800+ Pages, and only 5 are devoted to Global Climate Change ..

Greetings Rich,

Thanks for checking out my post.  I appreciate your comment and you raise some very good points.

The following entry contains two hyperlinks which may be of interest to you for understanding the debate on global warming from a wider historical context.  The article is divided into two parts, "Global Warming Debate Prior to 1980" and "Global Warming Debate after 1980."  It is a well-written, professional, and detailed history of both public and scientific discourse on global warming since the subject first appeared in the 1890s.  Highly recommended (feel free to skip over my accompanying post):

http://integrallife.com/member/barbi-hammond/blog/michael-crichton-needs-retire-im-not-joking

I'll return in a bit to respond to the rest of your comment shortly.  The article links above provide a very good overview of the climate change debate which, up until recent decades, was largely confined to climate science.  I'll have to re-read the article myself to refresh my memory to respond to your comment more intelligently.  It may even be slightly out-of-date considering the recent findings on the role of positive feedback mechanisms, which were poorly understood by science until fairly recently and weren't even addressed in the most recent IPCC assessment in 2007.

The first wave of public interest began around the early 1970s, when the global cooling theory became popularized in the mainstream media (along with the publication of a #1? bestseller on global cooling, I believe, as well).  According to the article above (all of this is off the top of my head and I can't remember the exact percentage so please do not quote me on any of this), approximately 30% of all climate scientists during the early 1970s were proponents of the global cooling theory due to their inability to connect cooling temperatures to ozone depletion by sulfate emissions from aerosols throughout the industrialized world. A few scientists back then had even gone so far as to announce that the Earth was on the brink of another natural ice age due to their inability to connect the unregulated sulfate emissions from CFCs with ozone depletion and cooling temperatures. 

Meanwhile, global warming was still occurring in the background due to ongoing CO2 emissions but during the time, was being temporarily obscured by cooling aerosol emissions.  The net effect was cooling at the time, in spite of global warming from CO2.  Once these aerosols were banned globally as an environmental hazard, the cooling trend discontinued and the Earth resumed to its previous trend of global warming, which had been the case for many decades and century and a half since the start of the industrial period according to most data proxies (i.e., ice core samples, tree ring data, lake deposits, etc.).

As a consequence of this worldwide ban on aerosols combined with increasing industrialization and increasing CO2 emissions in developing countries, temperatures began to escalate much faster globally and real world data began confirming that changes were indeed occurring in the form of melting Arctic ice, Antarctic cracks and break-offs, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, melting permafrost, and aberrant weather conditions reported worldwide.  Because of these rapidly changing conditions, scientists, I believe James Hansen of NASA being among the first, began calling for regulation of CO2 emissions which then triggered immediate backlash by fossil fuel industries and the public debate on global warming.

Both the Al Gore documentary and the IPCC's conclusion from 2007 that human action is "very likely" (over 90%) to be the cause of climate change had a dramatic impact on public perception worldwide.  Combined with ongoing and increasingly faster changes continuing in key indicators such as Arctic ice melt, sea level rise, increasing CO2 concentrations and so on (in addition to increased scientific understanding of the role of positive feedback mechanisms and tipping points in the past two years), there is indeed a dramatic shift in both public and scientific perception worldwide of the threat of sudden and catastrophic climate change which can be likened to a Hell and High Water or a Christian apocalypse.  At least, throughout the rest of the developed world (i.e., Europe and Japan).  Not so much among average Americans.

But returning to the 1970s...the global cooling theory was a view held only by a minority of scientists even as it became popularized in the mainstream media and in public perception.  Even then, approximately 70% of all climate scientists maintained the mainstream scientific view of global warming, a position which has pretty much been the majority view of science since first recording accurate records of temperature and detecting global warming in the late 19th and early 20th century.

I can see how it is reasonable for an intelligent layperson to conclude that the concept of a sudden and catastrophic climate change would seem far-fetched if not alarmist.  Especially if one is unfamiliar with climate change and positive feedbacks that trigger "tipping points" and catastrophic climate change, which would immediately trigger imageries Christian fundamentalists shouting Biblical prophesies and preparing for the apocalypse.  It's a useful metaphor, nonetheless, which is perhaps why Joe Romm used the concept of "Hell" in his recent article, An introduction to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water, which discusses the consequences of unmitigated temperature rise and sudden and disastrous climate change.  Although I wouldn't say that Romm is connected in any way to Christian fundamentalism or Doomsday prophecies from the Book of Revelations.  Highly recommended.

From my perspective you have nothing to worry about. Obama is going with what you want. Its a go. You win. Your qualified, quantisized, quality controlled, scientists are being heard and policy being inacted. I wish the other side of the global story could be told too. I feel the same way that you do about Integral ecology but in relation to geo politics and history.

Your a great eco fascist for the global elite. You won't have to worry about us climate wacks because the elite like your story or you like theirs. You sound like a control freak. Control being the fire for the dialectical mind. This deals with self identity. Do you identify the source of suffering as a event happening to us or suffering is caused by a identity crisis that deals with the foundations of the relative mind. If you see suffering as happening from without your in a subtle reduction pattern and if you see it as an issue of human consciuosness then the idea of you and nature and Nature can get to NATURE which can solve the problem.

How many Integral people are trully Integral Science? None. They do not have a true integral science. My claim is that plasma cosmology is the science for zone 6.

You are pointing out a big weakness in teal integral. It honors the dialectical methologies in each field and points out its partiness and then uses dialectics to balance the conflict between quadrants. How the big three of I/We/It  Good/True/Beautiful domains interelate requires a logic that can deal with time in its eternity or ever present origin. Or trialectics. Not just a seperation into domains but  knowing how they work together. Integral so far has diferentiated the zones but does not have a logic that works in all of them, just respecting the work of the dialecticians in each field. Thus they point out the partialness without showing a SOLUTION. They(Integral teal) know how to make a really good party, but don't make it pick sides. Middle ground is the mantra of teal.

For Integral to actually look at climat change like you want they would also need to have Integral Economics, Integral Politics, not just the bringing everyone to the party but checking to see if the methologies are the methologies they think each field is doing. And like Integral Ecology, Integral Economics and Politcs is very far from being complete. Integral lacks specific knowledge to be effective. Integral turquoise and third teir are solution makers everyone else is a bunch of adolescent whiners. I hope the let down of Integral ecology can serve you to become a problem solver and not a problem promoter.

Sean,

I'm going to be perfectly honest with you.  After reading the section on "An Integral approach to global climate change," I became disheartened and put it down.  Now I can't find it (think I left it at my mom's house).  Of course, I do intend to read the rest of the book whenever I can locate it, as I realize that my critique on your treatment on climate change was harsh and completely negative.  So to reiterate--my critique was confined strictly to the portion that I read, which was the very small portion that was devoted to climate change.  This particular section had no redeeming strengths or values to highlight.  Based on what I can recall (I haven't read any other portion, so this is based on a cursory glance of other pages and chapters after receiving it in the mail), I'm sure that the remainder of the book will be less controversial in its approach such that I will be able to recognize and highlight its many values and strengths to Integral theory.  In addition, your reference to my thread, “Global Warming Skeptics with Green Centers of Gravity" (posted weeks prior to my awareness of Integral Ecology), anticipates many shared perspectives between Michael Zimmerman, you, and myself on an Integral ecology unless I am misreading your comment.  I look forward to highlighting these commonalities in perspectives in addition to highlighting the book's many strengths and values once I have read Integral Ecology in full.  Or, I may divide it up into sections as Mike Breland is doing in his excellent review of your book, considering the enormity and scope of your work.  

With respect to "conscious choice of rhetorical style" (as you put it), I suppose that you could call my style polemical with regard to your treatment of climate change.  Personally, I have little use for exaggeration or for style over substance, but do engage in a polemical style of writing whenever it is warranted.  In the case of your treatment of climate change and omission of climate science, for example, a polemic style of response was fully justified and necessary given the gravity of the issue of global climate change and the need to approach it transparently and integrally from an Integral ecology.  I always make an effort to say or write what I honestly feel or think, whether positive or negative or whether bridging or not.  So whatever I express is exactly what or how I feel, just as it is, with no exaggeration of my thoughts or feelings necessary.  

I do admit that I'm biased toward my own perspective.  Then again, everyone is.  Integral notables and book writers are no exception, in spite their valiant efforts to embrace all perspectives.  Ken Wilber, for example (one of my favorite contemporary philosophers of all time, btw), appears to have a history of downgrading legitimate orange and green science, namely, the field of climate science, to a mean green meme of environmental activism or systems theory.  This could be a generational thing due to Earth Day 1970 and to previous associations of climate science with popular notions of global cooling theories.  What it amounts to, however, is a reduction of legitimate orange and green science, climate science, to radical green environmentalism without acknowledging the legitimacy of this science as a valid science and attempting to politicize it instead.  I imagine his views have evolved considerably since the time and I look forward to his contributions to the upcoming conference in October 2009.

In a like manner, Integral Ecology's approach to climate change was focused on controversy at the expense of climate change solutions.  Or on the limitations of scientific knowledge or facts at the expense their many important contributions to our understanding of climate change.  Climatologists were mentioned in passing, only to be dismissed.  This is then presented as an "Integral approach to global climate change."

I'm not disputing you that Zoosemiotics or other left-hand methodologies have some insight to offer to climate change.  I'm with you totally on an all-quadrant perspective, the inter-permeability of the quadrants, and on the need for honoring all stages of development on climate change issues.  This of course is impossible to achieve in 7 pages or less.  The book therefore failed to live up to its stated purpose in the section on climate change to offer insight into an Integral analysis and approach to global climate change.  Of course, I realize that this was not the intent of your book, which treats it as one of many "x" eco-issues and was focused instead on presenting an Integral ecology as a whole.  And I look forward to reading a more comprehensive and more thorough Integral analysis on the subject of climate change as you had mentioned above.  Given the enormity of the book and the enormity of the issue itself, however--and that the clock is now ticking on a global solution--at least a full Part or, if not full Part, a full chapter, should have been allocated to climate change issues in an Integral ecology.  The world is still screaming for an integral voice and solution and climate change is hardly one of a number of "x" issues to be considered by an Integral ecology. Only then can you address such an enormous and complex issue integrally instead of partially or inadequately. 

You say that approaching climate change controversies was for the purpose of acknowledging the values and claims of orange, amber, and other stage-level perceptions.  I wholeheartedly commend and support those efforts and goals.  However, your treatment of the various controversies surrounding climate change fails to identify the various questions from their respective stages of development (if  that was its intent).  Instead, it assigns questions into various terrains (quadrants).  Since the quadrants are inter-permeable such that questions can ultimately be addressed from any other quadrant or perspective, the purpose of such an approach seems not very useful.  Perhaps a more meaningful Integral analysis would have taken specific questions--such as the one on "What is the role of volcanoes to climate change?" (for example)--and illustrate how this question would be asked or approached from the four different quadrants.  You could then tailor the question to be suited specifically to methodologies or domains of truth concerned with these various quadrants or terrain-truths (and even from stages of development of I, we, it/its or first, second, third, or fourth-person perspectives) so we could at least know where your questions are "coming from."  Instead, they were asked as if they were totally reasonable to hold from a legitimate scientific or from an Integral perspective.  This rather strained the credibility of the exercise itself given that many of these issues were settled by science many decades ago only to be raised once again by laypersons, science fiction writers, politicians, and popular media.  This of course is not to say that such should not be considered or rejected out of hand, but only that they should be mapped according to their respective quadrant understandings and evaluated accordingly.  

Which could therefore justify an Integral examination of these predominantly right-hand scientific questions from the standpoint of "me," us," and "all of us" or conversely, "I," "we," "it," or "its" to permit all perspectives to be embraced and equally represented.  However, to do so meaningfully without reverting to categorical systems or to postmodern flatland, the same question will have to be posed to every single quadrant and phrased accordingly, and not merely compartmentalized into a specific quadrant and pigeon-holed there.  This allows us to embrace all perspectives while acknowledging that various quadrants are concerned with various kinds of questions but yet are valid concerns nonetheless:

In the UR, for instance, it could ask,

"What is the percentage of sulfur dioxide and black carbon emissions from volcanic ash (in ppm) compared to the presence of CO2 (in ppm) in recent ice core data samples from Antarctica?" 

"Is volcanic eruption released as a gas, dust and particles, bits of glass, or all of the above and if so, how long can its presence in the atmosphere be detected by various instruments?"

In the LR,  they could ask,

"Does sulfur dioxide produce a positive or negative feedback mechanism on climate and, if so, what is its overall role in global climate change?" 

"From 1940-1970, did sulfur dioxide from volcanoes and/or industrial aerosols contribute to a cooling trend globally?" 

"Do the historical records document that aberrant weather conditions (such as summer snow) occurred elsewhere in the world in the year following the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1812?" 

"Do insurance agencies adjust rates based on future emissions projections on climate change and, if so, where do volcanic emissions fit into their overall equations or estimates?"

In the LL, we could ask:

"Is climate change the result of our irresponsibility and invoking the wrath of ancient spirits and the goddess Mauna Loa?" 

"Is the role of volcanoes and natural variations as taught to us by our Rep. Joe Barton or that CO2 is a natural by-product of nature as taught to us by our Rep. Michele Bachman understated by scientists?" 

"Is global warming a commie plot, i.e., the new creed of green after the fall of communism?" 

"Is global warming beneficial for our country?"

In the UR, I might ask:

"Are volcanoes affecting climate just my imagination, something that I dreamed, something that only I believe, or are scientists overlooking something that is very obvious to me?" 

"Since lava and soot from volcanoes are both hot and global warming is hot, what is the connection between the two?" 

"Does meditation show that the role of volcanoes to climate change fine, just as it is, such that nothing needs to be done?" 

"Does Michael Crichton understand the role of volcanoes and negative feedbacks in his critique of bad science in his thriller, State of Fear?"

Obviously, if the questions that you chose for climate change in Integral Ecology are the bare minimum for an Integral analysis, addressing each of them integrally as above would be too time-consuming and beyond the scope of your work to achieve.  But your approach did not achieve an Integral analysis, since various questions were simply placed into various categories based on your and Michael Zimmerman's perceptions of the question.  In addition, the representative questions failed to ask the most relevant and most urgent questions that are currently calling for an Integral analysis (such as "what, exactly, are the controversies within the scientific consensus on climate change that need to be resolved before moving on to policy action?" or "what does Integral propose, given that science is warning us that we only have 3 years left to act before it is too late?"  "Do we have a Plan B?"  "Why is there such a vast disconnect between scientific concerns and the popular majority complacency on the issue?").  My impression is that while you may not necessarily disagree with the consensus on the existence of anthropogenic warming, that you disagree with the consensus on the urgency or severity of climate change itself.  As a consequence, you are unwittingly permitting disputes raised against legitimate science to frame your whole approach toward an Integral analysis and arriving at an inadequate and partial conclusion. 

You wrote:

Barbi’s overemphasis of LR science I feel is part of the limits of non-integral approaches to climate change. It is also worth mentioning that of the 4 (of 200) schools she picks to make her point she ignores many other schools that have an even more obvious contribution to make such as: agricultural ecology, biogeochemistry, bright green environmentalism chaotic ecology, ecological economics, ecosystem ecology, to name just a few.

By the very nature of science--at least in natural science or the "hard sciences"--it must remain non-integral so as to be true to scientific integrity to right-hand knowledge.  Otherwise it becomes subjective and pseudo-scientific and loses its value and scientific integrity.  Not only is it unfair to critique science for being non-integral, it is not even Integral.  At best, it is postmodernism.  Which is fine for what it reveals so long as there is an integral understanding of the integrity of science coupled with that.

At any rate, how would you like it if you took your child to a pediatrician who also practiced faith-based healing, witchcraft, and what not as among the many "x" issues or core principles of their healing or practice?  Or to a climatologist who transcended and included astrology and Neoshamanism into their objective-right-hand knowledge of climate studies or for the sake of being integral?  The thing that bites Integral, ultimately, is how to address climate change Integrally while not reverting to postmodern flatland.

 My "overemphasis" on the LR sciences (i.e., climate science, oceonography--both of which can also be seen as UR sciences) was only to point to the most obvious fact that they were omitted altogether from Integral Ecology.  I find this to be a horrendous oversight given that Integral Ecology is supposed to be an all-inclusive Integral ecology and the fact that climate change is considered to be the greatest threat that is facing humanity today.  Climate science is the foundation for the study of global warming science and climate: without which, we know nothing about "global warming" or "global climate change."  Those other methodologies that you cite can certainly offer their own insights and contributions to climate issues.  But without the foundation of natural science, then you wind up just offering philosophy or some other form of ecology or systems theory but not a true Integral ecology, which embraces all methodologies and quadrants.  

Not to suggest that I'm a climate expert by any means, yet I've done enough research to know that fields such as bright green environmentalism, chaotic ecology, or ecosystem ecology are not represented in the scientific literature in climate science studies (unless they are in reference to methodologies that go by some more traditional name or methodology that I'm more familiar with).  "Bright green environmentalism," on the other hand--sounds like an oxymoron to me, since I automatically associate the colour bright green with the carboniferous period when the oceans were bright green and acidified due to a global warming and a natural runaway greenhouse effect several hundred million years ago. 

But any any rate, this is just my opinion yet one that I am confident is at Yellow/Teal or above. I look forward to reading the rest of the book and offering my feedback. Should I find any errors in my current viewpoint, I will be the first to acknowledge my mistakes.

Richard--thank you so much for validating my concerns and for your refreshing honesty.  After all these weeks, you're the first person I've witnessed in these forums to acknowledge these uneasy feelings as being valid and legitimate concerns from an integral standpoint. 

To counteract these uneasy feelings of 'warm, fuzzy science', I've been posting on and on to the annoyance of the Integral Life community on the science of climate change at the exclusion of every other "truth" considered by an integral ecology.  Not only that--I've been persistently doing so at the exclusion of every other "truth" considered by the Integral Life community (who've since moved on to examine other "truths" for the sake of being Integral). 

I suppose that you could call me stubbornly one-sided to the right-hand exterior quadrants for the sake of being first tier (oh, the horrors!).  Yet somebody has to do it... take the bodhisattva vow to remain first-tier for the salvation of objective science and scientific integrity...  Because otherwise--there is no true integration in the individual or collective.   Understanding climate based on 'warm fuzzy feelings,' rather than science (and then moving on)--is a dumb idea: not integral--but New Age instead. 

But you're actually not the first brother or brethren I've encountered to actually openly acknowledge my concerns and critique the Integral community: Brian is.  So not only is it you and I who are believers but also you, I, and Brian believe that "In an integral worldview, natural science is not sufficient but it is necessary and all too often, it seems, in short supply."  Amen.