GinohnNews
<< REWIND |
16 JANUARY 2008 |
FORWARD>> |
global chills
J: I chopped and popped some
highlights from my brother Eric and me in a super secret forum. The
subject was global warming. I'm glad Eric was there to back me up.
Highlights of anonymous entries that we responded to are bold and
inset. It started with an informal poll:
Depends what you mean by "can't" and what you mean by "fix it" of course.
I think we can take a lot of steps now to make slight changes in climate many decades from now, which is almost certainly well worth it. But we can't "fix" the changes that have already started. It's just as important to mitigate the consequences because even if we could (i.e. there's no way in hell we can) stop using fossil fuels and suspend nearly all other greenhouse gas emissions completely, it would be decades before that would have any serious effect, just as it has been many decades since the increases started before we could definitively say that they have forced climate changes.
However, starting to make changes now and continuing to make changes over the next few decades will have enormous consequences for our great grandchildren. So we should do it without expecting the returns now (other than other important returns, such as cleaner energy, greater energy independence, and new industry).
I always recommend this site on the subject.
http://realclimate.org/
It has many excellent discussions on the science and (unlike a lot of the info you may read on the subject) is written by real climate scientists.
By the way, one of the claims that's pretty much demolished on the realclimate.org site is the common claim that "climate scientists in the 1970's generally believed that we were entering a new ice age" if that's what you mean by "claimed the earth was cooling". It turns out that a few speculated on it but there wasn't ever any real support for it.
John:
Some of the stuff I'm not allowed to tell you: One of our climatologists at NASA is predicting that the Arctic will have no ice sheet left by 2012.
E:
Doesn't seem far-fetched to me.
Better resolution:
http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/images/20071001_extent.png
J:
[...] the dominant mechanisms to which recent climate change has been attributed all result from human activity (greenhouse gases, aerosols, and deforestation). 15 years ago the scientific consensus was more tenuous, but since then lots of new evidence has come in, and it's really hard to find any climatologist (or any scientist) who still has doubts.
Until recently the AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists) was the only major scientific organization that rejected the finding of significant human influence on recent climate. But even they've joined the consensus.
Of course, gathering all the mounds of data and sifting through them has proceeded at a glacial pace, which has only increased the fervor of fingers pointing at conspiracy nuts and crackpots. The wheels of Science turn slowly, but they get there. It's certainly good to be cautious with new knowledge, but at a certain point when the proofs against it begin to disappear, it's time to stop being so cautious and see what we can do with the knowledge.
E:
In Scientific American this month, there's a good argument for implementing massive solar power production in the US southwest:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
I was pretty convinced but I haven't read any rebuttals yet.
By the way, melting ice in the oceans will have practically zero effect on the geoid because, as Archimedes would tell you, a floating object displaces its own mass in water. Melting continental ice does change the geoid. In fact, there is a large depression in the geoid in northern Canada that was caused by the weight of previous glaciers. Most of Canada has been rising slowly since that ice melted, removing a lot of mass from the continent. The East Coast, which was bulged up a bit from the weight in the middle of the continent is now going down very slightly.
The only piece of the puzzle left was to find out if increases in carbon dioxide force climate change and not the other way around. That has since been fairly well nailed down. Climate scientists are now pretty sure that the current warming trend really is mostly due to human activity, not natural fluctuations or any other factor.
So, in any case, it seems kind of dumb to go on denying that human activity is a factor unless we want to fire all of our climatologists and bring in a new generation of climatologists (only to find that they come to the same conclusion, as they probably will if they follow the evidence). Instead, I think it's better to accept what the scientists say and come to some reasonable ways of dealing with the probable outcomes. If we all decide to go on living the way we are (or stop building on the coast or whatever), if we decide to deal with the consequences rather than the probable causes, I'm okay with that. As long as we don't fire the climatologists just because we don't like their conclusions.
J:
E:
I just get a little tired of seeing good scientists brushed aside with little more than passing excuses ("maybe we'll never know" or "they've been wrong before"), arguments that don't refute or even address what those scientists have found ("the climate has changed without humans before" or "this year we had fewer hurricanes!"), straw men ("yeah, sure, the sky is falling again" or "are they trying to get us to ride bicycles again?"), or elusive conspiracy theories ("they just want research money" -- never minding that the energy companies have poured out tons more money trying to refute the evidence, without success, or "IPCC, aren't they working for the UN? Another ploy for power")...
The science is, for the most part, solid. The scientists have been extremely cautious in reaching the current consensus.
There are a few on the other side who've exaggerated the science a bit or who've used scientific conclusions as a way to sell books and papers, maybe even plans, but that doesn't mean the science is wrong. If my doctor had even half of this amount of evidence that I had a tumor, I'd take it very seriously. It would be a relief to find out I didn't have one but pretty stupid to just say, "Well, he's probably just wrong again." (As I said, I wouldn't fight with those who would say "just live with it" rather than trying to cut it out. That is one option.)
What do you think about global warming?Eric:
- It's bunk! (damn liberals) 25% [ 2 ]
- It could be true but those same scientist claimed the earth was cooling. You'll have to convince me. 12% [ 1 ]
- Well we did it and can't fix it. Sure will make longer growing seasons. 25% [ 2 ]
- Global what? Leeeeeeeroy Jenkins.... 0% [ 0 ]
- We broke it and we better fix it. 12% [ 1 ]
- We are all going to die soon from a massive global warming heat wave. (stupid conservatives) 12% [ 1 ]
- NASA said I can't comment. 12% [ 1 ]
Depends what you mean by "can't" and what you mean by "fix it" of course.
I think we can take a lot of steps now to make slight changes in climate many decades from now, which is almost certainly well worth it. But we can't "fix" the changes that have already started. It's just as important to mitigate the consequences because even if we could (i.e. there's no way in hell we can) stop using fossil fuels and suspend nearly all other greenhouse gas emissions completely, it would be decades before that would have any serious effect, just as it has been many decades since the increases started before we could definitively say that they have forced climate changes.
However, starting to make changes now and continuing to make changes over the next few decades will have enormous consequences for our great grandchildren. So we should do it without expecting the returns now (other than other important returns, such as cleaner energy, greater energy independence, and new industry).
I always recommend this site on the subject.
http://realclimate.org/
It has many excellent discussions on the science and (unlike a lot of the info you may read on the subject) is written by real climate scientists.
By the way, one of the claims that's pretty much demolished on the realclimate.org site is the common claim that "climate scientists in the 1970's generally believed that we were entering a new ice age" if that's what you mean by "claimed the earth was cooling". It turns out that a few speculated on it but there wasn't ever any real support for it.
John:
Some of the stuff I'm not allowed to tell you: One of our climatologists at NASA is predicting that the Arctic will have no ice sheet left by 2012.
E:
Doesn't seem far-fetched to me.

Better resolution:
http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/images/20071001_extent.png
[...]that the Earth is warming slightly isn't in dispute; whether humans play large enough a role to matter is in doubt.Yeah, where are all these doubters? The fact that none of the "doubter" scientists gets published these days is because it's all a big conspiracy to cover up the "doubt". Right.
J:
[...] the dominant mechanisms to which recent climate change has been attributed all result from human activity (greenhouse gases, aerosols, and deforestation). 15 years ago the scientific consensus was more tenuous, but since then lots of new evidence has come in, and it's really hard to find any climatologist (or any scientist) who still has doubts.
Until recently the AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists) was the only major scientific organization that rejected the finding of significant human influence on recent climate. But even they've joined the consensus.
Of course, gathering all the mounds of data and sifting through them has proceeded at a glacial pace, which has only increased the fervor of fingers pointing at conspiracy nuts and crackpots. The wheels of Science turn slowly, but they get there. It's certainly good to be cautious with new knowledge, but at a certain point when the proofs against it begin to disappear, it's time to stop being so cautious and see what we can do with the knowledge.
E:
In Scientific American this month, there's a good argument for implementing massive solar power production in the US southwest:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
I was pretty convinced but I haven't read any rebuttals yet.
By the way, melting ice in the oceans will have practically zero effect on the geoid because, as Archimedes would tell you, a floating object displaces its own mass in water. Melting continental ice does change the geoid. In fact, there is a large depression in the geoid in northern Canada that was caused by the weight of previous glaciers. Most of Canada has been rising slowly since that ice melted, removing a lot of mass from the continent. The East Coast, which was bulged up a bit from the weight in the middle of the continent is now going down very slightly.
The earth got warmer and colder in wild exteremes before humans had any influence.Logically, that doesn't say anything about the current situation except that it is possible that human activity isn't responsible. Well, that's the main problem the climatologists have been working on for the past twenty years. Many of the times the temperature has increased, the carbon dioxide increased, just as it has since the beginning of the industrial revolution. It is clear from the isotopic analysis that the current increase is from human activity. No one is denying that (since the isotopic evidence). Also, as [...] pointed out, no one denies that we're in a warming trend.
The only piece of the puzzle left was to find out if increases in carbon dioxide force climate change and not the other way around. That has since been fairly well nailed down. Climate scientists are now pretty sure that the current warming trend really is mostly due to human activity, not natural fluctuations or any other factor.
I think it is just a great a fancy to believe that humans can control climate as it is to insist that we have had no influence.Like I said before, that depends what you mean by "can". I don't expect a large number of humans to suddenly change their basic habits so you're probably right about that.
What ever effect we have had on the warming of the planet, the natural rhythm of warming and cooling is far more powerful than anything we have yet done...That is true in general but not for the current climate change. So someday in the future (as they have in the past) humans will have to deal with climate change that is not related to their own activity. Considering that, maybe it is the smart thing to forget about where the changes come from except that understanding how much and in what way the climate will change "this time" depends on our understanding of how human activity influences it.
So, in any case, it seems kind of dumb to go on denying that human activity is a factor unless we want to fire all of our climatologists and bring in a new generation of climatologists (only to find that they come to the same conclusion, as they probably will if they follow the evidence). Instead, I think it's better to accept what the scientists say and come to some reasonable ways of dealing with the probable outcomes. If we all decide to go on living the way we are (or stop building on the coast or whatever), if we decide to deal with the consequences rather than the probable causes, I'm okay with that. As long as we don't fire the climatologists just because we don't like their conclusions.
Seriously, even the best hurricane forecasters are still wrong every year, how am I to believe that humans have caused massive climate change (1 degree per year, blah, blah, blah)?I don't know that name of it so I've been calling that the "Baseball Fallacy". If people can't tell whether or not the Yankees will win their next game, how can they tell they're probably going to have a terrible season? Being able to predict small changes sometimes doesn't have a whole lot to do with predicting the larger ones. (Predicting how many hurricanes there will be is even more difficult. More like predicting the final score of the next game. But it doesn't have much to do with predicting climate. However, if it's any consolation, some of the worst predictions last year came from W Gray, a rare denier of the anthropogenic warming hypothesis among hurricane scientists. No, just like the other deniers, he hasn't published anything recently that would refute the hypothesis. Nor has his hurricane prediction been very good.)
J:
...without engines or industry or even large cities the earth has cooled and heated many, many times in history.This is true, and we are at the top of a natural warming cycle now. But there is also a CO2 (atmospheric carbon dioxide) cycle, which for 750,000 years has remained fairly consistent in frequency and amplitude. Until now-- at the top of the warming/CO2 cycle, we've substantially raised the CO2 in the atmosphere by 1.4 times the highest levels in the last 750,000 years. This is predicted to continue to climb, and drive global warming further.
E:
I just get a little tired of seeing good scientists brushed aside with little more than passing excuses ("maybe we'll never know" or "they've been wrong before"), arguments that don't refute or even address what those scientists have found ("the climate has changed without humans before" or "this year we had fewer hurricanes!"), straw men ("yeah, sure, the sky is falling again" or "are they trying to get us to ride bicycles again?"), or elusive conspiracy theories ("they just want research money" -- never minding that the energy companies have poured out tons more money trying to refute the evidence, without success, or "IPCC, aren't they working for the UN? Another ploy for power")...
The science is, for the most part, solid. The scientists have been extremely cautious in reaching the current consensus.
There are a few on the other side who've exaggerated the science a bit or who've used scientific conclusions as a way to sell books and papers, maybe even plans, but that doesn't mean the science is wrong. If my doctor had even half of this amount of evidence that I had a tumor, I'd take it very seriously. It would be a relief to find out I didn't have one but pretty stupid to just say, "Well, he's probably just wrong again." (As I said, I wouldn't fight with those who would say "just live with it" rather than trying to cut it out. That is one option.)