A Twitter Conversation Between a Climate Capitalist and a “Conservative, Gun Owning Scientist”

By Boyd Cohen, CO2 IMPACT Recently I've been impressed with the uses of Twitter as a medium for dialog amongst geographically disperesed people with similar (or perhaps very different-see below) interests. Just last week, I was an observer of a scheduled Twitter conversation amongst people engaged in the biofuels sector. They call them biochats (#biochat) and I believe are run by Scott Miller, AKA @BIOblogger. Just a few days I found myself in a 2 way debate with someone with a significantly different perspective than I have regarding climate change. As I am a relatively active Twitterer on the subject of climate change and climate capitalism I sometimes receive messages from climate skeptics. While in the past I used to avoid debates with people who wanted to debate the science of climate change as I see that as a no-win battle because no matter how much grounded science you present them with, if they are convinced climate change is a hoax you are not going to change their mind. However recently I have become more interested in seeing if we can change the dialog. Rather than debate the merits of the science, why not make the argument that even if you don't “believe in climate change” (not sure why it is belief anyway, it is not a religion), why not embrace all the other reason shifting to a low-carbon economy is a good idea such as avoiding dependence on foreign oil, less taxpayer spent on war, financial savings from efficiency or profitable opportunities to transition to a low carbon economy? So @mathis12 whose Twitter description is “A conservative, gun owning scientist with a Ph.D. in Physics who doesn't believe in the hoax of man made global warming.” launched a Tweet my way (and of @co2nation, the new documentary that is a “climate change solutions movie that doesn't even care if you believe in climate change. This time I couldn't resist trying my new approach on him: @boydcohen @co2nation Explain this graph http://twitpic.com/3qqj0f #tcot #p2 #agw Here was my first attempt: Hi Gary @mathis12 The beauty of @co2nation movie and my book Climate Capitalism is even if you don't care/believe there is $ in low carbon Keep in mind it is not easy engaging in this kind of debate in 140 characters and I am just learning how to succinctly pull this off. @mathis 12 Responded: @boydcohen @co2nation Sorry not interested in solving a non problem I thought I might get him with this: @mathis12 Point is there are many "co-benefits" with transition to low-carbon such as less dependence on oil from mid east, save$, make $ I guess I was wrong: @boydcohen Content to let the free market do its job All of us fans of Triple Pundit are well aware of the failings of the free market to solve all kinds of issues like pollution, deforestation, child labor, the hole in the ozone, climate change, etc. but of course not all “conservative, gun owning” citizens appreciate these examples: @mathis12 Free market has failed to help us with our dependence on foreign oil, or to avoid billions $ in gov't spending on wars, deforestat So of course the answer to our oil dependence and free market failings is to just hand out drilling permits for offshore drilling and the Alaskan Arctic Refuge... @boydcohen That's because of govt interference Drill baby drill OK, let's try a new line of thinking: @mathis12 Drilling doesn't solve every problem. How about the $ that can be saved from energy efficiency? It is not only a climate/oil thing Nope that didn't work either: @boydcohen Free market is best when it comes to saving $ If ur system is free market based then OK @boydcohen Free market encourages efficiency to maximize profits OK, how about one last try to use logic to explain that even if we did drill everywhere in order to avoid the conflicts associated with foreign oil. @mathis12 How about the fact that only 22b tons of oil reserves in US http://bit.ly/cUPyYT and 7bn/yr in consumption http://bit.ly/dY0fc5 ? If known reserves are equal to roughly 3 years worth of consumption in the U.S. it becomes obvious that within even new discoveries and blasting the Arctic Refuge we can't survive forever with our own reserves. At the time I wrote this I had not received a response to my last point but I highly doubt he is going to give up that easily. As a former professor I am accustomed to giving out grades so it is time to grade myself in my experiment engaging in a Twitter debate with a skeptic: C+ I have some work to do. Boyd Cohen is the CEO of CO2 IMPACT, a carbon origination company based in Vancouver, Canada and Bogota, Colombia. Boyd is also the co-author of the forthcoming book, Climate Capitalism: Capitalism in the Age of Climate Change. Twitter: boydcohen This series will use the hashtag #climatcaptlsm