so that they CAN release all the raw data. The worst thing for them is being portrayed as a part of a global conspiracy. They believe that their research is the truth and they WANT people to know about it. They want the data out so they can go back about their real business of doing science without being hounded.

Of course what will happen once the data is released? The Skeptics will simply go on to the next institution and send out lots and lots of FOIA requests hoping that they'll hit another road block that they can use to claim yet again that scientists are obstructionists and so you shouldn't worry the least bit about Global Warming. Or maybe they'll hire Russian hackers to go in and steal more emails that they can pick through and find a few phrases to take out of context to suggest the worst of the entire Scientific community.

If you think about it there are two competing narratives being told with regard to Climate Science. On the one hand there's the narrative that goes that Global Warming was never happening or was never as severe as it was made out to be in the Scientific community and certainly was never caused by Man's activities especially not the burning of fossil fuels. Instead, a conspiracy was started by Margaret Thatcher who wanted to ally the conservative party with the Green party and promote the development of nuclear power.

Later the conspiracy just became part of the usual liberal attempt to promote bigger government and world wide governance heavily funded by George Soros and of course promoted by Al Gore. the conspiracy finds its way deeply into the most popular and famous scientific institutions world wide. It attempts to hide the skeptical science and only promote the works of a few of their scientist allies who are lying and manipulating data in order to support their pro-AGW agenda. The other scientists who are on board are corrupted by their desire for money in the terms of grants that are only given out to those who can show evidence of global warming creating a perverse incentive system. When that doesn't work, scientists are directly bullied and their works removed from the peer review process by force.

The ultimate aim of course is the typical liberal aim to redistribute wealth from rich countries like America to poor countries, and from rich companies like oil companies to poor people, and hence undermine the entire capitalist system with disastrous consequences. Thankfully a hero leaked or hacked into a system at one of these conspiracy ridden pseudo science centers and found the conclusive final evidence that AGW is and always has been one big lie. Now it's just a matter of convincing the stupid masses and getting the word out through our biased liberal media of the truth.

Did I get that about right?

On the other hand, there's the other account. It goes like this. Climate Scientists were doing their normal work trying to unearth the truth about reality through good observational science, models, and mathematics same as is done in every other field of science. But as time passed scientists began to be alarmed at what they were seeing. The warming trends were much more rapid than they at first expected and way out of sync with expectations based on all available historical data. The data was not just born out by temperature readings but observations across dozens of fields. Everything from melting glaciers to increased desertification to more severe weather patterns all seemed to suggest an inordinately rapid warming. So they analyzed the occurrences and found a likely culprit, the well understood phenomenon of the Green House Effect. What had changed was that in the industrial era we pumped far more CO2 in the atmosphere at a faster rate than had ever occurred over the last several thousand years and it was having a profound effect on our environment.

These scientists in good conscience could not simply ignore their findings and keep their head in the clouds and stick to their ivory towers. No, they told people. They created models and made projections to see what would happen if global warming continued as it had been. The results were disastrous so they warned people that there was pressing imminent need to reduce CO2 emissions drastically unless we want to find ourselves dealing with the consequences of a transformation to a vastly different world than we have enjoyed thus far in human history.

So scientists found themselves reluctantly trying to influence policy and what they found was not just skepticism but outright hostility. But worse than that there were certain parties that had a monetary interest in not believing that Global Warming had any merit to it and they chose not just to disbelieve but also to stop at no ends in their attempt to at the very least slow the response to Climate Change and hopefully derail it altogether.

And thus began what can only be described as a massive war over public opinion. Scientists were reluctant warriors who did not engage in this war willingly. They were slow to adapt and slow to respond, more used to dealing with data and theory. But on the other side there were practiced experts who had previously helped major companies cover up fiascos in the past, from nuclear accidents to oil spills. Indeed many of the same companies that were a part of the attempted cover up of the dangers of cigarette smoking were hired to mislead on the dangers of climate change. They created dummy organizations to promote climate skepticism and hired and paid off anyone they could get their money into in order to get them to promote skepticism. They would stop at no lengths from frivilous FOIA requests, to falsified petitions, to trying to take over major scientific journals, to hiring spies, to paying Russian hackers, to trying to break in directly into major research institutions in an attempt to find anything the least bit incriminating. They worked deligently to expand the global warming denial industry as far and wide as they can and utilized any and all sympathetic media outlets to echo their beliefs to the public. They got people to analyze every once of every piece of data coming out of the scientific community looking for anything from a typo to a data blip. Anything at all that suggested either deception or could be used to cast doubt on the truth of climate change was heralded as resoundingly conclusive evidence of the great hoax and fraud that is global warming!

Scientists unprepared and under siege reacted as anyone under attack does. They became defensive and they tried to fight back against the bullies assaulting them. Bullies who were attacking their integrity and their entire life's work and indeed the credibility of their entire field. These scientists received death threats and were insulted and attacked repeatedly by skeptics. The Scientists tried to explain and reason with the people. They tried to do outreach. But it seemed that in so many cases no matter how logical their arguments were it proved difficult to convince.

Some few scientists went beyond or at least contemplated going beyond simply trying to tell the truth. Those scientists under extreme pressure and thinking the very fate of the planet was at stake, started to try and think of ways to keep the skeptical community from getting evidence they could use to keep casting unwarranted doubt on the science. The scientists new the evidence would be bullshit but they started to loose faith that people would see through the lies. Some of those scientists may have gone too far and even broken the law in their attempts to fight back against the skeptics. Time and investigation will determine whether they did or not. Yet of course skeptics did not wait for the investigations. They proclaimed victory and proof positive of the climate change hoax.

In spite of all this, nearly every government across the world and scientists in nearly every institution have chosen not to deny the evidence of their own senses nor to disbelieve thousands of peer reviewed papers. They have chosen to at least choose to act to mitigate climate change using the best available theory as to what is its cause as their guideline. And these governments met this week in Copenhagen to try and hobble together an agreement that might just might lay the groundwork for saving our planet. But of course not if the opposition has anything to say about it.

So those are the two stories as best as I can tell them in my own words. With regards to FOIA, in the one story the attempts to deny FOIA information is proof positive of the deception that lies at the heart of the liberal conspiracy that is climate change. In the other story FOIA requests are another avenue of attack engaged in by most likely industry funded climate skeptics to try to discredit Scientists and distract from the Science itself which remains unassailable.

Obviously I don't have to tell you which one seems more believable and closer to the truth to me. Of course you are welcome to believe whichever account you wish but it would behoove you to try to understand both accounts and observe new information in the light of both stories before coming to your conclusions about whether or not AGW is real and what if anything we ought to do about it.

Has the Earth been cooling DRAMATICALLY over the last decade?

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:02:31 GMT

A popular line amongst climate change skeptics has been that the Earth has been cooling over the last decade. They imply minimally when they say this that 1) global warming might not be really happening and 2) climate scientists don't know what they are talking about. And lying beneath this is the general assumption that maybe it's all a big conspiracy. The Government is lying and manipulating us again!

They don't get this stuff from nowhere of course. Irresponsible Articles and Headlines like these lead them on:
What Global Warming?
Has global warming stopped?
What ever happened to global warming?
2008 will be the coolest year of the decade

Now there are several competing claims here. Generally they say something like the years 2007 and 2008 have been inordinately cold, or colder than predicted, following a leveling off of the temperature since 1998. From that they conclude that global warming has come to an end. Others extrapolate further and say something like in my subject line that the Earth has cooled DRAMATICALLY over the last decade.

It would be totally reasonable here for me to go into an explanation of how the years 2007 and 2008 are just two data points and mean almost nothing in terms of the overall analysis of whether global warming is happening. Just like you don't look at the temperature between January 15 and January 16 in Alaska to conclude whether or not Global Warming is happening, neither can you use a single year, two years, or even a decade in isolation to conclusively prove whether or not global warming is happening. That might be part of an a analysis that shows global warming has slowed or stopped but it alone is far from conclusive.

I could talk about how what matters is not the reading, but the trends. If the trend is upward overall a few dips here and there don't change your overall results. Others have explained this quite well. I could even go into a detailed explanation of why we see those dips and how it's a multivariate system and how we should even expect to see dips in temperature over time as we analyze the temperature record. I could even explain that any dip in temperature around 2007 and 2008 can well be understood in the context of the La Nina event that occurred and that the inordinately high temperature in 1998 is likewise explained by the el Nino event of that time period.

I could make all those arguments, but in this case I don't have to. The statements being made about the cooling of the Earth over the last decade are simply blatantly false.

This is what the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies' data shows as global temperature variations:

Year Annual Mean C

1998       .56

2008       .43

WOW it dropped a whole 0.13!! That's how the Climate skeptics are looking at the data.

Now let's look at the ACTUAL data:

Year Annual_Mean 5_Year Mean

 1980       .18       .12
 1981       .26       .17
 1982       .05       .17
 1983       .26       .14
 1984       .09       .11
 1985       .05       .16
 1986       .13       .17
 1987       .26       .19
 1988       .31       .25
 1989       .20       .30
 1990       .38       .27
 1991       .35       .24
 1992       .13       .25
 1993       .14       .25
 1994       .24       .23
 1995       .38       .29
 1996       .29       .37
 1997       .40       .39
 1998       .56       .38
 1999       .32       .42
 2000       .33       .45
 2001       .48       .45
 2002       .56       .48
 2003       .55       .54
 2004       .48       .55
 2005       .63       .55
 2006       .54       .53
 2007       .57       .54
 2008       .43         *

Does 2008 seem THAT far out of place now? It's higher than the temperature in 1997, in 1999, and in 2000. Indeed justl look at this data it's higher than EVERY year between 1980 and 2000 EXCEPT for 1998. Gee I wonder why Climate Skeptics choose to use 1998 as their comparison point?

In fact it's much worse than that. Take a look at all the years in the decade beginning in 2000 and compare them to all the years in the decade beginning in 1990 and all the years in the decade beginning in 1980. Just eyeballing it you should be able to see that they are significantly higher. And if you look at the five year averages columns you can pretty much see them steadily increasing with only small variations.

And just doing the obvious math. The average from 1980-1989 is 0.18. The average from 1990-1999 is 0.32. And the average from 2000-2008 is 0.51. 2009 would have to be a REALLY cold year to make much of a difference in the average temperature for the current decade. But according again to Goddard 2009 for the 10 month average so far is already showing a 0.56 suggesting it probably won't substantially deviate from the rest of the data this decade. What this seems to show is, exactly as has been being said by scientists for the last two decades a steady warming trend overall.

In fact I only included the data from 1980 but what I've shown holds for the entire recorded temperature record. The years 2000-2009 will almost certainly be the hottest decade on record. How different a statement is that from dramatically cooling!?!?

Need more? How about the fact that the year 2008 was the 10th hottest year on record? How about the fact that, EIGHT of the ten hottest years on record between 1999 and 2008. Obviously only 1999 and 2000 don't make the cut.

Actually take a good look at 1999 and 2000. They were really low weren't they? Compared to 1998 before it they were inordinately low compared to 1997 and 1998 and even 1995. What if people had said back in 2000 that yup that's it Global Warming is DONE. Not happening. Myth.

They'd have CLEARLY been wrong right? Anybody can see that. Likewise judging all of climate science by 2008 is idiotic.

I can tell you're still not convinced. I know what you're thinking. That's NASA GISS Data! NASA never does ANYTHING right! They can't even get a space ship up in the air and besides the moon landing was obviously a cynical fraud! A conspiracy to get us to spend money on special toothpastes and support Democrats and all that crap.

But oh wait a minute. Let's look at the other temperature records. As the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media explains here, all FIVE records show the same warming trend.

In addition to Goddard surface temperature records are also done by the Uninted Kingdom's Hadley Center. 1999-2008. Hadley's records show slightly cooler than Goddard's because they use different assumptions. Namely the fact that there are no climate temperature monitoring stations in the Arctic Ocean can be handled in two ways. You can either simply ignore that part of the globe or you can try to extrapolate from nearby stations what the temperature there is likely to be. The understanding of Climate Science suggests that the Arctic Ocean will experience some of the greatest warming of anywhere on the planet so Goddard chose to extrapolate. Hadley chose to do a more conservative estimate and leave that data out.

In SPITE of this difference, the UK comes up with pretty much the exact same conclusions. 8 of the 10 hottest years on record occur from 1999 to 2008. The NCDC also does temperature records and they found the exact same thing.

The Satellite Record is only slightly off. There are two major satellite measures, University of Alabama, Huntsville, (UAH) and Remote Sensing Systems (RSS). Both of these show SEVEN of the ten hottest years on record occurring from 1999 to 2008. The one that falls off is 2008 which just barely made the top ten in the Goddard and Hadley estimates.

So there you have it. All resources agree yes 2008 was somewhat cooler than 2001-2007 but still overall the entire decade was extremely hot compared to historical averages. Could 2008 be the start of some kind of a new cooling trend? Sure. It's possible. It'd be a surprise that we don't see it in the first ten months of 2009, but it's still possible. IT's even possible that we'll see some cooling in 2010 or 2011. Whether or not that data meshes with the models would then have to be honestly analyzed.

My point, however, is this. The fact that the year 2008 alone is being publicized as definitive proof that you should be doubtful about Global Warming is as clear a case of deception as is possible to illustrate. At the very minimum you would be honest enough to mention the rest of the warming trend and wait until you have some more definitive data over several years before over reacting.

And the fact that people are using JUST 2008's data to suggest that the ENTIRE decade is not just leveling off but cooling and not just cooling but cooling DRAMATICALLY is a grotesquely unconscionable distortion of the data. It's clear then that those doing it either have no familiarity with the data whatsoever and have no intention of finding out what the data says, or are clearly deliberately and knowingly distorting the data to serve their own ends.

And I bet you thought it was the scientists who were the ones lying to you....

For more resources consider the following:
http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/07/very-warm-2008-makes-this-hottest-decade-in-recorded-history-by-far/
http://climateprogress.org/2008/09/03/sorry-deniers-hockey-stick-gets-longer-stronger-earth-hotter-now-than-in-past-2000-years/
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-january-2007-to-january-2008.htm
http://climateprogress.org/2007/12/11/nasa-hansen-2007-second-warmest-year-ever-warmest-year-likely-by-2010/
http://climateprogress.org/2008/08/21/debunking-the-myth-global-warming-stopped-in-1998/
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/uncertainty-noise-and-the-art-of-model-data-comparison/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/a-warming-pause/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/12/2008-temperature-summaries-and-spin/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/mind-the-gap/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/04/model-data-comparison-lesson-2/
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2009/08/warmest-by-fair-margin/
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global

Does Capitalism/Business really fill needs?

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:36:26 GMT

The other day I heard an interview with a more or less progressive Businessman who seemed like a reasonable guy and much of what he said made a lot of sense to me. But one thing he said struck me because it sort of reveals the core misunderstanding about capitalism that allows people to continue to believe that capitalism is inherently morally good.

He was referring to the recent initiative by President Obama to work toward building more jobs. The President has recently held a Job Summit in the White House, has been floating the idea of redirecting saved TARP money toward small business job initiatives, and gave a speech today on the job initiatives the white house plans to engage in.

What the Businessman said was that the people at the conference were misunderstanding the nature of the jobs problem. He said people were talking about jobs as if they are made out of thin air. But his argument was that jobs don't come out of thin air. Somebody, some entrepreneur, creates a business to fill a need. That's how jobs are made. That's how capitalism works. It fills needs and in so doing creates are amazingly wonderful advanced world. That was his argument

Do you see the basic problem with this? It should be staring us in the face as blindingly as the Sun. Capitalsim fills needs. Hmm, does capitalism fill needs? hmmm...

Do you need to drink coke? Do you really need it? How about candy? Fast food? Those are really necessary right?

Do you need pornography? Do you really need reality television shows? What about big budget movies or movie theater popcorn? Would the world end if there was never another football game? How about if you never saw another advertisement again? Would that be the end of times?

Do people need subprime loans? Or a big gas guzzling SUV? Do people need ten times the credit lines that they are likely to ever be able to repay in their lifetimes? Do you think people really need that stuff???

Capitalism doesn't fill needs. It doesn't enable us to fill all these great wonderful needs we've developed over time. That's just a total misunderstanding of human nature as well as the nature of capitalism. Filling needs isn't capitalism's core function at all.

It's WANTS.

That's what an entrepreneur does. He finds something that people want and that they want enough that they're willing to pay for and then he sells it to them. It doesn't matter if they need it. It doesn't even matter if it's the exact opposite of what they need. It doesn't even matter if it's inherently damaging in the long run to BOTH customer and provider. If a person wants it, somebody will sell it to them. And if enough people want something, somebody can and will try to get rich off of the selling That's all there is too it.

Think about an addiction. With enough people addicted to cigarettes, businesses can make billions of dollars selling cigarettes. And they do. But those people who are addicted are not having their needs fulfilled. Quite the opposite, what they need is to quit smoking. That leads them to the longest term happiness. But they can't help but smoke because they are addicted. And they started smoking in the first place because of wants. The want to look cool or the want to relieve stress or the want to not stand out or the want to get high. Not needs. Wants. And industry was right there to fill those wants and worse tell people that it was perfectly safe and no harm would come to them for doing it.

So much of our commercial industry exists to try and trick us into thinking our wants are our needs. And we are extremely susceptible to it. It certainly makes us feel better to think that we need that plastic surgery or that expensive car to get the highest paying job we can or to find a mate. It's nice to think that we need fancy vitamin waters to compete in sports and that we need to eat those delicious foods or go on those fancy vacations or to play those expensive video games to feel like we're living a good and happy life. But those aren't needs. They're wants.

Fundamentalist capitalism as a philosophy promotes the idea that through free industry we can organically match together all our needs with the people who can fill them. In the theory we're all perfectly rational, albeit selfish actors. So what we demand most is what we need most and what we are willing to offer are going to be things that people need. The world thus gets better with every new business. A new need is filled that would not have been otherwise. It sounds GREAT in theory.

But that's not how the actual world works. We are not that perfectly rational. And most of us are rational enough to KNOW that. In so far as we get our needs fulfilled by capitalism it is almost incidental. But we do get plenty of our wants fulfilled all the time. The richer we are the more wants we get. It just so happens that sometimes we're lucky enough to want a few things we actually need so those wants get fulfilled too. But at the same time there's all kinds of wants being fulfilled that we do not need with higher precedent than our needs. There are even some wants that we are getting filled that cause far more harm to us than good.

Capitalism is not morally good. Nor is it morally bad. It's a system. It's not a magic system or a miracle system. It's just a system. And that's all it is. It does some good things and does some other bad things, but to understand what those things are we have to take a calm reasonable sober look at what the system really is. Closing our eyes and pretending that capitalism fills all our needs like magic provided we just have enough faith in it is absolute rubbish and needs to be expunged from our consciousness.

The Rights of Future Generations

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:54:54 GMT

When fighting for rights the easiest is to fight for the rights of the powerful. In today's society the powerful generally means the rich, well educated, and well connected. Their rights are easy to defend for they simply take them and hold them via force unless someone makes them let them go.

Second to that is the challenge of fighting for the rights of the majority. That's more difficult but still not too hard because there's lots of people there who can fight, and all they have to do is force the powerful and the minorities to concede them their rights. The minorities are unlikely to challenge them except when those minorities are themselves powerful. Democracy is the full representation of Just rights granted to the Majority. Yet in our Democracy there are still areas where the majority are heavily denied those rights. Hence we still have a concept of a Senate that privileges moneyed interests in small populations over the rights of the majority. And hence too we find it so difficult to get policies implemented even when they are supported by the majority. Examples include majority support for Health Care Reform (in general, not the specific proposals being debated today) and majority support for withdrawal from wars abroad.

Harder even than securing the rights of the majority, is securing the rights of the minority. Particularly the weak minority groups. The smaller the groups the harder it is to secure their rights. They lack the power to force others to acknowledge their rights and in the past have had to hope that they be given to them as handouts. Indeed throughout most of human history the idea of actually garnering protections to the rights of the powerless minority seemed an impossibility. Little did the powerful even deign to acknowledge their existence. Only in the modern era has it proven possible to change that paradigm with the advent of Civil Rights Movement, and the Solidarity Movement, and the discovered power of Non-violent Protest. The key to fighting for the rights of the minority is combining minority groups together and drawing upon the support of the majority. There is a natural human inclination to root for the underdog and to feel compassion for others in need. By latching on to those emotions, the minority can and does sometimes find itself capable of wrestling its so called "inalienable" rights from the majority and the powerful. But it's an endless struggle for all the incentives are always pushing the majority and the powerful to take what they want for themselves and give little back

But hardest of all, is securing the Rights of Future Generations. They are in effect the smallest possible minority. They have no representation. Nobody to speak for them. They cannot object to the suffering the present imposes upon them and we in the present cannot look upon them and see the harm we have caused and feel an urge to change it out of guilt or pity.

Yet they too have rights. And just as much rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as any of us living today. They have the right to as much of a chance at achieving that as we have. And it is our responsibility as a people to give them those rights.

The fight to Protect the Earth's Environment is about protecting THOSE rights.

When we eat up all of various species of fish in the Ocean, we deny future generations the right not just to eat fish, but even to experience fish. They will live in a world where those species don't exist. They won't see them swimming in schools down the river. They'll never see any of the jump in the air. They'll never sit by a lake and fish them out of the Ocean. They'll never hold them in their hands. Whenever a species goes extinct for our actions we deny generations of humanity the ability to ever know those species and all the wisdom and understanding that knowledge could have brought them. We give them only our history books and leave them a less rich world.

When our policies destroy natural resources those are resources our children's children's children will not have. When cataclysmic climate change sinks lands under rising oceans that's land that future generations will not be able to populate and explore. When cataclysmic climate change radically shifts our Planet's climate causing a mass extinction, that will deny countless countless children the right to even exist.

The scope of these problems cannot possibly be understated. Today. Right now. We have 25 million people who are environmental refugees because of our changing climate. Conservative estimates suggest that will increase to 150 million over the next fifty years. 10 million people in Africa have been forced to migrate because of increase desertification of their lands. 500,000 people in Bhola Island in Bangladesh were made permanently homeless because their island was left permanently underwater thanks to rising sea levels. These are not the last cases. They are the tip of the iceberg.

Scientists are inherently conservative. This is one thing that is often missed in the debates regarding Climate Change. The bulk of the estimates Climate Scientists have made have been underestimates. Everything is transpiring much more rapidly than Scientists predicted and the possibilities of rapid cataclysmic climate change are many. One of the most terrifying scenarios comes from the melting of the arctic ice.

"As they scramble to gather evidence, there is a growing conviction among many scientists that once the Arctic begins to unravel, it could trigger a series of climatic (and climactic) feedback-disasters. How? Perhaps the wildest wild-card lies buried beneath the Arctic soil. Locked up in its frozen claw is a gargantuan amount of methane. This matters because methane causes 25 times more warming by weight than carbon dioxide. Methane is stored in the Arctic in two different forms–and both are vulnerable to breakdown. On land, it is stored in organic matter that rots when the permafrost thaws. Underneath the seas, on the continental shelves, methane is trapped in a crystal structure of water ice in a form called “methane hydrates”.

There is reputed to be more carbon stored in these methane hydrates than in every lump of coal and barrel of oil in the world. “If even 1% of the methane stored in Arctic-shelf hydrates were released to the atmosphere, it could cause really abrupt warming,” says Susan Joy Hassol, the analyst who along with 300 climate scientists wrote the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, the most widely respected summary of the science affecting the Arctic. Some scientists believe that when this happened 250m years ago, it triggered the largest extinction event in history: 95% of marine animals and 70% of land-based animals died.
We know the permafrost is already going. It’s why concrete buildings are sinking into the defrosted mud across Siberia. But how much of it will go? How fast?"

That was posted in this article. Read it. Read every word. And tell me the prospects are not horrifying?

And that's just from the ice melting. Predictions about what happens when we over acidify the oceans are no less terrifying. Nor are the effects of just our continual climate annihilation by over hunting and over fishing of the species of our planet destroying ecosystems that have existed for thousands of years. As early as 1993 Scientists have estimated that the the Earth has been losing during the expansion of human population on the order of 30,000 species PER YEAR! Or about 3 per hour! And estimates back then have been shown to underestimate the loss. It's only increasing in speed. http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldredge2.html

The Baijal dophin, the west african black rhino, and the golden toad are all animal species that have gone extinct over just the last few years. That list would include many species of tigers, whales, eagles, and sharks that you'd grown up hearing about were it not for the concerted efforts of environmentalists around the world to save them from the brink of extinction.

Never mistake this for just "business as usual". None of these changes would have happened now in this way or this rapidly were it not for our direct impact. There has never been a species like us on this Planet and the changes we are making to the environment are completely unprecedented. If everyone lived as we in the United States live, we would require five more planet Earths to produce the amount of resources we consume. Think of your own lifestyle. Can you imagine cutting your resource consumption by to one sixth of what it is now? That's what's needed with current population. And population is continuing to grow at a steady pace. Even if none of the dire predictions with regards to Global Warming or Environmentalists prove true, our current course is still leading us to a future of disastrous consequences. As we run out of oil and water to drink and to cultivate food and food to feed everyone there will be chaos. Millions will die in misery without ever having had a chance to truly live.

And it will be all entirely our fault.

And it's not like we don't know. Perhaps our grandparents could claim ignorance. We cannot. The knowledge is there. Unequivocal evidence is everywhere. And Scientists around the world have independently sounded the same warnings again and again and again. If we don't listen, and if we don't change it's not because we didn't know and it's not because we couldn't. It's because we didn't want to.

Any why not? Think about it. It's all about the incentives. You, right here, right now have no incentives whatsoever to do anything about it. We can live on in our wealth, gluttons on natural resources and we face few to none of the consequences. The chances of disaster stirking in such a way that it drastically impacts our way of life is SLIM. We're in the prime of our lives NOW. We can live it up and nothing is stopping us. Consequences? Bah! Those are for people we never met, will never meet, and have zero incentive to care about. If the whole world ends the day after you die, you could care less. You're already dead!

Those who have children and grandchildren will, at least, have some connection to those future generations. But even then it's only two or three generations removed. If you engage in activities that will doom the population of ten generations removed you have little reason to care. You and everyone you've ever known will be long dead and hardly even a memory.

That's why, Environmental issues are the very hardest issue to manage to make real progress achieving change in. We've barely been able to make progress in fighting for the rights of the majority and the rights of the minorities. And we can see them. They're US. Our friends, our family, ourselves. Yet it's so hard to make any progress. We go in fits and starts inching forward to a better future. How much harder is it to fight for the rights of the non-existent?

Yes somehow we must. We have to forget ourselves and call upon our sense of compassion and our notion of Justice to do the right thing. For this is absolutely the most important issue to fight for today.

You know the lines in that famous movie Indepndence Day?

"Perhaps its fate that today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution -- but from annihilation.

We're fighting for our right to live, to exist."

That's never been more true then it is today. Only we're not fighting for OUR right to exist but that of our great great grandchildren. We're fight for their freedom from annihilation. The rights of our SPECIES to exist.

Oh if only it were just invading Aliens. That'd be sooo much easier.

We have to ask ourselves, do we have the right to doom the future denizens of this planet to deal with the destruction of world we caused? Or do we have an obligation to do our best to keep our planet in as good a working order as we possibly can so that our progeny can enjoy the same opportunities as we do?

We have to decide. Unequivocally. Do future generations have the same rights that we do? Are we going to do what we can to protect them? Or will we just abandon them to their fate. And we have to decide soon. There's not much time yet.

How come Conservatives don't realize how much they've already won on Health Care?

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:09:34 GMT

Recently the Democrats have been praising the Health Care Reform bills on the grounds that they save lots of money and reduce the deficit. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) the bill will MAKE money every year and over ten years reduce the deficit by over $100 billion. And that's good and it's good for them to praise it. It's definitely a real accomplishment.

Republicans in contrast have been still yelling that it's ALL LIES! It's tricks of the numbers! It doesn't take into account the second decade! It doesn't include the doctors pay fix! It raises all our taxes to do it! Etc. etc. All of those things are false and the republicans were more than happy to accept CBO estimates when they were in their favor.

So Democrats are patting themselves on their backs for creating such an awesomely fiscally conservative bill.

Am I the only one who sees how incredibly odd this is?

In theory the Democratic party are the liberals. In theory the Republican party are the conservatives, especially the fiscally conservative. Isn't that supposed to be the order of things? Why are Democrats praising themselves so much for achieving a fundamentally conservative goal? And why are Republicans so outraged that they've succeeded in this?!?!?

It all goes back to a point I keep having to return to again and again. The vociferous, angry, enraged Republicans and Conservatives don't seem to comprehend at all how much they've already WON on Health Care. I mean really, since when is it Liberals who are wanting to cut the deficit by holding back on money going into Health Care!?!?!? Since NEVER. That's when.

Read More...

why people clean

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 02:58:22 GMT

Often people suppose that when they see a mess that something is wrong. They assume that the person making the mess is missing something or is pyschologically unstable or overly lazy or incompetent whereas the person who keeps things clean is more well adjusted and "normal".

I would like to propose a different theory.

I believe that for some people, people like me that is, cleaning is something that we do whenever we do it when we need a renewed sense of control. Why? Because cleaning is something you can fix. When the whole world is topsy turvy and nothing seems to go right and everything is hard and problem after problem after problem arises and no matter what you do, you can't fix it, at least not right away and not in any easy fashion, it's nice to know that cleaning is task you absolutely can succeed in. It might be easy or it might be hard, but it most certainly IS doable. It's a certain number of systematic steps. You don't have to wonder. You don't have to doubt yourself. You can just clean.

So then for us, letting things get messy is a sign that we're MORE stable. Not a lot is weighing on our minds so we feel no urge to clean things up. We just let things go. And indeed there may even be, most probably IS, a part of ourselves that is subconsciously letting things get messier as a sort of early preparation. We suspect or fear that inevitably there will come a time when we lose our sense of control and we'll need that grounding stabilizing period of cleaning as anchor from which we can put ourselves back on track.

How about you? Are you like me who cleans during bad times and messes things up when times are good? Or are you one of those who cleans during the good times and only lets things get messy when everything is going downhill?