How Salem's candidates and other local leaders look upon climate change

On Earth Day 2016, April 22, I asked 30 civic leaders in Salem three questions about climate change.

These were candidates running for Mayor and City Council in the May election (9 people); City councilors not running in this election (6 people); the Mayor, City Manager, and Public Works Director (3 people); Chamber of Commerce execs (2 people); top Statesman Journal and Salem Weekly staff (5 people); Marion County commissioners (3 people); plus KYKN talk show host Gator Gaynor and Salem Health CEO Cheryl Nester Wolfe.

Those folks were non-scientifically selected by me while I was sitting with my laptop at a south Salem Starbucks, thinking about who I should email my three questions to while sipping a grande Pike Place.

My email message and subsequent reminder message are in a continuation to this post, at the very end. I asked the same questions as I did in 2014, spurred by a Salem City Club talk by Jane Lubchenco. In a blog post at the time, I wrote about speaking with her after her talk:

Since Lubchenco mentioned climate change often in her City Club talk, I wanted to ask her if she could think of any reason why local public officials shouldn't be willing to say whether they agree with the scientific consensus about climate change/global warming.

"No," she told me. Which is the answer I expected, since she'd just said that science isn't political.

Science seeks to learn about the nature of shared reality, the world everyone inhabits -- conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, religious believers and non-believers, everybody.

Lubchenco's talk spurred me to compose a message I'll be sending to Salem-area public officials. And other local leaders: newspaper editors/publishers; Chamber of Commerce executives; corporate and non-profit organization leaders; people running for elected office.

Before I discuss the 2016 responses -- and non-responses -- from the 30 Salem-area leaders, here's the results. A blank obviously means the person didn't respond with a YES, NOT SURE, or NO to the three questions I asked. 

So far, I've gotten responses from 10 of the 30 people. Six were candidates in the May election, which says something. (I'll let readers decide on their own what that "something" is.) I also got a narrative reply from Jan Kailuweit, who is running for the Ward 1 City Council seat against Cara Kaser.

Kailuweit said:

Thank you very much for the opportunity to respond. As I'm sure you've been able to tell from my Facebook posts, I'm deeply committed to reducing my carbon footprint. This is one of the reasons why I own an older home (the ultimate act of recycling, as opposed to building or buying a brand new home), why I'm a strong believer in a pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly infrastructure, and why I moved to downtown, so I can walk to the office. (Besides, not having to commute, I have more time for family and my car insurance gives me a sizable discount.)

Having grown up in Europe, which is much more densely populated and hence has dealt with pollution and waste reduction for many decades, I believe there is room for improvement in Salem. 

I trust my answer suffices for now.

I also heard back from Jason Tokarski of Mountain West Investment. He said:

Brian, thank you for inquiring of me on this subject. I have long wanted to better understand this subject and have looked for non-biased sources, but to this point have found nothing that I felt was informative without an agenda. Given that, I am not comfortable responding to your survey.

I thanked Tokarski for his directness, saying "I’m a big believer that it’s better to be honest about how we feel about something, rather than say what is politically correct or what we think people want to hear."

Which helps explain why I fondly look upon Warren Bednarz' "NOT SURE" about whether humans are mostly responsible for global warming. I disagree with Councilor Bednarz on some important local issues, and I don't agree that there's any doubt humans are causing global warming.

But I admire Bednarz for directly responding to the questions.

Almost certainly, some of the non-respondents are global warming deniers in one form or another. However, I suspect they're reluctant to admit this in a state and city where most citizens are strong defenders of protecting the environment. And there is no bigger threat to the habitability of our one and only Earth than global warming. 

A 2014 national Gallup poll about global warming found this:

Over the past decade, Americans have clustered into three broad groups on global warming. The largest, currently describing 39% of U.S. adults, are what can be termed "Concerned Believers" -- those who attribute global warming to human actions and are worried about it. This is followed by the "Mixed Middle," at 36%. And one in four Americans -- the "Cool Skeptics" -- are not worried about global warming much or at all.

Those Cool Skeptics, 25% of the adult population, lead decidedly to the right of the political spectrum: 80% are Republicans/lean Republican; 65% are conservative and only 9% liberal. Conversely, 76% of the Concerned Believers are Democrats/lean Democrat.

Thus it wouldn't be at all surprising if a good share of Salem's conservative leaders are skeptical about the scientific consensus on global warming. I just wish they'd be up-front about this, because it would make policy debates more fruitful in this town.

For example, one reason liberals oppose the planned billion dollar Third Bridge across the Willamette is its contribution to increased carbon emissions. But if conservative leaders in this town deny global warming, yet won't admit this, it is difficult to have an honest discussion about the pros and cons of the Third Bridge. People talk past each other, rather than with each other.

Lastly, I'll note that Michael Davis, executive editor of the Statesman Journal, told me he wouldn't respond to the survey because Davis doesn't like what I've written and said about him. Well, I readily admit that I'm a frequent and strong critic of what Salem's daily newspaper has become under his leadership.

But as Jane Lubchenco told me (she was Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration from 2009-13), there is no reason local public officials shouldn't be willing to say whether they agree with the scientific consensus about climate change/global warming. I'd add, local private leaders who take part in policy discussions also.

Whether you like the person asking questions about global warming shouldn't matter. However, in Davis' case it did. 

So if anyone else wants to contact the people who haven't responded yet to my survey, and ask them the same three questions, please do. The questions are in the continuation to this post that follows. Email me any responses you get, and I'll update the global warming survey results.

(The email addresses of those who haven't responded are publicly available. But if you can't find them, email me and I'll send you the ones you want.)

Here's the messages I sent out:

FIRST MESSAGE SENT ON APRIL 22

Dear _______:

In honor of Earth Day today, since you are a Salem-area leader or candidate for public office, I'd like to know your yes/no answers to three simple questions about climate change. Please respond by the end of Wednesday, April 27, as I plan to share the responses I’ve gotten on Thursday, April 28.

Here's why I’m doing this: science isn't political.

People can (and do) disagree about all kinds of things. But science offers us a common ground where we can agree on basic facts about the world we share. With that foundation, debates about policy questions can be much more productive.

We can focus much more on "what should be" than "what is." 

I'm deeply concerned about climate change/global warming. In my view, this is an issue that must be dealt with at all levels of society: national, state, county, local, organizational, individual. I'm focused on local. 

If Salem-area leaders are in agreement about the problem, seemingly policies aimed at solutions will be easier to come by. This is why I'm conducting this survey: to learn how you and others view climate change.

I look forward to receiving your reply to this message. A simple "yes," "no," or "not sure" to each question is welcomed. Any other thoughts you would like to add would be extra-welcomed. 

Responses (and non-responses) will be made public via social media. Including my own responses. I'm a "yes," "yes," "yes." However, even though I'm hopeful this will be everybody's response, I realize it likely won't be. Which is fine. Coming to agreement on scientific facts isn't possible unless we know where (and why) we disagree. 

Here are the three questions for you:

(1) Do you believe that global warming is occurring, and is causing the Earth's climate to change in various ways?

(2) Do you believe that humans are mostly responsible for the global warming/climate change that is occurring?

(3) Do you believe that humans need to engage in actions to deal with both the causes of global warming and its detrimental effects on humanity?

Please don't be overly concerned about the precise wording of these questions. There are many ways they could have been phrased.

I just tried to get their meaning roughly right: (1) Is global warming happening? (2) Are humans mostly responsible for it? (3) Should we do something about global warming?

Sincerely,
Brian Hines

--------------------
REMINDER MESSAGE SENT ON APRIL 27, WHICH INCLUDED ORIGINAL MESSAGE

Dear ______, just wanted to remind you about the Earth Day survey (below) I sent you last week. A simple one word response — “yes,” “no,” “not-sure” — to the three questions I asked about global warming would be greatly appreciated. Just click reply, type in a word after each question, and push the send button.

(1) Do you believe that global warming is occurring, and is causing the Earth's climate to change in various ways?

(2) Do you believe that humans are mostly responsible for the global warming/climate change that is occurring?

(3) Do you believe that humans need to engage in actions to deal with both the causes of global warming and its detrimental effects on humanity?

I’ll be writing a post about the survey on my HinesSight blog tomorrow, Thursday April 28. But I’ll update the post with responses from Salem-area leaders/candidates like you whenever they come in. 

Like I said in the message below, I’m a big believer that science can bring us together, helping to establish a common foundation of understanding that serves as a base for discussions about all sorts of topics. 

This doesn’t mean we all have to agree about what those scientific understandings are, but it IS important that we are open about our disagreements when they occur. Only then can we collaboratively discuss those differences and, hopefully, eventually arrive at a genuine common understanding. 

Hope this helps to further explain why I’m asking people to respond to this survey. I look forward to getting your one-word responses.

     — Brian

 

Comments

[Jim Scheppke]

You are cutting Jan Kailuweit way too much slack. Why didn't he just answer your survey? Because he just took a $1,000 contribution from the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce who also endorsed him. If that's not a hotbed of climate change deniers, I don't know what is. He also recently got a $1,000 contribution from the local Realtors association, another group that is totally devoted to car culture and suburban sprawl. Climate change be damned. He's a big phony. You should call him out in your Snark blog. He pretends to be what he is not. He's for the 3rd Bridge! That alone disqualifies him as anyone who really gives a hoot about climate change.

[Tom Andersen]

Brian, Tom Andersen here. The answers to all three questions are a resounding yes.

[Harry Vanderpool]

Yes-No-Yes

[veeper]

A favorite quote of mine is Emerson’s observation that foolish consistencies are the hobgoblins of small minds. I keep this resting on my shoulder to whisper gently into my ear that I may be a prat. But it is silent now - so here goes:

When candidate Kailuweit, rather than answer your question, talks moralistically about his low carbon footprint, I am reminded of Dick Chaney’s comment about conservation being morally honorable but not a sound basis for an energy policy. I’m unsure from Kailuweit’s response whether he understands why we adhere to or postulate moral principles. The way he answers I could conclude that keeping a low carbon footprint has the moral weight of waiting for the walk signal.

For us, a low carbon footprint is a moral imperative related to the effect the carbon footprint has had and has for the future. Kailuweit diminishes a moral imperative into a pious platitude.

Now: am I being a small-minded hobgoblin to wonder if the casual absence of thinking about the basis for his values affects how he would approach issues of public policy, finding ways to vote in accordance with the Commercial Street oligarchy rather than to consider this moral obligation of governance: “No government is legitimate unless it subscribes to two reigning principles. First, it must show equal concern for the fate of every person over whom it claims dominion. Second, it must respect fully the responsibility and right of each person to decide how to make something valuable of his life.” (Ronald Dworkin in Justice for Hedgehogs.)

Tokarski sits on the fence, unwilling to do anything until he searches out unbiased sources. Now here I'm wondering about another foolish consistency: Where and why does he stand where he does with respect, say, to a third bridge, land use, or income inequality, questions that apply to candidate Bednarz.

Bias, evidence, facts, and truth determine how we view the world around us and how we react to the world.

I'm getting old and my observation is that the only thing concrete out there is bias, and that evidence, fact, and truth are increasingly difficult to get agreement upon because each are driven by one's bias.

The very terms have differing meanings depending upon whether you using them in faith, logic, philosophy, law, or science.

We make decisions based upon evidence.

We weigh the evidence to determine whether or not it has sufficient weight to make the decision at hand (is the contractor reliable? Did he shoot the sheriff?).

Evidence cannot be rejected because its source has a bias that differs from mine. On its face, and without corroboration, it may lack credibility.

We will never achieve anything except polarization if we base the validity of assertions upon the bias of the individual making the assertion.

Motive rightfully makes us skeptical of assertions, but we have the obligation to weigh the evidence on standards other than the bias of he or she who makes the assertion.

Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Perhaps this is why so few in power bother to think.

At least ten fingers point at us as the cause of global warming.

1. Humans are currently emitting around 30 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

2. Oxygen levels are falling as if carbon is being burned to create carbon dioxide.

3. Fossil carbon is building up in the atmosphere. (We know this because the two types of carbon have different chemical properties.)

4. Corals show that fossil carbon has recently risen sharply.

Another two observations show that CO2 is trapping more heat:

5. Satellites measure less heat escaping to space at the precise wavelengths which CO2 absorbs.

6. Surface measurements find this heat is returning to Earth to warm the surface.

7. An increased greenhouse effect would make nights warm faster than days, and this is what has been observed.

8. If the warming is due to solar activity, then the upper atmosphere (the stratosphere) should warm along with the rest of the atmosphere. But if the warming is due to the greenhouse effect, the stratosphere should cool because of the heat being trapped in the lower atmosphere (the troposphere). Satellite measurements show that the stratosphere is cooling.

9. This combination of a warming troposphere and cooling stratosphere should cause the tropopause, which separates them, to rise. This has also been observed.

10. It was predicted that the ionosphere would shrink, and it is indeed shrinking.