Cecil’s column on global warming rather misses a lot of fundamental points.
Anthropogenic Climate Change denial is dead in professional and academic climatology these days. One might as well answer “Beats me” to the question “Is evolution for real?”.
What? Of course it matters if they are (and they are). That’s why we have to emit less in the first place!
And yet, many signatories will either achieve them or, like the UK, come mighty close.
Again, the UK presents a glaring counterexample. It IS possible to cut emissions affordably.
No, fossil fuel depletion will be the emissions problem. This graph shows the consequences of burning all the fossil fuels, no matter when that is completed. Doing nothing leads to an enormous 750 ppm concentration of CO2, with a predicted accompanying temperature rise of at least 3[sup]o[/sup]C, and probably more like 5. The whole point of trying to reduce emissions and use those emissions more efficiently is to reach a stage where we leave the stuff alone, never to be burned.
I agree with most of what you say, I believe the articles I have read and interviews I have seen/heard on Global warming. I have Solar Panels on my roof and plan to by a Hybrid.
That said I hope you realize that the UK has a much higher population density and less reliance on cars, making their achieving the goal a less complicated task.
I strongly agree we need to address Global Warming
We should go very hard into replacing dirty coal plants
Push incentives for buying low Emission Hybrids
Place a Gas Guzzler tax on Private use of SUV’s and other cars that don’t get at least 20 mpg.
Provide a tax break for vehicles that get over 40 mpg.
Build Nuclear power plants to replace Coal plants all together
Keep pumping money into Solar research and rebates. NJ paid 70% of the bill for my Solar Panel installation.
Keep funding levels high for Fusion Power, someday we’ll get there and we should get there first.
Make the big push for Plug-in Full Hybrids that run on 85% Ethanol and break our addiction to OPEC Oil at the same time.
Pass laws to make Energy Star compliance either mandatory or to load an additional tax on non-compliant equipment.
Push Compact Fluorescents, Fiber Optic Office Lighting and LED lighting.
Push LCD technology (low energy consumption) over Plasma and various Projector Technologies for TV & Monitors.
National campaign to turn off lights when not in use.
Cecil ignored one other undeniable fact - yes, carbon goes through cycles on this earth; however, by using all these fossil fuels, lots of carbon that was a couple miles underground for millions of years is now in the atmosphere. Even if it goes into the water, or settles on the ground, or whatever, it’s up here at levels it’s never been at up here before.
Leave it to a know-it-all with too much time on his hands to dig up just enough facts to sort-of-but-not-really refute a few minor points of a well-researched, well-written column, even after the columnist conceded that he was going to indulge in a few generalities and skip a few details for the sake of brevity.
The question clearly was, “Should we really be frightened of global warning and, if so, is there anything we can do about it?” Cecil’s answer was essentially, “Not really.” Can SentinentMeat provide any evidence (let’s refer to published science journals and leave the spurious URLs alone for a day, shall we?) that Cecil is wrong?
It’s nit-picking like this – really, little more than an attempt to show “I know more than you do!” – that confuses people instead of informing them. It’s irresponsible, self-aggrandizing and lacks credibility.
If you follow the external links in each of those ‘spurious’ BBC url’s you reach the journals they were based on, and the IPCC is the authority those publishers send such journals to for review!
This is my first ever Comment on Cecil’s Columns - of course I appreciate the difficulties in providing complex answers in 1000 words or so. But this time I think he presents entirely the wrong end of the stick in important places. Look at this IPCC graph again. The “can’t/won’t do anything about it” 750 ppm is scary in anyone’s book.
Cecil has finally weighed in on Global Warming and, surprise, surprise, the hysterical, global warming doomsayers have begun to freak out because Cecil does not think the world is going to end.
I must say, I kinda like it.
To SentientMeat: I have heard your rants over and over about how the world is going to end because of man-made global warming. I know even Cecil can’t completely sway your views but maybe you can take this oppurtunity to re-evaluate your zealous, hysterical views of doom and gloom.
I don’t either, I just think sea levels will rise. My grandchildren would prefer if that wasn’t as extreme as it will be if we do nothing.
I’ll be dead, so it doesn’t make me unhappy or hysterical at all - that’s your strawman. But even if I had terminal cancer, I wouldn’t drive around recklessly risking significant harm to other people.
How much do you think they will rise, taking the average of what I have heard and read, the Estimate I get is around 1 meter in 50-100 years. This will devastate Southern Florida and most Coastal Areas. Not to mention what it will do to a country like Bangladesh.
The same reports indicate we probably cannot stop this melt at this point. Lowering Emission might keep it from being worse than the above estimate but it might not. I think Energy conservation is a worthwhile goal in and of itself. It just makes long term sense. If it happens to slow down or halt Global Warming, then all the better.
I have searched and searched, but the thread with the post where you claim that a temperature rise of around 11 degrees will cause the methane in the earth’s crust to evaporate, which will in turn DESTROY US ALL, can not be found. The thread with it in it has been truncated, I think. So, I can not prove, at this time, that you are hysterical over this issue. I will continue to look. However, you know you posted this and other such doom and gloom messages on this board.
Secondly, no one with any education in thermodynamics is going to argue that the increase in mass caused by our release of CO2 is not going to constitute an increase in energy trapping potential of the atmoshpere. It is the potential that is under debate. Mainly the debate on the ASSUMPTION of a radiative affect.
The main point of all the IPCC theory is the radiative affect. Without the radiative affect that the IPCC claims, we don’t get the oppurtunity to call out global catastrophe. Pielke clearly does not agree with the IPCC theory on the radiative affect of CO2.
Also, if laughing were money, I would be a billionaire every second this morning. Thanks Cecil!!!
This is the most reasonable statement made in this threat so far.
Even though climatologists are more or less agreed that anthropological effectis have had some impact on the global warming trend, there is no general agreement as to the extent or the long term impact, and the climatological model predictions aren’t even correlating to tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures, indicating that while the art of predicting climate effects is advancing, it still isn’t sufficiently mature to offer support to assertions of long-term effects. The crux is that you don’t want to buy any shorefront property, but how far elevated you want to go is uncertain.
As as Jim says, energy conservation is a commendable goal in and of itself. Using more energy efficient appliances and transportation is an incremental improvement, but it goes a long way to not only limiting pollution but also mitigating an expansion crisis based upon future energy needs.
So, in the three quotes about global warming you have supported the view that it will cause WWIII, rising sea-levels to the point that terrorist actions are warranted and that the evaporation of methane will wipe out all life on earth. Hmmmmm, sounds pretty hysterical to me. IMO.
Global Warming is a political issue, not a scientific issue. The main premise of global warming theory is flawed. It presumes:
That the earth is warming.
That this is necessarily a bad thing.
This is a result of human activity.
It overlooks the fact that the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapor (i.e clouds), not carbon dioxide. The earth is 2/3 water. Man has no impact on a global scale of the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. None whatsoever.
The whole Global Warming fraud is an excuse to curb human activity and economic development (especially to ham-string the evil American hegemony).
Throughout the 4 billion year history of this planet, the earth has repeatedly experienced periods of warmer and colder (think ice ages) climates. There is documented evidence that the earth’s climate has been much warmer than it is today. Oranges, a tropical citrus fruit, once grew as far north as Scandinavia, in centuries past. In the mid 1600’s, the brittish empire was convinced the end of times were at hand because it snowed in London (something that it does more frequently in recent years). Londoners had never seen snow there before in recorded history.
The earth is dynamic system. It is changes all the time. Most of these changes are subtle, and imperceptible by humans with such a short lifespan (100 years is but a blink of the eye, in geologic terms). We tend to perceive the earth as constant, so that when we pay close attention and realize this is not so, we panic and jump to silly conclusions.
Pssst. If you’re going to argue with **SentientMeat **, you will actually have to dispute his cites (perhaps with others…hint hint). Amateur science, ad hominem and conspiracy theory isn’t going to cut it.
To be fair, Cecil never answered the question about whether or not anthropogenic global warming is true or not. He does imply that it is true, though. However, people here seem to be missing his main point – that reducing emissions won’t change anything.
Michael Crichton wrote a speech for the National Press Club on January 25, 2005. Some salient quotes are:
[quote=Michael Crichton]
[ul][li]In my view, our approach to global warming exemplifies everything that is wrong with our approach to the environment. We are basing our decisions on speculation, not evidence. Proponents are pressing their views with more PR than scientific data.[]Politics leads you in the direction of a belief. Data, if you follow them, lead you to truth.[]Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant.[][ IPCC Third Assessment Report, from 2001 ] “The state of science at present is such that it is only possible to give illustrative examples of possible outcomes.” Illustrative examples. The estimates for even partial U.S. compliance with Kyoto—a reduction of 3% below 1990 levels, not the required 7%—has been predicted to cost almost 300 billion dollars a year. Year after year. We can afford it. But if we are going to spend trillions of dollars, I would like to base that decision on something more substantial than “illustrative examples.”[][ IPCC Third Assessment Report, from 2001 ] “The long term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”[/ul][/li][/quote]
I believe we all take the data that support our position to prove our belief. I have done so here. I believe that following the Kyoto Protocols is an unnecessarily extreme reaction and that our efforts and money can be spent more profitably elsewhere.
