An Embarrassment for Both Yale University and the New York Times

Dr. Nadine Unger, an assistant professor of atmospheric chemistry at Yale, had an op-ed published in the Opinion Pages of the September 19, 2014 edition of the New York Times.

October 7, 2014 | Source: The Permaculture Research Institute | by Rhamis Kent

For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Environment and Climate Resource Center page and our Organic Transitions page.

Dr. Nadine Unger, an assistant professor of atmospheric chemistry at Yale, had an op-ed published in the Opinion Pages of the September 19, 2014 edition of the New York Times. Both the title of her piece and its analysis of the article’s focus – climate change – have drawn quite a response, as one would imagine.

I don’t have much to add other than asking for those interested to review what she wrote along with the responses detailing how and why what she has concluded is exactly wrong:

On forests’ role in climate, New York Times op-ed gets it wrong 

Dr. Unger’s Four Scientific Fouls 

A Fully Loaded, Double-Barreled Forest Climate Solution 

Scientists’ Response to Dr. Nadine Unger’s September 21, New York Times Op-Ed, “To Save the Planet, Don’t Plant Trees” (PDF)

This colossal gaff demonstrated and confirmed for me why the thinking behind permaculture design – and how it functions as a connecting science – is so sorely needed. The kind of sophistical ‘scientific’ arguments put forth by people who are supposed to be experts, and whose message is unfortunately too often accepted by many laypersons without questioning, is precisely how the world we live in presently came to be. Information is dangerous if you don’t know how to properly act upon it or contextualize it, and those convinced that they have a thorough understanding without doing so (see the Dunning-Kruger Effect), actually end up operating as agents of destruction.

Those of us who know better must actively counter this kind of misinformation. Correcting the error requires engagement on our part. This also demonstrates the weakness of basing arguments for acting to reverse climate change mainly on the basis of greenhouse gas emissions – it’s very easy to distort or dissemble this information due to its relatively abstract nature.

A recent study performed by researchers from Stanford University has brought this problem to light, refering to the unprecedented drought conditions prevailing in California as an example:

Scientists from Stanford have found that the meteorological conditions that have caused the California drought are far more likely to occur in today’s warming world than in one without human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases.

It shows us – ironically and tragically – that the state that leads the nation in curbing greenhouse gas emissions is right now suffering more than any other from climate change. – Environmental Defense Fund

In other words, more needs to be done than solely putting our focus on the “supply side” of greenhouse gas emissions by fixating only on the sources of those emissions – which are primarily produced from human-made industrial technologies driven by a consumer-based culture and economy. Charles Eisenstein wrote a great piece detailing the many problems associated with this approach.