Global Warming:Get Used To It

[skinnyflyer 0]

Finally stating the obvious;

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17080934/site/newsweek/

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Global Warming: Get Used to It

Even if we adopted the most far-reaching plans to combat climate change, we would still watch greenhouse gases rise for decades.

By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek
Feb. 19, 2007 issue - The most inconvenient truth about global warming is that we cannot stop it. Please don't mistake me for a skeptic. I'm fully persuaded by the evidence that climate change is real and serious. Of the 12 hottest years on record, 11 have occurred since 1995. Temperatures have risen by 0.74 degrees Celsius over the past century. (If that seems small, keep in mind that the difference in temperature between the ice age and now is about 5 degrees C.) And human activity appears to be one important cause. The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has risen dramatically since the industrial revolution. Methane has doubled and carbon-dioxide levels are up 30 percent since 1750. The projections going forward are highly plausible scientific estimations. The recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that by 2100, temperatures will have risen by somewhere between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees, and as a result, sea levels will rise by 18 to 59 centimeters. The trouble is, if you accept all these facts and theories about global warming, it is difficult to see how any human response launched today can avert it.

The gases that are warming the Earth have built up over hundreds of years. They do not disappear or dissipate easily. Even if the world adopted the most far-reaching plans to combat climate change, most scientists agree that the concentration of greenhouse gases will continue to rise for the next few decades. In other words, global warming is already baked into Earth's future.

Scientists estimate that simply to keep greenhouse gases at their current levels, we would need to slash carbon-dioxide emissions by 60 percent. Given current and foreseeable technology, that would require cutting back on industrial activity across the globe on a scale that would make the Great Depression look very small. In fact, the future will almost certainly involve substantially greater emissions of CO2. Most studies predict that the world will double its consumption of energy by 2050. Since much of that growth in consumption will take place in China and India, it will involve the burning of fossil fuels.

Between them, these two countries are currently building 650 coal-fired power plants. The combined CO2 emissions of these new plants is five times the total savings of the Kyoto accords—that is, if the Kyoto targets were being adhered to by Western countries, which they are not. Even under the most optimistic scenarios the industrialized world will continue to burn substantial amounts of coal and oil.

I state these facts plainly not to induce fatalism or complacency. It's scandalous that we're not weaning ourselves off dirty fuels. Perfecting just two new (and almost workable) technologies—clean coal and hybrid cars—would be a giant leap forward. We could be experimenting with hundreds more technologies and techniques. But even so, the Earth would still warm substantially over the next few decades. So in addition to our efforts to prevent and mitigate climate change, we need to employ another strategy—adaptation.

No one likes to talk about adapting to global warming because it seems defeatist. But the result is that, as we debate the meta-theories about global warming, we're increasingly unprepared to deal with its consequences. Whether or not CO2 emissions are triggering certain reactions in the atmosphere, we can see that sea levels are rising. What are we going to do about it?

In an intelligent, practical speech last September, the president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Frances Cairncross, urged that we begin such a discussion. "We need to think about policies that prepare for a hotter, drier world, especially in poor countries," she said. "That may involve, for instance, developing new crops, constructing flood defenses, setting different building regulations or banning building close to sea level." She points out that adaptation programs could move forward fast. Unlike plans to slow down global warming, which require massive and simultaneous international efforts, adaptation strategies can be pursued by individual countries, states, cities and localities.

Three years ago the Pew Foundation sponsored an excellent study, "Coping With Global Climate Change," which focused on the role of adaptation. The report found that moving in this direction would be costly and fraught with uncertainty and error. Yet, the authors point out, humankind's long history has shown it's possible; we have adapted as the environment around us has changed. The costs of relocating seaside communities are extremely high, but they will be even higher if we wait 20 years. The most important conclusion of the Pew study was that early planning is far more effective than managing the consequences of a breakdown. In other words, strengthening the levees in New Orleans costs much, much less than rebuilding the city.

Many environmental advocates fear that talking about coping with global warming will hamper efforts to slow it down. In fact, we have no alternative but to do both. Mitigation and adaptation complement each other. In both cases, the crucial need is to stop talking and start acting.

"Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives."
A. Sachs

[willard 0]

How long before I can sell my -20 sleeping bag?

[chrismgtis 0]

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How long before I can sell my -20 sleeping bag?

I suggest anyone that trusts man-made global warming claims read this:

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/environment/waterworld.html

This is only one article that sheds light on a very much more viable truth.

Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033
Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

[rushmc 18]

there, I fixed the title for you

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[kallend 1,661]

Yes, a graduate student at U.T. Dallas clearly knows more than all those scientists at the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change.

his stated area of expertise is space physics, the study of the space environment, encompassing realms from the ionosphere to the magnetosphere to interplanetary space.

Don't worry, be happy.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[miked10270 0]

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Yes, a graduate student at U.T. Dallas clearly knows more than all those scientists at the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change.

Isn't that just one more effect of Golbal-DIMMING... Which is what we should be worried about?

Mike.

Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable.

Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

[FallRate 0]

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his stated area of expertise is space physics, the study of the space environment, encompassing realms from the ionosphere to the magnetosphere to interplanetary space.

Wasn't it an astronomer/astrophysicist who discovered the effects of greenhouse gases on other planets and fostered the idea that global warming (on Earth) was mostly due to man-made influences? In fact he is sometimes referred to as the Father of Global Warming. (Though I doubt people use that title to imply that he was responsible.)

FallRate

[willard 0]

I noticed the writer failed to mention concentrations of CO2 that have risen sharply since man has started burning fossil fuels. This link should fill in some gaps. http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/lawdome.html

The data is a few years old but still accurate. To extend the graphs further merely remember this: The level of CO2 today is well above 400 ppm.

[mnealtx 0]

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Yes, a graduate student at U.T. Dallas clearly knows more than all those scientists at the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change.

his stated area of expertise is space physics, the study of the space environment, encompassing realms from the ionosphere to the magnetosphere to interplanetary space.

Don't worry, be happy.

So, interdiscplinary skill is GOOD when it's a lib professor pushing political views in the classroom, but NOT when it's one of the lib's pet projects getting refuted...got it.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[kallend 1,661]

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Yes, a graduate student at U.T. Dallas clearly knows more than all those scientists at the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change.

his stated area of expertise is space physics, the study of the space environment, encompassing realms from the ionosphere to the magnetosphere to interplanetary space.

Don't worry, be happy.

So, interdiscplinary skill is GOOD when it's a lib professor pushing political views in the classroom, but NOT when it's one of the lib's pet projects getting refuted...got it.

Interdisciplinary skills come AFTER discipline specific skills. This guy has yet to demonstrate skill in any discipline, (he's still a student).

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[lploscar 0]

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Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

Summary

World leaders gathered in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997 to consider a world treaty restricting emissions of ''greenhouse gases,'' chiefly carbon dioxide (CO2), that are thought to cause ''global warming'' severe increases in Earth's atmospheric and surface temperatures, with disastrous environmental consequences. Predictions of global warming are based on computer climate modeling, a branch of science still in its infancy. The empirical evidence actual measurements of Earth's temperature shows no man-made warming trend. Indeed, over the past two decades, when CO2 levels have been at their highest, global average temperatures have actually cooled slightly.
To be sure, CO2 levels have increased substantially since the Industrial Revolution, and are expected to continue doing so. It is reasonable to believe that humans have been responsible for much of this increase. But the effect on the environment is likely to be benign. Greenhouse gases cause plant life, and the animal life that depends upon it, to thrive. What mankind is doing is liberating carbon from beneath the Earth's surface and putting it into the atmosphere, where it is available for conversion into living organisms.

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Read the rest here: http://www.sitewave.net/pproject/s33p36.htm

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

[kallend 1,661]

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////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

Summary

World leaders gathered in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997 to consider a world treaty restricting emissions of ''greenhouse gases,'' chiefly carbon dioxide (CO2), that are thought to cause ''global warming'' severe increases in Earth's atmospheric and surface temperatures, with disastrous environmental consequences. Predictions of global warming are based on computer climate modeling, a branch of science still in its infancy. The empirical evidence actual measurements of Earth's temperature shows no man-made warming trend. Indeed, over the past two decades, when CO2 levels have been at their highest, global average temperatures have actually cooled slightly.
To be sure, CO2 levels have increased substantially since the Industrial Revolution, and are expected to continue doing so. It is reasonable to believe that humans have been responsible for much of this increase. But the effect on the environment is likely to be benign. Greenhouse gases cause plant life, and the animal life that depends upon it, to thrive. What mankind is doing is liberating carbon from beneath the Earth's surface and putting it into the atmosphere, where it is available for conversion into living organisms.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Read the rest here: http://www.sitewave.net/pproject/s33p36.htm

brought to you by: Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

Ha ha.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[billvon 2,454]

>It is reasonable to believe that humans have been responsible for
> much of this increase.

This is the Type III denial.

"OK, so we are increasing CO2 concentrations and they are increasing temperatures on average. But it will be a GOOD thing, really!"

>Greenhouse gases cause plant life, and the animal life that depends
> upon it, to thrive.

Rice and wheat grows faster if you keep the same environment and add only CO2. Corn and sugar cane aren't affected much. Coral and plankton grow more slowly; often existing plankton and coral die with too much CO2. And we do rely somewhat heavily on plankton.

But that's assuming everything stays the same, and it won't. As average temperatures increase, many plants cannot reproduce. Corn fertility, for example, falls to near zero at 104F. A 1-degree C rise in temperatures in the US reduces corn and soybean yields by 17 percent; this is based on actual climactic data correlated with yields. In 2002, a heat wave in the US and Canada caused a significant drop in wheat yields. The European heat wave in 2003 resulted in the smallest wheat harvest in 30 years. As these incidents occur more often, we will have less food available.

We will, of course, be able to adapt over time. US farming will move to Canada, and Siberia will be used as an agricultural area. The trick is to not change the climate too quickly, so we have time to adapt.

[willard 0]

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>It is reasonable to believe that humans have been responsible for
> much of this increase.

This is the Type III denial.

"OK, so we are increasing CO2 concentrations and they are increasing temperatures on average. But it will be a GOOD thing, really!"

>Greenhouse gases cause plant life, and the animal life that depends
> upon it, to thrive.

Rice and wheat grows faster if you keep the same environment and add only CO2. Corn and sugar cane aren't affected much. Coral and plankton grow more slowly; often existing plankton and coral die with too much CO2. And we do rely somewhat heavily on plankton.

But that's assuming everything stays the same, and it won't. As average temperatures increase, many plants cannot reproduce. Corn fertility, for example, falls to near zero at 104F. A 1-degree C rise in temperatures in the US reduces corn and soybean yields by 17 percent; this is based on actual climactic data correlated with yields. In 2002, a heat wave in the US and Canada caused a significant drop in wheat yields. The European heat wave in 2003 resulted in the smallest wheat harvest in 30 years. As these incidents occur more often, we will have less food available.

We will, of course, be able to adapt over time. US farming will move to Canada, and Siberia will be used as an agricultural area. The trick is to not change the climate too quickly, so we have time to adapt.

Add to that the fact that the reproduction cycle of many animals and plants is dependent upon a temperature/time curve and not an hrs.sunlight/day curve. As the average temperature changes, so too will these reproduction cycles, leading to overpopulation of some species and reduced population in others. Both can have a tremendous effect on a biosystem.

[rushmc 18]

For consideration

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/osu-atd021207.php

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[ExAFO 0]

Rabbits.

Rabbits!

RABBITS!!

rabbits.

Illinois needs a CCW Law. NOW.

[Royd 0]

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But that's assuming everything stays the same, and it won't. As average temperatures increase, many plants cannot reproduce. Corn fertility, for example, falls to near zero at 104F. A 1-degree C rise in temperatures in the US reduces corn and soybean yields by 17 percent; this is based on actual climactic data correlated with yields. In 2002, a heat wave in the US and Canada caused a significant drop in wheat yields. The European heat wave in 2003 resulted in the smallest wheat harvest in 30 years. As these incidents occur more often, we will have less food available.

Humans have been dealing with weather related crop failures and abundances since the first seed was planted. I remember hearing a story about something called the Dust Bowl.

I love beets and have attempted to grow them for years, always with failure. This year I put most of my winter garden in on Sept.1st. Voila.

Climate warming is not going to prevent the earth from tipping on its axis, which creates winter and summer.

Different crops will simply be planted closer to the poles.

Since Fl. orange groves are being turned into condos maybe Ga. will become the new citrus belt.

Of course, the peaches will have to be moved farther north, or horticulturists will develop some that will deal with the heat.

[lploscar 0]

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brought to you by: Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

Ha ha.

??? so, if it doesn't come out of Berkeley=not good/true....

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

[lploscar 0]

I really don't have time for all this... did you bother to read the whole paragraph, or just take one excerpt out and hang onto it?... read the paper linked... it will make good sense (if you open your mind a bit).
Everything you state in your post has no meaning without back-up data...

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

[narcimund 0]

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brought to you by: Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

??? so, if it doesn't come out of Berkeley=not good/true....

That wasn't his point. The "Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine" is a crackpot in a farmhouse posting remarkable crap on a website. Look him up. It's funny stuff.

First Class Citizen Twice Over

[kallend 1,661]

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brought to you by: Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

Ha ha.

??? so, if it doesn't come out of Berkeley=not good/true....

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Berkeley is not the only other place in the world besides OISM.

Have you actually investigated OISM?

www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=Oregon_Institute_of_Science_and_Medicine

Maybe you can explain why you trust these folks and not NOAA.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[lploscar 0]

Irony?!

There was supposed to be a hearing 02/14/07 on Global Warming at the Rayburn House Office Building in DC. The hearing is entitled “Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?”

The hearing was cancelled because a snow storm was followed by an ice storm and the entire region was covered with a wintry mix of nastiness. All area schools were closed, colleges were closed and government offices were closed or on a reduced work schedule.

All of this on the day a Global Warming Hearing was set to begin. It is amazing how many people blindly follow this Global Warming idea even with contradictory evidence slapping them in the face like a cold northeastern wind.

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

[lploscar 0]

b/c they base their findings on trend data (longer than 20-30 years... way longer), and not on computer climate modeling... read the paper...

edited for sp

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

[NCclimber 0]

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brought to you by: Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

Ha ha.

??? so, if it doesn't come out of Berkeley=not good/true....

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Berkeley is not the only other place in the world besides OISM.

Have you actually investigated OISM?

www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=Oregon_Institute_of_Science_and_Medicine

Maybe you can explain why you trust these folks and not NOAA.

Former and present faculty include:
- discoverer of Carbon 14 and recipient of 1996 the Enrico Fermi award.
- Nobel Prize winner
- former director of laboratory work for the Salk Institute.
- former President and Research Director of the Linus Pauling Institute

Definitely a bunch of hack nut jobs.

[lploscar 0]

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Maybe you can explain why you trust these folks and not NOAA.

Here's a study, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (www.cfa.harvard.edu), that carries the vernacular title 20th-Century Climate Not So Hot. Co-authored by Smithsonian astrophysicists Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon, Craig Idso and Sherwood Idso of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, and David Legates of the Center for Climate Research at the University of Delaware, it notes: "20th Century temperatures were generally cooler than during the medieval warmth."

The 20th century, contrary to the alarmism of environmentalists, was neither the warmest century in the past millennium, nor the one marked by the most severe weather. Belief that the globe is warming faster than ever before, and so fast that the rise threatens the environment, is the result of examining variations in temperature over too short a time span. The Medieval Warm Period, from approximately 800 to 1300 AD, was as much as 4 C warmer on average than today, worldwide, nearly as warm as the upper extreme of UN climate projections for the coming century. And the natural world did not implode, far from it. Greenland sustained agricultural colonies through much of this period. The seas teemed with fish. Wars were less common in Europe than during the later Middle Ages, in part because harvests were plentiful and less pressure existed for campaigns of conquest to acquire new lands and resources. Cathedral construction on a grand scale (a sign of relative affluence) boomed across Europe. Mesoamerica also flourished.

Remarkable in the Harvard-Smithsonian study is the depth of analysis it contains of the historical temperature record and its finding that the Medieval Warm Period was global, not merely confined to the North Atlantic region as some have argued.

The study, funded in part by NASA and the National (U.S.) Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - two organizations known for the enthusiastic support of the manmade warming theory - examined the results from more than 240 scientific reports on temperature "proxies," biological, cultural and geological fingerprints that indirectly reveal temperatures centuries, millennia or even eons ago. "For example, tree-ring studies can yield yearly records of temperature and precipitation trends, while glacier ice cores record those variables over longer time scales ... Borehole data, cultural data, glacier advances or retreats, geomorphology, isotopic analysis from lake sediments, ice cores, peat moss, corals, stalagmites" and fossils, even dust and pollen, can provide clues to past climate, even sometimes very detailed indicators.

No study to date has been as thorough or wide-ranging as the Harvard-Smithsonian study, and few have taken as much advantage of the "research advances in reconstructing ancient climates" that has occurred in recent years. Why then do other scientists and environmentalists claim temperature records of the past century-and-a-half show such potentially catastrophic warming? Because the Little Ice Age followed the end of the Medieval Warm Period. This nearly 600-year-period of abnormally cold climate was ending just as modern, reasonably scientific weather records were beginning. If 1850 is used as year zero - as the baseline against which current temperatures are compared - it is going to look dramatically warmer today than a century ago because the Little Ice Age was just ending in 1850. But if 1850 is seen for the anomaly it is, and the past 1,000 or more years are placed in context, then today's heat is hardly that striking, and certainly not cause for alarm.

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/press/pr0310.html

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot