I attended Professor Worthington’s survey session as an observer, and can tell you that most anyone would have been impressed by the information that was presented to the panelists; information that suggested that something is definitely going wrong in the environment, and that we need to act quickly to fix it – or else risk going beyond irreversible “tipping points” on many fronts. So, what we are probably measuring here, as evidenced by the significant differences between Worthington’s data and the Pew data, is the difference between a relatively uninformed respondent versus one that has been educated, even if for only one day. “Education”, by the way, does not necessarily mean simply listening to opinions by people like Rush. It means being provided with the most accurate information available, information that has been reviewed by reputable scientific bodies, and can be easily demonstrated to be true – even to the most skeptical individual. For example, almost anyone would agree that it is not a good thing to have most of the polar ice melt, destroying Arctic habitats and flooding coastal areas worldwide – or that it is OK that most of the commercial fish species have been so over-fished that their extinction is imminent and that dependent larger species of marine life are in great trouble.

So, one must ask the question – why are we having so much apparent difficulty convincing a large segment of society that we need to take action quickly? The answer to this question may have a great deal to do with the specific solutions that are being proposed. Are these really GOOD solutions that are being bandied about in Copenhagen, or just knee-jerk reactions by individuals that may have self-serving political agendas, or, worse yet, are they proposals being made by certain scientific bodies, industrial sectors, or individuals that stand to personally benefit from specific remedies that being discussed in the mainstream media? Can we explain this resistance in terms of the obvious transfer of wealth by the richer nations to the poor ones, and the sacrificing of the huge investment in functioning infrastructure that would need to be made in order to achieve the reduction in greenhouse gasses that we are being told need to be made? There could well be trillions of dollars at stake here, and nobody is going to accept that dramatic of a shift in asset value without a fight to the death. Thus, we need to be absolutely certain that the SOLUTIONS being proposed are the most appropriate, cost-effective ones possible. I’m not sure we can yet make that claim.

Therefore, what needs to be done, in my opinion, is that we need to separate the SOLUTION from the PROBLEM. We already suggested, above, that most everyone would agree that there are real and present impacts occurring right before our eyes. So, the PROBLEM can be easily articulated to most anyone, given, for example, the materials that Worthington presented to his panels – he’s already proved that by virtue of his data results as compared to the Pew results. However, we start to get into trouble when we begin talking about SOLUTIONS, especially ones that can cost trillions of dollars. Are we absolutely certain that we’ve done the best job possible in figuring out what the mitigation strategies should be for each impact? For example, WHAT IF the “fix” to climate change was as simple as pumping or dumping some sulfur dioxide gas into the stratosphere, reflecting a small fraction of the sunlight, and thereby cooling the Earth enough to offset the warming effect of the greenhouse gasses. This isn’t my bright idea, by the way – you can read about it in Superfreakanomics – but, it certainly is intriguing. Imagine if, for a few billion dollars a year, we could “shade” the Earth enough to stop global warming in its tracks, and give the world time to gradually replace the “dirty” technology with cleantech, without any significant transfer of wealth or trashing of somebody’s precious power plant or oil business. In 20 years, or 50 years, the old technology would be gone, and nothing would have been displaced, or replaced, that hadn’t worn out naturally. Here’s another example that really makes me wonder about the quality of the science we are being forced to accept: Solar photo-voltaic (PV) panels are being installed in huge numbers all around the world. However, if a typical panel can only convert 20% of the sunlight to electricity, what happens to the other 80%? IT TURNS INTO HEAT BECAUSE THE PANEL IS USUALLY BLACK AND REFLECTS NONE OF THE SUNLIGHT! Thus, while generating so-called “clean” electricity, we’re adding heat to an already-overheated planet.

So, what exactly should we be doing in Copenhagen? We should use the conference as a first-step, consensus-building event – an opportunity to (1) document the real impacts based on the best and most-reliable science available; (2) prioritize those impacts in terms of timeliness of response, monetary and environmental cost if not mitigated, and degree of impact on existing societies or life forms; and, (3) most importantly, empanel the appropriate experts from science, industry, and government to assemble in small task forces, to begin evaluating the entire spectrum of possible solutions in terms of cost, feasibility, and other barriers to implementation. ONLY AFTER these task forces have done this type of evaluation should the larger body representing all stakeholders be assembled again to consider adopting the findings of the task forces, which, hopefully, will result in a range of solutions that will have greater credibility and a high level of support among all societies.