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TechnoratiCassandras of Climate
Every once in a while I feel despair over the fate of the planet. If you've been following climate science, you know what I mean: the sense that we're hurtling toward catastrophe but nobody wants to hear about it or do anything to avert it.
And here's the thing: I'm not engaging in hyperbole. These days, dire warnings aren't the delusional raving of cranks. They're what come out of the most widely respected climate models, devised by the leading researchers. The prognosis for the planet has gotten much, much worse in just the last few years.
What's driving this new pessimism? Partly it's the fact that some predicted changes, like a decline in Arctic Sea ice, are happening much faster than expected. Partly it's growing evidence that feedback loops amplifying the effects of man-made greenhouse gas emissions are stronger than previously realized. For example, it has long been understood that global warming will cause the tundra to thaw, releasing carbon dioxide, which will cause even more warming, but new research shows far more carbon dioxide locked in the permafrost than previously thought, which means a much bigger feedback effect.
The result of all this is that climate scientists have, en masse, become Cassandras - gifted with the ability to prophesy future disasters, but cursed with the inability to get anyone to believe them.
And we're not just talking about disasters in the distant future, either. The really big rise in global temperature probably won't take place until the second half of this century, but there will be plenty of damage long before then.
For example, one 2007 paper in the journal Science is titled "Model Projections of an Imminent Transition to a More Arid Climate in Southwestern North America" - yes, "imminent" - and reports "a broad consensus among climate models" that a permanent drought, bringing Dust Bowl-type conditions, "will become the new climatology of the American Southwest within a time frame of years to decades."
So if you live in, say, Los Angeles, and liked those pictures of red skies and choking dust in Sydney, Australia, last week, no need to travel. They'll be coming your way in the not-too-distant future.
Now, at this point I have to make the obligatory disclaimer that no individual weather event can be attributed to global warming. The point, however, is that climate change will make events like that Australian dust storm much more common.
In a rational world, then, the looming climate disaster would be our dominant political and policy concern. But it manifestly isn't. Why not?
Part of the answer is that it's hard to keep peoples' attention focused. Weather fluctuates - New Yorkers may recall the heat wave that pushed the thermometer above 90 in April - and even at a global level, this is enough to cause substantial year-to-year wobbles in average temperature. As a result, any year with record heat is normally followed by a number of cooler years: According to Britain's Met Office, 1998 was the hottest year so far, although NASA - which arguably has better data - says it was 2005. And it's all too easy to reach the false conclusion that the danger is past.
But the larger reason we're ignoring climate change is that Al Gore was right: This truth is just too inconvenient. Responding to climate change with the vigor that the threat deserves would not, contrary to legend, be devastating for the economy as a whole. But it would shuffle the economic deck, hurting some powerful vested interests even as it created new economic opportunities. And the industries of the past have armies of lobbyists in place right now; the industries of the future don't.
Nor is it just a matter of vested interests. It's also a matter of vested ideas. For three decades the dominant political ideology in America has extolled private enterprise and denigrated government, but climate change is a problem that can only be addressed through government action. And rather than concede the limits of their philosophy, many on the right have chosen to deny that the problem exists.
So here we are, with the greatest challenge facing mankind on the back burner, at best, as a policy issue. I'm not, by the way, saying that the Obama administration was wrong to push health care first. It was necessary to show voters a tangible achievement before next November. But climate change legislation had better be next.
And as I pointed out in my last column, we can afford to do this. Even as climate modelers have been reaching consensus on the view that the threat is worse than we realized, economic modelers have been reaching consensus on the view that the costs of emission control are lower than many feared.
So the time for action is now. O.K., strictly speaking it's long past. But better late than never.
63 Comments so far
Show AllIt's probably been a while since you looked at the BIG chart in "An Inconv Truth".
Study it. get a printed version. It has a lot of information.
Gawd, "chicken little the sky is falling", best grab your ankles and kiss yourselves goo-by if you'll are so convinced the end is coming.
I hope most of you are young enough to still be here for 2060 or whenever to see your dire predictions play out.
Too much preaching to the choir here. We need to reach to help the denyers, on this and many other issues, especially, at the moment, health care. Activism is more important than commentary. We need to emulate--always! -- Socrates and get our ideas competing in the marketplace.
But --- Suggestions on how to reach out, please?
I am somewhat stymied, since only at the malls is there regular opportunity to engage strangers. If one could leaflet there...where Socrates, Jesus, Buddha wouldn't make it...And how to --online-- engage folks "on the other side" in calm discussion?
In solidarity,
Samrba
I have distributed flyers at malls many times. The mall cop will come up and tell you to leave. I am friendly and tell them I know it's their job, but it's my right under the constitution and I will not stop. If they persist, I tell them they will have to call the police. They never have. Actually, some of the hired police are neighbors who are sympathetic to peace and to the right to protest. But this is New York City.
If you live in a different kind of area, perhaps you should first consult the American Civil Liberties Union or National Lawyers Guild to see if anyone will back you up legally should you be arrested. Also - is there anyone who will bail you out if necessary?
There are other forms of protest for public places. Have you seen the delightful song and dance routine at Whole Foods in Oakland? I have participated in mass freezes in Grand Central Terminal. The police didn't know how to deal with it.
Here is a video (not such great quality) of one of the actions at Grand Central Station. We wore signs against attacking Iran and froze in place for 5 minutes. At the end we chanted for a while and left. We did not hamper commuters. Most people were very receptive and many applauded.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGyfX0TxcgU
I believe many of the adamant climate change deniers are in the pay of oil companies, coal companies etc. Average people may be very worried about the world they or their children will face. I have observed that high school and college kids are fairly advanced on climate change and need some reinforcement, leadership and focus. An empathetic demeanor, short non-preachy message and suggestions for action will help get the message across.
Sometimes it feels like we are pushing back the tide with a broom, but now 51% of the people have doubts about the war in Afghanistan and there is diminished support for attacking Iran despite unrelenting demonization by the press including liberals like Jon Stewart, so maybe this patient work helps.
Joe
Paul, Paul, Paul, no worry, just remember the economic "substitution effect." You teach indifference theory, don't you? So, as Paul Samuelson informs us, “Malthus failed to realize how technical innovation could intervene—not to repeal the law of diminishing returns, but to more than offset it.” [Paul A. Samuelson, Economics, ninth edition (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1973) 737.] Scientists being greedy like everyone else, when there is money to be made, scientists will ALWAYS, ALWAYS, find a solution. Just ask Paul Samuelson, Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, and the rest of the REAL economists. That's why we need ever more "math and science" . . . and maybe economics, just like Larry said right before losing his job as President of Harvard--to a female historian(!). Incredible fools that Harvard faculty. Anyway, Malthus was wrong, economics is the gay science, not the dismal science. Production infinitely grows, just like a malignant plant. This is why those fuzzy headed environmental economists are cast into their basement venues at the American Economic Association conferences. They actually believe in entropy, that plants die! Can you believe it?! What losers.
The change in the sunspot cycle is a new factor in climate. After a period of higher than average sunspots we are going into a period of lower than average sunspots. The deniers of human climate change had been blaming increasing world temperatures on increasing sunspot activity. The fact that the atmosphere has slightly cooled since 2005 has been shouted by the climate deniers. But the fact that the ocean was the warmest on record in 2008 is a harbinger of things to come. Studies show that the ocean will take up most of the increasing heat from global warming until it reaches a natural limit and then the atmosphere will rapidly heat up. This could occur in a few months at the end of the century or at the beginning of the next. Methane has begun to bubble up in large amounts in the edges of the Artic Ocean as well as from the melting tundra. Methane causes much more warming than CO2. As the greenhouse gases continue to accelerate in the air they will outrun any cooling effect from less sunspots. Its just basic science; the deniers have neither clear logic nor intuition on their side just minds full of tendencies to ego delusions on many levels. In the Permian extinction there was 1000 years of volcanoes through coal fields putting out CO2; not only was there big global warming but dead zones of sulfur gas producing bacteria swept the ocean making the air poisonous to breath. I think that this will happen quicker this time in the rise of CO2 and methane due to the extreme high level of pollution in the oceans. It has begun! Off of Namibia in Southwest Africa it started as a 100 kilometer area dead zone of sulfur gas producing bacteria and now its grown to 1000 kilometers. UT Austin Anthropologists say that earlier Mayan records had the time of the change of cycles in 2102 not 2012. The Mayan prophecy is of a world wide flood. Ain’t no world wide flood comin’ in 2012. Bet on a global warming flood around 2102 along with toxic sulfur gas. You Republican voting global warming deniers will be refused space in the underground cities in your next lifetime. Karma.
Sioux Rose
TXBODHI: Do you have a link to the Austin researcher who believes the date is 2102 rather than 2012? I'd like to read his thesis on that.
To Manning120---
I think you got it pretty much right on target, but then when you were just about to nail it you dropped the ball.
You write in your last paragraph:
"The really big environmental problem facing the earth is pollution."
I agree, nearly religiously. I would add that from a total organic perspective, a cooling planet would slow down pollution, not speed it up. Warming accelerates the organic effects of pollution.
I would appreciate your completing your thought instead of ending with a suggestion that we need to ameliorate the suffering of those experiencing the consequences of "climate change" now. That there has been no Katrina-like hurricane in the present unusual cycle is not, as you well know, a predictor.
Please finish your sentence on pollution.
Meanwhile, despite my earlier comment that Krugman essentially ought not to spread himself too thin, it occurs to me that the "Economics of Climate Change" is a rather rare academic discipline. Perhaps he is attempting to establish it.
Please finish your sentence on pollution.
-30-
OleManRiver (September 28th, 2009 8:08 pm) -- Thanks, but I'm unsure what you have in mind regarding pollution. It seems self-evident that degradation of the environment by pollution is undesirable, is occurring, and can be alleviated by humans.
One thing I forgot to mention is that there may be some drivers of global cooling resulting from human activity, such as amospheric dimming caused by aircraft contrails and pollutants. It's unclear, as far as I've heard, whether anthropogenic forces cooling the earth outweigh those warming the earth.
It seems self-evident that degradation of civilization and the ecosphere by global climate change is undesirable, is occurring, and can be alleviated by humans, but that apparently doesn't stop evil, stupid and/or crazy people from creating a false controversy and muddying the debate with multiple lines of defense consisting mainly of various lies. Like the blatant nonsense about cooling maybe outweighing the warming. The last I looked, a hundred plus years of remarkably constant warming (with annual variations, as in many statistical measures) was not cooling. There definitely are human-caused drivers of cooling--soot, etc.--which makes the WARMING that is clearly happening even more remarkable and possibly dire and proves the point that the world is warming. Sort of like having some of the hottest years ever during an el nina is remarkable and pretty much proves the point.
manning, stop your irresponsible lies.
J4zonian (from two posts taking issue with mine), believe it or not, I'm not lying, because that would require that I state falsehoods while knowing they are false. I don't consider myself irresponsible. I might ask what lies would NOT be irresponsible, but maybe that's a quibble. By the way, I never denied that climate has been warming on average over the last 100 years or so. I'm not one to dismiss as a socialist fraud the "hockey stick" graph that prompts such animated discussion on conservative web sites.
Maybe you consider it established beyond question that anthropogenic forces for cooling are outweighed by those for warming. I don't find the evidence completely convincing. What I do find convincing is that despite the unrestrained human activities blamed for AGW, we've had a cooler, not warmer, global climate in all the years after 1998, although 2005 seems to have been about equally warm. Obviously, that could not happen unless the ever-increasing contribution by humans to warming has lately been overwhelmed by cooling, whether natural, anthropogenic, or a combination of both. Unless, that is, the net effects of human activity are very small. As a convinced "warmist," I was surprised to learn about this, and surprised that so many people paid no attention to it.
I see the period since 1998 -- nearly 11 years now -- as a reprieve from the catastrophe that was predicted. My view might change if we get a year warmer than 1998 anytime soon.
This thread is probably dead, but I'll see you next time.
A game of Go isn't over until both players pass.
Of course I don’t know whether you’re intentionally lying or not, just as I don’t know whether your presentation of ridiculous and untrue arguments in such a reasonable way is naïve or deceptive. We usually don’t know what’s in others’ minds. But what we do and say, especially in the light of commonly-known information, gives indications of whether our motives are both conscious and good, or if they are either consciously or unconsciously doing evil—even when we can’t tell which. In the end, it is complex and almost always partly both. I should have been more accurate and said "stop spreading irresponsible lies", because whether they're your lies or not, they are somebody's, and you're spreading them. Stop doing that.
To deliberately lie about such an important issue is obviously not only irresponsible but reprehensible, but to spread false information in ignorance is also irresponsible--and nearly as reprehensible, because it reveals that there are probably unconscious motivations that have been left unattended to. Spreading debatable or misleading information, or information not understood, as truth, is also irresponsible. it is especially irresponsible and reprehensible when the arguments presented can be and have been debunked THOUSANDS of times on the internet, in journals and reports, by reputable scientists, including the best in the relevant fields, and by journalists and other people who can read. So let's try it ONE MORE TIME:
There have been upward and downward variations in that whole 100+ year span; the last 11 have been no different, except for that annoying fact that they’ve been HOTTER THAN VIRTUALLY EVERY YEAR IN RECORDED HISTORY--except 1998, a year when the strongest el Niño in a century released stored oceanic heat, spiking the global temp. Since then, el Nina has caused the ocean to become a heat sink again, keeping every year from being a record year, but we are still experiencing, globally, THE HOTTEST YEARS IN HISTORY. Note—not cool, not cooling, but other than one record year, THE HOTTEST YEARS ON RECORD! In fact, 2005 was the 2nd hottest year on record despite being in the middle of a strong el Nina, so that seems like a VERY strong indication that the earth is still warming, despite the fact that every single year is not warmer than the previous year (and thus all other previous years).
every year since 1917 has been warmer than 1917;
every year since 1964 has been warmer than 1956;
every year since 1976 has been warmer than 1976;
every year since 1992 has been warmer than 1992;
the ten hottest years on record occurred in the last 15 (as of 2006);
the 20 hottest years on record occurred in the last 25 ( “ );
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/01/one-or-two-warm-years-is-not-global.php
"It bears repeating that 2005 is the warmest year on record using NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies data, which is almost certainly superior to other datasets" http://climateprogress.org/2009/09/06/climate-crock-of-the-week-video-1998-revisited/ (2007 tied with 1998 for 2nd hottest ever.)
Even without all this information, Pascal's Wager applied to the twin crises of climate catastrophe and peak oil says we should not gamble with the fate of civilization, that especially since the other benefits are enormous and there is pretty much no downside, that we should move toward conservation, solar, wind, organic permaculture and similar programs with all possible speed. Anything that gets in the way of that is risking the end of civilization, so that’s why it’s irresponsible to post inaccurate or even questionable information that denies, delays, minimizes, or in any way interferes with our progress toward stopping catastrophe.
J4zonian (September 30th, 2009 2:31 am) -- Of course, I'm not going to agree with your characterizations of my claims regarding climate change. I would remind you that viewpoints about this vary widely. I was considered radical in a conservative forum not long ago because I kept saying the global climate has been, over time, getting warmer, and that the evidence didn't support a conclusion that it's cooling.
Your points about the long-term trends are valid (as far as I can recall), except that you've got some confusion about "El Nino" and "La Nina." (Look them up.) Certainly ocean temperatures are important; I've been saying for a long time that the temperature of the entirety of the oceans (everywhere, all depths) is really a key to determining if the global temperature is trending upward or not. Measurements of the entirety of the oceans aren't being made, to my knowledge. The various phenomena like El Nino and La Nina concern only surface temperatures. An additional complication is that temperatures in different layers of the atmosphere don't move up or down in tandem.
My essential point is that the big take-off in global temperatures that was anticipated in 1998 never occurred; nor did the take-off from 2005. This despite the fact that human activities said to cause warming have been steadily increasing. Your only explanation, if you think human activity is leading us to perdition, is to suppose that natural forces have suppressed the effects of the human activities. The only thing I know about that might fit that scenario is sunspots, although over much longer periods the wobble of the earth's axis could make a bigger difference as the closest passes to the sun begin to occur during northern hemisphere summer rather than, as now, winter. Be that as it may, I don't believe it's been definitely established that sunspots account for the sudden (since 1998) leveling off of the climb in global temperature.
Pollution, I think, is a greater danger to civilization; also war, natural disasters like droughts, floods, earthquakes, and tsunamis, population growth, and maybe even disease. If Pascal's Wager applies (which seems inconsistent with your certainty that climate change is an imminent threat; Pascal assumed the existence of God couldn't be proven), it applies as well to all sorts of threats.
I'm waiting for somebody -- the warmists, the deniers, or people like me -- to move off center due to new evidence. Meanwhile, I'd be content if greenhouse gases weren't attacked with enough fervor to cause neglect of other problems.
manning,
I agree with you that pollution, war, population growth (in the long run. see
www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/29 for a wise statement on that) and other things are serious threats to humanity and the biosphere. (I agree with you so completely that in 1983 I got a degree in environmental education and have been doing that professionally or amateurally ever since.) But most destructive droughts and many fires, floods and diseases are not natural disasters, they are partly caused by humans and become problems to us because we are not living within our means.
Climate change will make all that worse. Climate change will create deserts of much of our farmland, bury cities under water, and make war the default condition of humanity, and we have seen over and over how war and a war economy make leaders throw out babies and bathwater and human rights and pollution controls and a lot of other good stuff all together. Fortunately, all those things and many other problems will be helped by the actions we take to avoid climate catastrophe: energy conservation, solar, wind, organic permaculture, mass transit and etc. But I don't get your refusal or inability to see that while not one of those threatens civilization or the ecosystem as we know it, climate change absolutely does. In the words of Nobel economist Paul Krugman
"And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn't help thinking
that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.
To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change
denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate
research.
The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected:
ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And
according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so
large as to be almost unthinkable — can no longer be considered a mere
possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our
present course."
www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html?_r=2
...
I'm not sure what you mean by "move off center due to new evidence"... or why you would be waiting for that. To enhance their credibility in your eyes? If evidence keeps not only confirming one view but keeps proving that view wasn't stated strongly enough (as is actually happening) what then?
There is always uncertainty in science, and certainty in other fields is virtually always an illusion and a psychological maladaptation. I'm certain enough about climate to have changed my life over it and to spend way too much time trying to convince others in this and other forums [fora? fori?]. At the same time I realize some others are NOT convinced and never will be despite overwhelming evidence and constant repeated debunking of their pet ideas--sunspots, for example. (see climate crock of the week sunspots) It's for them that I also supply Pascal. It does indeed apply to all sorts of threats, and in the face of uncertainty, the stronger the evidence that a threat is real and the worse its possible effects the more we should respect the Wager and act in the safe way. If people want to commit suicide by hanging, smoking, meat-eating, or whatever, it is their business, although I will certainly do all I can to help them not do it. But when they threaten to take me and all I love with them, it is no longer their business; it is mine. Self-defense, and defense of innocent others and the Earth demand that I act.
I have never heard of anyone who expected any kind of "take off" from 98 or 05. The Earth continues to warm as it has, slightly faster all the time as (with a lag time) emissions rise. There was no expected "takeoff" and so what we have is pretty much a slightly faster version of what we have expected: the approaching destruction of civilization if we continue business as usual or do not make drastic enough changes in time. There has been no levelling off. As I said, 2005 and 2007 were as hot or hotter than 98, the other years since 98 are the hottest on record, and variations are expected even in strong trends like warming. Please go off by yourself for a while and read something besides conservative denialist crap until you understand that you are spouting utter nonsense. Warming continues. The evidence continues to pile up, ignored and denied and distorted by people like you, who I'm beginning to be convinced, have to be considered by the eternal question, the one we always come to when confronted by people on the far right--Are they lying, stupid or crazy? Or D. all of the above?
(No nino confusion on my part as far as I can tell--nino is hot, nina cooler--in the atmosphere. The amount of heat in the whole system doesn't change (except that pesky warming goin on all the time). Some of the variations in the "hockey stick" graph occur because upwelling and other current changes cause the heat to be absorbed or released differently at different times, which means at some times the reverse of the obvious is happening in water. (This also accounts for data sometimes exploited by deniers/delayers who say the ocean is cooling or some such nonsense. It's hard to keep up with all the varieties of nonsense spread by them/you.)
Again, I say, this time with more evidence and knowledge of you: Stop your irresponsible and reprehensible lies.
Krugman also conveniently ignores the impending depletion of the very resource that has taken humanity to the pinnacle of "civiliation"...oil. While there are still some who argue there is plenty of oil, the truth remains what is left is increasingly harder (i.e. more expensive) to get at, which will of course mean higher prices all round.
There are debates in some circles as to which "unpleasantness" will hit the fan first- climate change or energy resource depletion. I'm betting on peak oil. Of course, the obvious, if "inconvenient" solution is to stop burning fossil fuels altogether, saving precious oil as energy for the most vital needs such as medical care, and not plastic bags.
GOD FORBID we should actually change our very energy-intensive lifestyles though. It'll be a cold day in hell before American is ready to live a low-energy lifestyle that is actually sustainable.
Climate change is a fascinating subject. The public discourse right now contains scientific elements, but also elements of apocalypticism.
Not the least interesting aspect of climate change is the rhetoric used in talking about it. Krugman offers some good examples. He says "we're hurtling toward catastrophe." The best scientific knowledge I'm aware of is that the "catastrophe" might occur 100 years from now. I don't call that "hurtling."
He says, "[S]ome predicted changes, like a decline in Arctic Sea ice, are happening much faster than expected." I'm reading that arctic sea ice has recently recovered in extent. And antarctic sea ice hasn't been diminishing. He uses words like "more" and "bigger," which are very inexact compared to scientific facts like the force of gravity, the speed of light, or the half-life of uranium.
"The really big rise in global temperature probably won't take place until the second half of this century, but there will be plenty of damage long before then." What does this mean? How will we know that global warming is the cause of the "damage"?
"[C]limate change will make events like that Australian dust storm much more common." If they were twice as common, is that a disaster compared to the present occurrence rate? What increased rate would result in making Australia uninhabitable?
Krugman rightly notes, "As a result [of weather fluctuations], any year with record heat is normally followed by a number of cooler years." In this there is some exactitude. 1998 and 2005 were the hottest years globally, and the years before 1998, 2001-2004, and 2006-2009, were cooler. But Krugman fails to note, which I think follows from this, that all human influences causing global warming were, since 1998 or 2005, counteracted by natural forces. Fuel efficient cars or cleaner coal-burning power plants haven't even begun to reduce the gases and other things said to be anthropogenic global warming drivers. In fact, scientists would probably say the anthropogenic drivers are stronger now than they were in 1998 or 2005. Yet there's been cooling since 2005. We thought global warming was shown by the massive number of hurricanes hitting the U.S. in 2005. This year has been totally different, even though reportedly record warmth occurred on the surface of oceans.
The really big environmental problem facing the earth is pollution. Further study of climate change, including the role of human activity, is vital. But the evidence thus far is that survival of humankind in the next 100 years doesn't depend on immediate reduction of the anthropogenic forces implicated in warming. Smog, industrial air pollution, destruction of forests, and water pollution are more immediate threats. The best way to fight "climate change," at least for the present, is to provide assistance to people suffering from floods, droughts, wind, and heat waves.
"How will we know that global warming is the cause of the "damage"? " We'll know when Bangladesh goes underwater, killing 100 million people. Oh wait. We won't know even then. We'll have to proceed with the experiment a bit further to be sure...
I do believe it is more important to be sure about our science than to save a billion people. People can be replaced. Science is for eternity!
"antarctic sea ice hasn't been diminishing." That's cuz its on the sea, and grows both by increased precipitation from equatorial evaporation and MELTING of LAND ICE which falls off the continent and BECOMES sea ice. Climatological models PREDICT this. Sheesh.
manning,
wrong wrong right wrong wrong...you've obviously been reading some, or have decided with other oil company reactionary flacks to change tactics, but you've got a long way to go, still. Keep reading, or get a new job.
Arctic sea ice is thinner than ever, and despite some temporary increases in area (partly due to that thinness) continues to decline and will soon be gone—sooner than any would have believed even 5 years ago. Antarctic ice also continues to amaze scientists with its rapid melting and breakup. None of it happens every single year. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s happening.
Statistical analyses bounce up and down; yearly variations will always, um, vary. Thus the name, I guess. Yes, the "not quite as outrageously hot" years (cooler than 98 but still among the hottest years on record) were mediated by el nina. Without her, they would have been even hotter, and now that el nino is starting we may see some scorchers. The important thing (to us) is not the exact multiplier of dust storms and hurricanes or the exact yearly variation but the long-term trends and how much damage they do to the carrying capacity of earth—agriculture, soil fertility, living space, etc.
The really big environmental problem facing the earth is humans’ lack of emotional connection to each other, other beings and the matrix of relationships that is our ecology. All other problems stem from this and will continue until we heal. The damage of Climate Catastrophe is showing up already. Ask Australians, Canadians (those pesky bark beetles and other insects and viruses), islanders and Inuits. Ignoring it won’t make it go away; it will worsen it. It is THE issue for our lifetimes and beyond. Everything we know tells us that survival now, soon, later and in a century absolutely DOES depend upon our rapid and radical action now, and the best way to act for both climate change and pollution is with conservation, wind, solar, organic permaculture, and changed lives that manifest our changed understanding of our relationship with Nature. We are in for a rough ride. Our children will have a rougher one. Whether it continues to get worse and destroys civilization depends mostly on what we do in about the next 2 to 5 years. Stop your irresponsible lies, manning.
Talking about climate change... just a lot of hot air.
Oh, well, the next generation will just dry us out after they KILL us..... and then use us for firewood. We deserve it.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Krugman is absolutely correct to sweat bullets over this and the hard data on climate change just gets scarier every few weeks.
If Obama can't substantially change business as usual on this ONE issue--more important than almost every other issue (except nuclear, biological and chemical weapons), then I don't see how he and Michelle Obama can look their own two daughters in their faces. It is their generation and their children's generation who will see their lives and futures utterly ruined if not destroyed along with their nation and their world.
metal
those weapons are far less important than climate change. They are less likely to happen than climate catastrophe, UNLESS climate change throws the world into the sort of 'kill everything' mode we have witnessed since September 2001. Then they are only one of many threats to civilization, so still are less important. Take care of the cause, and the possible results are far less worrisome. Stopping climate catastrophe with conservation, wind, solar, and organic permaculture increasing organic matter in soil and thereby sequestering carbon, will relieve pressure and take many of the excuses and rationalizations for war away from all sides, making use of weapons of all kinds far less likely. Crime? Tyranny? War? Crime? Revolution? Starvation? Thirst? Racism? Sexism? Religious and ethnic strife? Got a problem? Climate Catastrophe will make it worse. Let's solve the big one and then roll right on to the others.
All have their roots in systemic psychological issues. Let's start there.
We need to stop waiting for Obama to change business as usual - it takes effort by EVERYONE. Too many people voted for the "change" man and then went back to the same-old, same-old, thinking that their part was done. What about Congress? Lobbyists? The media? Do you really think one man, president or not, can take on all of that by himself?
Now that the presidential election is over, how many vote in other elections (here in LA it's about 11%)? How many pay attention to what their city council and zoning commissions are doing BEFORE the damage is done? How many read the list of ingredients on their food and shun those that are full of chemicals? How many curtail water use and reliance on petroleum? These are not the president's responsibilties, they're OURS.
In short, to revive an old sixties mantra, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
the cockroaches and rats are jumping for joy at this one.
as the titanic gets ready to sail they are waving goodbye at
pier. no pesticides anymore and plenty of food when we are
lying in the street. guess which species is ultimately
smarter us or them?
"Who cares? I'll be dead."
George Bush.
Krugman writes:
"Partly it's growing evidence that feedback loops amplifying the effects of man-made greenhouse gas emissions are stronger than previously realized. For example, it has long been understood that global warming will cause the tundra to thaw, releasing carbon dioxide, which will cause even more warming, but new research shows far more carbon dioxide locked in the permafrost than previously thought, which means a much bigger feedback effect."
I'm surprised that nobody here has yet pointed out that the real threat from warming the permafrost tundra is less from release of carbon dioxide than from release of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas. One must wonder if this was an editorial choice based on reader ignorance, or Krugman's ignorance...
This is one time when I wish Krugman would spend more time finding out where all that bailout money went instead of trying to be all things to all people.
-30-
There's a long list of stuff left out, including ocean "acidification". Only so much space allotted.
When I read that sentence, I decided Krugman knows about the methane, but chose not to mention it, which is dishonest, but in the right direction.
for years, I've felt that he's known about the environment, but has chosen not to mention it in his writings on the economy, which is dishonest, but in the wrong direction...
The fact that he's finally writing about the environment would be funny, in a 'welcome home' way, if it weren't so late in the game, and if he hadn't spent so many years spewing economic filth that completely disregarded the planet, and supported the destruction by validating the thoughts behind...
At least he's coming around...
You know. It took me a long time to understand why some of the deniers on here kept saying that the earth was in some sort of "cooling trend" when the data from the Met office were so clear to me.
Klugman points out what they were doing explicitly. Because 1998 was the hotest year on record, every other year, so far, has been cooler. Of course, it would be cooler than the 'hottest'. This is a really silly application of the 'less-than' symbol.
The evidence of the trend of these plots
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/
looks to me like it's been undergoing warming since about 1900 actually. Certainly worth asking whether the current bump we see is similar to the one around 1940 or so....but only if we had no idea why climate goes up or down.
To suggest that we have no idea just because the relationships are complex is disengenuous. There are people who most certianly DO have an idea and they are making predictions...not just stamp collecting measurements.
It is worth listening to them, really it is.
Regarding HadCRUT, NASA GISS has 2005 as the warmest year on record, and ocean temperatures have been the warmest ever recorded THIS year. The deniers are cherry picking their data segments not just for time span, but also for the data that fits their purpose best.
Wasn't part of Cassandra's problem the "hubris" of the pompous a--holes she was trying to warn? Things haven't changed a lot in that regard.
BTW: I'm beginning to think its all over. Island nations, Bangladesh, Florida, shellfish and fish, reefs, arctic wild life, glaciers, fresh water... and our grandchildren are all toast.
From article:
"Nor is it just a matter of vested interests. It's also a matter of vested ideas. For three decades the dominant political ideology in America has extolled private enterprise and denigrated government, but climate change is a problem that can only be addressed through government action"
The vested interests and vested ideas are intertwined. Krugman must realize that the corporate vested interests (who control policy) have bombarded and even dictated these ideas and frames to the media, educational texts and political discourse for so long that we take them for granted.
Even if these vested ideas were not so ingrained in the mainstream public discourse, the policies would still be controlled by the vested interests, not public preferences, public discourse, or the will of the people.
Krugman, like many mainstream liberals, will not or cannot admit that the people do not influence policy, but rather corporate interests do. The climate and healthcare policies, for examples, should dispel any remaining doubts.
Paul Krugman's choice of the Illiad's doomed prophetess, Kassandra (I prefer the Greek spelling), is apt. One wonders what "god" was spurned that now those whom raise the alarm about global warming are treated as the unfortunate Trojan princess.
I don't think Lang's comment was that far off base. Why can't we have opposing viewpoints? I think that correlating CO2 levels to increases in Earth's temps is a much too linear way of thinking about climate - which is an extremely complex system. For example, just this past Saturday the weather forecast here for Sunday was clear, sunny and warm. It turned out to be windy, rainy and cold. How can we rely on climate models that are predicting weather patterns 50 - 100 years out when we can't accurately predict the weather a week, or in some cases, a day out!?!? I'm not saying that climate isn't changing, climate has always changed. Do you know where climate isn't changing? The moon. Do you know what they don't have on the moon? Life. I'm not saying that we as humans might have had an impact, but so what? We are all part of the natural environment. Imagine what impact the dinosaurs had on climate. Their food requirements, migration patterns, farting...what impact did that have on the Earth and climate? Imagine the Native Americans and their impact on the land. To say that the Natives left the planet pristine is a fallacy. They burned, hundreds, thousands of acres of prairie, grassland, forests to the ground! And for what purpose? To manage their resources! To manage those things they used and needed every day. In California they burned forests to maximize growth of certain plants used in basket making. On the plains they burned grasslands to make room for buffalo, which in turn increased the buffalo's numbers, which in turn had a greater impact on the prairie. Imagine what impact the introduction of the horse had on the the North American continent. Are we ready to classify the horse as an invasive species?
My point is this, environmentalism has evolved from a science of accountability to a social movement. This is a backlash to modern society and it is not unique to human history. This is Thoreau going back to the 'woods to live deliberately'. This is a movement bordering on religion - but keep in mind that Thoreau eventually rejoined society. I'm not looking for converts. I'm just asking you to think about it.
birdmarley,
Those of us in this movement HAVE thought about it. I should only speak for me, so personally it's going on 45 years of thinking about it--and feeling it, and experimenting and reading and learning and teaching about it. If you read and understand the science (and science itself) you will understand the difference between having opposing viewpoints and denying basic facts, just as you will understand the difference between weather and climate, which has been explained about 8000 times in 700 places on the internet. Let me do it one more time, and then you can bring up your cherry-picked 1998 data, your medieval warming, your sunspots, your heat islands and whatever other false arguments you want corrected. Or you can go to Climate Crock of the Week, and have things shown in pictures. Also try Greenfyre, ClimateProgress.org, and RealClimate.
So here it is. Take notes, there's a quiz after. If you flip a fair coin a thousand times it is very likely to come up heads pretty close to 500 times and if you bet on anything substantially different from that you're very likely to lose money. If you flip a coin once, it may come up heads, or tails. There's no way to know. At that level, it seems unpredictable, and actually pretty much is. Local weather = 1 or 3 coin tosses; Global climate = 1000. Global climate, with accurate data (which we have) and good computer models (which we've devised, tested, improved, tested and found excellent) is reasonably predictable. Within certain NARROW parameters of error, we know what's going to happen globally over decades if we follow various courses of action.
Of course, we could be wrong. So Pascal’s Wager comes into play. Although it's a lousy way to decide whether to believe in God it turns out it's a great way to decide this.
So which is better, for civilization-ending human-caused climate change to be happening and not stop it when we could, at minimal cost and with many other benefits to our actions? Or for it not to be happening and we take those many actions which don't cost much and help in oh so many other ways? (The other 2 possibilities are for it be happening and we DO stop it (ding ding ding we save civilization) or for it not to be happening and we continue doing nothing, so allow this creeping deterioration in our ecological situation, (which after all is the basis for all our lives whether climate is doing anything or not) and our social situation, and our war- and tyranny- and exploitation-ridden society of unhappy, disconnected people.)
Those of us who have thought about it are asking YOU to, to be responsible, to consider the earth and its children (us) as you would YOUR children. Would you let them play in the street because at the moment there are no cars coming (that you can see)? Or would you make sure they don't do that because you know that sooner or later there WILL be cars coming and the confluence of cars and YOUR children would be very very bad? And I absolutely am looking for converts. Join the responsible ones, bird (may i call you by your first name?).
PS Your argument about the extent of natural vs non is interesting intellectually but it's a nonsensical example. The horse certainly was an invasive species, and with it, given time, the plains people might have embarked on the same course that Europeans had--domestication/slavery/wealth/disconnection from the earth. Even with the horse, even with their pretty repressive and traumatizing societies (which would have propelled them on that horrible path), the plains natives were part of a working ecosystem that could have continued unchanged for millions of years, building soil ever deeper and richer and providing a good living and natural healing for big bluestem, bison, prairie chickens and humans,
whereas our way of life treats the soil like it treats everything, including us--as unreal unfathomable disposable machine-like isolated entities to be either feared or disregarded. Make a decision now: Join the responsible ones.
(And the quiz? It's called an election. Vote Green.)
"Local weather = 1 or 3 coin tosses; Global climate = 1000."
That may not be a great analogy. The coin toss example assumes that the results of the tosses are independent, whereas if one views the global climate system as a collection of local systems, the local systems presumably interact in a way that makes the simple coin toss model inapplicable. Nevertheless, you are correct in pointing out that local variations may be significant and seemingly random, even in a system whose global behavior is deterministic. This "order out of chaos" phenomenon is well known. The explanation of thermodynamical phenomena in terms of statistical mechanics is a prototypical example. For example, the individual particles of a gas move about with seemingly random directions and speeds, but their aggregate behavior is accurately predictable via deterministic laws such as the ideal gas law.
Nevertheless, the global climate system is a complicated dynamical system subject to chaotic behavior, and it's not clear to me (as a non-expert) how robust current computer models are. The very fact that arctic ice was found to be melting much faster than the models predicted just a short time ago implies that the models are not all that accurate; and I don't know if there's any reason to believe that they consistently underestimate the warming effects of man-made climate change (as opposed to sometimes underestimating and sometimes overestimating).
So I don't share your confidence that "we know what's going to happen globally over decades if we follow various courses of action", but I do agree that the prudent and responsible thing to do is to try to drastically curtail the production of greenhouse gases and other forms of pollution, and to generally behave in a more conservative, caring, and less predaceous way.
Very good. Keep up the good work.
I would not hazard a guess about the climate change controversy but I can't see how we could hurt ourselves by being better housekeepers.
It's called "Stewardship".
Like "Statesmanship", it is rooted in long term, ethically based self-interest.
But America don't do that sissy stuff.
Time to stop drinking, birdmarley. It's Monday morning!
I enjoyed your far-reaching analysis. Far out. Way out. Dinosaurs! The moon! Thoreau! Why did you leave out Captain Kirk?
Not nearly as far reaching as predicting the end of the world based on the Mayan calender, might as well refer to the Book of Revelations, but an intelligent, informed response anyway (yeah, my tongue is currently in my cheek.
It's reasonable to question the accuracy of climate models, but your statement "I'm not saying that we as humans might have had an impact, but so what?" indicates an unreasonable and selfish disregard for the potential harm that our current way of life might inflict on the world and on future generations (not to mention other species). This indifference to the possible suffering and destruction caused by one's actions is characteristic of American society, and it's more than unreasonable; it's morally reprehensible.
I completely agree with your comment here and it is even more relevant for another simple reason.
Alone, among all other species of this planet, we have the ability to, for the very first time, actually fight against the inherent brutality of Darwinian evolution. We have minds that can spawn the kind of science that can warn us. We have technology and civilization that can build and create means to arrest the 'natural' course of events. And we do so all the time as a matter of course.
To calmly proclaim "so what" and resign oneself to the brutality of a natural disaster of our own making while calmly living a life where you NEVER had to think about where your food was coming from (that is completely unique among about 70% of the human population today and is simply untrue for ANY other species) is to make one a hypocrite of the highest order.
We are a species that CAN buck the natural trends and we should. We should be trying like hell to avert the climate changes that we ourselves are bringing to the planet and we are not.
Your reply reminded me of something Erwin Schrodinger wrote in his remarkable book "Mind and Matter". In the section titled "Ethics", Schrodinger explicitly refutes the "whatever will be will be" type of argument in claiming that our ability to consciously control our own destiny as a species is in fact the primary manifestation of our ongoing evolution. His ideas are very original, but rather complex. If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it.
Tebeteba Foundation documents work being done among indigenous peoples worldwide in organizing regarding human rights to self representation, cultural and indigenous technological capacity to contribute to the climate situation -
Indigenous peoples worldwide are an integral part of breaking through the stranglehold.
http://www.tebtebba.org/
When you have an economy wherein much of the formerly middle class are concerned about a survival horizon measured in months, not years or decades, climate change is a less terrifying prospect. Mr. Krugman only hints at this: the possibility of an even more catastrophic feedback loop of physics intertwined with dire socio-economics---a dangerous coincidence. The current fruits of decades of voodoo reaganomics is power concentrated in the hands of an amoral, predatory acquisitor class, incapable of understanding anything but pecuniary values. And until a stake is finally driven through the heart of that zombie monster, we cannot begin to address real human and ecological issues. Perhaps the ancient Maya were right about that apocalypse occuring in 2012.
Doug Terpstra, yes, its' the "Economics of EMPIRE" in effect, and Paul seems to be a bit reluctant to admit that everything points back to the 'biggest lie' of his profession.
Admittedly, Paul makes a Keynesian-like statement that "it's the vested interests" (as much as the 'ideas') that are dangerous for good or evil" when he states that, "the larger reason we're ignoring climate change is that Al Gore was right: This truth is just too inconvenient. Responding to climate change with the vigor that the threat deserves would not, contrary to legend, be devastating for the economy as a whole. But it would shuffle the economic deck, hurting some powerful vested interests even as it created new economic opportunities. And the industries of the past have armies of lobbyists in place right now; the industries of the future don't.
Nor is it just a matter of vested interests. It's also a matter of vested ideas. For three decades the dominant political ideology in America has extolled private enterprise and denigrated government, but climate change is a problem that can only be addressed through government action. And rather than concede the limits of their philosophy, many on the right have chosen to deny that the problem exists."
But the comprehensive and easy to understand way of really explaining and unpacking the political-economic 'fly in the ointment' (or elephant in the kitchen) would simply be for our favorite Nobel Economist to admit the awful truth that the entire justification of this modern global EMPIRE built on finance-capitalism (which controls our government behind its facade of a two-party 'Vichy' sham of democracy) is that the unrestrained ideology and 'big lie' of the EMPIRE economics of 'growth' and their false pyramidal requirement of vast wealth inequality for elitist 'capital surplus formation necessity' to support this corrupt system is based on the wildly false foundational lie that EXTERNALITY COSTS don't matter.
Yes, Paul, we are approaching a real Apocalyptic event (or "existential threat" as our domestic Neo-con nuts and Benjamin Netanyahu like to falsely threaten about Iran), but the real global threat of EXTINCTION comes from Global Warming ---- and this real threat is a threat to the EMPIRE and the ELITISM that always goes hand-in-hand with Empire.
Paul, the analysis has already been done by economists and scholars working for this hidden Empire and they have all documented their identical conclusions more than two years ago for their Empire bosses at the worst of the finance-capitalism heart of the Empire --- CitiGroup, UBS and the late Lehman --- where the real political-economic truth of unsustainable capitalism came out, "ignoring negative externality cost dumping" is endemic, hidden, and disastrous --- and the biggest looming example is Global Warming:
http://www.socialfunds.com/news/article.cgi/2237.html
["The UBS and Lehman Brothers reports concur that climate change represents a classic market failure where company valuations neglect to take into account negative externalizations--in this case, predominantly the emission of carbon dioxide CO2, the primary greenhouse gas (GHG).
"The free market fails to limit climate-damaging emissions sufficiently, because polluters do not have to pay for the damage they cause," states John Llewellyn, senior economic policy advisor at Lehman Brothers, in The Business of Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities. "A basic role of policy in such cases is to 'internalize' such costs into emitters' cost structures--the 'polluter pays' principle."]
Paul, economic Empires of Elitism always deny their negative Externality costs, but now that 'big lie' is leading directly to Extinction!
I have written extensively on this 'big lie' topic of the ruling-elitist's economic Empire Externalizing us toward Extinction:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/-Empire-Elitism-External-by-Alan-MacDonald-090310-224.html
What I can't understand is Nobel Economist and NYT supposedly 'progressive' columnist, Paul Krugman, not exposing this 'big lie' more simply and directly from his MSM perch.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Thank you, Alan, for your comments and for the recommended bookmark for my favorites folder
http://www.opednews.com/articles/-Empire-Elitism-External-by-Alan-MacDonald-090310-224.html
Just started your article---very powerful, informed commentary.
Whenever I despair of the prospects for revolutionary change for this empire---our confederacy of dunces, our idiocracy---I simply read commentary on Common Dreams. Here I find the most passionate, informed, and angrily caring people on Earth. Next to nature, this is my church.
Pecunia non olet. Neither does CO2. Unfortunately. If it did maybe we'd be more inclined to do something about it.
Well said, Doug. Until your last sentence.
Actually the Mayans said nothing about an apocalypse. That kind of linear thinking belongs to Western civilization. The Mayan calendar is a circle. Just as the Earth circles the Sun, the shortest day of 2012 just marks the end (or beginning?) of a another, super-long cosmic cycle.
Thanks. Good point on my careless use of the word 'apocalypse'.
Of course the word's original Greek meaning is 'revealing', 'uncovering' or 'great awakening', better reflecting the Mayan cycle-ending-beginning 'passage' you note. That is the kind of event I hope we experience in the near future, a transition to a world of transcendently revolutionary values---not (necessarily) the end of the world prophesied in the element-fusing, terror-inducing, tribulation-ushering, shallow eschatology of left-behind charlatans who worship the Prince of Peace.
"Unchecked global warming could bring a severe temperature rise of 4C within many people's lifetimes, according to a new report for the British government that significantly raises the stakes over climate change.
The study, prepared for the Department of Energy and Climate Change by scientists at the Met Office, challenges the assumption that severe warming will be a threat only for future generations, and warns that a catastrophic 4C rise in temperature could happen by 2060 without strong action on emissions."
The rest is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/28/met-office-study-global-warming
from the article:
"Nor is it just a matter of vested interests. It's also a matter of vested ideas. For three decades the dominant political ideology in America has extolled private enterprise and denigrated government, but climate change is a problem that can only be addressed through government action. And rather than concede the limits of their philosophy, many on the right have chosen to deny that the problem exists."
Krugman says this? A miracle...give that man a Nobel for something...
Global Start Date: September 22, 2012...acoustic, agrarian life...shared property...let's get those gardens growing!
All is relative. The whole of this "puny human activity" takes place within the biosphere, which is only a dozen miles thick. Analogous to the skin on an apple. Sometimes I'm surprised that the skin isn't completely wrecked already.
"Analogous to the skin on an apple."
And our mighty oceans are only about as deep as the ink used to print onto the average classroom globe...
As Jon Stewart likes to say, Your post, "Nailed it..."
More fear mongering from PK and NYT!
Wouldn't be great if puny human activity could really be that affective.
to present arguments that counter human impact, one must limit the parameters of the discussion to climate change, as climate does, indeed, change, with or without human involvement...
one cannot dismiss, however, human industrial and chemical impact...certainly, nature is not blowing up mountains to get the coal...nature is not coating beaches with petroleum or flooding rivers with atrazine or spewing depleted uranium rounds all over...
humans certainly impact, and discussions limited to only 'climate change' prevent real efforts to discuss the cessation of human-caused industrial and chemical devastation from taking root...which is intentional, I'm sure...
jbentham
Sorry, I seem to have missed your arguments and evidence for your position.
Astonishingly climate change predicted that a right-wing denier would be first to post on this article!
Cygnus, we must assume Lang was being sarcastic with his post. No one could possibly be that dense to still believe that human activity does not effect the Earths climate. ;-{)
Oh, yes, there are still a few. I believe their main talking point lately has been that the earth has been cooling since 1998. What they don't mention, or understand, is that every year since 1998 has been warmer than any year in our well recorded history of the last century and a half prior to 1997.
the word is 'effective'...............
and it doesn't really matter who or what is causing these 'effects', the fact remains they are happening.................
Oh, but it does.
Human caused effects can be mitigated through behavioral changes while many natural effects cannot.