White House official cites ‘education problem’ on climate

[cal04]

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/141143-white-house-official-cites-capitol-hill-education-problem-on-climate-

President Obama’s top science adviser said there’s a need to “educate” GOP climate change skeptics on Capitol Hill as the White House seeks to advance its green energy agenda.

“It is an education problem. I think we have to educate them,” said John Holdren, who heads the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, in an interview broadcast Sunday.

(snip)
He said there is uncertainty about details, but noted that’s always the case in science. What’s plain, Holdren said, is that the climate is changing in damaging ways and that human activities – notably burning fossil fuels – are “overwhelmingly likely” to be the primary cause.

“Those points are clear in the science, and we need to talk with the members of Congress who aren’t yet convinced of that to try and convince them,” Holdren said.


(good luck with that)

[ananda]

1. LOL except ...

... it's not really funny I guess.

Educate Reeps on anything that would be inconvenient to their corporate masters?

Right.

[karynnj]

6. No - educate the population

If the population understands the issue and it becomes a voting issue - which it did only briefly in the early 1970s - then you will see that Congressmen and Senators will have to worry about paying a price if they ignore it. In fact, in much of the country, legislators who do the right thing will be the ones who pay a price - because the deniers have in many places become the majority.

This will not be easy and we are in a worse position in terms of creating people demanding change on this than we were a decade ago. Al Gore's incredible effort did help raise the issue, but the effect was not enough. The right then countered by demonizing Gore and claiming he was part of a scam using this to get rich. They then did something more surprising to me - they created a fiction that all the world renown scientists used faked data and made this all up. Even with current climate records showing scary trends, fewer people now believe that it is a real problem than did 5 years ago - which is pathetic. The reason is obvious - who got more media - the people looking for things they could twist to comments in a university's email or the final analysis that said that there was no cheating? Not to mention - Darryl Issa is speaking of investigating the scientists!

[GentryDixon]

2. A dumbed down electorate is a benefit to the GOP.

[northoftheborder]

3. How naive can the White House be?

It's not a matter of "education" it's a matter of $$$$$$$ and anti-science on top of religiosity.

[Webster Green]

5. Amazing isn't it?

It's not an education problem, it's a dumb-ass mutherfuckers problem.

Facts mean nothing to these people. They are trapped in their allegiance to all things petro. The science is there, but it will continue to be ignored.

[karynnj]

7. They are not saying it isn't $$$$$ against them -

they are saying that education is the way to change opinions.

Do you have a better idea?

[silverweb]

4. Is it even possible?

I'm not convinced that even the best, most patient efforts at educating the willfully ignorant can succeed.

[karynnj]

8. Like you, I know that it will be very very hard, the question is what is the alternative?

Doing nothing will lead to disaster.

It looks like the current approach that will be taken by Obama and by some Senate Democrats is to both try to get passed the pieces that support new technology - arguing the economic benefits more than the climate change benefits. In addition, they want to take the oil tax breaks away. These two actions change the relative costs of various energy sources. Oil based energy will become more expensive - as alternative energies - if any of the research leads to success - become cheaper. If they really can do both, it might move more energy usage away from fossil fuels.

While that could create some improvement, the parallel effort of creating political momentum would be needed to have any shot of doing what needs to be done.

[silverweb]

9. Oh, I agree with you 100%.

We absolutely have to keep trying and to have hope that there are enough open minds among the misinformed and misled who will respond to factual information and reasoned arguments.

It's just a daunting thing to face, when we don't know how many are completely brainwashed, unreachable, wilfully ignorant, or just wholly-owned subsidiaries of the fossil fuel industry.

The public must be educated in the same way in order to move their representatives, and both must recognize the real urgency of the situation.

[Safetykitten]

10. This sounds like a opening for a board to study the viability of a Climate Change mascot.