CMC also rakes in three Bs, the explanations for which seem rooted in all the methodological rigor of a third grade science fair.  Key factoids include the distribution of sustainability information during orientation, the board of trustees’ “Beliefs and Principles” document in support of a bike-friendly campus, our four buildings with low flow toilets (actually dual-flush toilets that seem to do high flow no matter which way you flip the handle), and the installation of Claremont Hall’s insanely annoying ecofriendly lights.  You know, the ones half the dorm leaves on 18 hours a day because we hate waiting 15 minutes for them to warm up.

Then there are two Cs (Administration and Climate Change & Energy) and an F (Endowment Transparency).  God only knows what endowment transparency has to do with being green but a few random clicks couldn’t find any schools with a score better than a C besides Mudd and frankly, who cares?  There’s no explanation for the two Cs (the blurbs instead focus on the positive aspects, presumably to keep our spirits up) but they sound important so I knew what to do– compare them to Pomona’s scores!

Turns out Pomona got an A- overall (one of 26 nationwide) with a B in Administration and and A in Climate Change.  Torn between my fathomless apathy towards the environment and competitive instinct towards Pomona, I figured we had to at least be beating one of the five Cs.  Turns out we are!  Scripps got a C- overall, Mudd a B-, and Pitzer, no doubt driven to conceal the terrible secret of their environmental hypocrisy (or too high to fill out the forms) wasn’t even listed.

Considering the report card’s methodology I guess we can look forward to endless new “green” features that nobody actually wants or uses for the sake of climbing the rankings.

The first Freakonomics book grew out of a series of articles Levitt and Dubner wrote for New York Times Magazine. As Dubner says in a promo video, “Economics is about inflation, interest rates and the stock market. Freakonomics is about prostitutes, crack dealers and corrupt sumo wrestlers.” The book covered Levitt’s academic work on crime, child mortality, and cheating in a story form suitable for the lay reader. Their brand of pop social science turned out to be wildly popular; soon after, many other economists wrote their own books about popular economics. In the sequel to Freaknomics, the authors cover a wider range of topics, with mixed results; one Washington Post blogger wrote,

Super Freakonomics is really two books in one: Some of the chapters are based on a deep data set that reveals interesting insights about the underlying subject. Half of the chapters are not based on any data set at all, and are more of an effort to invent interesting insights about subject matter the authors don’t know that well. The chapters of the book that fit the first description are quite good. The chapters of the book that fit the second — drunk driving, say, or global warming — are quite bad.

Some parts of the book, particularly the profile of John List, Levitt’s critiques of laboratory experiments, a story about Ignaz Semmelweiss’s research into hand washing, and a re-telling of the Kitty Genovese story, have garnered high praise. Other parts, specifically the chapter of the book discussing global warming, have been met with scorn. Levitt and Dubner argue that we have neither the political will, nor the desire, to implement any tough solution to the global warming problem. After some discussion of how difficult it is to predict our climate future, the authors discuss the merits of several possible approaches to geoengineering, or large man-made changes in the Earth’s climate (here’s an example of a geoengineering scheme that the scientists claim can eliminate the rise in global temperatures for a few billion dollars).

This chapter has provoked a series of arguments in the blogosphere. First, Joseph Romm, a liberal blogger for Climate Progress, found several factual errors in the chapter, most notably the book’s claim that solar panels are black, which limits their heat-gathering ability (most are blue), and accused the authors of anti-climate change bias. The authors’ reply on the Freakonomics blog addressed some of the concerns with the chapter, and also presented evidence that Romm had asked Ken Caldeira, one of the book’s sources, to tell Romm that the Freakonomics authors misrepresented Caldeira’s views – in other words, that Romm had tried to put words in Caldeira’s mouth.

Asking a source to feed you a quote is a journalistic faux pas, but the cat had been let out of the bag; other bloggers started finding problems with the global warming chapter as well. Fall 2004 Ath speaker Paul Krugman, fall 2008 Ath speaker Matt Yglesias, spring 2009 Ath speaker Andrew Sullivan, and others noted problems and factual errors in the global warming chapter. In their search for counterintuitive social science arguments, the detractors said, the authors had gone too far and presented a questionable scientific and political argument in a cocksure way.

Together, these criticisms echo the truism that nowadays, it’s almost always in a writer’s self interest to be more interesting than factually accurate. Under the catchy headline “Freakonomics: the intellectual’s Glenn Beck?” Mark Liberman labels this trend the “Pundit’s Dilemma.” The media tends to latch on to newsworthy stories, which gives analysts an incentive to hype their arguments in the interest of coverage while the unvarnished truth falls by the wayside. There’s a risk to being caught (like the Balloon Boy), so while sources don’t exaggerate to the point of lying outright, everyone expects some embroidery. In this case, the authors may have overstated the case for geoengineering. It’s counterintuitive to think that we could fix our global warming headache for a relatively small amount. The Pundit’s Dilemma, in this case, is that the commotion over the global warming chapter will probably induce more people to buy the book.

This debate also brings into sharp focus the merits of the blogosphere as a feedback mechanism, and the problems with books in print. Before the book even came out, prominent econ bloggers were dissecting the claims in the book, and Levitt and Dubner were forced to backtrack. But the book will get published in its current form, factual errors and all; if the authors decide to rewrite the chapter, the earliest the revised version will hit bookstores is a few months from now, eons in blog time. If their book was published electronically they could make the changes today. But in the blogosphere, if someone makes an inaccurate claim, it usually gets corrected or rebutted within a matter of hours. Every post by Levitt and Dubner gets read by tens of thousands of people; their book chapter was reviewed by a few editors and climate scientists. The truth has a higher chance of coming through online.

Like it or not, the success of Freakonomics has made Levitt a spokesman for the economics profession, a sort of interpreter for the common man. People will listen if he says we don’t need to worry so much about global warming because we can make a cheap fix down the line. His books may be leading more students (like myself) into economics, which will make them read more economics and learn about the basic principles like comparative advantage, opportunity cost and marginal analysis. However, if his books are the only economics books a layperson will touch, they may lead those people to think that all economists do is exploit arbitrary differences/mistakes in policy administration to glean some counterintuitive insight about how we behave. But perhaps I am being too harsh – if his book hadn’t made me interested in reading economics blogs and learning economic analysis, would I be in a position to write this review?

Levitt is slated to go on Good Morning America on Friday morning, so I expect that his prepared remarks on Thursday night will be entirely bland (“Isn’t it interesting that terrorists don’t buy life insurance?”). Perhaps we can make a dedicated effort, in the pre-dinner chat, the head table and the Q&A to get him to address some of the counter-arguments to the book’s global warming chapter. Levitt made his reputation by presenting results that contradicted received social wisdom; let’s see if any CMC students will do the same on Thursday night.

More than a few minutes of the debate were devoted to a discussion of science’s place in a liberal arts curriculum.  Although nobody mentioned that the only science to make it into the traditional liberal arts was astronomy, it was a subject that hit close to home for me.  Ilan Wurman (supported by other members of our campus’s conservative cabal) argued that if CMC grads are to be truly well-rounded in the liberal arts tradition, then they should actually study actual science, rather than watered down “theme” courses.  What Ilan said was that we shouldn’t be studying Energy and the Environment or the Living Sea.  He went on to say that we should not be studying East Asian Feminist Cultures or the Experiences of Slave Women.  What Ilan was trying to say is “we shouldn’t be studying bullshit.”  I won’t attempt to judge the merits of feminist, ethnic, or any other niche history course, but his suggestion that they do not jibe with the goals of a liberal arts education is well taken.

Ilan’s attack on the bullshit sciences established a false dichotomy between science courses for majors and pointless thematic courses for nonmajors.  The fact of the matter is that five minutes years from now, I will not remember how to model a chemical reaction if I take O Chem.  Liberal arts is not about the specific facts you learn.  What Ilan was advocating was a multidisciplinary technical education.

Now back to that anonymous texts thing: I sent something like 30 texts (and at least half of them made it past Peaslee’s exacting censor), one of which was “great ideas in science is liberal arts as hell.”  Regrettably, none of our debaters understood me or took me seriously.  There is one Joint Sciences class which is in fact “liberal arts as hell”– PHYS 77L, Great Ideas in Science.  The course introduces students to the type of scientific issues they read about in books and magazines: quantum physics, genetics, global warming, and the like.  It does so as a means of teaching them how to think like a scientist.  The course yields skills that will last long after I forget the basic Newtonian math it taught me, namely how to read and parse scientific papers and discourse with scientists on their own territory if not on an even footing.

The Living Sea is not a science in the liberal arts tradition, but neither is Introductory Physics.  Great Ideas in Science captures the essence of a liberal arts college and translates it into science.  Were every CMC student taught it as a freshman alongside their Freshmen Humanities Seminar (FHS), perhaps we would have a greater appreciation of the sciences’ role in the liberal arts.

I hear there’s already change afloat on this matter– we got a grant to have better science for nonscience major courses.  Switching gears from Debate Night and the liberal arts, I’ll be covering the changes in science courses next week.

“The ‘Environmental Crusaders’ name wasn’t effectively portraying our mission,” Munro explained.  Indeed, the Crusaders have frequently been at the forefront of some of the more controversial environmental efforts on campus.  For Earth Day in 2008, the Crusaders constructed a pyramid of trash demonstrating the amount of food waste produced at Collins Dining Hall in a single day.  More recently, blogger Charles Johnson generated controversy when the Crusaders took a school-funded trip to Washington, DC for the Powershift 2009 conference.   “I believe that this new name is representative of a new direction we are taking the club, helping to make Claremont McKenna a more sustainable college.”

The last several years have seen Claremont Mckenna College take a number of steps to conserve waste and reduce the environmental footprint of the school.  The opening of Claremont Hall, the school’s first LEED Silver certified building, was hailed as a breakthrough for the college.  Additionally, CMC (as part of a consortium move), eliminated trays from dining halls for the 2009-2010 school year.  Club Vice President Ashley Scott says the change was not directly linked to her group.

“The administration made the call on their own.  I think that some people don’t realize that this is a beneficial move for our campus,” said Scott, a junior who has been involved with the group since her freshmen year.  “Students are being asked to trade a little inconvenience for a policy that saves the school money.  It’s a matter of environmental economics, not something that’s purely ideological.”

SPEAR plans to push several campaigns for environmental activism on campus.  Among these, Munro points to Take Back the Tap, a national effort to reduce bottled-water usage as an important effort for CMC students. Drinking bottled water comes at a high cost both in terms of trash produced and money spent he says and there are opportunities for students to both save money and reduce waste.

Starting this month, SPEAR hopes to involve itself in the school’s long-term conservation goals.  “The Administration is forming an ad-hoc committee that will include students to revisit some of the conservation policy the school is involved in,” said Munro. This includes goals to make CMC a carbon-reduced or even carbon-neutral institution, provided there are opportunities to do so.  Also on the docket is continued support by President Pamela Gann of the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, which she signed in 2007.

So far, both Munro and Scott see their club’s re-branding as a success.  Although the group may still serve as a lightning rod for environmental issues on campus, the new incarnation of the club is working towards a more moderate and professional image.  With a larger-than-usual turnout for the club’s first official meeting, the group will continue to partake in discourse at CMC and on the 5C campus, lest we forget global warming has the potential to affect even the very beer we drink.

As much as I would like the United States and the world at large to emphasize the reduction of carbon emissions, I fear the political winds are increasingly turning against mitigation efforts.  First, seriously disruptive climate change looks all but inevitable at this point, which is breeding fatalism.  Global carbon emissions have exploded at a faster rate than even the previously most pessimistic forecasts by the United Nations.  Furthermore, global warming is a classic tragedy of the commons problem where every country wants to keep polluting and free ride off other countries costly carbon reduction programs.  In fact, America’s decision to remain outside of the Kyoto Protocol has made many European governments fear that they are putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage by continuing their carbon reduction programs.

Due to all of these factors, the logic of spending resources on adaptation to climate change (such as relocating coastal communities, genetically engineering drought-resistant crops, etc.) rather than on carbon reduction grows ever more appealing.  Adaptation is particularly appealing for governments because adaptation measures directly help taxpaying and voting citizens, while the rewards of mitigation are diffusely shared by everyone.  Environmentalists support both mitigation and adaptation of course, but in a world of finite economic and political resources to spend on combating climate change, I think we expect an increasing prioritization of adaptation at the expense of mitigation.

Although the idea is still only slowly spreading into mainstream public discussion, I believe geoengineering will pose a serious alternative to carbon reduction in the coming years.  For those unfamiliar, geoengineering describes proposals to deliberately manipulate the Earth’s climate to counteract the effects of global warming.  Here is a fascinating video of the climate scientist David Keith describing an incredibly cheap, effective means to address climate change: inject a huge cloud of ash into the atmosphere to deflect sunlight and heat (this also counts as another plug for TED).  As the idea of geoengineering spreads, it will further weaken mitigation efforts by creating a moral hazard problem: as people increasingly believe that a low-cost technological solution to global warming exists, they will feel less pressure to reduce carbon emissions.

Let me be clear: I strongly support carbon reduction efforts in addition to funding adaptation programs now and investigating geoengineering options for the future.  With the future of our planet at stake, I don’t think we can take the risk of not reducing carbon emissions.  However, I fear the relevant actors will increasingly embrace adaptation and geoengineering as alternatives to mitigation.  Adaptation and geoengineering are the relatively cheap, easy, and technical solutions to global warming, while mitigation will require dramatic restructuring of the economy and sustained lifestyle changes.  Guess which type of solution us flawed creatures are likely to prefer?

Last week, Boswell and the Environmental Crusaders teamed up for Save the Ales TNC, complete with local beer made from 100% certified organic barley and biodegradable corn cups.  To celebrate Earth Day (today, fools!), we bring you the photo petition they collected during the party.  Click the bottom right to watch in full screen and see if your friends got caught on camera holding embarrassing signs (“Get me laid: save the ales!”).

What’s a photo petition, you ask??  Instead of collection a bunch of signatures (boringggggg), they took pictures of people with signs saying why they supported climate change legislation and “saving the ales.”

Save the Ales parties have been happening at colleges all over the country as part of the Sierra Student Coalition’s climate change awareness efforts.  Climate change is having a negative effect on many crops, including hops in the Pacific Northwest (where most US breweries get their supply).  When hops crops fail, the price of beer rises and college kids with tight wallets all over the nation suffer anguish and injustice.

Did you appreciate having really nice beer at TNC and drinking out of a cup that wasn’t going to spend the next 400 years sitting in a garbage dump? (I have no idea how long it takes a red cup to deteriorate…) You’re in luck then, because the Crusaders hope to have at least 2 green TNCs next year.

(Full disclosure:  Yes, I used to be in charge of the Environmental Crusaders.  I still help them with some stuff, but I don’t hold an officer position anymore.  If you are part of a club and would like to see your events featured on the Forum, drop us a line and tell us how awesome your events are.  If they’re cool, maybe, just maybe, we’ll write them up.)

• Dr. Kathleen Purvis-Roberts, professor of chemistry, provided us with an overview of the scientific issues surrounding global warming. She affirmed that the vast majority of the scientific community agrees that humans are contributing tremendously to climate change. The threats presented include the melting of polar ice caps, sea level rise, severe droughts and more extreme weather patterns, all of which are likely to lead to daunting consequences. She went on to stress the responsibility of developed nations toward the developing world, who do not have the adequate means to protect themselves without severely stifling the rise in their already weak standards of living, and more importantly have emitted far fewer greenhouse gases since the dawn of the industrial revolution.

• Dr. Alex Rajczi, professor of philosophy, surveyed the issue from a normative moral standpoint. The prominent questions he raised were a) should we believe that climate change is anthropogenic and poses a serious threat, and b) does the U.S. have an obligation to do something about it? “We are certainly accountable,” declares Rajczi, because “we are the ones pouring these chemicals into the air.” From an ethical perspective, he advised that the best we can do – as predominantly nonscientists – is trust the conclusions of the majority of experts, unless we have a good reason not to. And although the window for specific policy debates is limitless, the majority of experts are unequivocal in their conviction that global warming is an anthropogenic activity, hence we have the responsibility to curtail the damage we are causing.

• Dr. William Christian, professor of government, addressed the political realities surrounding global warming. The United States is responsible for roughly ¼ of worldwide greenhouse gases and is as of today, the only country in the world not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. “No doubt it is our responsibility,” says Christian, but it is “a very difficult matter to deal with.” He mentioned the various solutions being proposed in Congress, including the instatement of a carbon taxes to discourage emissions, and a ‘cap and trade’ system whereby the government can set a ceiling on pollution and private organizations can trade their quotas between each other. Although these solutions would be effective, political intricacies such as special interest lobbies are influential in preventing such legislation from being passed. He ended by invoking journalist Thomas Friedman’s outlooks, that we need an economic transformation more than economic regulation, which will occur when the government spends money to build the currently meager green industry.

• Dr. S. Brock Blomberg, perhaps the most inimitable speaker of the night, offered us the economic realities of regulating the energy industry. He opened with a disclaimer of humility and hubris, declaring that he “doesn’t know much about environmental issues, but he’s still going to talk about it.” The best part about professor Blomberg was his modesty, as he claimed that economists are only assessing the stats and figures involved with regulation emissions, and “not even trying to deal with the human loss or the things that actually matter,” in his own words. He invoked a cost-benefit analysis to assess the harm that would be dealt to the economy in comparison to the benefits, if the government were to regulate the energy industry. The brazen conclusion of a number of economists is that the ‘economic’ harm done would outweigh the ‘economic’ benefits of regulation.

While it is important to appreciate an economist’s opinion on policy matters, this perspective is severely limited by the sheer lack of deliberation on the multiple other dimensions of the phenomenon. Naturally, there are disadvantages to dealing with any potential threat, but an economic cost-benefit analysis does not take into account the mounting health risks (such as asthma), the millions of people likely to be displaced from their homes due to rising sea levels, the water shortages presented by droughts, and the catastrophes looming in the worsening weather patterns, all of which is currently set to transpire at an exponential rate. Furthermore, non-regulation today will severely strain the resources available to future generations. Factoring in these consequences, even the most extreme free market economist’s conviction would face an enormous burden.

It is imperative to consider the humanitarian concerns – and not merely short term economic prospects – when weighing the relevance of environmental policy. Nobody that is willing to objectively examine the threat of global warming from all angles would have a leg to stand on in refuting the importance of actions designed to ameliorate the human loss it is expected to cause.