Losing the Public Debate On Global Warming 1181
Hugh Pickens writes "Dr. James Hansen, director of the NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who first made warnings about climate change in the 1980s, says that public skepticism about the threat of man-made climate change has increased despite the growing scientific consensus. He says that without public support, it will be impossible to make the changes he and his colleagues believe need to occur to protect future generations from the effects of climate change. 'The science has become stronger and stronger over the past five years while the public perception is has gone in completely the other direction. That is not an accident,' says Hansen. 'There is a very concerted effort by people who would prefer to see business to continue as usual. They have been winning the public debate with the help of tremendous resources.' Hansen's comments come as recent surveys have revealed that public support for tackling climate change has declined dramatically in recent years. A recent BBC poll found that 25% of British adults did not think global warming is happening and over a third said many claims about environmental threats are 'exaggerated,' compared to 24 per cent in 2000. Dr. Benny Peiser, director of skeptical think tank The Global Warming Policy Foundation, says it's time to stop exaggerating the impact of global warming and accept the uncertainty of predictions about the rate of climate change. 'James Hensen has been making predictions about climate change since the 1980s. When people are comparing what is happening now to those predictions, they can see they fail to match up.'"
What did we expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
When we have a nontrivial portion of the population who does not believe that humanity resulted from evolution by natural selection, and that the universe is less than ten thousand years old, did we really expect people to accept science that something bad is going to happen if they do not change their behavior?
Our failure to insist on scientific literacy rates as high as written-word literacy rates is going to be something that comes back to bite us, I'm afraid. I'm not sure there is anything to be done for the problem now, except educate as well as we can.
Maybe we can have some scientists say that a god revealed to them that it dislikes the smell of vehicle exhaust and is angrily heating up the planet as a result. Unfortunately, I'm only half-kidding.
Re:What did we expect? (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, it's more like they all missed out on the events of Revelations and we're now in the phase where the devil rules the world and he's heating it up to comfy hell-like temperatures. :P
Re: (Score:3)
I must admit, the temperature has been getting a bit more pleasant these recent years.
Re:What did we expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are missing a larger problem. It is that The scientific method is the best we have at discovering why something is happening in the natural world. It is terrible at explaining if something is a problem and what solution should be implemented by force, ie governments. This really falls into the study of economics and human action.
So while a scientist can report their data and conclusions and even explain possible scenarios and predicted outcomes they cant say what the policy should be. Taking that last step puts them into economics and politics because it involves using force to control other people's lives. And most people have an inherent distrust of people that want to control over them.
Wrong message (Score:5, Insightful)
The focus on how global warming is being caused has been detrimental. Its pretty deep stuff for a business major to know. You have to understand band gap orbitals to verify CO2 does indeed absorb various IR bands. Actually computing wavelengths from the orbitals filled is on the upper edge of what might be in highschool chemistry, I was not exposed until college chem. Then there is the statistics necessary to interpret temperature readings. Even engineering stat in college wasn't entirely sufficient, though most college statistics courses would be (engineering stat was dumbed down). There is no accepted water/cloud model yet even among the experts.
Trying to walk everyone through this so they are willing to act is hopeless. The cause is only of secondary importance in any case. If this was in fact a natural trend and it was harmful, we should still act and/or adapt in precisely the same ways for precisely the same reasons.
Presenting the consequences, good and bad, in a non-melodramatic way on a region by region basis for the entire world is the first step. It answers "Why should *I* change?" Water levels rising will harm many, but its not sufficient to convince many others. It is hard for a Welsh farmer who anticipates being able to start a vineyard, to be convinced by NYC turning into Venice. Give the farmer the whole picture for their region.
The second step is to present all the options for climate control and their relative effectiveness both alone and in concert. Reducing CO2/methane emissions is the most natural approach, but there are many others like sequestration, albedo engineering, and counter agents. One that comes up a lot is aerosolized SO2. Thus side effects of these other approaches should also be discussed.
We as a society will likely make the wrong choice, but right now many are making the choice without any knowledge of the consequences apart from climate horror movies, or any knowledge of the tools we have to counter these consequences apart from some vague idea we should drive less or use a different sort of light bulb.
Re:What did we expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Taliban feel the same way about women covering their faces in public, or insulting their prophet, as you do about a woman and a doctor choosing wether carrying her child to term is best for her and or the child. You should really think about how you feel about their moral belief on those issues, and would you like to be subject to their laws, before you condemn others for not agreeing with yours on another.
Just because you believe something is a mortal sin, does not make it right for you to enforce your beliefs on others. Don't you believe they will be judged anyway by your diety? Why do you believe that it is your duty to impose the will of your diety, do you not believe him capable of it without your might, let alone your two cents?
Religious freedom is also not just about your ability to practice your religion in peace, but for everyone else to practice theirs as well.
Re:What did we expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What did we expect? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a straw man. I would only find it hard to argue with people who think that murder is OK because such people cannot be found.
Let's refrain from such flimsy arguments.
My position that no person should be compelled by law to have anything in his or her body if she doesn't want it there, even if that thing is another human being.
Not even for a little while.
Re:What did we expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, you're right. Absolutely.
Religion kills people, and will likely kill a lot more.
Global warming kills people, and will likely kill a lot more.
Re:What did we expect? (Score:4, Informative)
It's a problem of definition.
You say it's a child, I say it's an embryo.
When you say I want to allow the killing of children I get defensive. Because that's not what I'm allowing.
Holding on to that is "so important", because being bullied because of someone else's religious beliefs makes people defensive.
Re:What did we expect? (Score:5, Interesting)
I want to abduct you and tie you to a chair and force you at gunpoint to eat bucketfuls of those "embryos" over-easy.
The right's approach to debating climate change always perplexes me.
Re:What did we expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummm, no. It is a human trait to want to control others. The left wants to protect you from your choices and the right wants to punish you for your choices. Both want to do it 'for your own good.'
To easily demonstrate that you are mistaken about the right, take the gay rights debate. One of the right's main talking points is that homosexuality is a choice. If they were for the freedom of choice, there wouldn't be a marriage equality debate. I should be able to choose to commit to another man as I would a women. Are we not equal to women? If the right was for the freedom of choice, why would there be a debate about Plan B or that herpes vaccine?
It is a simple human thing. Everybody is fine with the choices they agree with.
Re:What did we expect? (Score:5, Funny)
A government small enough to fit in your uterus.
Re:What did we expect? (Score:5, Interesting)
They just happen to be together as part of the same political party in part because decades ago the Democrats ousted the God believers with it's position on abortion
Actually, if you look at the history, you will see that christians stayed out of politics until Reagan, who made a concerted effort to bring fundamentalists into the fold, with the lure of political power.
Re:What did we expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a group of us who do believe in God ... support of gun rights, strong military, etc)
I've never been able to understand how some people manage to reconcile belief in the Christian God with guns and military.
When they as WWJD? What Would Jesus Do? Surely they can't believe that he'd carry a firearm and cheer on a strong military. That's just not the man described in the New Testament at all.
Re:What did we expect? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What did we expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a group of us who do believe in God ... support of gun rights, strong military, etc)
I've never been able to understand how some people manage to reconcile belief in the Christian God with guns and military.
When they as WWJD? What Would Jesus Do? Surely they can't believe that he'd carry a firearm and cheer on a strong military. That's just not the man described in the New Testament at all.
That's because they're not "Christians" at all. I know lots and lots of people who call themselves Christians. I can count on one hand those that I would consider to be such. The rest? They're frightened and ignorant, and want desperately to believe that their concept of a supreme being is "on their side" in "the war on...(terror, drugs, prostitution, abortion, communism, brown people, etc.)". When you've been convinced that the terrorists are out to kill you and marry your daughters, or that "Democrats are baby killers", all that live and let live stuff preached by your messiah goes right the fuck out the window, and I mean all the way out. Point out the incongruity of their actions with the teachings of their messiah and you get, at best, confused silence. Cognitive dissonance at work.
Re:What did we expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
But is this position by the Democrats to allow the killing of not yet born children so important to hold on to?
Fail.
You may choose to believe that an 8-week old collection of cells is "a child". Fine. I support your right to do so, and would go further and say that you should conduct yourself accordingly, but you do not get to extend that belief (and let us make no mistake, it is a belief and nothing more) to others and how they conduct their lives. I'll say it again, you get to choose what you believe, always. You get to choose what others believe, never. So please, STFU already with the "Democrats are baby killers" bullshit, m'kay?
Re:What did we expect? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What did we expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
All the fundamentalists have to realise is that God made them stewards, and isn't going to bail out their ass if they fail -- and that is the only basis needed to engage positively in the AGW debate. However, fundamentalists have allowed politics to inform their faith.
This won't work, for reasons you allude to in your last paragraph. I'll put it more bluntly: most fundamentalist "Christianity" in the USA has nothing to do with traditional Christian belief or ethics, it's just ignorant Red State tribalism. How else do you explain self-professed Christians who love the rich and hate the poor and downtrodden?
Re:What did we expect? (Score:5, Funny)
How else do you explain self-professed Christians who love the rich and hate the poor and downtrodden?
You've got it all confused. They know that only poor will get into heaven (Matthew 19:24); therefore, they're working hard to ensure that as many people are poor as possible. Of course, all that cursed wealth has to go somewhere, so they're trying to aggregate it all in as few hands as possible - those guys who end up with it are the ultimate heroes, sacrificing their very eternal afterlife for the sake of fellow countrymen.
Multi-trillion dollar oil industry vs... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're going to take on an issue that strikes fear in the blood-pumps (not hearts) of multi-trillion dollar industries, they are going to spend some of those trillions trying to paint you a fool in the eyes of the public.
Anyone who thought it would be easy wasn't getting into the fight with their eyes open. All you have to do is look at the way medical cannabis is legal in many states, while the DEA continues to claim there is no medical use for cannabis to realize that going up against the status quo is, at best, "frustrating."
Re:Multi-trillion dollar oil industry vs... (Score:4, Funny)
that strikes fear in the blood-pumps (not hearts) of multi-trillion dollar industries
Now now, Cheney finally got a heart transplant.
Public concern (Score:5, Interesting)
But shouldn't we be concerned that NASA's interest in Global warming is going to get in the way of their Primary Mission of Muslim Outreach" [orlandosentinel.com]...
Re:Public concern (Score:4, Interesting)
But the proposed solutions are horrible. Do you remember the goal of Copenhagen? It was to send money to developing countries as compensation for the damage not yet caused. That will help nothing.
Now, imagine if we increased our funding for fusion power. That is a goal with a clearly defined pathway to reach it. Even if global warming turns out to not be a big problem (which I think is the case), we STILL end up with fusion power, big win.
So there is something we can do that will help with global warming, help even without global warming, but instead we have Copenhagen. What is wrong here??
Re:Public concern (Score:4, Informative)
and the promised "hockey stick" increase in temperatures not been seen in the last 15 years...
That's just not true.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif [nasa.gov]
And note, climate is what happens over periods of at least 30 years. At 15 years you're still in the realm of weather.
But heck, the fact you're not interested in a serious discussion of AGW is underlined by the Muslim outreach comment.
Re: (Score:3)
That's just not true. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif [nasa.gov] [nasa.gov]
It depends what graph you look at http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_March_2012.png [drroyspencer.com]
Re:Public concern (Score:4, Insightful)
GW (Score:4, Insightful)
- There is a complete industry now that exists by the grace of the belief that GW is man-made and we can do something about it. This is business having an interest in governments and public believing we should reduce CO2 emissions.
- Being a GW denier is silly. However try taking the position that GW is not entirely man-made, or that GW will not be as damaging as to justify billions of investments. You will get attacked almost in the way blasphemists were attacked in the middle ages. You are a non-believer, and you should go along with the "common believe" and "consensus", what we all think. How dare you disagree? But science is not consensus based. One experiment is all it takes to create new insights, models, theories.
I feel frustrated by governments taking GW as an excuse to raise taxes and increase influence on everyones personal life whenever they can. For instance, banning the light bulb - just how stupid is that?
Re:GW (Score:5, Insightful)
But science is not consensus based. One experiment is all it takes to create new insights, models, theories.
Consensus means that most of them believe there is enough support. And no one in the community has come up with anything credible that refutes the basic premise of climate change. Sure there is disagreement about how severe it will become, how much time before severe changes will need to happen, and what can be done to mitigate the problem, but there is little disagreement that is man-made. I don't know if you know the scientific community but it is populated by opinionated, arrogant bastards just like any other competitive field. And there are sometimes lengthy, nasty fights about the smallest of details. To get a consensus in this group pretty much says the science is well-supported and sound.
Simply not true. (Score:4, Funny)
No one has come up with anything credible that GW is happening either. Score so far; 0-0.
This is simply not true. Go read the IPCC report.
It isn't global warming science that many object t (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It isn't global warming science that many objec (Score:5, Interesting)
But if that were the case why is it that alternatives to those solutions are not given but, more often instead, it is argued that anthropogenic global warming is not happening in the first place?
At least the former tactic I can respect. People who deny all scientific evidence because it disagrees with their worldview I cannot.
It's not the science (Score:4, Insightful)
IMHO the science is a minor part of it with regards to the public. It's the fact that there is a perception that certain ideologies have seized upon GW as a free ticket to further their agendas of limiting economic and public activity and increasing the interference and power of government within our lives. The natural reaction of the competing ideology is to discredit the basis of this power grab.
Economically, with the general decline the G20 is experiencing, as the most advanced nations they would bear the brunt of this new philosophy of "sustainability", which would be suicide for them.
Politically, specifically in America, there's a reason progressives embrace GW and conservatives do not. It provides a cover for some of their longest desired goals. Further centralization of government, extreme enviromentalism, and anti-capitalism.
Science is just a patsy for both sides in this argument.
Re: (Score:3)
And that's quite unfortunate because it's the fundamental question of the whole thing. How can anybody come up with a political solution to a problem if they can't objectively look at what the situation is in the first place? Everything else is a secondary concern.
Re:It's not the science (Score:5, Informative)
I largely agree but the "progressives" are not for extreme environmentalism - the conservatives greatly exaggerate their attacks to the point where it is hard to use satire to ridicule it. 1st time I saw Glenn Beck I thought he was over the top satire. The conservatives just went too far lately labeling a woman a slut just for wanting access to birth control. They'll often call Obama a Nazi and a Communist in the same rant.
Restraining the extremes of capitalism is not anti-capitalism anymore than Firemen are anti-fire. To an extreme capitalist, any criticism of their religion is blasphemy - and they are at the point of religion just like communists in the USSR. (A god is not required for something to be a religion.)
I agree progressives want to strengthen and expand democratic institutions greatly; not all of them believe centralized power is always the solution.
Global warming is a fact (Score:3, Informative)
In other news... (Score:4, Informative)
'James Hensen has been making predictions about climate change since the 1980s. When people are comparing what is happening now to those predictions, they can see they fail to match up.'
In other news, Hansen's 30-year-old global temperature predictions close to spot-on [theregister.co.uk]
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
First point is it mentions the british stats on denial, but the American ones are far worse at 50% denial or so.
Second point i'd like to make, the effects of global warming are especially long reaching and likely will be a gradually worsening trend, over decades. The predictions are very dire, indeed. The predictions being dire does not mean they need to happen overnight, we will likely see the catastrophy gradually set in over decades, things will just keeping getting worse and worse. People have problems seeing something really devastating when it sets in over a period of decades or centuries. That is a problem with human perception. When things dont happen overnight, its harder for people to see. its like with possible malnutrition problems, as these things get worse, having a billion people becoming malnourised becomes the "new normal" and they only see the short term 1% annual change or whatever that their short attention span allows them to see, not the longer term trend. They forget that at some point in the past the number of starving people was vastly less and fail to remember how much it has really gone up, because it happened in centuries, rather than days.
An earthquake gets a lot of attention because it lies within the short attention span, but the gradual global environmental degradation is a lot harder for people to see, even though its much worse than an earthquake, the damage does not suddenly occur.
Christians ideologies and all sorts of popular myths such as 2012 tell of the day the earth ended. Many people think that if the earth will end it will be a sudden disaster like that. the fact is if the earth deos not end in a day many people will say its just not in danger at all. But the fact is the things that could ruin this planet can take centuries to occur.
Re: (Score:3)
Dr. Peiser doesn't have the scientific background to judge whether Hansen's predictions are correct, incorrect, or somwhere in between. He says his "interests" are in climate change (among other things) but that doesn't mean he has anything of note to add to the debate. I suspect that most of his interest in climate change is that someone's paying him for the use of the "Dr." title he has. In his previous job, he was, apparently, a "sports historian". (Where does one study to obtain a degree in History of
The reason is simple. (Score:3, Insightful)
We hear all this stuff about not flying and they have these huge parties/conventions all over the world in really nice fancy places, alot of the people coming via private planes.
You can see all the huge houses owned by the people pushing it.
Heck even countries are not acting like it is true, look at all the countries dropping low emission power generation in place of coal based plants.
What is needed... (Score:3, Insightful)
Is unpopular decisions that are going to be very expensive. We can't just sit back can cry over the expenses and hope the problem goes away, we can no afford to NOT fix the problems.
Instead we see NIMBY's stopping just about every technology that can help us out, coming up with stupid excuses as to why they are not the ones being idiotic. Sure, some of the tested technologies are not paying themselves back as much as we could have hoped, but they are still better than no action, as even a failed experiment yields useful information.
Instead of building sustainable energy, the ones wanting to build have to waste their time in courts fighting ignorants over conjecture and details such as "will it spoil my view from my bedroom window in the morning".
Instead of building CO2 neutral power, we are decommissioning existing power plants, with the only alternative being coal or gas, which is NOT CO2 neutral. True, some of the decommissioned plants were unsafe, but not all are. But the easily scared population want them gone, just because one have a mishap in Japan after being exposed to forces in excess of five times the expected worst case scenario. People forget the fact that most nuclear power plants are NOT in the risk zones of quakes that bad.
Instead of looking into alternatives. people flatly say no when they hear some buzzwords. That is the damage the "green" movements have done to the efforts to get GREEN energy.
Stop exaggerating (Score:5, Insightful)
For years, the environmentalists have believed that it was necessary to exaggerate.
If they said "Here is a problem we should try to solve", they believed they would be ignored.
So instead they scream "THIS PROBLEM THREATENS OUR SURVIVAL!!! WE NEED TO SOLVE IT NOW!!!!".
After years of hearing this, the public recalibrates their bullshit sensors.
And yes, I consider myself an environmentalist. I just wish the rest of us were more honest.
Re:Stop exaggerating (Score:4, Insightful)
For years, there have been scientists who only presented the data and warned of the consequences. There were also non-scientists who whined about it and tried to exploit it for political gains.
The problem is simply that you chose to listen to the latter and not the former.
CItation Needed (Score:5, Interesting)
"When people are comparing what is happening now to those predictions, they can see they fail to match up."
Citation needed. When you are engaging in skeptical analysis, you need to show your work. If the majority of scientists agree, but you have found that they are wrong, you need to show the empirical evidence. Which predictions have you falsified? Using what data?
How about a spot check of your work? Let's see if we can tell whether your way is to use science or subterfuge.
Venice Skepticism [thegwpf.org]: You reference a prediction that observed increases in the rate and severity of floods in Venice will abate over coming years, but do not provide empirical evidence that it has been abating. The paper you reference says on the first page that predicting changes in storm surge levels is inherently uncertain. It provides no significant empirical events that could be a cause for a reversal of the current trend, and relies on a new way of modelling the problem which has not been empirically tested. There is empirical evidence that it has been increasing, as well as empirically tested models that predict the flooding will continue. A claim that the current trend will reverse without empirical evidence -- with nothing more than an untested model that gives the answer you want -- is not science.
Greenland Sea Level Rise [thegwpf.org]: You claim to refute the observation that the accelerating breakup of Greenland's ice sheet may lead to increased sea levels by showing evidence that the sea levels have not risen yet. The fact that levels have not risen in the past does not contradict the prediction that they will rise in the future if the Greenland ice continues to break up.
Those are the first two stories on your "False Alarms" page, not cherry-picked, just the first two. They are completely without rational or scientific merit. They are exactly the sort of thing TFA claims are at the heart of global warming criticism. I love rational skepticism -- but based on the first two examples on your own website, I can reach no other conclusion than that you are a shining example of intentional disinformation with a shoddy veneer of scientific inquiry.
Science versus economics versus politics (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether climate change is occurring is properly the domain of science. Here, I think Hansen is on relatively solid footing. Pretty much all the important policymakers have signed on to the fact climate change is occurring -- as David Brin pointed out a few days ago, when the US Navy is updating its warplans to account for the Northern Passage being open, it's hard to argue that climate change _isn't_ being taken seriously by the establishment.
However, what we should do about climate change is not a scientific question. How much will CO2 mitigation cost -- not just in terms of direct and indirect monetary damages, but in terms of human life lost? Economic growth (a large part of which is driven by the availability of cheap power) has historically been the most reliable tool for improving the human condition. Without power, life is nasty, brutish and short. If CO2 mitigation mechanisms like the sort Hansen advocates were to be adopted worldwide, what would the butcher's bill be? That's an economics problem, and Hansen is not an economist. If the climatology community is going to scream at people, "well, you're no climatologist, so you're only invited to this discussion if you agree with us!", then the economics community is entirely within its rights to tell climatologists to STFU about economic choices.
Then there's the geopolitical angle. Let's say Hansen gets his worldwide controls on CO2. Let's also say that China, currently the world's leading CO2 producer, says "no, our poor deserve a better life and we need economic growth in order to provide it, if we stop building power plants we'll have a civil war and millions will die, so fuck you, we're going to continue to build one new coal-fired power plant each week." What does the rest of the world do then -- invade China to shut down their power plants? The rest of the world can't do nothing: if it lets China slide, then the next thing you know India says, "yeah, we're in the same boat, screw you guys" and the entire thing falls apart. How do you build a geopolitical framework for enforcement of such a system? Hansen is a climatologist -- he's not Henry Kissinger.
Hansen has won the scientific argument. He's losing the economics argument and the geopolitical arguments -- and deservedly so. He's neither an economist nor a diplomat, after all.
Note to the climate change looneytunes who are about to leap down my throat: I'M AGREEING WITH YOU, DAMN IT. The only thing I'm saying is that this is a big stinking problem with a whole lot of dimensions, most of which the climatology community is completely unqualified to talk intelligently about; and within the realm that it _is_ qualified to talk about it, the climatology community has already substantially won that argument.
Re: (Score:3)
Pretty much all the important policymakers have signed on to the fact climate change is occurring -- [...],
it's hard to argue that climate change _isn't_ being taken seriously by the establishment.
You're making a common mistake in equating "policy makers" with "the establishment"
As it turns out, we the people are actually important policy makers as well.
Just because "the establishment" frequently ignores us when they decide what to do, does not meant our opinions are irrelevant.
If anything, it means that policy is made without all the relevant inputs to ensure a proper balance of outcomes.
Sometimes the country has to drag the naysayers along, kicking and screaming, but you can't ignore them because (
Well, history says ... (Score:5, Interesting)
A number of historians have written about this topic, and what history says isn't encouraging.
Quite a lot has been written about the history of the "Fertile Crescent", whose core area was what we now call Syria and Iraq. 3000 years ago, it was a a fertile area, semi-arid but covered with forests and farmland. Now most photos you see from anywhere in the area show a rocky, plant-free landscape. The change is generally attributed to salination that was the result of irrigation projects that started about 8000 years ago, but reached their peak extent maybe 3000 years ago. Historians have said that there is a lot of evidence that the people then (farmers and hydro engineers) understood the problem of soil salinification, and understood that the solution is over-watering to leach out the salts. The problem was that, in the short term (of a human life span ;-), it was more profitable to use the limited water supply on the maximal crop area. So salts slowly accumulated, and eventually the farming died out because nothing would grow there any more. This process has been documented in other areas, but this is one area in which we know that the people continued maximizing their short-term profit even though they knew of the long-term disaster that would result.
Actually, it seems that the problems there aren't as serious as they look. Back in the 1970s and 80s, an interesting series of experiments were conducted: The researchers leased plots of land of 1 to 2 square-km, built goat-proof fences around them, then sat back and watched. This was done across the southwest-Asian "desert" area, roughly from Syria to Pakistan. The results were that a year later, every such experimental plot of land had turned into "grassland" (or prairie if you prefer). The conclusion was that the entire southwest-Asian desert is artificial. If we would remove the grazing animals from the area for one year, it would all revert to grasslands. Then the grazing animals could be brought back, since the land would support them. As long as the population of grazers was then kept low enough, the area could become several orders of magnitude more productive than it is now. But the result has been to ignore this. There's no way you can get the governments or the farmers in that area to cooperate with such a project, when it requires taking the land out of production for a year.
In both of these cases, the general population may not have understood the issue. The local technical experts (including the farmers) did and do. But their short-term interests have always been to maximize this year's profit, partly because if they don't do that, they'll be bankrupt and out of business. So the ongoing disaster continues.
The "global warming" issue is pretty much the same story. We've documented the process for centuries, and have detailed information for the last half-century showing conclusively that the changes are primarily due to human activity. But the people who run our economies have the usual interest in short-term profit, partly because if they don't behave this way, they'll lose to the others who go with the short term.
Anyway, history says that we probably won't do much about the issue, even though we have enough information to know how to do so. And, since the evidence says that the recent warming is mostly due to human activity, we can say that we now have the ability to control our climate if we wish. But we can only do this on a rather large scale, and we know pretty well that humanity won't organize on the scale that it takes to actually carry out such projects.
Re:Well, history says ... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no way you can get the governments or the farmers in that area to cooperate with such a project, when it requires taking the land out of production for a year.
Yeah, there is. Its called private property.
Give each rancher/hearder their own plot of land*, fenced off from their neighbors and watch how they'll start to take care of it.
The current approach leads to tragedy o the commons [wikipedia.org]. Where no one is motivated to take care of the land because anyone can use it. And when it has become over exploited, just move on.
* Social and tribal customs need to be accounted for. In some cases, the ownership can be held at the tribe or village level rather than the individual. But that assumes a strong custom of governance within that unit. It will only work if everyone abides by the rules of the group and doesn't cheat.
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:5, Insightful)
Once the sky falls enough for a piece to hit you in the head, then it's too late to prevent its complete collapse. So do we want to prevent it from falling, or not?
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:5, Insightful)
So... an entire field of scientists doing their utmost to produce the most accurate models of climate change, with ever-improving accuracy and consensus on their work are being politically manipulated? They are _all_ blindly stupid or complicit? That appears to be what you're saying.
The only reason the science is being contested is the same reason evolution is: because some people have agendas that don't care about facts.
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:4, Interesting)
Since when has scientific consensus, or any kind of consensus of anybody's opinion been equivalent to truth? Study the history of science, or even just plain history of humanity. The majority scientific opinion once upon a time was that the earth was flat, everything could be made out of the 4 elements of air water Earth and fire. etc. etc.... If all the erroneous ideas of times past and of today were collected into a book, it would likely be one of the thickest books ever published.
The Earth has been much warmer and much colder, long before humans started driving SUVs and flying airplanes, thereby burning large quantities of oil. This is indeed a chicken little manifestation that does not exist except in the minds of those who have an agenda of more government control. Personally I am waiting for some warmer, drier spring weather here in Oregon.
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:5, Insightful)
There are natural cycles DOES NOT MEAN THAT all variations are thus accountable.
This... is kind of the problem here.
First, we have natural climate variation.
Second, we have possible anthropogenic climate variation.
We know the former happens. This is pretty much a given. So to see whether the latter is significant, we *have* to analyse both. That's what climate scientists do; it's a basic and obvious step.
The conclusions they have come to, as a massive consensus, is that AGW is very much real and significant, and cannot be explained away by natural means. ... and then people like you come along and say, hey now, all you smart scientists, what about natural climate change?! I bet you weren't smart enough to think of that!!!!!
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:5, Informative)
There hasn't been an increase in the last 10 years primarily because of a particularly strong la nina. Short term cyclical events generally have a greater magnitude than the overall warming trend. If you take ~11 year moving averages to hide the known cyclical variations, the warming trend is very much still there.
"Hide the decline" refers to the fact that temperatures inferred from tree ring sizes in the last couple decades haven't matched actual temperature readings (possibly because of other human influence on tree growth). When presenting tree ring data, they replace very recent data with actual temps, usually using a different color or something to indicate that it has been swapped out.
There are legitimate criticisms of the AGW argument, but you haven't put forth any of them. <ad hominem> This clearly indicates that you don't seek the truth, just the promotion of a personal agenda. That or you're not very smart, and it's usually wrong to attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. </ad hominem>
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:5, Informative)
It is very revealing that so-called "skeptics" of global warming reject the results of studies carried out by multiple different laboratories, using a wide variety of different analytical methods and many different types of data collected from around the globe, but uncritically accept as fact conclusions based upon 3rd hand accounts of agricultural practices in one small region of Europe. Summary and citations of the actual science can be found here [skepticalscience.com]
It is by the way, absolutely false that there has been "NO" temperature increase in the past 10 years. In fact, analysis of the data shows a clear upward trend over the past 10 years. The question is whether the increase satisfies the technical criterion of "statistical significance" -- which means showing that there is less than a 5% probability that an apparent increase of that magnitude could occur by random statistical variations. This is a particularly stupid argument, because statistical analysis of climate models (as well as weather trends) indicates that 10 years is too short an interval to reliably detect the predicted global warming trend even if it is real. (Although if you correct for known natural sources of climate "noise," it turns out that it is significant after all [wordpress.com]. So while we cannot prove that global warming did not end 10 years -- or 10 seconds -- ago, this is not evidence that it has stopped.
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:4, Insightful)
Before I do anything else, I want to address this:
"If the problem is CO2 being released into the atmosphere, then why don't they support nuclear power?"
Who are 'they', exactly? Climate scientists just tell us about what the climate is doing, and what we are doing to it. I don't think it's quite within their remit to support anything.
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:4, Insightful)
While I'm not the original poster you are debating with here, I will concede that there may be some influence on the part of activities of mankind upon the global environment.
What I don't buy is the significance of that influence, or that the current situation is so dire that if we don't destroy all technology and go back to a hunter-gatherer society with a 99% reduction in world wide human population that we are doomed to extinction. It is the politics that are involved here and trying to decide where that line is between doing one thing that is insanely stupid like mass genocide and the other which is completely ignoring the impact of environmental pollution and thinking it should be our god given right to consume every resource to its utmost potential for greater profits and not giving a damn about how it impacts the planet.
There must be some point in between to make a balance. Attempts to try and control pollution of all forms have largely been successful in most 1st world countries, where environmental damage has been reversed and living more in harmony with this world has been demonstrated as a proven fact. The Hudson River in NYC is returning to a state where things can now live in that river again, you can breathe air in downtown Pittsburgh, and air quality in Los Angeles hasn't really become much worse than it was when I was just a little kid. Those are just a few examples I can point to where there have been some successes on something larger than just the efforts of one person and involve whole communities making a difference because they have made a difference.
Given that there have been some tremendous successes in raising environmental consciousness, where does the line get drawn in terms of what action need to take place? It is wrong to say that some measures suggested to "control carbon emissions" simply aren't going to work? Is there a serious discussion on some of those sequestration systems about what harmful effects they may cause for future generations? Is there a reason we must act and do something rash right now without holding a measured public debate over the real issues involved? Is the world really going to end in a decade if those rash actions are not done right now?
Arguing over the "science" of "global warming" or "global cooling" is mostly naval grazing compared to the very real policy issues about how to deal with environmental damage in general. Those trying to "prove global warming" in many ways really don't care if there is environmental damage and in some ways even helps their cause if that damage increases so they can have larger research budgets to "fight global warming".
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:4, Informative)
The question is whether the increase satisfies the technical criterion of "statistical significance"
You don't think that this sort of remark ... might be part of the reason global warming has such a bad rep. Let's run you through a basic application of statistical science here.
When we make a measurement, you're essentially placing a sensor in a noisy environment. If we make the wrong assumption that the noise is random (this is wrong, but hopefully close enough. Yes, hopefully). So you take many measurements and use a number of techniques to fix this data, including several that are essentially fraud (I can see the guy at this station wasn't taking his medicine these days, let's just drop that data - type of "fixing"). Then you test a hypothesis against that data. This does not result in "a warming trend" or "a cooling trend" it results in 2 numbers : chance that the temperature has risen -> p, chance that the temperature has not risen -> !p (hey sue me, slashdot does not implement latex and I'm not about to look up the correct UTF symbol for not). You might also calculate a value "q", the chance that the temperature has dropped. And this also gives you !q.
What may amaze you is that p > !p AND q > !q. So we're dealing with a guess here. The convention is that unless p > 95%, we don't say temperature has risen. For most data sets, p 50%).
Note that even this 95% is a concession of the scientific world to statistical sciences, and there's a huge problem with statistical sciences [theatlantic.com]. By contrast, the canonical example of an exact science, physics, only considers a measurement reasonable when it passes a significance of six sigma (which is 99.9999998027% certain). That is *NOT* enough to declare something the truth within physics, the only thing that is enough for that is a mathematically consistent theory that passes repeatable experiments (and even then it usually takes 10 years or more).
Read that link. Think about the fact that climate science is in fact much more limited in what it can experiment with than medical science. Experiments are impossible. Today's data is unreliable to the point where ~10% of the data points are flat-out wrong before correction. Data going back thousands of years is used, and nobody really knows it's reliability (and the tree ring issue certainly seems to suggest a lot of factors we don't know are at play here) ...
So can you please understand that if it's not statistically significant, it didn't happen. Credibility is a huge problem already, please don't screw it by being wrong 50% of the time. No, not even if you mean well.
You're not helping.
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:4, Informative)
Completely false. See here [bartonpaullevenson.com] for a list of some of the confirmed falsifiable predictions of climate theory. And that includes the big one: predicting global warming before it was evident in the temperature record. [realclimate.org]
Citation needed. Please provide IPCC report references for the consensus climate science predictions that supposedly have not come true
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
no, the parent is correct (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:4, Insightful)
"What he's saying is that with the US economy in the state it's in now, it's a choice of certain economic collapse and widespread death, starvation, & suffering..."
Why is it that the USA can seemingly find enough money for a recent war in the Middle East, or a recent war out in Asia, or even spending billions and billions on a new security agency, but spending a similar amount of money on something different would cause "certain economic collapse and widespread death, starvation & suffering".
Not that I think a similar amount of money would or should be spent, just pointing out the ridiculousness of that claim.
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:4, Insightful)
2.) should we go dicking with things we don't have complete knowledge and control over. ..)
What, so digging up billions of tons of hydrocarbons and releasing them into the atmosphere isn't dicking around with things we don't have complete knowledge and control over?
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:5, Interesting)
All of this has nothing to do with investing in renewable technologies -- or including the price of pollution into burning CO2. It can be phased in gently over 20 years.
Unintended consequences... (Score:4, Insightful)
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The data says otherwise. The collapse of the Soviet Union put a large dent into fossil fuel use and global warming and the collapse of the Western economy will too.
Hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)
The economy is hardly working as is. Add regulation to reach a 20% reduction in CO2 and we break its back.
And that 20% reduction would only be symbolic anyway.
Speaking of chicken little and hyperbole in the debate.
Our economy and its energy usage is just like the obese person who goes into a restaurant and order 3 low calorie dinners for themselves.
We're running around trying to fix the symptoms when the airline industry, for one, has been solving the problem for decades.
To save fuel costs, they buy more efficient engines and streamline their operations - as much as they can - and as a result, they use less fuel; which has a side effect of lower pollution and other emissions AND they become a bit more profitable.
So, as we become more "green" we will use less fossil fuels - expensive fuels (and we're not even talking about the health and environmental costs) which will - get this - lessen the economic drag on the economy.
By being more fuel efficient and "green" it will actually boost the economy.
Or since folks like comparing the China; they are reaping what they sow because now, with the environmental devastation of their economic polices, they are experiencing some god awful things (obscene healthcare burdens for example) that will harm their economy.
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem really is chicken little.
I've tried to explain this to people "in the movement" and they just get livid. Because the environmentalists have spent so much time focusing on AGW/carbon, other issues which are much more obvious and easy to rally people on have been ignored.
The problem with the apocalyptic arguments are that people tune them out the same way they tune out fundamentalists Christian apocalypses. The AGW fundamentalists come off the same way.
The real shame is that while they've been preaching, real issues are being ignored. Mountain top mining goes on. Coal ash fallout continues. The irony is that if they addressed these real and obvious concerns about which few disagree, then carbon emissions would be reduced as a side effect.
Another thing is that the AGW apocalypse isn't as bad as the Christian one unless we go Venus. I don't think any scientists are suggesting that. I always imagine a couple guys in the Bay Area 20,000 years ago. One turns to another and says, "hey, put out that fire. If you don't the world will heat up and the whole valley will flood". Well, Hello... 20,000 years later we have "save the bay". Save the Bay??? That's the paleo-native American apocalypse. We should be filling it back in.
I always remember this one argument I got into with a guy at a coffee shop. I never got to explain why I thought it was wrong for the movement to focus on AGW. He just flew into a rage. That's not science. That's religion.
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:5, Informative)
But we cannot even talk about risk and risk-management, because as soon as you bring up the topic, "skeptics" accuse you of predicting the end of the world. This is just bullsh*t. Everyone has to feel the are right on whatever issue, even when they have to make up complete bulls*t.
As for AGW being "chicken-little", it is entirely plausible that there will be no ice-caps in 500 years time. It normally takes 10x that long or more for an ice-age to end. In just the next few decades, we will be hit in the wallet by insurance companies, who are already starting to factor in the costs of increased extreme weather events. The effects
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the scientists who have framed the debate in this way. It's the politicians. As soon as it became a political discussion, it created an "us versus them" mentality between the Democrats and the Republicans. At that point, any hope of actually improving things through sane, well-reasoned legislation went out the window because neither party is capable of even remotely sane or reasonable discussion of any issue.
Re:The problem is chicken little (Score:4, Insightful)
We aren't talking major sacrifices. Not at all. We just need to get our asses in gear and build either renewable or nuclear power stations to replace the existing power plants, which in most of the world are up for replacement anyway. At the same time we need to get fuel efficiency of transport up, and we need to get rid of the worst ways of getting fossil fuel (which have a fairly bad energy balance anway), such as brown coal and tar sand.
Re:How does this make a difference? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Liberals and environmentalists like to think that they are kind, and care for the poor, but they never stop to think abo
Re:How does this make a difference? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's $4 billion available without raising taxes: the oil and natural gas subsidies.
Re:How does this make a difference? (Score:4, Insightful)
Four Billion dollars? (Evil laugh).
That's nothing! Absolutely nothing.
(Maniac Laughter).
Re:How does this make a difference? (Score:4, Informative)
$4 billion is 0.0003% of our national economy.
Re:How does this make a difference? (Score:4, Interesting)
In parts of the U.S., it's already significantly cheaper to use solar power than fossil fuels. What is most needed at this point, at least in the U.S., is a more flexible, lower resistance power grid so that solar power from a sunny day in Texas can adequately make up for the bleak midwinter in Oregon. This is useful whether we move to "green" power or not.
The bigger problem is China and other early industrial nations. As long as new nations transition from agrarian economies to industrial economies using coal as their primary means of power production, no amount of regulation in modern countries is going to improve things; it will only keep them from getting worse at an ever-accelerating pace.
What we need to solve this is a ban on U.S. and European companies building coal-based plants in other countries—make it as hard as possible for developing nations to get their start using coal and as easy as possible for them to get their start using more modern power production.
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What we need to solve this is a ban on U.S. and European companies building coal-based plants in other countriesâ"make it as hard as possible for developing nations to get their start using coal and as easy as possible for them to get their start using more modern power production.
So you're suggesting that the US and EU collude to prevent other countries from advancing beyond an agrarian society unless they make themselves dependent on technology from another country that doesn't have their and their people's best interests at heart?
Well, congratulations. We won't have to wait around for a possible, theoretical, climate disaster. Don't forget that China and India both have nuclear bombs and missiles. That will start WW3, and then everybody will be screwed.
Great plan. I don't recall s
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No, I'm suggesting that although coal might seem advantageous in the short term, it is severely detrimental to the host country and indeed to the rest of the world in the long term, and actually poses serious local problems in the short term as well. Th
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pfft! I have antique glassware that's more radioactive than store-prepped spent fuel - and I drink out of it. No ill effects. BLARP!
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Uh...I know a lot of people who have made shifts like that. And incidentally, it makes for a more pleasant life.
The only piece I really haven't done is "stop eating meat," I've tried vegetarianism, and even the suggested diet leaves me tired and hungry. As to the rest? I bike or take public transit almost everywhere-I still have a car, I think I put maybe 1500 miles on it last year. This year will probably be even less. I very rarely fly. If I need to log into a client's system to troubleshoot it, that's wh
Re:How does this make a difference? (Score:5, Insightful)
We need a strong fundamental shift in our lifestyles - stop eating meat - stop driving everywhere - stop flying in planes, stop consuming useless shit. No one - even global warming believers - seems to be willing to do this.
I know a few people who do that.
Personally I don't. I don't believe the answer is for a few people with the highest integrity to take action, whilst the majority don't do anything.
There has to be systematic solutions, such that everyone changes. The market always wants to go in the direction of more consumption, so those solutions have to come from governments' mandates.
It's either that or wait till the environment does turn to shit and non-sustainable resources are exhausted. And let nature put an and to it.
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stop eating meat
Humans eat meat. Our teeth and intenstines are the evidence. But we could do with a bit less meat. Quite a bit less even.
Re:How does this make a difference? (Score:5, Insightful)
Humans eat meat. Our teeth and intenstines are the evidence.
Naturalistic fallacy [wikipedia.org]. Just because we evolved to eat meat doesn't mean we have to eat meat, or even that we should.
(not that I don't - I'm just pointing out the reasoning flaw)
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The problem is proving we're the cause. No one is buying it, and since they don't have any actual proof of anthropogenic global warning, they use scary pictures of polar bears on tiny ice patches to convince the public of something they already believe in (non-anthropogenic global warming).
So, are we still on t
Re:Hansen Must Go (Score:4, Insightful)
Back in the Kyoto talks, we were TOLD that if no action was taken, then the point of no return was something like 2007. Well? Based on that "science", nothing we do can help anyway.
We [npr.org] get [ummah.com] predictions [commondreams.org] like [newsbank.com] that [examiner.com] all [independent.co.uk] the [slashdot.org] time [smh.com.au]. If there's anything we learned from the climategate emails, it's that a lot of the scientists working on this problem are not working in good faith.
The solution, I think, is to work on things that will help us anyway, even if AGW turns out to not be a problem. For example, improving electric car technology will be good for America, whether AGW is a big ball of hype, or whether it's real. Same with fusion electricity. We can work on those things.
Re:Hansen Must Go (Score:4, Insightful)
If scientists don't do this, they are not acting in good faith. When scientists don't act in good faith, you must look at their data, not their opinions.
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No, we learned that a few of the scientists working on this problem are not working in good faith.
EAU is one of, if not the most important centers of global warming research. So it's not like we are talking about some small unimportant scientists in eastern Zaire, these guys are important in the global warming world.
I explained here [slashdot.org] what it means to act in good faith. In short, they've demonstrated they can't be trusted just because they say something. They have their own agenda, and are pushing it. Once a scientist has an agenda and starts pushing it, he/she tends to overlook problems with their theo
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um... I think he's operating outside his job description. Clue: National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Nothing about ocean there, if he wants in that crowd he's in the wrong agency - he wants the NOAA.
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Well, not just the Medieval Optimum, but other warm periods existed in human history, warmer than now. . . After all, in the 1300's, wine grapes grew in Britain, and Greenland WAS Green. CO2 is a FOLLOWING indicator of warming, with a 500-1000 year delay,
And, of course, solar input is NOT constant: it's looking like we're heading into another Solar Minimu
Re:Hansen Must Go (Score:5, Informative)
Simply not true (Score:4, Informative)
There may be an almost consensus that climate change is happening, but there is far from a consensus that it is caused by man's actions or inactions.
This is simply untrue. We are 90% certain that warming is anthropogenic [wikipedia.org], and furthermore, 97% of climate scientists support that figure [sciencemag.org].
You obviously formed this opinion by reading someones blog, or something like that. Climate change is the most well studied phenomenon in the history of the world. Go read what actual scientists have to say on the issue.
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- "I bet the majority still drive a gas powered car (instead of diesel or electric)"
Nope, using public transports.
- "waste and fail to recycle regularly, "
Partially true I'm afraid.
- "leave lights on instead of trying to minimize electrical/gas use. "
If anything I use too little light.
But you have the right point. People rant over wasting resources, yet most here are in the demographic that wastes the most.
One person can't make a difference, but if they join their effort, a billion can.
The problem is that m
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There is a long paper trail of those resources (Score:4, Insightful)
What you say is simply not true.
The fossil-fuel industry outspends greenpeace 10-1 on lobbying and advertising in the USA. That is not a level playing field.