Saturday, June 15, 2013

Google hangout notes: I've never seen Revkin less convinced that CO2 causes bad weather

Andrew Revkin and David Roberts Google+ Hangouts Chat - Grist.org - YouTube
[1-hour video] Andrew Revkin from Dot Earth Blog and David Roberts from Grist.org chat about climate change topics
[Before and during this hangout, I tweeted about a dozen questions and comments] Twitter / Search - #tellgrist tan123

My rough notes on this hangout are below.  Nothing outside of double quotes below is a direct quote; I wish our super-organized, well-financed climate cabal had a couple hundred dollars to spend producing a good transcript of this Google hangout.
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10min Revkin:  Serenity prayer; Lots of things policy-wise not going to change; realism/fatalism?
12.5 min: Revkin:  Colorado fires not caused by CO2; Sandy floods not caused by CO2; Get out of harms way
Revkin has had fights with Mann and trenberth
Revkin: Tornadoes not caused by CO2
16 min Revkin:  Sub Saharan Africa has had century-long droughts; tweaking CO2 has no real relevance to problems there
Roberts admits that giving a dollar to a sick child now might be better than trying to use that dollar to prevent CO2-induced bad weather
20 min: Revkin:  no confidence in global social global warming movement.  He's tired of too many noes (nuclear, fracking)
25 min Roberts wants his grandchildren to have well-sharpened axes and hatchets to deal with CO2-induced problems
29 min Revkin Republicans don't care about science
2009 cap and trade bill wouldn't have done much good if passed--would hand out credits to farmers for doing things that wouldn't actually prevent  bad weather
39 min Roberts wants to "Force people to behave differently".  Wants a certain class of people ("His class", "elites") to force people to behave differently
Maybe we can get the policy that Roberts wants by going after elites, or doing what Gore did--trying to influence super-rich people
Revkin not a fan of Hansen's "Death trains" rhetoric:  Roberts: "more extreme the rhetoric, the better"
44 min Revkin:  Some of that extreme rhetoric can backfire
45 min Roberts on social proof:  Really nobody is acting as if they really believed in global warming alarmism.
Roberts:  burning coal is like slavery
Revkin:  but cheap energy has its benefits.  I just flew here; we have climate-controlled room and electricity for our computers etc
Roberts:  What to do about deniers?
48:55 Revkin:  There's one watching us right now! (turns his computer in an attempt to show some of my tweets from above).

Revkin: There are professional naysayers, but money isn't as big a factor in climate skepticism as Roberts thinks.
Some lawyers use FOIA to stymie scientific activity.
Revkin: Deniers can use social media just like we do--they can find each other.
Revkin tried for decades to "change things" via his journalism.  Got out of journalism when he decided it wasn't working.

52 Roberts:  hard-core deniers know more about climate than casual believers; the deniers would do better on a climate quiz
53 Revkin:  There's more uncertainty in climate science than the popular conception
Revkin:  Obama dropped ball on climate
Roberts:   Thinks the best way to get his preferred policy is via Machiavellian means

5 comments:

chris y said...

Tom- thanks for writing this up.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for listening to the whole thing so we don't have to. Although I disagree with Revkin's views on climate change he seems like a really nice, honest chap. An asshole, but a really polite & honest asshole.

charles the moderator said...

You can get a transcription here.

http://cogi.com/audio_files_transcription

Need me to give you 60 bucks?

charlesthemoderator (at) gmail dot com

Tom said...

Thanks, Charles. Note that YouTube now also offers an electronically-generated transcript for this video, and it's terrible.

Anonymous said...

My new Macbook Pro has an option to turn speech into text. It's in the control panel under 'Dictation and Speech.'

I wonder how this would work?...