Point/Counterpoint

Roger Pielke Jr. Tweeted about a post on the “…and Then There’s Physics” blog, which is run by an anonymous someone who describes themself as “not a climate scientist, but a professional and active scientist who teaches and carries out research at a university in the UK. The views I express here are my own and not those of my employer.” The blog post is about “ClimateBall,” which I do not address here. However, a paragraph in the post is worth thinking about in a Smokey Wire context. The first part of a paragraph in the post is:

It would be wonderful if we could have thoughtful discussion amongst people who broadly disagree, but who are willing to listen to what the other person has to say, give it some thought, and maybe actually agree with some – if not all – of it.

Or maybe not agree with much or any of it, but at least listed and give it some thought. That’s the ideal for our discussions here. However, too often we — myself included, at times — respond this way:

Instead, it’s more about scoring points. Find a way to undermine the other person’s argument. Find a way to undermine their credibility. Find a way to dodge their arguments against your position. Don’t necessarily apply the same standards to yourself as you apply to everyone else (of course, you then make out that you hold a higher moral ground). Again, to be clear, I certainly don’t think this is how it should be conducted; it just appears as though this is – sadly – how it is often conducted.

I’m going to print this paragraph and tape it to my monitor, and look at it before I post anything here…. It might be good if we all did that.

 

 

 

 

 

14 thoughts on “Point/Counterpoint”

  1. I seldom respond to posts but this one brings forth a significantly valuable point in that we should strive to listen and consider all points of view rather that try try score points and cutoff discussion. My dad used to say that if you listen to other people even if you don’t agree with them you might actually learn something.

    Reply
    • Totally agree, Will. I have a running joke with a friend of mine that I should invest in a small, portable whiteboard and pens, so when I hear a statement/conclusion that seems odd, I can ask that person to draw the dots and how they connect them to see what I am missing.

      Given some of the recent local zoning discussions I have been hearing recently in my small community, the 1st paragraph that Steve points out would be good guidance to address divergent perspectives.

      Reply
  2. The concept of scoring points doesn’t mean much to us radical enviros… Visiting old growth forests that were sold off as timber sales and then never cut down because we stopped them is much more important than “scoring points” will ever be. When us enviros win it usually means we return to a wild place that was once scheduled to be destroyed and then it wasn’t. And the joy and beauty of those places, the sense of connection with that landscape and the knowing that all that hard work paid off… It’s beautiful in so many ways.

    On the other side, I doubt proponents of maximizing timber harvest volumes go out into their clearcuts to celebrate the beauty of all their hard work because there’s not that much beauty in what they do to the land, only what they do to dial up the numbers in people’s bank accounts. So it would make sense they probably are way more interested in “scoring points” than us enviros will ever be.

    Reply
    • Your assumptions and accusations mean nothing, considering that your ‘sources’ are mistaken. The last clearcut I participated in was over 30 YEARS ago, and that was a hillside full of dead trees. My jobs were never for “maximizing timber harvest volumes”. It was about following the appropriate documents, which is where you do, actually, “score points”, by getting work done in the woods. You’re going to need a LOT of luck to stop today’s modern projects, especially since loopholes have been closed. Yes, you COULD complain about the current rules, laws and policies, but the courts won’t agree.

      Reply
    • “We shall never be clothed with the righteousness of Christ except we first know assuredly that we have no righteousness of our own.” ~ John Calvin
      So I’m an atheist but am still willing to listen to those who are religious and try to understand them better. Not sure what the point is of participating in a discussion forum if one is not willing to listen to other points of view?

      Reply
      • A- that’s one of those ideas that Christians go around and around about.. focusing on sinfulness of humans, or the idea (inherited from Judaism) that the Divine Spark dwells within.. miserable and wretched worms and sinners, but also made in the image and likeness of God.

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    • Let’s do a little exercise here. Starting with the points laid out in Steve’s quote-text above, let’s see how it applies to what you say, Deane. And out the gate, it’s not that these points militate against your position in any way, but rather with how you hold (and wield) said position.

      “Visiting old growth forests that were sold off as timber sales and then never cut down because we stopped them is much more important than “scoring points” will ever be.”

      Here we have: Find a way to dodge their arguments against your position.

      Why? Because you imply that, of course, the framework that could question the value in how you hold your position simply doesn’t apply, easy as that.

      Why is that a problem? Well, scoring points here is a rhetorical turn used to signify how discourse devolves to claiming “wins” over the other in an adversarial system, so of course you’re interested in scoring points, and you know that. Claiming to exempt yourself from the framework is facile and disingenuous.

      Next: “When us enviros win it usually means we return to a wild place that was once scheduled to be destroyed and then it wasn’t.”

      Here we have: Don’t necessarily apply the same standards to yourself as you apply to everyone else (of course, you then make out that you hold a higher moral ground).

      Why? For one, it’s a clear appeal to the moral high ground, wherein your position is unambiguously morally good vis-a-vis the other position (saving “wild” places from “destruction”). For two, it’s smuggling in the assumption that the wildness of a place is a good to be optimized over others, so when there are losers in these adversarial situations, their loss is discountable. (Whereas, one imagines, a timber sale not enjoined would be construed as an irretrievable and tragic loss of the “wild” to human interference)

      Following that: “On the other side, I doubt proponents of maximizing timber harvest volumes go out into their clearcuts to celebrate the beauty of all their hard work because there’s not that much beauty in what they do to the land, only what they do to dial up the numbers in people’s bank accounts. So it would make sense they probably are way more interested in “scoring points” than us enviros will ever be.”

      Here we have: Don’t necessarily apply the same standards to yourself as you apply to everyone else (of course, you then make out that you hold a higher moral ground).

      Why? Again a clear appeal to the moral high ground, wherein your position is unambiguously morally good.

      Why is this a problem? To answer a question with a question, does the following read like a parody? ‘You and your cause are that of beauty and justice; while that of the government, industry, etc. are “the man” cackling over fat bank accounts and dead landscapes.’ If it does, then you may want to reconsider your post, because that’s exactly what you sound like.

      At the end of the day, you may well be correct about the general problems with carbon dynamic and forestry as it’s currently practiced, I don’t know. But holding your position with a closed fist instead of an open hand makes one think that you’re not doing this to convince anyone but yourself that you’re on the right side of history.

      Reply
      • Deane is like NEPA Alternatives. There is the “No Action Alternative” (preserving forests), and the only other Alternative is absolute utter destruction. Nothing in between, because it doesn’t meet the “Purpose and Need” of Deane’s dogma.

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  3. Hi Deane: I’m not sure how the point system works, but you made a couple of them that I would like to challenge. First, I am very familiar with thousands of acres of forestland that had been “scheduled to be destroyed,” but were somehow “saved” through legal actions initiated by environmental lawyers and nonprofit organizations. Many of these areas have subsequently been “destroyed” by wildfire, as predicted. Even for those litigated places that have avoided wildfire, “joy and beauty” are difficult to experience when needed roads and trails become overgrown, littered with debris and inaccessible to most of us. Further, this lack of access and continued increase in growth will also likely end in fire if there is no intervention. That’s the prediction, anyway.

    Regarding clearcuts, that’s where I killed my first deer, as instructed. Many more followed. Also, thousands of fish. The most spectacular view of Mt. Rainier I ever saw was when I rounded a well-known logging road corner on one of its slopes and the entire crew (about 10 of us) audibly gasped. It was full-sized, amazingly large, and perfectly framed by uncut trees on each side of a new clearcut that had just been felled. I think I even stopped the truck to take a photo, or returned later to do so (I think I still have it somewhere). Before then, trees completely hid the view. Just a wall of tree trunks on a logging road. In addition to hunting and fishing access and occasional amazing new viewpoints, clearcuts are where you go to pick berries and wildflowers, listen to songbirds and photograph butterflies. Most people used to know that.

    Reply
    • I worked on a project on the Mt. Hood NF, and we reached a spot where we could see many of the major volcanic peaks. Jefferson, Hood, St. Helens, Adams and Rainier. All of them snow-capped and impressive, especially to the folks on the crew who had never seen them in person.

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    • Bob, It’s totally irrational and petty to claim that the entire history of legal victories and legislative victories and Presidential designation that have preserved forests in their natural state over the past century have all been destroyed by fire. Especially now that we live in an era where climate change is making sure the future of tree farming highly flammable mono-crop forests is no longer going to be a viable long-term investment.

      As for your claim that your love of the views a clearcut makes is your version of “scoring points,” that speaks more to your demented shallowness in valuing what a forest ecosystem does when it’s allowed to evolve in the same way it has for hundreds of millions of years.

      The points you score in seeing the view says more about your misguided ego’s desire to strip the land of all life so you can re-create the world in your own image, which in this case is a mono-crop plantation vision that has never existed in the evolution of forest ecosystems and is doomed to fail at scale due to climate change.

      Go drive the I-5 corridor north of Portland Oregon. All the young fast growing tree farm trees died back in all the branch tips in the 120′ degree heat dome last Summers, whereas the older more mature remnant trees that are not part of the tree farming only died back in their oldest leaves, not their newest. Fast growing tree farm trees in this corridor have lost the past two years of branch tip growth and all their projected growth rates for years to come are going to be awful because of this one high temperature event. And how many more of these events will these failing trees endure as we keep accelerating how much more carbon we put into the atmosphere year over year?

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  4. This seems to raise the basic question of “why are we here?” (On this blog, not existentially.) I had to look up what “score points” means, but I don’t think most of us are here solely for ego-gratification. Some want to learn the facts, some want to teach them, many want to convince others that a position is right, but “right” often depends on values, and I doubt if we are changing many values here.

    In any case, I see nothing wrong with these techniques the author criticized (both of which are commonly seen when trying to convince a judge who is legally “right”):
    Find a way to undermine the other person’s argument.
    Find a way to undermine their credibility.

    Reply
    • So Jon, I think you’re on to something here. Is the goal to understand and build agreements, or to win? I think adversarial legal culture is certainly to win. But collaboration is all about understanding and building areas of agreement to be able to move forward together.

      In my experience, FS culture and people tend to be less adversarial and more toward building agreements. And perhaps that’s why many of us are uncomfortable with adversarial approaches (find a way to undermine their credibility and so on). And that doesn’t even touch the gender issues around a culture of “fighting” and “winning.”

      To quote Freyer in a paper here (who knew there was a “Journal of Gender and the Law?”)

      “Litigation is a process of fighting for legal rights that fosters courtroom battles. This is due to its adversarial nature and its main objective: winning.9 Not only is justice sacrificed by litigation, but so is the well-being of society and the personal morality of litigators, who are forced to step beyond the bounds of their professional responsibilities in order to win at all cost.
      This is particularly true for women litigators, who often experience conflicts between their professional expectations and natural inclinations.1 2”

      https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1172&context=jgspl

      Reply
      • Rather a provocative statement about the law being immoral, but lawyers can be sanctioned for violating professional responsibilities. To your point though, I think it is hard to see “building agreements” becoming a shared value unless there is a shared desired outcome that can be identified, and that is often not the case – definitely not the case for issues that get litigated.

        Reply

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