Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiThink Again: Climate Change
Act now, we’re told, if we want to save the planet from a climate catastrophe. Trouble is, it might be too late. The science is settled, and the damage has already begun. The only question now is whether we will stop playing political games and embrace the few imperfect options we have left.
"Scientists Are Divided"
No, they're not. In the early years of the global warming debate, there was great controversy over whether the planet was warming, whether humans were the cause, and whether it would be a significant problem. That debate is long since over. Although the details of future forecasts remain unclear, there's no serious question about the general shape of what's to come.
Every national academy of science, long lists of Nobel laureates, and in recent years even the science advisors of President George W. Bush have agreed that we are heating the planet. Indeed, there is a more thorough scientific process here than on almost any other issue: Two decades ago, the United Nations formed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and charged its scientists with synthesizing the peer-reviewed science and developing broad-based conclusions. The reports have found since 1995 that warming is dangerous and caused by humans. The panel's most recent report, in November 2007, found it is "very likely" (defined as more than 90 percent certain, or about as certain as science gets) that heat-trapping emissions from human activities have caused "most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century."
If anything, many scientists now think that the IPCC has been too conservative-both because member countries must sign off on the conclusions and because there's a time lag. Its last report synthesized data from the early part of the decade, not the latest scary results, such as what we're now seeing in the Arctic.
In the summer of 2007, ice in the Arctic Ocean melted. It melts a little every summer, of course, but this time was different-by late September, there was 25 percent less ice than ever measured before. And it wasn't a one-time accident. By the end of the summer season in 2008, so much ice had melted that both the Northwest and Northeast passages were open. In other words, you could circumnavigate the Arctic on open water. The computer models, which are just a few years old, said this shouldn't have happened until sometime late in the 21st century. Even skeptics can't dispute such alarming events.
"We Have Time"Wrong. Time might be the toughest part of the equation. That melting Arctic ice is unsettling not only because it proves the planet is warming rapidly, but also because it will help speed up the warming. That old white ice reflected 80 percent of incoming solar radiation back to space; the new blue water left behind absorbs 80 percent of that sunshine. The process amps up. And there are many other such feedback loops. Another occurs as northern permafrost thaws. Huge amounts of methane long trapped below the ice begin to escape into the atmosphere; methane is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Such examples are the biggest reason why many experts are now fast-forwarding their estimates of how quickly we must shift away from fossil fuel. Indian economist Rajendra Pachauri, who accepted the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize alongside Al Gore on behalf of the IPCC, said recently that we must begin to make fundamental reforms by 2012 or watch the climate system spin out of control; NASA scientist James Hansen, who was the first to blow the whistle on climate change in the late 1980s, has said that we must stop burning coal by 2030. Period.
All of which makes the Copenhagen climate change talks that are set to take place in December 2009 more urgent than they appeared a few years ago. At issue is a seemingly small number: the level of carbon dioxide in the air. Hansen argues that 350 parts per million is the highest level we can maintain "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted." But because we're already past that mark-the air outside is currently about 387 parts per million and growing by about 2 parts annually-global warming suddenly feels less like a huge problem, and more like an Oh-My-God Emergency.
"Climate Change Will Help as Many Places as It Hurts"Wishful thinking. For a long time, the winners-and-losers calculus was pretty standard: Though climate change will cause some parts of the planet to flood or shrivel up, other frigid, rainy regions would at least get some warmer days every year. Or so the thinking went. But more recently, models have begun to show that after a certain point almost everyone on the planet will suffer. Crops might be easier to grow in some places for a few decades as the danger of frost recedes, but over time the threat of heat stress and drought will almost certainly be stronger.
A 2003 report commissioned by the Pentagon forecasts the possibility of violent storms across Europe, megadroughts across the Southwest United States and Mexico, and unpredictable monsoons causing food shortages in China. "Envision Pakistan, India, and China-all armed with nuclear weapons-skirmishing at their borders over refugees, access to shared rivers, and arable land," the report warned. Or Spain and Portugal "fighting over fishing rights-leading to conflicts at sea."
Of course, there are a few places we used to think of as possible winners-mostly the far north, where Canada and Russia could theoretically produce more grain with longer growing seasons, or perhaps explore for oil beneath the newly melted Arctic ice cap. But even those places will have to deal with expensive consequences-a real military race across the high Arctic, for instance.
Want more bad news? Here's how that Pentagon report's scenario played out: As the planet's carrying capacity shrinks, an ancient pattern of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies would reemerge. The report refers to the work of Harvard archaeologist Steven LeBlanc, who notes that wars over resources were the norm until about three centuries ago. When such conflicts broke out, 25 percent of a population's adult males usually died. As abrupt climate change hits home, warfare may again come to define human life. Set against that bleak backdrop, the potential upside of a few longer growing seasons in Vladivostok doesn't seem like an even trade.
"It's China's Fault"Not so much. China is an easy target to blame for the climate crisis. In the midst of its industrial revolution, China has overtaken the United States as the world's biggest carbon dioxide producer. And everyone has read about the one-a-week pace of power plant construction there. But those numbers are misleading, and not just because a lot of that carbon dioxide was emitted to build products for the West to consume. Rather, it's because China has four times the population of the United States, and per capita is really the only way to think about these emissions. And by that standard, each Chinese person now emits just over a quarter of the carbon dioxide that each American does. Not only that, but carbon dioxide lives in the atmosphere for more than a century. China has been at it in a big way less than 20 years, so it will be many, many years before the Chinese are as responsible for global warming as Americans.
What's more, unlike many of their counterparts in the United States, Chinese officials have begun a concerted effort to reduce emissions in the midst of their country's staggering growth. China now leads the world in the deployment of renewable energy, and there's barely a car made in the United States that can meet China's much tougher fuel-economy standards.
For its part, the United States must develop a plan to cut emissions-something that has eluded Americans for the entire two-decade history of the problem. Although the U.S. Senate voted down the last such attempt, Barack Obama has promised that it will be a priority in his administration. He favors some variation of a "cap and trade" plan that would limit the total amount of carbon dioxide the United States could release, thus putting a price on what has until now been free.
Despite the rapid industrialization of countries such as China and India, and the careless neglect of rich ones such as the United States, climate change is neither any one country's fault, nor any one country's responsibility. It will require sacrifice from everyone. Just as the Chinese might have to use somewhat more expensive power to protect the global environment, Americans will have to pay some of the difference in price, even if just in technology. Call it a Marshall Plan for the environment. Such a plan makes eminent moral and practical sense and could probably be structured so as to bolster emerging green energy industries in the West. But asking Americans to pay to put up windmills in China will be a hard political sell in a country that already thinks China is prospering at its expense. It could be the biggest test of the country's political maturity in many years.
"Climate Change Is an Environmental Problem"Not really. Environmentalists were the first to sound the alarm. But carbon dioxide is not like traditional pollution. There's no Clean Air Act that can solve it. We must make a fundamental transformation in the most important part of our economies, shifting away from fossil fuels and on to something else. That means, for the United States, it's at least as much a problem for the Commerce and Treasury departments as it is for the Environmental Protection Agency.
And because every country on Earth will have to coordinate, it's far and away the biggest foreign-policy issue we face. (You were thinking terrorism? It's hard to figure out a scenario in which Osama bin Laden destroys Western civilization. It's easy to figure out how it happens with a rising sea level and a wrecked hydrological cycle.)
Expecting the environmental movement to lead this fight is like asking the USDA to wage the war in Iraq. It's not equipped for this kind of battle. It may be ready to save Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is a noble undertaking but on a far smaller scale. Unless climate change is quickly de-ghettoized, the chances of making a real difference are small.
"Solving It Will Be Painful"It depends. What's your definition of painful? On the one hand, you're talking about transforming the backbone of the world's industrial and consumer system. That's certainly expensive. On the other hand, say you manage to convert a lot of it to solar or wind power-think of the money you'd save on fuel.
And then there's the growing realization that we don't have many other possible sources for the economic growth we'll need to pull ourselves out of our current economic crisis. Luckily, green energy should be bigger than IT and biotech combined.
Almost from the moment scientists began studying the problem of climate change, people have been trying to estimate the costs of solving it. The real answer, though, is that it's such a huge transformation that no one really knows for sure. The bottom line is, the growth rate in energy use worldwide could be cut in half during the next 15 years and the steps would, net, save more money than they cost. The IPCC included a cost estimate in its latest five-year update on climate change and looked a little further into the future. It found that an attempt to keep carbon levels below about 500 parts per million would shave a little bit off the world's economic growth-but only a little. As in, the world would have to wait until Thanksgiving 2030 to be as rich as it would have been on January 1 of that year. And in return, it would have a much-transformed energy system.
Unfortunately though, those estimates are probably too optimistic. For one thing, in the years since they were published, the science has grown darker. Deeper and quicker cuts now seem mandatory.
But so far we've just been counting the costs of fixing the system. What about the cost of doing nothing? Nicholas Stern, a renowned economist commissioned by the British government to study the question, concluded that the costs of climate change could eventually reach the combined costs of both world wars and the Great Depression. In 2003, Swiss Re, the world's biggest reinsurance company, and Harvard Medical School explained why global warming would be so expensive. It's not just the infrastructure, such as sea walls against rising oceans, for example. It's also that the increased costs of natural disasters begin to compound. The diminishing time between monster storms in places such as the U.S. Gulf Coast could eventually mean that parts of "developed countries would experience developing nation conditions for prolonged periods." Quite simply, we've already done too much damage and waited too long to have any easy options left.
"We Can Reverse Climate Change"If only. Solving this crisis is no longer an option. Human beings have already raised the temperature of the planet about a degree Fahrenheit. When people first began to focus on global warming (which is, remember, only 20 years ago), the general consensus was that at this point we'd just be standing on the threshold of realizing its consequences-that the big changes would be a degree or two and hence several decades down the road. But scientists seem to have systematically underestimated just how delicate the balance of the planet's physical systems really is.
The warming is happening faster than we expected, and the results are more widespread and more disturbing. Even that rise of 1 degree has seriously perturbed hydrological cycles: Because warm air holds more water vapor than cold air does, both droughts and floods are increasing dramatically. Just look at the record levels of insurance payouts, for instance. Mosquitoes, able to survive in new places, are spreading more malaria and dengue. Coral reefs are dying, and so are vast stretches of forest.
None of that is going to stop, even if we do everything right from here on out. Given the time lag between when we emit carbon and when the air heats up, we're already guaranteed at least another degree of warming.
The only question now is whether we're going to hold off catastrophe. It won't be easy, because the scientific consensus calls for roughly 5 degrees more warming this century unless we do just about everything right. And if our behavior up until now is any indication, we won't.
120 Comments so far
Show AllMcKibben needs an editor.
"Human beings have already raised the temperature of the planet about a degree Fahrenheit. "
No, no, no. Per the latest science we raised the global median 1.8 degrees Celsius not Fahrenheit! Two degrees C is the tipping point, three degrees C is the Point of No Return (runaway is 3+degrees C), Six degrees C is extinction. He must have missed Natgeo's recent documentary (narrated by the eldest Baldwin bro) "Six Degrees Can Change the World".
I love Bill like a brother but, man oh man, we have GOT to get the details right! His ending paragraphs are downright wimpy thanks to his metrics gaffe.
Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979. http://www.dailytech.com/Sea+Ice+Ends+Year+at+Same+Level+as+1979/article13834.htm
The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.
Rickster
The arctic sea ice is right now at its 2008 level, which was a record loss.
Ice information is updated on a daily basis. Check the first chart the National Snow and Ice Data Center at:
http://www.nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html
If you read the article, the sea ice being referred to is first year sea ice and the assumption that it would grow more slowly was wrong -- it grows faster than multi year sea ice because there is no snow cover to insulate it. You can't really compare first year ice to multi year ice as the multi year ice is much denser (more compressed) and takes a lot longer to melt. What happens next summer regarding this first year ice is more important than how much it grows this winter.
Every March, we have an awesome Ice Festival in Fairbanks (google for photos). The ice comes from a gravel pit which is kept clear of snow so that the ice freezes clear. Harvesting usually starts about now, except this year it is too cold to run the machinery right now. The ice is at least four feet thick and the harvested blocks are four feet by four feet by eight feet long.
Hundreds of them. That is a lot of ice. But by late April, it is all melted. By early May the ice has gone out on the big rivers.
By late June we are cutting hay which has grown three to four feet since the field greened up one month earlier (late May).
The solar incidence is tremendous. If this first year ice referenced above does not melt next summer, then it may signal something. If it does melt, then its presence means nothing except that it is winter in the Arctic (well, duh, it's been fifty degrees below zero here for over a week now).
You doom and gloom people are always coming up with some excuse. Who knows it may all melt away next summer but then again it might not melt at all. To bad it's to cold to run the machinery right now I bet its never has happen before.
Rickster
Happens all the time. It will warm up next week and they'll start harvesting the ice and we will have another AMAZING ice festival. For photos of previous festivals try googling Ice Alaska. When the sculptures are lit up at night they are so beautiful.
There is some comfort for me in the geologic view........ I hear cries of "save the planet"... Well the truth is that planet earth is not going anywhere, and in a relatively short span of time on the geologic scale, humanity will be but a memory. In our self centered view, life as it exists is infinitely valuable, and the species that currently inhabit this planet are also incredibly valuable. We view the environment in terms only of humanities survival.... or the survival of what we are comfortable and familiar with. The truth is that when mankind, and all the plants and animals with which we are familiar disappear to be replaced by what? Barren rock with lichen on it perhaps..... a return to "primordial slime".... our existence and that of our fellow species will be but a footnote in history. It really will not matter one iota. What actually do we have to contribute of value.... what do we offer that is so incredibly valuable that our existence is so important, that the obliteration of life as we know it is a huge tragedy. The dinosaurs came and went..... and their loss is not really mourned....... it is just a curiosity. How are we different? Our view of the world in incredibly self centered both as individuals and as a species, and as one of a host of species that inhabit the earth. Not surprisingly we place an absurdly high value on our species and our civilization.
Like many others I look forward with dread anticipation to the fall of civilization as we know it...... an event that quite likely will not take place in my lifetime..... but could.... who knows. How much do any of us really care beyond our own short existence on this planet as individuals........If one is to judge by human behavior, it's not much at all.
Howard
The methodology used by Lockwood and Frölish to smooth the lines was applied only to maxima of R (sunspot number), dismissing the TSI. This practice hides the minima, which for the issue are more important than the maxima. For example, if the minimum of TSI in 1975 was 1365.5 W/m^2, it would contrast dramatically with the minimum of TSI of 1998 that was 1366 W/m^2 (0.033% higher). That would make the Sun in 1975 “colder” than in 1998. However, if we compare minimum values with maximum values, then the Sun would be frankly “warmer” in 1998 -when the solar energy output was 1366 W/m^2- than in 1975 -when the energy output was 1366.1111 W/m^2. Today (21/07/07), the global TSI was 1367.6744 W/m^2); hence, we see that we must not smooth maxima values through movable trends because we would be hiding the minima values, which are more important because the baseline of the “cooler” or lower nuclear activity of the Sun are higher everyday. The coolest period of the Sun happened during the Maunder Minimum when the TSI was 1363.5 W/m^2. The coolest period of the Sun from 1985 to date occurred in 1996 when the TSI was 1365.6211 W/m^2. An interesting blotch is that in 1985 the TSI was 1365.6506 W/m^2 and in 2000 was 1366.6744."
Of course humans are not causing global warming! The earth is God's popsicle and he has taken some licks at the North pole. Hence the melted sea ice. Watch for the disappearing Greenland icecap as he eats more.
OH ya....for those of you that don't know. The Pacific Ocean has about a 40 year cycle in the PDO. And we are not talking the cycles within the cycle.
There are El Nino and La Nina embedded within this 40 year cycle. I am talking the long term cycle.
And now I understand why the 6-10 day and the 10-14 day forcasts change trend almost every day.
Galen:
Take a look at what effect the shift in the PDO from warm phase to cool phase, coupled with what looks like back to back La Nina events and you will see the reason for all the snow in Vancouver. Here as well.
I talked to the state climatologist today. Live in the Middle high upper midwest USA. I asked him what the current trends portray as far as the 2009 growing season. He said cold and wet. He also stated that the La Nina conditions back to back are not commom, and didn't know the reason for the La Nina starting right now. Now....I will state that the cooling needs more time to become an official La Nina, but it is sure going in that direction rapidly.
I also asked him what he felt the long term effect of the switch in the PDO would mean for our area. He said we would have colder winters, and cooler summers as that trend had been firmly established for 100's of years.
I asked him also about global temps, as he is a brother to Al Gore when it comes to climate. He stated the current change in trend did NOT obliterate the past 100 years warming, but if the trend continued, it would be very troublesome as a few more years with these types of temp drop would erase the past 100 years warming and change the cropping practices quit dramatically that we have today.
I also asked him about the co2 driver. He said it is an important driver, but that water vapor vastly overshadows co2 as a driver, and that that area is hard to predict. He was also concerned about the solar minimum. He said it had minimal effect on our temps tho. I asked him about the solar wind deminishing so much in the past 50 years. He was surprised that I knew about this. His response to that was,....we are not sure what that means and how it will affect the temp long term.
I then asked him......ok....water vapor seems hard to get a handle on...and you are not sure what the solar influence really is. Aren't these two items quit important? His answer was, yes they are but the information available to use in the models is not as yet reliable and requires more study.
I then point blank asked him......if those two things are not reliable, what use are the models???????????????? At this point he was getting very defensive, and stated we are doing the best projections with what we have.
I then asked him.....ok......what is your certainty that the models you are using are accurate. His response?.........after some hemming and hawing.....
Well.....it appears that the certainty is over 50%.
I shook my head.....thanked him.....and hung up. So here I am.....trying to plan for my 2009 crop using the models etc.....and it is a crap shoot?
With that my friends.......take your models and put them in your pipe and do what you wish with them. I have never been so flabbergasted in my life.
Who has a way to explain the information shown on Gore/IPCC's ice core data chart of Temp/CO2 that Al shows in his book and movie, "An Inconv Truth"?
CHINA'S FAULT......... In that section there is a very important..... and very wrong statement. That statement is that "per capita" is the only way to look at CO2 emissions. This is exactly the WRONG way to look at emissions. The root problem of virtually every problem we face today is overpopulation. It is vital to the future of humanity that we REDUCE..... not stabilize, or reach zero growth.... but reduce.... population. More people means more consumption and more pollution, and more problems..... That's a given.
Howard
Ok, let's nuke China and India, there goes 1/3 of the population. Or how else do you suggest this be accomplished?
It is GLOBAL WARMING -- and that makes clear that the heat is on.
And the HEAT has a 50 year delay --!!
What we are feeling/experiencing at this point only reflects our
activities up to 1958 -- !!
Again, I'm reminded of a comment by a woman from the Bikini Islands
after our government NUKED them ...
"Americans are really smart about really stupid things."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
You good-hearted folks out there who actually believe that technology will solve the looming crises that Techno-Industrialism itself has caused are obviously not scientists, engineers, or technologists. You're worried about the impact of our present civilization on future generations, yet the same "scientific" elite who have got you in a tizzy over climate change (as normal and natural as birth and death itself) have boasted, publicly, of their intentions to reduce the global population by 95% as soon as possible (c.f. UN document Agenda 21: http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?documentID=52). So these sociopaths are obviously not truly interested in the sustenance of future generations but rather its reduction...and eventual obsolescence.
They not only want to drastically reduce the population of Homo Sapiens right away, but in the long run the bioengineers want to "upgrade" Homo Sapiens to Homo Sapiens 2.0, an intentionally wimpy species even more dumbed-down than Joe Six Pack munching his Coco Puffs and swilling his Pepsi while "enjoying" the latest Paris Hilton scandal on Fox News. Don't you get it. You and I are absolute trash to them. They are only using us on their way to their Technotopia where only they are free and everybody else is as "loved" as the family cow. Climate Change hysteria is the "Leftist" equivalent of the "Right's" War on Terror. Both are totally toxic pseudo-religion for the intentionally dumbed-down masses to consume to their own demise. "Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing." Lots more on these topics at www.sillyConValley.net Take it from a Silicon Valley veteran: Silicon Valley is really sillyConValley(); "They set out to change the world...Instead the world changed them.
The climate change is nothing other than a mass extinction event, at over 140 species per day. Humans are just one of those species, and perhaps one of the most adaptable ones, outside of cockroaches and a few others. A few more disasters, and we may just have the right kind of pressure we need to shift our cultural mindset away from competition and survival of the fittest towards cooperation and partnership. Duh. When we begin to define ourselves as participants in systemic networks, as in the internet, it's hard to deny that we have a response-ability to mind our P's and Q's. Right now, it's blame, blame, blame, it ain't me, babe, blam, blam, pow.
A first step in the right direction will be to confront the incessant militarism of the USA, and the violent "problem-solving" mentality of Americans through the establishment of a cabinet-level Department of Peace, HR 808 in the 110th Congress. The economic power generated by re-directing our energies toward non-violent conflict resolution will be more than enough to create ingenious solutions to what now appear to be overwhelming problems. The opportunity is there. The alternative is extinction.
I don't know. Having a significant human die back might be a good thing.
And I didn't before, but I do now, support Zero Population Growth. There are simply too many humans for this planet to support. Multiple government and scholaly bodies agree we are well past the carrying capacity of this planet. TO support the continuation of the lifestyle we enjoy will require the resources of another 3-5 earthlike planets.
And the last time I looked, such real estate is pretty damn scarce in our neck of the woods. Let alone any technology, short of imaginary TV special effect to do anything about gettingb there or extracting the needed resources.
Walk in peace.
"TO support the continuation of the lifestyle we enjoy will require the resources of another 3-5 earthlike planets."
That's if the whole world enjoys a lifestyle similar to that of the average American, which a huge majority of the world's population does not.
Bearing in mind that it is the WESTERN minority that is consuming the MAJORITY of the resources...
Walk in peace.
Before we consign billions of people to the round file, let's get light of Profit, War, Corporations, Beef, and Internal combustion.
True though, the carrying capacity of the "life style we enjoy" is problematic.
On another, related subject, may I ask if you have seen/studied that chart of temp/CO2 ice core data that IPCC and Gore submitted for their Nobel prize?
The only way I know to study it is by buying/library chkout the book. But I have appreciated your posts in the past and would value your evaluation of the info on that chart.
Thanks.
Snydly
real world:
Kinda like saying banks don't lend money so lets pay them billions just to support the Republicans biggest financial supporters.
EVERYONE needs to get their priorities straight.
YES our priority should be saving the planet first and foremost.
You can't even have your failed system of free-market capitalism and Republican giveaways to the wealthiest 1% without that.
"Kinda like saying banks don't lend money so lets pay them billions just to support the Republicans biggest financial supporters"
Kinda but banks do lend money to everyone, that's how we got into this mess. They lent money to people that can't pay it back, like the automakers.
My point was that "progressives" were ready to throw the auto industry under the bus to promote their "global warming is caused by man" theory but now they want to give money to the automakers just to support unions. By the way I like your posts they're very informative.
No, I still want to chuck the automakers over the cliff. They should NOT have been given fictional billions in fiat currency to try to keep the dream alive.
BTW, if you had paid attention, you would have noticed that the money was given to the Detriot Three with the proviso they must prove to be 'completly viable' by the end of Febuary. And I am quoting GWB there.
Here's the trick: how do companies on the verge of utter implosion prove their 'viability' in less than one business quarter?
Answer: They don't.
The real smoke and mirror trick here is that the Detroit Big Three will probably collapse during the opening days of the Obama presidency. Which is exactly the plan.
It's not just global warming/Climate change that we are facing here.
We are also looking at multiple simultaneous resource depletion, including, but not limited to: oil, natural gas, helium, metallic ores, fresh potable water, uncontaminated arable land... in short we are looking are the ecological causes of imperial failure, but on a global scale.
And another thing, to those of you who say climate change is a conspiracy of eco-freaks and socialists (yes, I mean you Siggy and Mimi). I'm living with the consquences of global climate change right now. In Vancouver, BC. Where we have had more snow, and snow storms than any other time in local recorded history. And that goes back well over 150 years. We have over 1 meter of snow on the ground right now in urban areas. In an area that normally sees less than 30cm. I don't have a doctorate in climate science. Or any of the other sciences you cherry pick your contrary 'evidence' from. But I can understand that a rise in global temperatures causes more water vapor to evaporate from the oceans, which meets the decending cold air mass from the Arctic, which has in turn been brought down by the suppresion of the North Atlantic Current, thereby causing it to snow more, and more often.
The 'unusual' winter conditions North America and Europe have been enduring is not a refutation of global warming. They are confirmation. The world is attempting to regain homeostasis, balance, in an effort to keep the biosphere viable for terrestrial life as we know it.
Walk in peace.
The weather channel has a lot of coverage on the rain and flooding in your area. It will be bad for you.
I live in Indianapolis. This winter has been very rainy and, unfortunately, icy. I used to think of ice as something that occurred once in the winter and stayed south of us. Not this year.
I listen to the daily climate reports on my weather radio. As of today, we have had 2.7 inches of snow. That's all. The little we had faded away or was covered by ice or rain. North of us, they've had a lot of snow. Today, we're getting some light snow. Imagine that - snow in midwinter. Later today, I'll dust off my snow shovel and clear it off.
Something is definitely different with weather.
Free market capitalism will not solve these problems. Socialism now. The only answer.
"Free market capitalism will not solve these problems. Socialism now. The only answer."
What's the only answer? To pay the car makers to make cars that won't sell just to support the democrat party's biggest financial supporter, the unions??
"progressives" need to get their priorities straight.
Dumb response. Typical Republican lies and mumbo jumbo.
Last I checked the auto companies are private companies.
The larger point is that we have tried free market capitalism since Ronnie Raygun came to town. Actually since Jimmy Carter took over.
It has failed us miserably and has led us to where we are now.
Why did the financial markets melt down? Why were risky mortgages valued at AAA?
Regulation was gutted, rating services were bought out.
Market forces WILL NOT stop financial meltdown. Market forces WILL NOT solve global warming.
Market forces only lead to greed, gaming the system, anti-competitive monopolies.
Market forces have contributed to good jobs being shipped overseas and a relentless class war that has nearly destroyed the middle class and impoverished millions as our cities have become third world nations unto themselves.
We the people need government to protect us from the rapacious out of control corporatism of every aspect of American life.
"Conservatives" need to get their facts straight.
Getting your head out of your ass might help.
"Last I checked the auto companies are private companies"
Well at least you got something right. So why are we taxpayers lending money to automakers? And Chrysler in particular they are privately owned and not even openly traded on the stock market.
Well if you have to ask ...
Politics, son.
The same reason that we the taxpayers are lending money to the banks.
And it will continue in BIPARTISAN FASHION until our system is changed.
If we the people are lending money to the automakers, the banks, airlines and other industries WE bail out, we should GET something in return in terms of EQUITY.
That's how the world works, right?
In other words WE THE PEOPLE should own large stakes in the banks, the automakers, the airlines.
The population of the planet increases at three people per second.
Resources are finite.
Nothing will change because no one wants to be the one to stop breeding and shopping. Everyone wants the other person to conserve.
Very few out there want to stop breeding and shopping. The reason for this is that they cannot imagine anything else. Most are so dumbed down and have become emotional wrecks. This is thanks to the consumer culture we have created. Walking around in the stores this past holiday season you could not help but to see how many looked like they were in a trance and total shock. Walking robots. The continues bombardment of sales ads and mostly useless information has put everyone on tilt.
"Walking around in the stores this past holiday season you could not help but to see how many looked like they were in a trance and total shock."
I stayed out of the major corporate stores. The people I seen were happy and helpful. I didn't have the difficult time of picking between junk on one shelf and junk on the other shelf either. I was in the store, had my selections in hand and was on my way again in a matter of minutes. Only once did I have to wait in line and had a pleasant conversation with a gentle man behind me.
You won't see that at wal-mart. Even if you just buy one thing at wal-mart it takes close to an hour from the parking lot and back to your car. Time it some time.
I may or may not pay a little higher shopping at locally own stores but I get a better product without any of the inconveniences of the major corporate stores. Friendlier and actual knowledgeable service too.
Rickster
In the case of the computer models that are used for global warming, I know that the hydrological cycle is a critical component of those models, and the hydrological cycle is not well understood," Davis said.
Check out the truth, think about it, and lets all work together.
ardee:
There is a saturation point in what co2 can do for climate change. Be careful when blaming all warming etc on co2.
Water vapor plays a much larger role in the temp of the earth than co2 does. The hydro element of the climate is not yet well understood and seems to be a major cause of erroring in the models.
To those who think the only thing that affect our climate is co2, as the science is progressing, it shows that co2 is less and less of an important player.
Water vapor is becoming more and more of an important player.
With all that in mind tho, that does not mean that one should use carbon for the heck of it. IT is a finite resource, and the cause of more economic turmoil than you can shake a stick at.
.Actually methane warms far more than CO2.. the real point is that man made endeavors are altering the natural functions of our planet, many conjecture that this will lead to much disaster. It seems only the intelligent and self serving thing to do to seek alternatives to energy production that will lessen or negate the harmful effects and possibly even ensure the survival of our species.
I must note that I see your objection to the theories of global warming to be only rational when viewed as attempts to justify the continuing profit of those industries that would be most impacted by moving to newer and cleaner technologies.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
The mere word "conservative" is fraught with so many Orwellian subtones these daze it's hard to remember what the basic definition of "conservatism" is anymore. But I've been following the issue of global warming since the late 1980s and it always struck me that the most intelligently CONSERVATIVE thing to do would be to take out some insurance against runaway global warming AND increase the availability of fossil fuels for future generations of human beings by strictly conserving greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels and learning how to rely more on alternative, cleaner, renewable resources. So-called post-Reagan "conservatives" (including right-wing DLC corporatist Dimocrats) schizophrenically do the exact opposite. They very liberally gamble on the prospect that global warming may or may not be taking place but, either way, they just aren't conservative enough to take any common sense cautionary measures to forestall it in case it is happening. These same pinheads will pay extra for better warranties on their giant screen TVs and SUVs and buy car insurance to boot and feel all smug and "conservative" about it.
It's like the same "conservatives" calling tree huggers "radicals" and "liberals" for wanting to protect 800 year old old growth forests from clear cutting when the clear cuts themselves are THE most historically recent and radical part of that equation and recognizing the environmental, economic and cultural need to preserve at least some of that old growth would be, in fact, a more traditionally conservative perspective. Native American Indians conserved our old growth forests for millenniums before Europeans arrived and were outstandingly conservative in preserving them intact for us to obliterate all but a tiny percentage of them in less than two centuries.
Global warming naysayers are taking a mighty dumb gamble and they don't have a single good economic, environmental or cultural reason that really adds up as to why human beings shouldn't try to release far less greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Properly managed, a transition to a greener more sustainable economy is probably the LAST chance America has to create a middle class job growth engine to replace the false economy we've been living in since the end of the techno bubble in 2000.
So, regardless of the science, the common sense arguments for shifting to an economic paradigm that relies less on fossil fuels are vastly superior to anything coming from the naysayers--most of whom sound like a bunch of nitpicking bean counters who can't tell the trees from the clearcut.
.
ah, yes, beautifully and concisely stated. and very restful. thank you.
Sillycon and Siggy: You guys' posts really get me delving. Siggy's PDO has some credibility and you can even see it on the GISS temp maps. Google Miskolczi or Zagoni and you find every skeptic site on the web. It has a "soap opera" quality about it. Is Miskolczi the genius who proved his NASA bosses wrong, or is it just sour grapes because they saw the flaws in his model? And his countryman Zagoni coming to his defense! More fun than "Who shot JR"!
Time will tell. Maybe as soon as 2011-12. Do you guys (and Mimi) really want to take a chance on 450, 500 or 600 ppm CO2? With glacial water sources gone, heat waves, droughts, monster cyclones, sea level rise, methane feedback... and the oceans devoid of life because plankton and coral carbonates can't form?
Talking about 30-40 year cycles, that's about how long its been since the last pick-up ice hockey game on our local reservoir. My Dad used to be a really good skater. Now you have to take indoor lessons around here.
It's that 'soap opera' quality alone that raises my suspicion flag.
I'd encourage everyone to employ the "Crackpot Index" when assessing the statements of so-called 'Maverick scientists'...those Einstein wannabe's who are desperate to overturn all of current thought on topic A or B with no formal training in the field.
They are enamored of the Ramathan's (sp) of the world.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html
There are several arguments that they all dance around.
From the bald-faced lies..like about antarctic ice
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4228411.stm
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23053212-11949,00.html
(that last one is worrying as it is yet another example of what I've been repeatedly hearing...that the current understanding is climate change will be far more rapid than the International report let on based on the new data)
To confusing arguments like PDO. Which strikes me as requiring a relative difference in temperature rather than an absolute difference. After reading NASA's site on PDO it seems to me that you can still have a PDO even if the planet's average temperature were 10 degrees C hotter...the key to such an oscillation is a local warming or cooling relative to the average. As I have said earlier, based on what I have read it is not clear that this represents any kind of absolute cooling.
The arguments are typical of the kind employed by people who do not have any wish to understand and are politically motivated. They follow many tactics.
1). Lies are told and stated authoritatively. I'm not saying Silly or Siggy are lying on purpose, but many of the sources they cite certainly are. They could be unwitting rubes but as I see more and more evidence pile up and have watched their posts over the years my generosity on that score is getting harder to maintain.
2). A lack of appreciation of scale. The classic example of this is the argument I recently encountered about the sun being the cause of Global warming. When presented with the simple facts that the evidence from measurements of total solar output reaching the earth didn't support that conclusion, a "new magnetic effect" was postulated. There are numerous problems with this. Magnetic effects from the sun reaching the earth are not new nor are they unmeasurable. So in order for this effect to have been recently discovered it either must be very much weaker than the other forms of solar output or it must not be very strong by the time it gets to the earth. The simple scale is all out of proportion. But it's 'new' and therefore 'unknown' and anything 'unknown' MUST be a bigger effect.....no it cannot be.
3). Sowing confusion. A classic example of this was the argument I saw on here about a year ago regarding the levels of C02 in the atmosphere. The discussion descended into "local high concentrations of C02" which was complete bull. It doesn't take more than a couple of years for a local concentration of anything atmospheric to distribute itself globally. Remember the Pinatubo eruption? Ash was spread world wide within a year and you can still see that ash in the ice cores they take today in Greenland and the antarctic. I'm not concerned with this specific argument, but the general idea of trying to make something harder than it really is as a foil for questioning the results.
4). The shifting of the argument. I've seen that happen here too. As another specific example There is certainly a lot of wishful thinking on the part of the so-called 'green' movement regarding renewable resources. Sometimes the posts about 'wind' or 'solar' are full of foolishness and in this respect I often (reluctantly) find myself in agreement with Silly and Siggy and Mimi and their ilk. But climate change is a natural phenomenon and is really orthogonal to arguments about C02 mitigation. This example again is only one of many argument shifts used to try to discredit a science that is only becoming more credible, not less.
You probably would have had to take indoor lessons in the 30's and 40's, but they did not exist.
3 Courses of action will cause our civilization hardwired to, and completely dependent on, fossil fuels ( Oil, Gas, Coal ) to collapse back to a much simpler level more consistent with the 18c and 1 course of action could have eased us with minimal pain back to that level. 1st ,We go "cold turkey" on fossil fuels cutting back to 20% in 5 years :result? Total Chaos. 2nd, we continue with "business as usual" and climate change forecloses on us leading to collapse. 2a,We make ineffectual efforts, making bureaucrats rich, to cut back emissions and collapse occurs anyway :The climate debt collector is not satisfied with part payments! 3rd, Besides "cold turkey" or "business as usual" the 3rd option : "You've eaten your cake and there ain't any left,plus the climate change debt collector is evicting you" leads to collapse as oil,gas and coal are running out.Oil peaked in 2005 and is depleting,gas will soon follow and coal shortly after,plus this do nothing option doesn't appease the climate change monster.The other course of action: "deal with reality or it will deal to you" was: knowing the Faustian pact we have with fossil fuels, we should have started back in Carter's time to Power Down(Refer: Richard Heinberg) to a renewable, localised, organic society.But we're procreating energy usagejunkies and asking that was impossible to realise . Climate change and resource depletion cannot be stopped now ,they have been brought on more rapidly by our obsession with wealth accretion,more and more,the religion of Capitalism which collapses when the growth of wealth creation hits the wall of a finite planet. Capitalism is the biggest Ponzi scheme humanity has ever known, its benefits have certainly not been shared equally in America which relies on cheap labour and minimal social provision but lavishes trillions into the Black Greedy Hole of Wall Street.
My point about the Arctic is that people want to use the past 30 years as evidence that the ice is melting.
OF course it is, the arctic goes through a cycle. The cycle has peaked once again as it did in 1944-46. Froze up for the next 30 years, and then started 30 years of less and less ice. That period has ended and it will freeze up more again for the next 30 years.
I am not very worried about Greenlands ice sheet. It was quit a bit smaller 6,000 years ago than it is now. That has been proven by ice core data.
Greenland is actually a remarkable base for climate. Much more defined than the Antarctic ice bores.
Amazing. A post with more lies per line than most!
The Arctic ice shelf is, this last summer, at historic lows. That several hundred years not 30.
Indeed, when, in about 5 years time, there is no ice left in summer in the Arctic, that will be a condition which has had no equal since at least prior to the last ice age and takes us back possibly into the millions of years.
I'm sorry but that really is not just a 30 year cycle of any kind.
Greenland's ice sheet is no more or less remarkable for climate change than antarctica's as far as I'm aware. Both trap historical and pre-historical air equally well. Antarctica's ice sheet is far more extensive and deeper, representing up to millions of years of accumulation. (Antarctica separated from South America 15 million years ago. This event is significant as it allowed the circumpolar ocean current to form which effectively so slows heat from transporting to the South pole that the continent started to permanently freeze. Greenland has never been in quite that position.)
So far the ice cores have taken us back 800,000 years. That spans several previous ice ages and extends our knowledge of average global temperatures (from the isotope ratios) and C02 concentrations (from directly measuring it) back to before Homo Sapiens walked the planet. In that entire time there has never been as high a concentration of C02 as there is today. Average global temperatures have certainly been higher than they are now....but the species Homo Sapiens are really embarking on an uncontrolled experiment with our one and only atmosphere...that much is pretty damn clear.
(This is an ad-hominum aside, and I'm sorry for this, but it must also be said that many climate deniers are also likely to be creationists and therefore cannot believe at all in an entire planet that is anything like a million years old....let alone one that is 4.5 billion. In this context the climate denier's refusal to accept the facts and the predictions make a lot of sense to me. After all How can all of science possibly be correct when we KNOW the earth is only 8k or so years old!)
Amazing the way deniers attempt to refute all evidence by claiming "the science is NOT settled" and then turn right around and cherry-pick "evidence" to make confident declarations like "it will freeze up more again for the next 30 years."
Again, must feel brilliant to be in possession of such certainty. Thanks, Sig.
As always, human disturbances to the biosphere - not only the astonishing 50% increase in atmospheric CO2, but changes in soils, reduction in forests, expansion of cites, etc etc etc - none of this could responsibly be assumed to have any disruptive or destabilizing affects on the living systems of the Earth. Let's double our population, triple our cities, multiply our agriculture, burn all the fossil fuels! What fool could suggest any other path forward! Only dupes or con-men with hidden agendas suggest humans are in any way disrupting the climate!
Rave on, Sig. i guess you think if you post more posts than anyone else you win.
And here we have even a bit earlier.......gosh folks......get real over the Arctic thing will ya?
On the Arctic's third expedition in 1910-11, Bernier took the vessel North to patrol the Davis Strait, Baffin Bay, Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Viscount Melville Sound and McClure Strait. Open water in McClure Strait tempted Bernier to attempt the Northwest Passage, but because this would have exceeded his orders, he resisted. Once again the vessel wintered in the North, but this time it anchored at Admiralty Inlet. Parties on sled were dispatched across the region to explore and conduct scientific surveys
St. Roch's next adventure came in 1944 - a return trip through the Northwest Passage. This time she followed a more northerly route, and completed the 7,295 mile voyage in a remarkable 86 days. Arriving at Vancouver on October 16, 1944, she became the first and only ship to traverse the Northwest Passage in both directions. It is believed that this record still stands
Galen....
You are wrong my friend.
Yes, the St Roch tried twice before it succedded.
1944 - became first vessel to make a return trip through the Northwest Passage, through the more northerly route considered the true north west passage, and also the first to navigate the passage in a single season
The St. Roch was the only RCMP patrol vessel in the Arctic for years. It iced up almost every winter it was used. I was at the museum this summer and walked on it's deck. I read and saw all of the exhibits at the museum. When was the last time you were there?
BTW, the city of Vancouver wants to move the museum to North Vancouver to make room for fancy waterfront condos. Which will be REALLY waterfront (underwater actually) if the melting of the Greenland glaciers continues at the rate it's presently at.
That is, if the damn things ever get built. Most large construction projects here have stalled because of the global economic meltdown.
It is very likely that even though humanity as a whole needs to do SOMETHING about the impending climate crisis, nothing will get done beyond individual survival efforts due to worsening econimic conditions.
And even the best and brightest in the exclusive economists club are now admitting that Nouriel Rabini is right, and 2009 will make last year look like a picnic.
Walk in peace.
OOOOOps........that should have read the lack of ice in the Arctic, rather than Antarctic. The ice mass in total at the Antarctic has actually grown.
This is untrue.
I've found numerous reports from climate scientists and then news articles quoting the data from climate scientists that say the East Antarctic is holding on to it's ice.
That means neither an increase nor a decrease.
While the west Antarctic and the Antarctic peninsula are losing ice at faster and faster rates.
This means that over the whole continent ice is being lost.
Frisbie:
Ahem.........now I am really laughing. Successful windfarm you want? Why.......come to my neck of the country and I can show you several.
Sure, I've been to successful wind farms. But the big money is not there yet. Such money as there is is insignificant in the world of politics.
Galen:
Before you post something as stupid as this:
"So the number and severity of cyclonic storms worldwide is a fiction perpertaed by the left wing controlled media?",
Sir, you had better go look at the data. You can admit you have egg on your face now.
The trend of the earths temp has changed. WE have numerous things occuring at the same time which do NOT bode well for man.
1. The PDO has switched to cool. This is around a 40 year cycle.
2. The sun is at a minimum...and not only that but the solar winds have decreased approx 23% in the past 50 years.
3. Go look at Had/Ret data for the temp trend.
4. The upper atmosphere has cooled dramatically.
5. What silicon valley wrote is emperically correct in models. That is given science
6. The consensus is not what people are proclaiming.
People who discredit the person, rather than the information they are posting only show their lack of knowledge.
Carbon cap and trade is a lousy scheme for more taxes and more government. It will not solve co2 emmissions at all.
There is a growing body of investigation that it is not only the thermal units that the sun produces that affect our climate, but the ions etc as well.
Climate science is an infant science. IF you have been educated in our public schools as of late, I can understand your confusion in this. I look at what my daughter is being taught and shake my head in dismay. Am going to get on the school board to get this straightened out.
Having said this, there is good reason to develop alternative energy. Fossil fuels are finite, and being so, scarcity will cause severe economic disruption.
Man has always fared much better with warmth, rather than cold. All you have to do is look at the temps 5-6000 years ago. We are not even close to those yet.
And for someone to make the stupid statement that the lack of ice over the Antarctic is something new......makes me laugh. Remember, they are only talking in the past 30 years. WEll, antidoal evidence is ripe to show that the current flucuation in that ice is NORMAL. Heck, the St Rock sailed the North West Passage in 1944, near the end of our last warm cycle. IN case you didn't read history......it sailed from Vancouver, BC to Halifax, NS. All on open water.
And that is the RECENT past.
Sheeeeesh.....
How do you guys interpret the ice core data chart that Gore presented in his movie and book?
Sigurdur,
I agree. Cap and Trade is a lousy scheme. It will not do nearly enough to stop Global Climate Catastrophe. I too shake my head in dismay at what passes for education. It has produced a public that doesn’t know the difference between science and ludicrous nonsense, a public that knows little about the scientific process and less about who owns and controls the media that report the various opinions about what 2 plus 2 equals, all with equal weight.
I do not doubt that there is a “growing body of investigation” into sunspots and all kinds of other disproven nonsensical non-fossil-fuel causes of global climate catastrophe, as the oil and coal companies have billions of dollars to throw into confusing uninformed people and obfuscating the real debate. What I want to know, however, is what in hell a “body of investigation” is. Is that the phrase you use to trick us into thinking there is actual science going on? There is also a growing body of investigation into alien abductions and crop circles, but don’t expect any proof in the journal Nature or the astronomy science periodicals. I think you’re more likely to find it at the supermarket checkout counter rack.
We are not talking about “warming” like a comfy sweater, we are talking about floods and drought, heat waves and increasing numbers of increasingly severe hurricanes and tornadoes, disruption of ecosystems all over the world, disappearances of thousands or more of species, and the disappearance of forests that hold necessary biodiversity and reefs and coastal wetlands that serve as nurseries for the fish we eat and other food chains depend on. How has humanity fared with those?
Despite your plea to not attack the person but the argument not much is left. You use nonsense couched in pseudo-scientific terms; you use anecdotal (antidoal?) evidence to cloud, in the minds of those who don’t know better, the millions of bits of data by tens of thousands of scientists who have shown in thousands of studies in dozens of different fields that anthropogenic global climate catastrophe is real, here and a monumental threat to civilization. Like all neoconservatives and science deniers you are either lying, stupid or crazy. If the first, please allow your conscience to operate freely and stop delaying action that we need to keep utter disaster from happening. If not, I understand you can’t very well help yourself from thinking such things, but please follow the advice above and trust my judgment, which has your and our best interest at heart. Stop writing and speaking about topics you seem not to understand. We need to get on with the work of converting society to a renewable, conserver society.
Yes the St. Roch sailed the Northwest passage. During which it was iced up, locked in place durig the winter, and the ship became a base for hunting. The crew only survived because they had local Inuit guides to tell them what to hunt. All that is fact you can read at the St. Roch museum. Where I live.
Walk in peace.
Quite aside from the 'science' of industrialized man, is the human component. Hundreds of thousands of squre miles of 'green desert' introduce another component. Ever think about the die off of micro organisms in soils that are treated with herbicide prior to planting, flooded with chemical fertilizer, re-treated with herbicide year after year.
Flora and fauna have no meaning in this paradigm. Climate is not a computer model. It is in real time with observable, documented consequences of die-off. Biodiversity is the cilia in the planets lungs. Co2 methane etc. blow into the atmosphere and hang out for...a party all its own.
Ever think about the distinction between pride and dignity? You can be possessed by pride but you can only be sustained by dignity. Pride is exclusive, dignity inclusive. Sort of like microbial life, a little thing to be sure...Until we develop a true love of the small we'll be consumed by gargantuan boondoggles. Love the bugs and the microbes like your life depended on it... it does. Its the little things in life that are important.
When they tell you the science is settled, you know you are being scammed. Science is never settled. Theories can only be disproved, thats why skepticism is healthy, yet they want to discourage it. Why? Follow the money. Who will benefit from carbon trading and credits, wind farms, solar, etc.
The biggest risk to humans is likely another ice age, mans CO2 may just delay this.
As for the models predicting we are going to be hell on earth in 100 years, SillyConValley nailed it.
We only have 30 - 60 years of data that has a reasonable level of uncertainty, so predictions of 5-10 years may be possible if the models are good models, but not 100 years. Yet the models did not predict in 1998 that temperatures would not increase over the next 10 years as man continued to emit CO2 and previous years CO2 effects on temperature were said to be on the way.
> Follow the money.
OK. I follow the money to MobilExxon.
> Who will benefit from carbon trading and credits, wind farms, solar, etc.
Whoever starts a successful wind farm, solar, etc. would benefit. Since this has yet to occur, it is hard to see how this hypothetical future money is influencing science in the present. MobilExxon money, on the other hand...
Interlocking directorships make these industries, including banking, all connected. And the money will be made by the banksters who will manage the carbon credits and trading and those who control the energy which won't be cheap. There is also a political motive to reduce the worlds living standards and population, so they control energy, food, money and even water.
Given we are running out of oil, so they say, do you really believe those that control Big Oil will not be controlling any alternative energy?
There is very little money to be made in carbon trading, I think.
You underestimate the laziness and stupidity of big time CEOs. Those guys aren't interested in developing new technology.
Gee, so the 180,000 year old ice cores and ancient tree ring samples are all liars in the pay of the climate change scientists?
So there is no PROVABLE link between temperature increase and man's activities?
So the melting of the Arctic ice sheet and Greenland's glaciers, which are releasing megatons of fresh water into the North Atlantic, thereby suppressing the North Atlantic Current, which keeps Northern Europe and the British Isles habitable are just Photoshopped trickery?
So there is no danger of a massive, biosphere threatening methane release due to the melting of the permafrost in Northern Canada and Russia?
So the number and severity of cyclonic storms worldwide is a fiction perpertaed by the left wing controlled media?
So there is no reliable, repeatable data that shows that a 2 degree Celcius increase worldwide will threaten the very habitablity of millions of square miles of coastline, creating waves of human refugees competeing and fighting for dwindling resources?
MiMiCcs, you were an idiot shill for the corporations last year. And the year before that. I happy to see nothing has changed. Crawl back under your rock.
Insults, insults, insults.... Reminds me of the days when I was into Bush bashing on the right wing blogs.
I counted 13 minivans/SUV's in the left turn lane out of 14 vehicles yesterday.
The drive thru at the McDonalds was very busy too.
The return of gas prices to under $2/gallon has Americans hooked like junkies...yet again.
They really should include a syringe at the gas pump so the petrol can be mainlined for those needing an even bigger hit.
Addicts NEVER recover until they hit rock-bottom...and lose EVERYYTHING.
Massive pain, death and destruction are every bit as baked into the cake as 4 more degrees of warming.
Whether the remaining population will be able to rebuild after all is lost is the only question unanswered.
As someone who has worked with addicts I have to tell you "rock bottom" is a very imprecise and misleading concept, visible only after, on the way up again. Life provides a lot more deep muddy bottoms than rock ones.
Some people lose everything and are buried as paupers. Far more people lose one thing that really matters and wake up before it's too late to save the rest. Please don't generalize what you may be feeling and spread despair around while offering nothing. Speaking of bottoms, look at the bottom of this page, just above the copyright information.
.
.
.
"The therapy for despair is action." Judith Lipton, psychologist
Appalachia can't stand anymore of the progress and prosperity thanks to THE COAL INDUSTRY. http://www.wisecountyissues.com This is TOXIC TERRORISM !
Paul Siemering
saw this show on pbs couple weeks ago. about a tiny island country that knows it's doomed. really made me finally really wake up. scientists are nice, but these reports never really hit your gut. Watching people watching their homeland disappear, that does.
Then our reporter goes on a boat to visit an island- part of this same archipelago- that has already drowned. It looks it like it got carpet bombed. and the palm tree.... go look
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/449/index.html
Here's something for you all to chew on: Russia just cut the natural gas pipeline that runs through the Ukraine to the rest of Europe. How much coverage is this getting in the MSM? Close to zero. All the newschatter is about how Israel is slaughtering children in Palestine.
Another fact: Oil prices continue to hover well under the break-even point for extraction and refining. OPEC is saying it needs a MINIMUM price of $75/bbl just to pay the oil companies to pump the crap out of the ground. And because of that depressed price in oil, major projects to extract more from deep sea deposits and the Canadian Tar Sands are on permamnent hold.
Another fact: Many countries in Europe are already tapping heavily into their national gas and oil emergency reserves. And winter is no where close to being finished. Expect news reports in the coming months of hundreds of people freezing to death in these countries, some of which are the most advanced in the world.
These are the exact events that Peak Oil and Peak Energy proponents have predicted, and they are happening almost on cue.
And with the advent of the economic meltdown, the products and processes that define modern technological life are going to beome scarce in a relatively short time period. There is a massive tent city in Tokyo, Japan composed of the enemployed and newly homeless in a major public park.
For the gods sake, even motoring jounalists and sports writers can see what is coming! I have been reading articles recently from these kinds of sources screaming to the masses that they are going to be left out in the cold without a scrap of cloth or a morsel to eat, and it will be their own damn fault when it happens!
Jim Kuntsler, author of 'The Long Emergency' an 'World Made By Hand' may just have gotten the vision of the future dead on.
Walk in peace.
Those two books of Kunstler's are important and make for timely reading. They are highly recommended.
What's great about Kunstler is that he pulverizes the bad faith, the complacency, the excuses, the lies, and the self-deception that are constitutive of the "American Dream" (which is rapidly becoming a nightmare for more people than just minorities) and the pathological ideology that oozes out of the White House, much of the Congress, and most of the traditional or corporate media.
Some of Kunstler's political positions, I find rather objectionable, but they are incidental in number and thus easily dismissed.
I also had some difficulties with his very generous use of the scientific concept of entropy in "The Long Emergency." Nothing major, though.
Worried about methane? Try opting out of the meat industry. The less meat farmed and consumed the less methane produced.
'Green Greed' is another emerging insanity we have to deal with soon. Too many industries that are springing up marketing on the Green image but end up being hypocritical or worse in terms of damage to the environment. Ethanol is one industry that comes to mind, but there are many more. If you see it, boycott it and encourage others to avoid it.
---->
Free music: Party Line: Download mp3
Yes, but raising cereal crops requires a climate stable enough for them to mature. I saw a great graph on a NOVA show years ago and have never forgotten it. First it showed climatic variability over the last 8,000 years or so, with the expected ups and downs. THEN that line was pushed to the right of the screen and on the left appeared a graph of climatic variability prior to 8,000 years ago. The contrast made the line on the right look almost straight. The point was, until 8,000 years ago the climate was NOT STABLE enough, even over the course of one or a few years, to consistently support agriculture in the temperate zones.
Small-scale grass fed beef raising of 'multi-purpose' type heirloom cattle breeds is a good hedge against this type of scenario, a midsummer frost means very little to pastured cattle but will wipe out cereal crops. As the Gulf Stream turns off, Europe in particular should consider the possibility of a much less crop-friendly climate. Consider that Rome, Italy is farther north than
New York City, USA ! (Don't take my word for it, go check on a globe. Counterintuitive, but true.)
A very important point, indeed!
Why bother at this point? 20 years ago, didn't we set a target for 2010 or 2015? Let's just be honest with ourselves and admit that we're not gonna think about climate change seriously until it really affects more of us and in deeply profound concrete ways. Let's just suck up the rest of the oil, coal, and possibly nuclear power, and get this over with. Besides, Mother Earth will hit the reset button on humanity when she's had more than enough.
Dear Abendland:
I'm glad you mention computer modeling. A computer model is what we used (TRAJEX was the name of the model) for mapping the trajectories for Voyagers I and II for NASA in the mid-1970s. But please note that a computer model is only as reliable as can be scientifically validated by what is known as "regression testing." The gist of regression testing is described correctly here by Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company:
"Performance for this configuration was determined using TRAJEX simulations which are anchored to actual flight data. All simulations indicate that the flight environments are well within our current experience." (c.f. http://74.6.239.67/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=TRAJEX&fr=yfp-t-501&u=www.ulalaunch.com/docs/publications/A...)
Notice that Lockheed specifies that modeled environments must be "ANCHORED TO ACTUAL FLIGHT DATA." In other words, you program the computer model and then you regression test the model against real-world data. You them make corrections to the model and rerun the test. You reiterate until the model and real data converge. This is scientific modeling.
The models that climate "scientists" use to project climate data 100 years out can not be regression tested against real-world data. Hence they are not scientific models. Any true scientist knows this. Al Gore and his hysterical politicos know about as much about scientific computer modeling as you know about propaganda science.
All computer models are worthless, you say.
Silly scientist,
Thank you for your response.
You know as well as I do that scientists do not use computers exclusively for regression testing; they also use them for making forecasts (a use that is precisely relevant in the case of the study of climate), for performing tedious and long mathematical computations and long logical proofs, for producing three-dimensional models (in the sense of 'model-airplane', or maquettes, as they are also called), etc.
Again, we encounter your tendency to narrow and reduce things down in order to suit your agenda, a tendency which I identified in my initial response to you (see below).
I note that you make a distinction now between genuine, certified, "government inspected" science and propaganda science. The question, of course, is: who decides what counts as the former, and what counts as the latter?
Nonsense, the climate change models' data are compared to actual data all the time. Temperature trends, trends in polar ice melt, glacial retreat, etc, are being used right now to tune computer models. It is a difficult task, because there are so many variables, but just because it isn't a perfect analogy to some space probe doesn't mean it isn't valid. And get off your high horse about people on this site. There are thousands of highly qualified, respected scientists out there that are behind global climate change theory, you know, actual climatologists as opposed to NASA engineers.
The causes and ill-effects of obesity are well known, yet obesity remains on the rise. Why? It is an indisputable fact that cigarettes cause cancer and lots of other ailments, yet 50 million Americans continue to puff away. Why? Approximately 140 Americans are killed on our roads daily, and our behavior remains unchanged. Why?
Anyone who believes Americans will experience some sort of mass awakening or enlightenment and suddenly band together in the nick of time in order to "save the planet" is the ultimate denier.
The bottom line: prepare yourselves and your children for the worst case scenario, cause there's no doubt it's coming...
I fear your words are prescient. But all the same, my conscience will not allow me to remain silent even though, like Cassandra, we may be doomed to always predict the future but to never be believed.
That sounds like a realistic assessment of our predicament. Prepare yourselves for scarcity, hardship, pain, and a very localized existence. See Richard Heinberg's Web site on tips for making the transition.
Guess I'm well. I've been living that way for fifteen years now.
"On the other hand, say you manage to convert a lot of it to solar or wind power-think of the money you'd save on fuel. "
I wish tidal power would get mentioned more. Out of all the alternatives this is the one that works at night and when there's no wind. Common digs the fossil fuel guys throw out all the time when arguing for renewables. Also the benefits in the WOT are huge if the US goes renewable. Factor that into the cost savings....
Good comment. We also have geothermal. Different regions would need to use the best sources available for that certain region. There's been plenty of work using concentrated solar power (CSP) to heat salt solutions that can continue to boil water for turbines well after the sun goes down. I detest the fossil fuel and fission guys that think alternatives won't work. 20,000 times the energy humans use strikes the earth from the sun. I'm not a piece of dung that thinks we're incapable of harnessing 1/20,000 of the energy available from the sun like the a lot of dumb asses.
Air pollution alone is reason enough to get rid of coal plants and gasoline engines. A large percentage of elderly and children have breathing problems in urban cities throughout the world.
Perhaps there could be vast floating area's covered with some type of reflecting material in the Artic Ocean's warmer months?..that would require cooperation of the merchant fleets of all the northern hemisphere nations..perhaps useless, but certainly less than making nuclear weapons and bombs..
Factory farming of animals creates almost 20% of Warming. Become a revolutionary vegetarian. Stop eating cow's at least.
"Air pollution alone is reason enough to get rid of coal plants and gasoline engines. "
Exactly. For those who don't think global warming is real, point out things such as this...going to clean energy will save and improve many lives, and has the potential to revitalize our economy.
"Air pollution alone is reason enough to get rid of coal plants and gasoline engines."
I disagree, both Obama and Gore (neither one of whom can be accused of not being good environmentalists) both support investing in clean coal technology and safe nuclear energy. Not in massive amounts, mind you. But if we are to meet our energy needs we should consider all of our options. We should stay open minded to new technologies.