Backwards Reasoning
August 30, 2013

Could fracking prevent climate change denial?

By George Monbiot, published on the Guardian’s website, 30th August 2013

Many of those who deny that climate change is taking place reached that position as a result of their opposition to wind farms. This, for example, was the route taken by David Bellamy, who stumbled disastrously into the debate a decade ago.

During one of our discussions, he set me the following challenge:

“Why are the so-called greens backing a cartel of multinational companies which are hell bent on covering some of the best of our countryside with so-called wind farms, which can neither provide us with a sustainable source of future energy nor have any measurable effect reducing the amount of carbon dioxide pouring into the atmosphere? If he [George Monbiot] can disprove the latter – which is the mathematical truth – I will fall into line over global warming”.

In other words, if I could disprove his contention that windfarms are useless, he would accept climate change science.

I don’t mean to disinter an ancient and long-settled debate, but to use this as an example of a common phenomenom, to which all of us succumb from time to time. When we don’t like an outcome, we reject the premise.

Some of those who oppose an airstrike on Syria, for example, are more inclined to question the premise that Bashar Al-Assad ordered a chemical weapons strike against his own people. Those who support the intervention are more likely to disregard calls for hard evidence.

Once the UK government decided that it would instigate a badger cull, it began dismissing or downplaying the results of the £49m trial commissioned by its predecessor, which showed that the cull is likely to be useless or worse than useless. Those who oppose the cull, on the other hand, are more inclined than its supporters to reject the evidence that badgers are a source of bovine tuberculosis.

In other words, we reason backwards. It’s a constant temptation, to which none of us is immune. It explains, I believe, much of the refusal to accept the overwhelming evidence for manmade global warming. For people who reject regulation or other restraints on profit-making, or who believe they have a fundamental right to use as much fossil fuel as they wish while driving or flying or heating their swimming pools, or who hate the thought of wind turbines spoiling their view, the temptation to reject the science seems overwhelming.

Conversely, those of us who lament the ever-escalating pace of life, who love peace and quiet, who hate the damage done to the natural world by the extraction of fossil fuels, who believe society has become too materialistic and self-serving, are inclined to embrace the science with fervour.

Doing so does not necessarily make us more scientific or more rational than our opponents: it’s just that in this case the weight of evidence happens to accord with our values and beliefs. In other cases, the same instincts are just as likely to estrange us from the evidence (our wildly exaggerated fear of radiation from nuclear power plants comes to mind, but I’ll leave that for another occasion).

Accidents of history and geology have ensured that, in the UK and many other parts of the world, our backwards reasoning has made people disinclined to accept the science of manmade climate change. The problem can be summarised as follows: most of our means of generating power seldom intrude into people’s consciousness.

Thermal power stations are highly concentrated sources of electricity, which means that few people have to live close to them and suffer from the visual intrusion and local pollution they cause.

Most of our gas and oil is either imported from far away or extracted from under the seabed, through rigs situated beyond the horizon.

Opencast coal mines are mostly dug close to former mining communities, whose people tend to have little political power and little access to the media. So they are seldom the subject of major campaigns, and are largely ignored by most of the public. This was the basis of my old argument with the Campaign to Protect Rural England, and the, er, electric encounter with its chief executive that the Guardian filmed. CPRE was campaigning fiercely against wind farms, but not against opencast coal mines.

Since then, I’m glad to say, CPRE has amended its policy, and is now campaigning against opencast coal.

In other words, fossil fuels seldom bother us, so we seldom consider their wider impacts.

Wind turbines, on the other hand, are widely distributed, close to home and highly visible. They intrude upon the views of rich and poor alike: both unemployed miners and Telegraph leader writers. Many people don’t like them, and follow the irrational evolution of thought to which David Bellamy succumbed, rejecting climate science because they don’t like low carbon energy.

[continued ...]

[... continued]

So perhaps we should thank the fracking companies for bringing fossil fuel infrastructure to people’s doorsteps. If people’s dislike of low-carbon power production drives them to reject climate science, their dislike of high-carbon power production could drive them to accept it.

For the first time in decades, prosperous, well-connected people in this country are having to face the reality of fossil fuel extraction, and they don’t like it one bit. Some of us have long been arguing that oil, coal and gas do far more harm at every stage of production than most forms of renewable energy. Now the fracking companies have obligingly chosen to demonstrate it.

I suspect that as fracking – and its attendant protests – spreads, we’ll see a renewed surge of concern about global warming. After all, climate change is the most powerful of the many arguments that can be deployed against fossil fuels, and those who oppose their extraction would be foolish not to use it.

As fracking companies move into the leafy suburbs, the well-preserved villages, the haunts of Conservative voters and Telegraph columnists, I think we might see the manufactured debate on global warming subtly shifting. Embracing junk science and promoting the claims of cranks and fossil fuel lobbyists will start to look a lot less clever, and will begin to be more fiercely challenged by constituents and readers. And perhaps, as a result, this country might begin to take its responsibilities more seriously.

www.monbiot.com

Good article. I think the part about
Quote:

our wildly exaggerated fear of radiation from nuclear power plants

is going to set our Chimp friend in action. I've been telling him exactly that, but he's disinclined to buy it because of reverse reasoning.

I'll say this though - conventional nuclear power is getting expensive, especially for a greenfields project in Australia, but there are certain other advantages in going down the thorium fission route. 

I'm a supporter of coal seam methane for two main reasons, both of which are related to greenhouse gas emissions.  The fact of life is that methane is being emitted from coal mining. If we allow all that methane to be emitted to atmosphere, then the overall effect is much greater than that of burning it, because methane has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of  25 on a 100 year time horizon, compared to CO2=1.

Secondly, LNG has the potential to displace coal for energy generation, again reducing the carbon footprint.

A lot comes down to local environmental effects versus global, and local unfortunately seems to have more clout because it's in your face.

umm.. you experts obviously have a slightly different focus to folk like myself.

Are the recent admissions by the Japanese  nuclear authority that Fukushima is continuing to produce 'hotspots'  .. releasing contaminated water into the world eco-system .. of no concern..??
(i am simplifying)

I hope you choose to reply.
I AM aware of climate change.. I am not in denial...

and perhaps , long-term, ..given all the other poisons we produce and incorporate into our environment ,...   high levels of radiation in our food chain is comparatively harmless.?

LNG may well be an option... but ..?  is the impact on large areas of food-producing land outweighed by this , essentially, fossil fuel.?
Renewable energy is the only sensible way to proceed.. 

time to leave behind the old ideas...  they are only still with us because they are cheap... relatively ..on the day,..  and make a profit for those who already have more than enough.!!

:)

Off-Topic replies have been moved to this Topic.

muso wrote on Sep 4^th, 2013 at 8:52pm:

... I'm a supporter of coal seam methane for two main reasons, both of which are related to greenhouse gas emissions.  The fact of life is that methane is being emitted from coal mining. If we allow all that methane to be emitted to atmosphere, then the overall effect is much greater than that of burning it, because methane has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of  25 on a 100 year time horizon, compared to CO2=1. ...

I live in an area that has been mined for coal for more than a century. I've seen enough to be convinced that we don't know enough to mine with an acceptable level of safety.

To take a couple of obvious examples, Thirlmere lakes no longer exist as such, thanks to an ill-placed coal mine. They got the geology wrong (failed to notice a dyke, cutting through an impermeable rock layer, joining two aquifers) and virtually pulled the plug. Something similar appears to be happening with Woronora Dam, if more slowly. Sydney's problem is that the whole area, catchments, dams and all is underlain by coal. Miners see only the short-term profits. What happens after they've maximised the quarterly bottom line is somebody else's problem.

Extracting gas tends to have unexpected results. Lots of "Black Swans". Reducing subterranean pressures by extracting gas, for example, can allow water that was kept in place by the pressure to move. There can be serious ramifications, such as when the water was in an aquifer being used for domestic or agricultural purposes.

In short, we really need to keep the extractive industries to a minimum.

# wrote on Sep 5^th, 2013 at 8:49pm:

I live in an area that has been mined for coal for more than a century. I've seen enough to be convinced that we don't know enough to mine with an acceptable level of safety.

Every energy source has its downside, but I don't disagree with you. My point is more pragmatic. If we must have coal mining (and it's not going away any time soon) at least let's make use of the methane in the short term.

I think that coal mining is always going to be required for petrochemicals anyway.

I'm thinking in terms of what can be done overall to reduce carbon emissions.  Realistically we have to go with the flow in many cases, but do what is possible given socio-political constraints, because these are very real considerations. 

muso wrote on Sep 5^th, 2013 at 9:36pm:

# wrote on Sep 5th, 2013 at 8:49pm: I live in an area that has been mined for coal for more than a century. I've seen enough to be convinced that we don't know enough to mine with an acceptable level of safety. Every energy source has its downside, but I don't disagree with you. My point is more pragmatic. If we must have coal mining (and it's not going away any time soon) at least let's make use of the methane in the short term. I think that coal mining is always going to be required for petrochemicals anyway. I'm thinking in terms of what can be done overall to reduce carbon emissions.  Realistically we have to go with the flow in many cases, but do what is possible given socio-political constraints, because these are very real considerations.

I  ...  umm,  am not in the business,  in any respect, except as a consumer.  Like all of us. :)

I don't think pragmatism is the way to go ... on this MOST important issue.
That being??  how to continue to power our civilisation without, sooner or later, destroying the very thing we desire  to endure...or strive to maintain.

If I had my d'ruthers ...  all coal mining would start to wind down to NIL.. starting now,, and done by 2020.!!
It could be done.. humans can do much,  given a challenge.
All it takes is the WILL to do so.

Overcoming the seduction of easy, 'cheap'  coal power is the first necessary step.

If there are short term benefits to be gained from harnessing poisonous products of this anachronistic process... certainly they should be used... but the actual mining itself should cease.
There are other alternatives....  perfectly viable..
.. in both  rich, and in  developing societies,  by using more localised/universal sources.

It is only the multi-nats that really want to keep on this ultimately ruinous path... because all they care about... is the economics... 
remember ..? these corps. are  NOT human,, and are incapable of factoring in the human condition

The bottom line is the money... and they'd lose out BIG TIME.. if everyone was able to utilise more appropriate resources...
it would just cut them out of the game altogether.

Wouldn't THAT be something.!
A goal worth working for... yeah?

Yes, Well I guess you can get your guitar out and play kumbaya in a weed induced haze or you can do something effective and practical.

Coal mining for energy has to go as soon as possible, but unless you want to plunge us into the mother of all recessions, you can't do that immediately.

A country that goes broke is totally impotent when it comes to environmental initiatives. I've seen what happens in poor countries. We need a strong economy.

Coal mining will continue to be needed for petrochemicals and steel production.

muso wrote on Sep 5^th, 2013 at 9:36pm:

... If we must have coal mining (and it's not going away any time soon) at least let's make use of the methane in the short term. I think that coal mining is always going to be required for petrochemicals anyway. ...

Reminds me of a bumper sticker I noticed when I first moved into the area: "Ban mining. Let the bastards freeze in the dark". I guess where we disagree is in whether mining is both necessary and sustainable. What I've see has convinced me that no extractive industry is sustainable. If we think it's necessary, then we'd better be wrong.

My basic premise is that the sun bathes the planet in more energy than we need. We don't need to mine for energy. We mine for other things, much of which we then throw away. I'd like to see mining restricted to landfills; reclaiming what we've thrown away.

I'm against fracking under current legislation.

The corporations should be held accountable for their actions.

I'm sure there are much better ways to extract the gas without contaminating underground water reservoirs.

Problem is it may cost more, therefore these corporations as usual do it dirty and cheap.

The other thing is the poor old farmers from memory of a 4 corners program they receive $250 odd dollars per annum for every well.

Yet every well produces at least $1 million dollars per annum of gas.

LNG is much cleaner and i'm in favour of it being used over coal.

But we aren't a cash cow, they see us a laudy piece of asre that virtually has no obstacles in terms of legislation so they come here and do what they want how they want and when they want.

Its like Rudd complaining about Murdoch..??

Someone should stand up and say well aren't you responsible for giving him 70% of the market.

Not to mention supermarkets etc etc.

Until our governments pass legislation so corporations can treat Australia decently, they will always see us as a whore with her legs wide open.

# wrote on Sep 6^th, 2013 at 7:35am:

I guess where we disagree is in whether mining is both necessary and sustainable. What I've see has convinced me that no extractive industry is sustainable. If we think it's necessary, then we'd better be wrong. My basic premise is that the sun bathes the planet in more energy than we need. We don't need to mine for energy. We mine for other things, much of which we then throw away. I'd like to see mining restricted to landfills; reclaiming what we've thrown away.

We have common ground on that point. We'll always need to mine for iron ore, and even coal for non energy use (petrochemicals).

Ajax wrote on Sep 6^th, 2013 at 11:13am:

I'm against fracking under current legislation. The corporations should be held accountable for their actions.

I agree with most of your points. Maybe the LNP will clean up the regulations.

;D ;D ;D ;D

I'll forgive you for your earlier comments.... as that is a quotable quote!
'Maybe the LNP will clean up the regulations'. - Muso

They had better. If it's any indication, NSW Libs have gone down that track:

https://www.nsw.liberal.org.au/news/state-news/nsw-toughest-csg-water-protection-australia

http://insidewater.ewater.com.au/2011/08/23/abbott-wades-into-csg-debate/

Quote:

Ironically, Abbott quickly found himself being courted by the Green Party, which came out in support of his apparent ‘anti-mining, pro-farming’ stance.  The Greens concerns lie more with the possible environmental consequences of CSG extraction, rather than with the farmers per se, nevertheless they saw Abbott as an ally, albeit a strange one, in the CSG issue.