| Author |
Message |
    
The Libertarian
Citizen
Username: Local_1_crew
Post Number: 1947
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 6:39 pm: | 
|
Climate of Fear
Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.
BY RICHARD LINDZEN M. Lindzen is Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT
Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
There have been repeated claims that this past year's hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?
The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science--whether for AIDS, or space, or climate--where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.
But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.
To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.
If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.
So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.
All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism. Nor did the scientific community complain when Mr. Gore, as vice president, tried to enlist Ted Koppel in a witch hunt to discredit anti-alarmist scientists--a request that Mr. Koppel deemed publicly inappropriate. And they were mum when subsequent articles and books by Ross Gelbspan libelously labeled scientists who differed with Mr. Gore as stooges of the fossil-fuel industry.
Sadly, this is only the tip of a non-melting iceberg. In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions.
And then there are the peculiar standards in place in scientific journals for articles submitted by those who raise questions about accepted climate wisdom. At Science and Nature, such papers are commonly refused without review as being without interest. However, even when such papers are published, standards shift. When I, with some colleagues at NASA, attempted to determine how clouds behave under varying temperatures, we discovered what we called an "Iris Effect," wherein upper-level cirrus clouds contracted with increased temperature, providing a very strong negative climate feedback sufficient to greatly reduce the response to increasing CO2. Normally, criticism of papers appears in the form of letters to the journal to which the original authors can respond immediately. However, in this case (and others) a flurry of hastily prepared papers appeared, claiming errors in our study, with our responses delayed months and longer. The delay permitted our paper to be commonly referred to as "discredited." Indeed, there is a strange reluctance to actually find out how climate really behaves. In 2003, when the draft of the U.S. National Climate Plan urged a high priority for improving our knowledge of climate sensitivity, the National Research Council instead urged support to look at the impacts of the warming--not whether it would actually happen.
Alarm rather than genuine scientific curiosity, it appears, is essential to maintaining funding. And only the most senior scientists today can stand up against this alarmist gale, and defy the iron triangle of climate scientists, advocates and policymakers.
|
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3405
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 7:09 pm: |
|
Hey, if sunamis and basement-filling hurricanes, devastating floods, horrible mudslides, don't alarm YOU when they happen with the frequency of the past few years, there's something the matter with your sensibilities.
Aren't you alarmed?
Perhaps the loss of life can be blamed on overpopulation, or poor planning and construction of homes and tourist traps near the ocean, or in environmentally sensitive surroundings.
Aren't you alarmed by Katrina?
What exactly do you propose? More SUVs? Ignoring pollution? Hey, lib, come to Phillipsburg and visit Sitgreaves Street where Atlantic States has been killing people for over a century with mercury and God knows what else pouring from the smokestacks and take a sniff of the air and tell me pollution doesn't matter. Just try it, fella.
|
sbenois
Supporter
Username: Sbenois
Post Number: 14937
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 7:38 pm: |
|
Sheesh. Alarmed by a Category 3 hurricane. |
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3406
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 8:25 pm: |
|
No, alarmed by the series of hurricanes, sunami, temperature and climate variation, etc, major climate calamities. Get it yet?
You guys are saying, "Oh, no, not me. I am not to blame. Remove me from the guilt over this mess. My SUV is wonderful and I couldn't possibly have anything to do with this...."
Well, sbenois, dream on, pollute on. If you think pollution and fossil fuel use and the greenhouse effect have nothing to do with climate collapse and resulting human crises in areas where the climate affects survival, go right ahead.
I told you the poor would be at your doorstep, and they are.
I am telling you now, the climate catastrophe will be affecting little Maplewood, and you will see it.
Happy Passover.
|
mwsilva
Citizen
Username: Mwsilva
Post Number: 490
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 9:52 pm: |
|
"No, alarmed by the series of hurricanes, sunami, temperature and climate variation, etc, major climate calamities. Get it yet?"
Just a little over reaction, don't you think?
If you look at the global cycles of hurricanes, sunami, and temperature variations over the known record, rather than just your recent life, you would see a different picture.
Trashing our planet is not good and it needs to be stopped, but you are a bit over the top with this claim.
|
The Libertarian
Citizen
Username: Local_1_crew
Post Number: 1948
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 10:35 pm: |
|
tulip is determined to be in full panic mode. "i have seen pollution so there must be global warming!! WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!" :::runs around in circles, waving arms in the air frantically:: |
Dave
Supporter
Username: Dave
Post Number: 9214
Registered: 4-1997
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 11:19 pm: |
|
it's getting hot in here |
The Notorious S.L.K.
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 1212
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 8:09 am: |
|
tulip-
Just like notehead did, thanks for affirming Lindzen's argument.
-SLK
|
joel dranove
Citizen
Username: Jdranove
Post Number: 348
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 8:19 am: |
|
The only major climate calamity is the explosion of hot air vented on MOL.
jd |
Alleygater
Citizen
Username: Alleygater
Post Number: 1714
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 9:16 am: |
|
Dave: ...so take off all your clothes. |
dave23
Citizen
Username: Dave23
Post Number: 1651
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 9:36 am: |
|
"The difficulty is with a complicated subject we cannot simplify it without misrepresenting it."
- Richard Lindzen |
themp
Supporter
Username: Themp
Post Number: 2786
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 10:22 am: |
|
What is the consensus of scientific belief? For me, that's the only thing worth discussing unless you have the ability to interpret data yourself. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 13631
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 10:24 am: |
|
tulip, global warming is happening, but not every odd coincidence is proof of global warming. This stream of hurricanes may or may not be a result. No one knows. It is not obvious.
|
themp
Supporter
Username: Themp
Post Number: 2787
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 10:26 am: |
|
Undeniable Global Warming
By Naomi Oreskes
Sunday, December 26, 2004; Page B07
Many people have the impression that there is significant scientific disagreement about global climate change. It's time to lay that misapprehension to rest. There is a scientific consensus on the fact that Earth's climate is heating up and human activities are part of the reason. We need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of global warming and start talking seriously about the right approach to address it.
The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Program, the IPCC is charged with evaluating the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action. In its most recent assessment, the IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities . . . are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents . . . that absorb or scatter radiant energy. . . . [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."
The IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. A National Academy of Sciences report begins unequivocally: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise." The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and it answers yes. Others agree. The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have all issued statements concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling.
Despite recent allegations to the contrary, these statements from the leadership of scientific societies and the IPCC accurately reflect the state of the art in climate science research. The Institute for Scientific Information keeps a database on published scientific articles, which my research assistants and I used to answer that question with respect to global climate change. We read 928 abstracts published in scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 and listed in the database with the keywords "global climate change." Seventy-five percent of the papers either explicitly or implicitly accepted the consensus view. The remaining 25 percent dealt with other facets of the subject, taking no position on whether current climate change is caused by human activity. None of the papers disagreed with the consensus position. There have been arguments to the contrary, but they are not to be found in scientific literature, which is where scientific debates are properly adjudicated. There, the message is clear and unambiguous.
To be sure, a handful of scientists have raised questions about the details of climate models, about the accuracy of methods for evaluating past global temperatures and about the wisdom of even attempting to predict the future. But this is quibbling about the details. The basic picture is clear, and some changes are already occurring. A new report by the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment -- a consortium of eight countries, including Russia and the United States -- now confirms that major changes are taking place in the Arctic, affecting both human and non-human communities, as predicted by climate models. This information was conveyed to the U.S. Senate last month not by a radical environmentalist, as was recently alleged on the Web, but by Robert Corell, a senior fellow of the American Meteorological Society and former assistant director for geosciences at the National Science Foundation.
So why does it seem as if there is major scientific disagreement? Because a few noisy skeptics -- most of whom are not even scientists -- have generated a lot of chatter in the mass media. At the National Press Club recently, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Lindzen dismissed the consensus as "religious belief." To be sure, no scientific conclusion can ever be proven, absolutely, but it is no more a "belief" to say that Earth is heating up than it is to say that continents move, that germs cause disease, that DNA carries hereditary information or that quarks are the basic building blocks of subatomic matter. You can always find someone, somewhere, to disagree, but these conclusions represent our best available science, and therefore our best basis for reasoned action.
The chatter of skeptics is distracting us from the real issue: how best to respond to the threats that global warming presents.
The writer is an associate professor of history and director of the Program in Science Studies at the University of California.
|
The Notorious S.L.K.
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 1219
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 10:50 am: |
|
Naomi Oreskes says in her article:
"So why does it seem as if there is major scientific disagreement? Because a few noisy skeptics -- most of whom are not even scientists -- have generated a lot of chatter in the mass media. At the National Press Club recently, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Lindzen dismissed the consensus as "religious belief."
Lindzen is a Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT for crissakes...if that doesn't make him qualified on this subject I don't know what does...
-SLK |
dave23
Citizen
Username: Dave23
Post Number: 1653
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 10:53 am: |
|
SLK's right. That was just bad writing by Oreskes. That said, Lindzen remains in his field's minority. |
Meandtheboys
Citizen
Username: Meandtheboys
Post Number: 3518
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 10:54 am: |
|
Oh dear, I'm pretty sure the world must be coming to an end. Not because of global warming though.
Because it seems I actually agree with The Libertarian about something! |
Meandtheboys
Citizen
Username: Meandtheboys
Post Number: 3519
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 10:57 am: |
|
And, again, I find in interesting that if you don't agree 100% with those that predict a doomsday due to global warming, you are automatically labeled a self-centered, gas-guzzling, anti-environmentalist.
|
Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 1101
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 10:58 am: |
|
Sure he is qualified and he is also as notehead posted a poseur whose results are tainted since he is working for the oil companies. He knows which side butters his bread and he can claim science all he wants as long as his results match his employers needs.
SLK you also believed the tobacco company doctors when they testified that cigarettes dont cause cancer right? |
themp
Supporter
Username: Themp
Post Number: 2788
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 11:03 am: |
|
I don't believe in cholesterol. It's just a conspiracy to sell medicine. I had a grandfather who lived to be 100 and he ate eggs every day...I don't believe man walked on the moon. They faked the whole thing...I don't believe in the theory of relativity because it's too complicated to be true...
Believe what you want. Accept whatever anecdotes make you comfortable. Reality is out there, doing its thing, not thinking about you.
|
dave23
Citizen
Username: Dave23
Post Number: 1654
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 11:03 am: |
|
Meandtheboys,
I don't agree 100% with the doomsayers, yet I've managed to avoid being labeled. |
Dr. Winston O'Boogie
Citizen
Username: Casey
Post Number: 2029
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 11:29 am: |
|
it is undisputed that the snows of Kilimanjaro are receding at a rate that ensures their disappearance in our lifetimes. warmer seas are causing coral reefs to die at rate that suggests if you want to see one, you do it in the next decade.
the rate of climate change is altering ecosystems at a rate heretofore unknown in recorded human history. all that is not in dispute. what can be done at this point, and how disastrous it may or may not be for humans is not entirely agreed upon. but the fact that the changes are happening, and that they are dramatic is not in dispute at all among reputable scientists. there are zero - that's right ZERO - peer-reviewed published studies that say global warming isn't happening.
maybe you don't need to believe 100% in all the worst case scenarios, but if you believe in science at all, there is no dispute that the earth's climate is changing - and changing at an unprecendented rate. |
Mr. Big Poppa
Citizen
Username: Big_poppa
Post Number: 586
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 11:54 am: |
|
 |
themp
Supporter
Username: Themp
Post Number: 2789
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 12:13 pm: |
|
Oddly, the attitude of many is that we should not be expected to make even the slightest sacrifice or concession until we can proove that it is absolutely necessary and will save us. Often these same folks wanted to invade Iraq on a hypothetical and poorly researched set of facts, based on a speculative theory and hasty planning. "It would be foolish not to" they pompously intoned, "don't you GET it?" I was like, can't we wait for more evidence?
As if it would be such a hardship to improve fleet efficiency. I'd love it if everyone drove snappy lightweight cars. They are more fun anyway. I have been restoring an old motorcycle lately, and I have learned one thing: the gasoline engine is a kooky, rube goldberg machine with a narrow powerband and an absurdly overcomplicated construction that involves hundreds of little compensations for problems. They will look at these engines and marvel some day. |
The Notorious S.L.K.
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 1222
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 2:39 pm: |
|
Can some please be so kind as to get Dr. O'Boogie up to speed please...thanks...
Clueless Hoops-see Meandtheboys post above and get back to me....
geez... |
Joan
Supporter
Username: Joancrystal
Post Number: 7252
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 3:32 pm: |
|
I don't know if global warming poses an immediate threat to our climate or not but I think it is prudent for us to try to reduce environmental pollution where we can, not just as a modicum of insurance against the possibility of global warming tilting our climate to the tipping point but to improve our general health and the health of our present and future food supply. Cutting back on the use of fossil fuels where we can and avoiding the release of toxic pollutants into the air makes good sense whether or not a catastrophic climate change is possible in our immediate future and would be preventable if we immediately changed our ways. |
bklyntonj
Citizen
Username: Bklyntonj
Post Number: 658
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 3:48 pm: |
|
Oh please, there's plenty of alternatives other than gas to fuel cars and other automobiles. Why don't we use them? Because there's no $$$ to be made in them.
Global warming IS affecting our world but $$$ is what makes this issue continue to be ignored. Just like cures to diseases. There's no $$$ in that.
The $$$'s in the treatments! |
mwsilva
Citizen
Username: Mwsilva
Post Number: 491
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 5:32 pm: |
|
"Cutting back on the use of fossil fuels where we can and avoiding the release of toxic pollutants into the air makes good sense"
I would agree. My observations indicate that people will not change habits, regardless of what makes good sense.
Ask someone to walk to a video store, or better yet, not go to a video store and hear them tell you off.
How much fossil fuels and pollutants would we as a Township save if we stopped the school bussing program and reassigned kids to attend their local schools?
It would never happen.
What makes good sense will make not sense when placed into action. |
Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 1102
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 5:46 pm: |
|
SLK - you are a snake oil salesman. themp and Dr OB have it right. When you think about it, if we had invested the 200+ Billion into new technologies we could be well ahead of the curve already. |
The Notorious S.L.K.
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 1225
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 9:50 pm: |
|
Hoops-
I don't sell snake oil. I just think people like Dr OB is confused about product he is actually selling.
Let me say this for the tenth billionth time. NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT GW EXISTS OR THAT OUR CLIMATE IS GETTING WARMER. THE QUESTION IS HOW MUCH OF AN IMPACT DOES HUMANS HAVE ON THE CLIMATE VS HOW MUCH IS NATURALLY CAUSED.
There you got it now? I hope so since I am sick and tired of yet another example by yet another pro-GWer of how how our climate is warming....
And of course he and Themp have it right because it coincides were your own opinion. Do you have proof that we would be ahead of the curve if we speant 200+ billion or is that just you talking out of your arse again?
Hoops-someone who is absolutely,positively guaranteed to take the left wing position on any subject...
-SLK
I sure hope you change your mind and show up to the race talk sitdown. I really have to see you and hear you spit out the same BS in person to believe it...
But you have no b..... to show....surprise,surprise...
|
Dr. Winston O'Boogie
Citizen
Username: Casey
Post Number: 2030
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 9:56 pm: |
|
yeah, I'm as confused as those enviro-wackos at the EPA:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/climateuncertainties.html |
The Notorious S.L.K.
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 1227
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 10:03 pm: |
|
So Dr., you are right and I am wrong.
What do you plan on doing about GW?
-SLK |
Dr. Winston O'Boogie
Citizen
Username: Casey
Post Number: 2031
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 11:22 pm: |
|
that's a ridiculous question, but if you must know, I take mass transit to work and I typically walk for any errands within town, so I'm using far less gasoline than the average American. I don't expect any kudos for that, since I recognize that most people don't have that luxury. but where in any of my posts did I suggest that you or anyone else needs to change your behavior? I simply pointed out that there is a very strong consensus on GW and its causes.
but yes, I was right, and you were wrong. thank you for being big enough to admit that. |
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3412
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Friday, April 14, 2006 - 6:25 am: |
|
slik: sounds like you are taking over Maplewood, and trying to intimidate everyone. You can be counted on for a hillbilly right wing nut job position, every time, regardless of who your wife is and what she does. |
The Notorious S.L.K.
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 1229
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, April 14, 2006 - 10:11 am: |
|
tulip-
And you're the pompus, educated sophisticate that takes any and every left wing position as WORD.
I am not trying to take over Maplewood. I am sick and tired of the left wing whiners who bitch and moan about everything but offer no viable solutions. You are no exception.
And I am the hillbilly? You are the one that lives out in the sticks.
Dr O'Boogie-
I was being sarcastic about you being right, but even I as a skeptic of human induced GW realize that we all need to curb some of our habits in hopes to alleviate its effects (if applicable).
-SLK
|
Dr. Winston O'Boogie
Citizen
Username: Casey
Post Number: 2032
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Friday, April 14, 2006 - 10:14 am: |
|
oh, I thought you were being big. I should have realized you weren't. But the fact remains that you were indeed wrong about me. You're attributing stuff I haven't written to me. Look at the words of my first post. Compare them to the EPA's own website, and you'll see that nothing of what I wrote differs from what is known to our own EPA. |
MBJ
Citizen
Username: Mbj
Post Number: 207
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, April 14, 2006 - 10:59 am: |
|
Tulip, your posts get more absurd each day.
Keep up the good work! |
curmudgeon
Citizen
Username: Curmudgeon
Post Number: 756
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, April 14, 2006 - 12:40 pm: |
|
RICHARD LINDZEN M. Lindzen is Alfred P. Sloan Professor...
Lest we forget - Alfred P. Sloan was the guy who made General Motors into the behemoth it became. Is it any surprise that the holder of his endowed professorship would tilt towards exonerating air pollution's role in global climate change? |
Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 1103
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Friday, April 14, 2006 - 1:25 pm: |
|
SLK - I take the position that I can support. It happens that the left is the position that makes the most sense to me.
I certainly can second exactly what tulip said. You profer to be some open minded independent thinker, but you have yet to contribute one post which demonstrates it. |
The Notorious S.L.K.
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 1232
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, April 14, 2006 - 1:35 pm: |
|
Dr. Boogie:
I can't believe I have to hold your hand and walk you through this but I guess I have to.
This is what I said in a previous post:
NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT GW EXISTS OR THAT OUR CLIMATE IS GETTING WARMER. THE QUESTION IS HOW MUCH OF AN IMPACT DOES HUMANS HAVE ON THE CLIMATE VS HOW MUCH IS NATURALLY CAUSED.
This is what the EPA said in the link you provided:
"Figuring out to what extent the human-induced accumulation of greenhouse gases since pre-industrial times is responsible for the global warming trend is not easy. This is because other factors, both natural and human, affect our planet's temperature. Scientific understanding of these other factors – most notably natural climatic variations, changes in the sun's energy, and the cooling effects of pollutant aerosols – remains incomplete."
Not much of a difference, huh?
This "bigger picture" perspective sure beats your's, tulip's and notey's sky is falling routine by a long shot.
But I do give you credit. Like you I also walk/recycle when/what I can and take mass transport. I think we and many others are doing our limited part.
But is our part enough?
On thing I did find interesting was this comment in your EPA link:
"The key greenhouse gases emitted by human activities remain in the atmosphere for periods ranging from decades to centuries.
Personally I never thought about this aspect before. Is our climate suffering due to the alleged damage created 10, 35, or 70 years ago? Facinating. And what is more facinating is whether the advances in technology (from energy saving appliances to better MPG on automobiles) implemented in the last 15 years will help alleviate any alleged damage down the road?
-SLK
|
Dr. Winston O'Boogie
Citizen
Username: Casey
Post Number: 2033
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Friday, April 14, 2006 - 1:54 pm: |
|
I can't believe I'm still walking YOU through this. I never criticized anything in your posts other than to say that your assertion that I need to "get up to speed," and your claim that I am "selling snake oil" were wrong. Nothing I've posted would be remotely considered "snake oil" by someone who read the EPA website, or any other reputable source on GW.
at this point, I'm convinced you just want to argue and be condescending.
but worst is your taking one paragraph out of the EPA website that supports your point of view, leaving out such passages as:
Quote:Nevertheless, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated there was a "discernible" human influence on climate; and that the observed warming trend is "unlikely to be entirely natural in origin." In the most recent Third Assessment Report (2001), IPCC wrote "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities."
|
train 6406
Citizen
Username: Suburban
Post Number: 7
Registered: 3-2006
| | Posted on Friday, April 14, 2006 - 2:46 pm: |
|
Dissenters read on:
From TIME magazine
Polar Ice Caps Are Melting Faster Than Ever... More And More Land Is Being Devastated By Drought... Rising Waters Are Drowning Low-Lying Communities... By Any Measure, Earth Is At ... The Tipping Point
No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.
It certainly looked that way last week as the atmospheric bomb that was Cyclone Larry--a Category 4 storm with wind bursts that reached 125 m.p.h.--exploded through northeastern Australia. It certainly looked that way last year as curtains of fire and dust turned the skies of Indonesia orange, thanks to drought-fueled blazes sweeping the island nation. It certainly looks that way as sections of ice the size of small states calve from the disintegrating Arctic and Antarctic. And it certainly looks that way as the sodden wreckage of New Orleans continues to molder, while the waters of the Atlantic gather themselves for a new hurricane season just two months away. Disasters have always been with us and surely always will be. But when they hit this hard and come this fast--when the emergency becomes commonplace--something has gone grievously wrong. That something is global warming.
The image of Earth as organism--famously dubbed Gaia by environmentalist James Lovelock-- has probably been overworked, but that's not to say the planet can't behave like a living thing, and these days, it's a living thing fighting a fever. From heat waves to storms to floods to fires to massive glacial melts, the global climate seems to be crashing around us. Scientists have been calling this shot for decades. This is precisely what they have been warning would happen if we continued pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, trapping the heat that flows in from the sun and raising global temperatures.
Environmentalists and lawmakers spent years shouting at one another about whether the grim forecasts were true, but in the past five years or so, the serious debate has quietly ended. Global warming, even most skeptics have concluded, is the real deal, and human activity has been causing it. If there was any consolation, it was that the glacial pace of nature would give us decades or even centuries to sort out the problem.
But glaciers, it turns out, can move with surprising speed, and so can nature. What few people reckoned on was that global climate systems are booby-trapped with tipping points and feedback loops, thresholds past which the slow creep of environmental decay gives way to sudden and self-perpetuating collapse. Pump enough CO2 into the sky, and that last part per million of greenhouse gas behaves like the 212th degree Fahrenheit that turns a pot of hot water into a plume of billowing steam. Melt enough Greenland ice, and you reach the point at which you're not simply dripping meltwater into the sea but dumping whole glaciers. By one recent measure, several Greenland ice sheets have doubled their rate of slide, and just last week the journal Science published a study suggesting that by the end of the century, the world could be locked in to an eventual rise in sea levels of as much as 20 ft. Nature, it seems, has finally got a bellyful of us.
"Things are happening a lot faster than anyone predicted," says Bill Chameides, chief scientist for the advocacy group Environmental Defense and a former professor of atmospheric chemistry. "The last 12 months have been alarming." Adds Ruth Curry of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts: "The ripple through the scientific community is palpable."
And it's not just scientists who are taking notice. Even as nature crosses its tipping points, the public seems to have reached its own. For years, popular skepticism about climatological science stood in the way of addressing the problem, but the naysayers--many of whom were on the payroll of energy companies--have become an increasingly marginalized breed. In a new TIME/ ABC News/ Stanford University poll, 85% of respondents agree that global warming probably is happening. Moreover, most respondents say they want some action taken. Of those polled, 87% believe the government should either encourage or require lowering of power-plant emissions, and 85% think something should be done to get cars to use less gasoline. Even Evangelical Christians, once one of the most reliable columns in the conservative base, are demanding action, most notably in February, when 86 Christian leaders formed the Evangelical Climate Initiative, demanding that Congress regulate greenhouse gases.
A collection of new global-warming books is hitting the shelves in response to that awakening interest, followed closely by TV and theatrical documentaries. The most notable of them is An Inconvenient Truth, due out in May, a profile of former Vice President Al Gore and his climate-change work, which is generating a lot of prerelease buzz over an unlikely topic and an equally unlikely star. For all its lack of Hollywood flash, the film compensates by conveying both the hard science of global warming and Gore's particular passion.
Such public stirrings are at last getting the attention of politicians and business leaders, who may not always respond to science but have a keen nose for where votes and profits lie. State and local lawmakers have started taking action to curb emissions, and major corporations are doing the same. Wal-Mart has begun installing wind turbines on its stores to generate electricity and is talking about putting solar reflectors over its parking lots. HSBC, the world's second largest bank, has pledged to neutralize its carbon output by investing in wind farms and other green projects. Even President Bush, hardly a favorite of greens, now acknowledges climate change and boasts of the steps he is taking to fight it. Most of those steps, however, involve research and voluntary emissions controls, not exactly the laws with teeth scientists are calling for.
Is it too late to reverse the changes global warming has wrought? That's still not clear. Reducing our emissions output year to year is hard enough. Getting it low enough so that the atmosphere can heal is a multigenerational commitment. "Ecosystems are usually able to maintain themselves," says Terry Chapin, a biologist and professor of ecology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. "But eventually they get pushed to the limit of tolerance."
CO2 AND THE POLES
As a tiny component of our atmosphere, carbon dioxide helped warm Earth to comfort levels we are all used to. But too much of it does an awful lot of damage. The gas represents just a few hundred parts per million (p.p.m.) in the overall air blanket, but they're powerful parts because they allow sunlight to stream in but prevent much of the heat from radiating back out. During the last ice age, the atmosphere's CO2 concentration was just 180 p.p.m., putting Earth into a deep freeze. After the glaciers retreated but before the dawn of the modern era, the total had risen to a comfortable 280 p.p.m. In just the past century and a half, we have pushed the level to 381 p.p.m., and we're feeling the effects. Of the 20 hottest years on record, 19 occurred in the 1980s or later. According to NASA scientists, 2005 was one of the hottest years in more than a century.
It's at the North and South poles that those steambath conditions are felt particularly acutely, with glaciers and ice caps crumbling to slush. Once the thaw begins, a number of mechanisms kick in to keep it going. Greenland is a vivid example. Late last year, glaciologist Eric Rignot of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Pannir Kanagaratnam, a research assistant professor at the University of Kansas, analyzed data from Canadian and European satellites and found that Greenland ice is not just melting but doing so more than twice as fast, with 53 cu. mi. draining away into the sea last year alone, compared with 22 cu. mi. in 1996. A cubic mile of water is about five times the amount Los Angeles uses in a year.
Dumping that much water into the ocean is a very dangerous thing. Icebergs don't raise sea levels when they melt because they're floating, which means they have displaced all the water they're ever going to. But ice on land, like Greenland's, is a different matter. Pour that into oceans that are already rising (because warm water expands), and you deluge shorelines. By some estimates, the entire Greenland ice sheet would be enough to raise global sea levels 23 ft., swallowing up large parts of coastal Florida and most of Bangladesh. The Antarctic holds enough ice to raise sea levels more than 215 ft.
FEEDBACK LOOPS
One of the reasons the loss of the planet's ice cover is accelerating is that as the poles' bright white surface shrinks, it changes the relationship of Earth and the sun. Polar ice is so reflective that 90% of the sunlight that strikes it simply bounces back into space, taking much of its energy with it. Ocean water does just the opposite, absorbing 90% of the energy it receives. The more energy it retains, the warmer it gets, with the result that each mile of ice that melts vanishes faster than the mile that preceded it.
That is what scientists call a feedback loop, and it's a nasty one, since once you uncap the Arctic Ocean, you unleash another beast: the comparatively warm layer of water about 600 ft. deep that circulates in and out of the Atlantic. "Remove the ice," says Woods Hole's Curry, "and the water starts talking to the atmosphere, releasing its heat. This is not a good thing."
A similar feedback loop is melting permafrost, usually defined as land that has been continuously frozen for two years or more. There's a lot of earthly real estate that qualifies, and much of it has been frozen much longer than two years--since the end of the last ice age, or at least 8,000 years ago. Sealed inside that cryonic time capsule are layers of partially decayed organic matter, rich in carbon. In high-altitude regions of Alaska, Canada and Siberia, the soil is warming and decomposing, releasing gases that will turn into methane and CO2. That, in turn, could lead to more warming and permafrost thaw, says research scientist David Lawrence of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo. And how much carbon is socked away in Arctic soils? Lawrence puts the figure at 200 gigatons to 800 gigatons. The total human carbon output is only 7 gigatons a year.
One result of all that is warmer oceans, and a result of warmer oceans can be, paradoxically, colder continents within a hotter globe. Ocean currents running between warm and cold regions serve as natural thermoregulators, distributing heat from the equator toward the poles. The Gulf Stream, carrying warmth up from the tropics, is what keeps Europe's climate relatively mild. Whenever Europe is cut off from the Gulf Stream, temperatures plummet. At the end of the last ice age, the warm current was temporarily blocked, and temperatures in Europe fell as much as 10°F, locking the continent in glaciers.
What usually keeps the Gulf Stream running is that warm water is lighter than cold water, so it floats on the surface. As it reaches Europe and releases its heat, the current grows denser and sinks, flowing back to the south and crossing under the northbound Gulf Stream until it reaches the tropics and starts to warm again. The cycle works splendidly, provided the water remains salty enough. But if it becomes diluted by freshwater, the salt concentration drops, and the water gets lighter, idling on top and stalling the current. Last December, researchers associated with Britain's National Oceanography Center reported that one component of the system that drives the Gulf Stream has slowed about 30% since 1957. It's the increased release of Arctic and Greenland meltwater that appears to be causing the problem, introducing a gush of freshwater that's overwhelming the natural cycle. In a global-warming world, it's unlikely that any amount of cooling that resulted from this would be sufficient to support glaciers, but it could make things awfully uncomfortable.
"The big worry is that the whole climate of Europe will change," says Adrian Luckman, senior lecturer in geography at the University of Wales, Swansea. "We in the U.K. are on the same latitude as Alaska. The reason we can live here is the Gulf Stream."
DROUGHT
As fast as global warming is transforming the oceans and the ice caps, it's having an even more immediate effect on land. People, animals and plants living in dry, mountainous regions like the western U.S. make it through summer thanks to snowpack that collects on peaks all winter and slowly melts off in warm months. Lately the early arrival of spring and the unusually blistering summers have caused the snowpack to melt too early, so that by the time it's needed, it's largely gone. Climatologist Philip Mote of the University of Washington has compared decades of snowpack levels in Washington, Oregon and California and found that they are a fraction of what they were in the 1940s, and some snowpacks have vanished entirely.
Global warming is tipping other regions of the world into drought in different ways. Higher temperatures bake moisture out of soil faster, causing dry regions that live at the margins to cross the line into full-blown crisis. Meanwhile, El Niño events--the warm pooling of Pacific waters that periodically drives worldwide climate patterns and has been occurring more frequently in global-warming years--further inhibit precipitation in dry areas of Africa and East Asia. According to a recent study by NCAR, the percentage of Earth's surface suffering drought has more than doubled since the 1970s.
FLORA AND FAUNA
Hot, dry land can be murder on flora and fauna, and both are taking a bad hit. Wildfires in such regions as Indonesia, the western U.S. and even inland Alaska have been increasing as timberlands and forest floors grow more parched. The blazes create a feedback loop of their own, pouring more carbon into the atmosphere and reducing the number of trees, which inhale CO2 and release oxygen.
Those forests that don't succumb to fire die in other, slower ways. Connie Millar, a paleoecologist for the U.S. Forest Service, studies the history of vegetation in the Sierra Nevada. Over the past 100 years, she has found, the forests have shifted their tree lines as much as 100 ft. upslope, trying to escape the heat and drought of the lowlands. Such slow-motion evacuation may seem like a sensible strategy, but when you're on a mountain, you can go only so far before you run out of room. "Sometimes we say the trees are going to heaven because they're walking off the mountaintops," Millar says.
Across North America, warming-related changes are mowing down other flora too. Manzanita bushes in the West are dying back; some prickly pear cacti have lost their signature green and are instead a sickly pink; pine beetles in western Canada and the U.S. are chewing their way through tens of millions of acres of forest, thanks to warmer winters. The beetles may even breach the once insurmountable Rocky Mountain divide, opening up a path into the rich timbering lands of the American Southeast.
With habitats crashing, animals that live there are succumbing too. Environmental groups can tick off scores of species that have been determined to be at risk as a result of global warming. Last year, researchers in Costa Rica announced that two-thirds of 110 species of colorful harlequin frogs have vanished in the past 30 years, with the severity of each season's die-off following in lockstep with the severity of that year's warming.
In Alaska, salmon populations are at risk as melting permafrost pours mud into rivers, burying the gravel the fish need for spawning. Small animals such as bushy-tailed wood rats, alpine chipmunks and piñon mice are being chased upslope by rising temperatures, following the path of the fleeing trees. And with sea ice vanishing, polar bears--prodigious swimmers but not inexhaustible ones--are starting to turn up drowned. "There will be no polar ice by 2060," says Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation. "Somewhere along that path, the polar bear drops out."
WHAT ABOUT US?
It is fitting, perhaps, that as the species causing all the problems, we're suffering the destruction of our habitat too, and we have experienced that loss in terrible ways. Ocean waters have warmed by a full degree Fahrenheit since 1970, and warmer water is like rocket fuel for typhoons and hurricanes. Two studies last year found that in the past 35 years the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has doubled while the wind speed and duration of all hurricanes has jumped 50%. Since atmospheric heat is not choosy about the water it warms, tropical storms could start turning up in some decidedly nontropical places. "There's a school of thought that sea surface temperatures are warming up toward Canada," says Greg Holland, senior scientist for NCAR in Boulder. "If so, you're likely to get tropical cyclones there, but we honestly don't know."
WHAT WE CAN DO
So much for environmental collapse happening in so many places at once has at last awakened much of the world, particularly the 141 nations that have ratified the Kyoto treaty to reduce emissions--an imperfect accord, to be sure, but an accord all the same. The U.S., however, which is home to less than 5% of Earth's population but produces 25% of CO2 emissions, remains intransigent. Many environmentalists declared the Bush Administration hopeless from the start, and while that may have been premature, it's undeniable that the White House's environmental record--from the abandonment of Kyoto to the President's broken campaign pledge to control carbon output to the relaxation of emission standards--has been dismal. George W. Bush's recent rhetorical nods to America's oil addiction and his praise of such alternative fuel sources as switchgrass have yet to be followed by real initiatives.
The anger surrounding all that exploded recently when NASA researcher Jim Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a longtime leader in climate-change research, complained that he had been harassed by White House appointees as he tried to sound the global-warming alarm. "The way democracy is supposed to work, the presumption is that the public is well informed," he told TIME. "They're trying to deny the science." Up against such resistance, many environmental groups have resolved simply to wait out this Administration and hope for something better in 2009.
The Republican-dominated Congress has not been much more encouraging. Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman have twice been unable to get through the Senate even mild measures to limit carbon. Senators Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman, both of New Mexico and both ranking members of the chamber's Energy Committee, have made global warming a high-profile matter. A white paper issued in February will be the subject of an investigatory Senate conference next week. A House delegation recently traveled to Antarctica, Australia and New Zealand to visit researchers studying climate change. "Of the 10 of us, only three were believers," says Representative Sherwood Boehlert of New York. "Every one of the others said this opened their eyes."
Boehlert himself has long fought the environmental fight, but if the best that can be said for most lawmakers is that they are finally recognizing the global-warming problem, there's reason to wonder whether they will have the courage to reverse it. Increasingly, state and local governments are filling the void. The mayors of more than 200 cities have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, pledging, among other things, that they will meet the Kyoto goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in their cities to 1990 levels by 2012. Nine eastern states have established the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative for the purpose of developing a cap-and-trade program that would set ceilings on industrial emissions and allow companies that overperform to sell pollution credits to those that underperform-- the same smart, incentive-based strategy that got sulfur dioxide under control and reduced acid rain. And California passed the nation's toughest automobile- emissions law last summer.
"There are a whole series of things that demonstrate that people want to act and want their government to act," says Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense. Krupp and others believe that we should probably accept that it's too late to prevent CO2 concentrations from climbing to 450 p.p.m. (or 70 p.p.m. higher than where they are now). From there, however, we should be able to stabilize them and start to dial them back down.
That goal should be attainable. Curbing global warming may be an order of magnitude harder than, say, eradicating smallpox or putting a man on the moon. But is it moral not to try? We did not so much march toward the environmental precipice as drunkenly reel there, snapping at the scientific scolds who told us we had a problem.
The scolds, however, knew what they were talking about. In a solar system crowded with sister worlds that either emerged stillborn like Mercury and Venus or died in infancy like Mars, we're finally coming to appreciate the knife-blade margins within which life can thrive. For more than a century we've been monkeying with those margins. It's long past time we set them right.
—With reporting by Greg Fulton/ Atlanta, Dan Cray/ Los Angeles, Rita Healy/ Denver, Eric Roston/ Washington, With reporting by David Bjerklie, Andrea Dorfman/ New York, Andrea Gerlin/ London
|
notehead
Supporter
Username: Notehead
Post Number: 3169
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 11:33 am: |
|
To reiterate a point from my thread in the Political Soapbox... ONE big storm does not indicate anthropogenic global warming. Nor does one harsh season of drought or floods or heat or cold. Even a full year of extraordinary climate events around the world is insufficient to identify AGW as a culprit. We're talking about incredibly complex climate models, based on meticulous peer-reviewed research by thousands of scientists, processed by some of the biggest and best computers on the planet, making predictions about what human-caused emissions will do, and then seeing those predicted conditions arrive, steadily, worldwide, over an extended period of time.
What level of proof do the deniers actually require? The hypocrisy absolutely reeks, as many of those same individuals will make significant investment decisions or medical choices or support government actions based on evidence which is FAR less robust than that which supports major energy policy changes to combat AGW.
When looking at deniers of AGW, what you will find in nearly every case are people who base their opinions entirely on the occasional right-leaning editorial, and have made no real effort to learn about the issue.
When looking at the people writing these editorials, what you will find in nearly every case are people who are directly or indirectly funded by the fossil fuel sector, such as Mr. Lindzen. Sometimes you also find apparently independent scientists who, with the most humanitarian of intentions, have reached a conclusion about AGW that goes against the consensus. Give them respect in proportion to the acceptance of their conclusions by the experts. |
notehead
Supporter
Username: Notehead
Post Number: 3170
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 2:08 pm: |
|
From Krugman's column in the NYT today:
Global warming emerged as a major public issue in the late 1980's. But at first there was considerable scientific uncertainty.
Over time, the accumulation of evidence removed much of that uncertainty. Climate experts still aren't sure how much hotter the world will get, and how fast. But there's now an overwhelming scientific consensus that the world is getting warmer, and that human activity is the cause. In 2004, an article in the journal Science that surveyed 928 papers on climate change published in peer-reviewed scientific journals found that "none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position." |
Smarty Jones
Citizen
Username: Birdstone
Post Number: 530
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 2:09 pm: |
|
Notehead- This is clearly a subject matter that you've studied at great length to form your views. Given what you've read, are you 100% certain of the prevailing theories and conclusions, and that we've learned all there is to know on the topic, or do you feel that we're still in the early stages of learning and analysis?
If given the choice of investing $2Trillion (Conservative immediate cost estimates of Kyoto) toward easing theoretical causes of GW, or investing $2Trillion toward the development of a viable mass-distributable AIDS vaccine, which would you choose? |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 13704
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 2:20 pm: |
|
Smarty, scientists are not 100% sure of anything. They say that the evidence shows X. Later studies can contradict those findings. No scientific evidence so far contradicts that human activity is causing global warming. So if it's a betting game, you're best off betting that global warming is a problem we should address. And if you know about gambling, you know there is no such thing as a sure bet. But you don't ask for a hit when you are at 20 and have a large pile of cards in front of you.
|
notehead
Supporter
Username: Notehead
Post Number: 3171
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 2:55 pm: |
|
We have not learned all there is to know, of course, but I think we are definitely past the early stages of exploring this issue. I would not characterize my trust of the prevailing consensus as being fully 100%, but I would certainly say that I am more than confident enough to make serious purchasing decisions to try to address the problem on an individual level, and to support huge efforts by the government to implement renewable energy on a large scale.
I would definitely choose to invest 2T in global warming abatement over the vaccine, because I believe it would save more lives.
Please bear in mind that I would be very happy to learn that the current scientific consensus is wrong. But that seems virtually impossible to me, given the huge amount of data that has been compiled, and the buy-in by such a huge number of leading scientific and government agencies.
And let's remember that there are plenty of other important reasons to switch to renewable energy. The global economy is still essentially an oil-based economy which is far from equitable. The vast amount of wealth going into the Middle East is perhaps the biggest reason why certain incredibly outdated cultures have retained such power into the 21st century. Also, feasibly extractable petroleum will be gone, forever, in the next few decades. Is it not prudent to foster the use of alternatives? Another reason to switch to renewables is that it absolutely costs less over the long term (and is priced about the same as conventional grid power in some areas), especially after you remove the government subsidies -- which is our money anyway -- and the health impacts of fossil fuel use. |
Smarty Jones
Citizen
Username: Birdstone
Post Number: 544
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, April 21, 2006 - 2:42 pm: |
|
Tom, kind of like the scientists who convinced us the Ozone holes were expanding because of Aerosol sprays....had we spent $2T on THAT one, we'd have basically flushed the money, and quite possibly done REAL damage to the environment in our efforts to combat the perceived problem.
Did anyone see the special on NOVA about "Global Dimming"....evidently, thats the REAL problem....thoughts on that one Notehead? |
The Libertarian
Citizen
Username: Local_1_crew
Post Number: 1979
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Friday, April 21, 2006 - 2:50 pm: |
|
In 2005 Wild et al. and Pinker et al. found that the "dimming" trend had reversed since about 1990 |
notehead
Supporter
Username: Notehead
Post Number: 3186
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, April 21, 2006 - 3:58 pm: |
|
I don't know much about it, Smarty, but I recall reading that the absence of any plane traffice right after 9/11 resulted in brighter skies, according to some experts. Are planes the main cause? One wonders if there could be some way of modifying plane engines to increase the amount of contrails produced, without also contributing to global warming or decreasing performance.
Hang on... this calls for a Google check...
Yeah, Wikipedia has the bit that Lib quoted. It's thought to have been caused by aerosols. They also say:
Some scientists now consider that the effects of global dimming have masked the effect of global warming to some extent and that resolving global dimming may therefore lead to increases in predictions of future temperature rise.
Oh, great. |
Smarty Jones
Citizen
Username: Birdstone
Post Number: 546
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, April 21, 2006 - 4:06 pm: |
|
No mention that dimming reversed in 1990 on last nights special, but these days, it's hard to discern truth/fiction. The guy making the Plane Traffic claim measured the variability in temparature, rather than actual Temps (actual temps would have shown little, evidently)....
Supposedly, Dimming offsets warming (in a Balance if you are an optimist, in a tug-of-war, if you are a pessimist) and that if we remove the pollutants causing dimming, we'll unleash warming at far more alarming levels originally thought.....all models, of course. |
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3445
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Friday, April 21, 2006 - 4:47 pm: |
|
Smarty:
I saw the NOVA program. Fascinating. The guy who discovered the dimming effect of airplanes was from...my favorite...University of Wisconsin. He had been thinking it might be a result partly of airplane pollution, and he noticed during 9/11 how blue the skies were. He realized it was probably because there were no airplanes flying, so he measured the ozone and pollution as airplanes gradually came back to the skies, and found a close correlation between airplanes and dimming. And yes, the dimming has been universally noticed, by independent studies, that is, researchers noticing it and tracking it without communicating with each other or comparing notes.
Dimming, as it decreases with the decrease in air pollution, will permit an increase in warming, which will, they said, within ten years, lead to serious flooding in low-lying areas, including cities.
We shall see.
Alaska is already melting, really fast.
I hope they play the NOVA show again soon. It was a couple days ago, and I'm sure it will be on again. |
|
Closed: New threads not accepted on this page