I’ve stated before that I accept that manmade sources of CO2 and methane are contributing to global warming, but that it’s still unclear what the real effect of the warming will be, both economically and physically on the planet.
One thing that concerns me is that many people are now making radical statements about the effects of global warming that go unchallenged. For instance, the other day I heard a representative from Darfur blame the fighting there on global warming. Every time there’s a hurricane or tornado, someone trots out the notion that global warming is to blame.
And the chief culprit is Al Gore. Rather than stick to the science, he’s making radical claims about major destruction heading our way, which are not backed up by science.
Here’s an article I just read in the Sun-Times which addresses his exaggerations:
Is the description of Gore’s claims accurate? Are the refutations accurate?
Is it good for global warming supporters like Gore to over-state the risks to catch the attention of the public? Or is it dangerous in that over-exaggeration of the consequences of AGW could result in a popular backlash in which the real science gets caught in the crossfire?
My personal opinion is that you should always just stick to the science. Don’t make shit up just to grab attention and scare people. One of the reasons many people are dismissive of claims of environmental disaster is that the movement as a whole has a history of grossly exaggerating problems. Every time a prediction of disaster is made and doesn’t come true, it lessens the credibility of environmentalists and causes people to automatically dismiss them. I believe that’s what’s happening with Global Warming today. It’s a real issue, but the people trying to get our attention with it have such a history of fabrication and exaggeration that many people simply refuse to listen to them anymore.
[extreme sarcasm]
It seems as if every change to the environment caused by global warming is going to be bad, without exception. No place that is now too dry is going to be wetter. No place that is too cold is going to warmer. Apparently, before 1900 the world just happened to be at the exact perfect average global temperature, from which any deviation is a net loss.
:rolleyes:
And since it’s all the fault of those greedy capitalists, and those mindless consumers, the obvious answer is to abandon energy-intensive civilization and go back to a less materialistic culture, in which good honest toil in the fields is more spiritually ennobling than working in an air-conditioned office.
:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
In fact, really agriculture itself was a mistake. We were happiest and most in tune with nature when we were hunter-gatherers.
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
[/extreme sarcasm]
Having watched Dennis’s Principles of Management* in action a few times, even though I wince at the hyperbole, I am not yet persuaded it is unnecessary.
There was a fair amount of laughter and finger pointing at the alarmists over the Y2K bug, (much of it deserved–the survivalists were pretty far out there). On the other hand, I know from specific contacts in several major industries that there were CEOs as late as 1998 who were dismissing the whole thing as an attempt by IT departments to get more funds. These guys were in companies (and industries) who (which) were genuinely going to have their financial systems fail if no action was taken. Despite serious pleas from their own IT directors and CIOs with real facts and everything, they did not get off their butts and allocate the funds until they saw some idiotic overblown scare show on 20-20 or Dateline or one of those other infotainment shows.
[quote]
DENNIS’S PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT BY CRISIS:
[ol][li] To get action out of management, it is necessary to create the illusion of a crisis in the hope it will be acted on.[/li][li] Management will select actions or events and convert them to crises. It will then over-react.[/li][li] Management is incapable of recognizing a true crisis.[/ol][/li][/quote]
You leave a lot of questions unanswered, Sam. For instance, you suggest that the threat of global warming is “overhyped”. All right then, to what degree? Is there no threat at all from GW, this is all just “made up”? How then do you account for the deranged scientists who disagree with you? Have they been suborned by the vast left-wing conspiracy, to publish bogus findings in bogus journals?
And, if the threat is merely exaggerated rather than manufactured from whole cloth… to what extent is it exaggerated? Is the threat level “pretty bad” but not “grave”? Or is it “grave” but not “desperate”? Of course, we have the highly respected journal of meterological and climatological sciences, the Chicago Sun Times but they seem more interested in exposing the fiendish pathology of Al Gore. They seem to be taking the position that GW is pure hogwash, with no redeeming merit whatsoever. Is this your opinion? And, if it is, can you explain for us how this nonsensical horseshit came to be foisted off on so many gullible scientists and citizens?
I don’t think there have been many statements - certainly not major statements - about global warming that have gone unchallenged. The environmental side tends to point to any sign that is consistent with warming as a validation of their views, and the “other” side tends to point to any sign consistent with no warming as supporting their position.
The real scientific consensus, however, tends to be between the two extremes, although consistently closer to the environmental side. Scientists hate to state conclusions in black-and-white terms, and stating conclusions with a lot of caveats leaves a lot of room for non-scientific debate. Until recently, the media has treated the scientific debate as though it’s a political debate (and there are definitely major political implications on global warming). By that I mean that they have tried to talk to one person on each side of the story, although the vast majority of atmospheric scientists, ecologists, and other relevant specialists (as opposed to scientists with no particular expertise in relevant fields) have been in agreement that increased greenhouse gas emissions are resulting in global warming, and that global warming will have significant environmental impacts.
I think it’s overhyped, but principally as a reaction to the complete obstinance by the majority in recognizing reality.
I don’t know that we’ll see drastic changes in a strictly dangerous sense, but that it will cause change to a lot of markets and habitations and such, which will overall be really really expensive to switch to. And overall, you should always be pushing for cleaner more efficient technology, so the existence or non-existence of global warming is for the most part irrelevant. It’s frowned upon to litter, so it makes no sense for it not to be frowned upon to pollute.
Your experience and mine differ greatly. I was consulting from 95 through 99 and I have to say that not one of the companies that I worked for, nor any of the companies that my friends and acquaintances were with during that time were not already preparing long before the hype hit. I was with both large and small companies during that time (Rite Aid, Amp (now Tyco) York International to name a few.) We all had heard rumors of companies that weren’t prepared - from a friend of a friend - but no one I know in the industry worked for a company that wasn’t prepared and/or preparing.
Well, I would point out that it is not an article…It is an op-ed piece by a writer from the Heartland Institute. This doesn’t make what he says automatically wrong but it does make it clear that it is not an objective attempt to investigate what the science says vs. what Gore says; it is rather an attempt to argue against what Gore says.
I think for the most part, Taylor has cherry-picked a few scientific articles (or even parts of articles) and ignored the large body of work that goes the other way. The one point that I think he is correct on is the tornado one…i.e., that the IPCC does not feel they can confidently predict trends for tornado activity. (I would like to see exactly what Gore did say about tornadoes.)
Is Al Gore perfect on the science? No. But, I think most climate scientists would say that Gore is much closer to Taylor in accurately portraying the science.
On the issue of land glaciers: There is widespread acknowledgement that land glaciers on generally in retreat due to global warming. For example, the IPCC summary for policymakers states:
So, while it is true that there is some debate of the extent to which various different human-caused factors have contributed to the retreat of the Mt. Kilamajaro glacier, this does not mean there is not a general trend due to global warming…and a trend that is expected to continue. As for the Himalayan glaciers in particular, here is an article on the study Taylor is referring to. It is a bit of a mystery why the glaciers in this part of the Himalayas appear to be growing but here is some additional context provided in that article:
And, according to this article, here is what the most recent IPCC report had to say on the subject:
Well, yes, that may be what Landsea published…but there have been plenty of other studies that have concluded the opposite. Admittedly, this is an area of very active study right now and not one where the science is completely settled. Here is what the IPCC summary for policymakers has to say:
Furthermore, in their table on recent trends, under “Intense tropical cyclone activity increase,” they rate it as “likely” (>66% chance) that such a trend has occurred in the 20th century, “more likely than not” (>50% chance) of a human contribution to the observed trend, and “likely” to be a trend in the 21st century.
Again, there are many half-truths in this…and it may be that Gore has overstated things…but Taylor definitely overstates things in the other direction.
It is true that Antarctica as a whole has shown a cooling trend (although one might or might not quibble with the word “dramatically”). However, one part, the peninsula, has been warming significantly…and, unfortunately, that part may be the most important part (as there is no real disagreement that most of Antarctica is going to remain plenty cold enough to maintain ice—what really matters is what is happening near the edges where melting and other dynamical ice disintegration effects can occur). And, what the IPCC Summary for Policymakers actually said is:
That last point is a pretty big caveat since many scientists believe that such dynamical ice sheet discharges will indeed dominate. The IPCC essentially “punted” on trying to predict these dynamical ice sheet effects on sea level because they didn’t feel the science was at the point where a very definitive prediction can be made. What they say when they discuss sea level rise is:
Just to summarize what the IPCC says about the current situation in Greenland and Antarctica, here are the first two paragraphs on the subject from the IPCC full report (See Chapter 4, p. 361):
:dubious: I beg your pardon. Calling another poster’s statement “stupid” (even without support or elaboration) is perfectly GD-kosher and does not count as flaming.
This claim of Taylor’s about the New Scientist article is technically true but lacking context. Here is the article but you can see that the context that is lacking is:
(1) This is a trend that has occurred “since the great droughts of the early 1970s and 1980s”…i.e., it is in the context of a truly horrific drought situation that had occurred then, not a longer term context.
(2) Part of this recent trend may also be explained not just by climate effects but also by the fact that “farmers have also been adopting better methods of keeping soil and water on their land”.
The discussion in the full IPCC report on the precipitation trends in Africa is on p. 298-299 in Chapter 3. The story is rather complicated so you should read there for full details. However, here is a relevant paragraph on the Western Africa region including the Sahel that gives more context (with the bolding added by me):
In a still larger context, the IPCC summary for policymakers table on recent trends concludes that, on a global scale, for the phenomenon of “area affected by drought increases”, the likelihood of such a trend having occurred is rated as “likely in many regions since the 1970s”, “more likely than not” that there was a human contribution to the observed trend, and “likely” to be a trend in the 21st century.
BTW to others: I know the Sun-Times has a reputation as being the “liberal” Chicago paper while the Tribune is the “conservative” one, but I assume Sam knows that hasn’t been true since before Murdoch bought the Sun-Times. He sold it but the politics haven’t changed.
And Tomn, love that Dennis quote! And I’m glad Khadaji’s former employers were not like those of mine who Dennis defined so precisely. OTOH, in the late 90s Rite-Aid and Tyco were probably happy to have a crisis not of their making to distract people from their irregularities. My own company was unconvinced until they were told their AS400s were hardware-incompatible with the 21st century. How true it was I don’t know, but if IBM were using it as a marketing ploy it backfired by pushing us into the poxy arms of SAP.
Then be a heck of a lot less cryprtic in the future.
I can see where you would want that interpreted as an attack on the argument not the poster. (And I will accept that that was your intention.)
However, your comment did not address his words, but his self-identified frame of mind when posting. If you have to be insulting in this Forum, you are much better off making sure that there is no possible way to interpret the object of the insults as the author rather than the text.