ASIAN HAZE: Switching impoverished Indians from burning dung and wood for cooking could boost development and combat climate change.
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Wetlands from Bangladesh to Florida submerged. Drought and devastating heat in important granaries such as the Yangtze floodplain in China or Ukraine. Rains that come too often or too hard in India or the U.S. Northeast. The list of potentially devastating impacts from climate change is a long one. But with greenhouse gas emissions continuing to climb and concentrations in the atmosphere rising by roughly two parts per million (ppm) a year, climate catastrophes are looking more and more imminent.
"Today's greenhouse gas levels [387 ppm] would already be plenty high enough to cause over two degrees of warming even if we stabilized concentrations tomorrow," says physicist Myles Allen of the University of Oxford. "Two degrees isn't 'safe,' in that there will be negative impacts for many regions and systems even with two degrees of warming, but anything over two degrees starts to look much more serious."
So how do we keep global average temperatures from warming more than two degrees Celsius? Scientists have begun to turn their attention to answering this critical question now that the potential impacts of climate change have become clear. The solutions offered range from a tax on emissions of carbon dioxide to an end to forest-clearing for agriculture.
Past is prologue?
Today's climate situation could appear relatively benign. After all, digging into the geologic record for climate change reveals that previous periods, such as the Eemian interglacial more than 130,000 years ago, have been nearly this warm. "On a global average it was around 1 degree Celsius warmer," says climate scientist James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). But "it was still the same planet. It was not that different."
One major difference, of course, was that sea levels were at least four meters higher in the Eemian, and preindustrial climate changes seem to have been driven by small shifts in Earth's orbit, which, in turn affect the amount of sunlight reaching the planet.
Present climate change, driven by increasing greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere, has other effects beyond droughts, heat waves, rising sea levels and more intense or more frequent rains. Most notably, the warming climate is rendering the oceans more acidic—with attendant impacts on sea life, such as coral reefs.
And it remains unclear how other factors strengthen or diminish the effects of greenhouse gases trapping more of the sun's heat. "The question is how do the feedbacks kick in from water vapor, clouds, sea ice that amplify or maybe diminish the impact from CO2, methane and the rest," says climate scientist Jon Foley of the University of Minnesota.
Plus, "the human-made forcing is very unusual. The forcings that drove paleoclimate were much slower and weaker," Hansen says. "Now we've got nearly instantaneous change within a century."
And that instantaneous change seems to be accelerating. Climatologist Stephen Schneider of Stanford University argues that "given the current trajectory, there's not a large chance that we won't warm above two degrees Celsius." But "the world is not fine at 1.8, it does not die at 2.2. It's a judgment about when it's gone beyond danger."
A matter of pricing and deforestation
That judgment, of course, varies depending on whether one is living in the Arctic or a coral atoll or in the middle of a large continental landmass like North America or Asia. But it is clear that there are several keys to reining in greenhouse gas emissions. "As long as fossil fuels are the cheapest form of energy, they are going to continue to be burned," Hansen argues, identifying the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. "You've got to put a price, a gradually rising price, on carbon emissions."
That price will have to be global, according to various climate scientists. "Any credible plan for avoiding dangerous climate change will have to address the question of what India, China, Russia and the U.S. are going to do with the coal they have underground that we cannot afford for them to release into the atmosphere," Oxford's Allen notes. "If they are not going to use that coal, ever, then who is going to compensate them for the benefits lost? And if they are going to use it, then who is going to pay for its carbon content to be sequestered?"
On top of that, slowing the ongoing clearing of forests from Brazil to Indonesia would address a full 12 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. "Deforestation continues to be one billion to two billion metric tons of carbon pear year, more than most countries in the world," Minnesota's Foley notes. "These forests are hugely important to biodiversity, watersheds, bioprospecting. These are treasure troves and we are burning them down for cheap land. Maybe we can help the economics be different."
That cheap land, of course, is being cleared to grow food—whether grains and other crops directly or to make pasture for cattle. Such agriculture will bear the brunt of climate change as many of the crops humanity relies on are finely tuned to thrive in the present climate and may wither as temperatures warm. More importantly, from the perspective of feeding a growing population, yields will likely drop without new varieties being developed. "All the grains we grow are beyond their thermal maximum. For every degree Celsius [that mean global temperature] increases, yield drops 10 percent," notes geochemist Wallace Broecker of Columbia University's Earth Institute. "In the meantime, population is going up by 30 percent. With three degrees [Celsius] warming, it's 30 percent down in grain and 30 percent up in population, then you've got a big problem."
A range of win–win scenarios
Fortunately, scientists are now able to answer questions such as the impacts from a given policy or program. For example, researchers can now identify specific sectors or programs that can yield specific results as far as addressing environmental problems, says climate modeler Gavin Schmidt of NASA's GISS. "Switch to plug-in electric vehicles and, even with the current mix of [electricity] generation, you still end up ahead." The same is true for burning wood or coal for cooking or heat in Asia. A switch to electricity for these needs would diminish both deforestation and the Asian brown cloud. "By finding win–win–win scenarios across a range of policy goals you end up bringing more people to the table," Schmidt notes.
And there is a great deal of room for progress in using energy more efficiently. "The U.S. has a vast opportunity to increase efficiency to match Europe or Japan," Foley says.
Mandatory performance standards are needed worldwide, adds Stanford's Schneider: "Nobody needs a kilowatt. What they need is air conditioning or a refrigerator."
But "adaptation policies to deal with climate change in the pipeline we can't prevent" will also be needed, Schneider argues. "Who is most vulnerable to climate change? Poor people in hot countries. Who contributed the least to the problem? Poor people in hot countries."
In order to alleviate the poverty that still afflicts more than one billion people, policymakers need to leave room for development—and its attendant greenhouse gas emissions. "The world is going to have to create a carbon pie eventually and divide it up by country," Columbia's Broecker says. "A total amount of CO2 that each country will be able to add to the atmosphere. If they want to burn more than that then they'd have to take an equivalent amount out again."
And, what is also unclear is exactly what will happen when and if greenhouse gas emissions—and concentrations in the atmosphere—begin to come back down again. "Anthropogenic carbon dioxide is mixed rapidly through the atmosphere, land biosphere and near-surface ocean, such that a certain fraction remains in the atmosphere. This fraction has remained remarkably constant over the past century and we don't really know how it will change if and when we cut emissions, never having done such a thing for an extended period of time," Oxford's Allen notes. But "to solve the problem we need to eliminate net emissions of carbon dioxide entirely."
See what we're tweeting about
75 Comments
Add CommentGloom, gloom, fear, chaos that is what global warming advocates state, pushing their agenda to advance their socialistic control. We conquered communism only to be
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisrepalced by tree hugers who manipulate data for their own
advancement dismissing any data that disproves their theory.
Scientist that use global warming as their battle cry are discredeting the scientific comunity due to their lies and manipulation.
Gloom, gloom, fear, chaos that is what global warming advocates state, pushing their agenda to advance their socialistic control. We conquered communism only to be
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisrepalced by tree hugers who manipulate data for their own
advancement dismissing any data that disproves their theory.
Scientist that use global warming as their battle cry are discredeting the scientific comunity due to their lies and manipulation.
Why is it that those apposed to environmental causes always bring up politics?!? Talk about scare tactics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome people want to convince you that climate change is about secret agendas, money grabs, political manipulation or whatever other imagery they can invoke to try to scare you into inaction and sow the seeds of doubt. Some do it out of ignorance, some out of greed and others out of pure arrogance and spite.
The amount of junk science floating around on the internet right now regarding climate change right now is astounding, and it is no small wonder that many seek out that information which bolsters the beliefs they already hold.
Don't be fooled or bullied into taking a side until do the research for yourself and can make an informed decision.
And whatever you do, do not forget the topic at hand, CLIMATE CHANGE, not politics, taxes, the economy, private interests, etc.
The anti-climate change conspiracy theorists make the JFK conspiracy theorists look like rank amateurs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReally, many thousands of scientists, politicians and others co-operating on THAT HUGE of a conspiracy?? Its mind boggling that some people actually believe that.
Natedog.... Do I know you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with everything you said except the last sentence. The topic of climate change remains in area of science until people are asked to do something. At that point, it becomes political and taxes, economics, ethics, and private interests join the fray. You can't do a darned thing about climate change until you pass some kind of law, or setup some kind of economic incentive, or begin collecting taxes to pay for the "fixes". You othen have to decide if doing "something" is more ethical than doing "nothing" and if the benefits of doing something outweigh the costs of doing nothing.
What's worse, is that Americans in general are always expected to shoulder a greater burden of the cost as we're the ones most concerned. Do you really think people in Ethiopia, Afghanistan, or Bosnia really care what the climate is going to be like in 50 years?
Of course, the one question I still haven't seen adequately addressed is this: Is climate change bad?
I think it is one hell of an assumption to think that the climate conditions on the planet just happen to be the ideal condition. If we woke up one day with a plan to IMPROVE the cllimate, how would we go about it? By making things cooler? I don't think so. Instead we would probably warm things. We could increase the usable land area in the world by as much as 15%. We could use a lot more fresh water that apparently is in short supply in some regiions but at the moment is locked up in the form of water ice at the poles. Do we really think NOW=PERFECT? And should we really put so many resources into forcing the climate to remain the same?
We're talking about a few degrees. If things don't improve, we will just have to ADAPT. Maybe we'll find some neat ways to live in less hospitable conditions and use that knowledge to get off of this planet where at the moment we have all our eggs in one basket and we're just one big rock away from extinction.
Candide - did you read "State of Fear"? It would be right up your alley. :-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd yes, you are right about the abundance of evidence supporting climate change. Odd that often the same people who believe that climate change is a conspiracy also denounce evolution........
WHY would we want to stop the global warming? The medieval warm period was when humanity flourished. Ice ages really REALLY s*ck. Rainfall has been increasing, plant growth has increased by 11% with the CO2 generated by man and the planet in the last 150 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do you hate the people inhabiting the earth?
Scientists are just people. They should not be let loose near the earth's thermostat. Solve horrendous diseases or something productive and forget the idea of nirvana under a one world government that you wish to be a part of.
Reminds me of primitive people sacrificing virgins in the face of erupting volcanoes or droughts/floods or other natural disasters. The climate has constantly changed. It will always change. Rising CO2 from warming oceans has always FOLLOWED warming (related to sunspot activity). The scandal from the release of the CRU fraud/conspiracy is going to swallow pseudo-scientific rags like this one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisheads-up to those in the religion of global warming/climate change. your agenda is showing.... the joke is on you. please stop making and drinking the kool-aid. H.L. Menken once said; " the urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. " i've lived long enough to realize climate changes and it's cyclical. please make yourselves useful doing something that really helps mankind; like starting a business to employ others or being a mentor for those in need of a great role model. bottom line.. truth - what a concept.......
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf past change cannot be explained, how can the future be accurately predicted? Follow the money, this is primarily about politics, power and control, the earth has survived and recovered from far greater challenges than we could ever deliver.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor those of you that do not believe the legitimacy and significant magnitude of humans with regards to global warming just visit
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/
and download their report. Any objective reading and it becomes quite clear to anyone that the future will not be rosy unless we act to reverse current trends.
Have you happened to read any of the emails or code that came from the main proponents of man made global warming? You can say what you want about the emails, but the code shows a concerted effort to hide the real story and show that man made warming exists, as well as personally or professionally destroy anyone that disagrees. If not, search for "climategate".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt may be that it really does, but you cannot use the
[kfreels] “I agree completely that in order to find solutions we will need to take into account numerous aspects such as economics, political will, ethics, etc. My point is those issues are secondary and only come into play once a consensus has been reached that there is a problem to begin with. In scientific circles the matter is largely settled, in public circles it is a much different story. People need to understand the problem first then decide how best to solve it, not the other way around.”
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this[kfreels] “What's worse, is that Americans in general are always expected to shoulder a greater burden of the cost as we're the ones most concerned. “
America is the largest producer of CO2 and therefore it is necessary for them to make the most significant changes. Luckily though, America is also in the best position to find solutions and reap the benefits those solutions provide. Every country needs to do their part but western nations need to lead by example. You cannot expect Ethiopi or Afghanistan to play a major role finding solutions when everyone knows full well that they lack the infrastructure and technical know how to do so.
[kfreels] “Is climate change bad? I think it is one hell of an assumption to think that the climate conditions on the planet just happen to be the ideal condition…If things don't improve, we will just have to ADAPT.”
Climate change is a normal process, though it does not naturally occur at the rates we are currently seeing. Changes in climate during the Pleistocene and Holocene allowed humans to prosper and future climate changes can reverse that trend. The real question is, what climate is best for us?
I highly doubt a warming climate (within reason) will spell the extinction of humans, at least in the short term, but it will most certainly cause incredible stresses on our way of life. Rising sea levels would cause the displacement of millions of people, rising temperatures will also cause a decrease in plant yields (wheat, barely, etc). Fresh water sources from glaciers are finite, once they melt there is no more water, whatever rivers they produced simply disappear.
Sure we can and will adapt if necessary , but a couple billion people may starve to death in the process.
The biggest threat to climate change isn't CO2 it is methane, all the methane we use in natural gas pumping to one place to another is the single most danger to our environment than CO2...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNatural gas is 23 to 28 times more heat absorbing than CO2 so for every 1 ppm per natural gas seepage increase there would have to be 23 ppm of CO2 to have the same effect. The EPA has estimated that 13 percent of all the natural gas from pipelines seeps into the atmosphere yet they want to build a 5,000 mile natural gas pipeline from nowhere, Alaska, to the lower United States that would be pressurized to 2,000 psi.
We are getting more dependent on Natural gas as a energy alternative by the confused idea that it is a less danger to the environment because it has less CO2 emissions when burned than most of the other fossil fuels, that is a wrong assumption if you have to transport it from one place to another.
Human activity is the biggest contributor to the increase in methane production into our atmosphere. Other than coal mines, oil wells, transportation, and natural gas wells, cows is the biggest farming contributor, rice paddies is the second biggest contributor.
So while we focus mostly on CO2 emissions we are being blindsided by the increase of methane seepage into the atmosphere. To fix this then we will have to stop eating cows, stop eating rice and stop using natural gas to generate electricity and heat our homes.
It looks like we are doomed......
The more SA continues to push this now-proven hoax promulgated by corrupt scientists promoting fraudulent and fabricated data, the more SA places itself in the tabloid camp.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfrgough: "...SA places itself in the tabloid camp."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat doesn't seem to stop you from constantly posting your ass backwards views on their website
[natedog] China, not the US is the largest producer of CO2. And while yes, America should shoulder the burden, my point was that we are often asked to carry more than our share. For example, Germany produces at 1/6 of our output. So they should shoulder a burden 1/6 the amount that we do. Russia should carry 25% of what we carry. That's not the way the world works though. Instead, they would have the US carry 20 times as much financial burden as Germany and 30 times what Russia is willing to contribute.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for change, I wasn't referring to natural processes. My question is whether or not the additional heat we are indeed making is bad or not. I don't doubt the science that concludes that it is happening. I doubt the conclusion that it is bad. I think your conclusions are wrong. Warmer temps will increase vegetation, not decrease it. Additional heat allows the atmosphere to hold more moisture, not less, so the result should be more precipitation in general as additional ice at the poles melts and eventually hits an altitude over land where it can condense. Rivers will not dry up. Heat does not equal dry and any mid-western American can assure you. And yes, sea levels will rise - slightly - and decrease usable land a bit, but the offset will be even greater usable land altogether.
I just don't see people starving because of this. People starve due to lack of government stability.
I can't believe "Scientific American" would present this as a serious article. What a farce.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother propaganda piece for the hoaxers. Keep talking with each other, twits. Real people have moved on.
"Un-Scientific, Anti-American" would be a good title for your PR rag.
[kfreels] "China, not the US is the largest producer of CO2."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLast I checked it was still the U.S. Also you need to keep in mind that nice chunk of the CO2 being produced in China is actually coming from factories owned by Western interests.
It is certainly no secret that the U.S. has moved a lot of there production offshore so the American footprint is actually even larger than geographic models suggest.
[kfreels] "I think your conclusions are wrong. Warmer temps will increase vegetation, not decrease it."
Increased temperature will increase certain types of vegetation in certain types of climates, but not the types of vegetation we need. There is a reason food crops such as wheat is grow in places like the Canadian prairies and not Panama. These plants do not grow well in hotter climates so unless you are planning on feeding your family with jungle leaves you may want to think twice about how more vegetation is suppose to be beneficial.
[kfreels] "sea levels will rise - slightly - and decrease usable land a bit, but the offset will be even greater usable land altogether."
If you think a couple of meters is slight, I would hate you think what you think what you view as a lot.
Also, increasing temperatures result in additional desertification so between that and land lost to the sea I don't know where you think this [greater] usable land is coming from. The northern tundra isn't going to suddenly convert into worlds bread basket, especially given the poor solid conditions in most parts.
Furthermore, there is simply no way to predict how increased temperatures will affect whether patterns. Areas that were once fertile may experience drastic reductions in rain fall or the complete opposite, and experience massive flooding.
It sounds to me like you haven't given any of this very much thought at all. You simply want to roll the dice and hope for the best.
we could use some warming in San Diego....and from my emails...Minnesota too
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother article of lies from the admitted climate change theorists conspiracy. This is about an attempt by the United Nations to gain control of the world economies and line the pockets of their Klepto Friends.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI saw an interesting quote the other day:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time.” -- Robert Francis Kennedy
[pgtruspace] "Another article of lies from the admitted climate change theorists conspiracy. This is about an attempt by the United Nations to gain control of the world economies and line the pockets of their Klepto Friends."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for coming out of your bunker and taking off your tinfoil anti-government mind reading suit long enough to let us know...
[Sean333] “One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time.” -- Robert Francis Kennedy
I disagree with that statement!
"The climate has constantly changed. It will always change."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Genetic Fallacy of Reasoning. Logic Fail. The same sort of faulty logic can be applied in the following ways:
Forest Fires happen naturally and will continue to happen so arson is impossible.
"Rising CO2 from warming oceans has always FOLLOWED warming (related to sunspot activity)."
Not this time around. Here in the present humans are inputting billions of tons of IR absorbing gases into the air.
Yet, you have an expectation that nothing will happen? Incredible.
"We could use some warming in San Diego...."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about some flooding in San Diego? Can you use that too?
"and from my emails...Minnesota too"
Well, now, if they need more heat in San Diego and MN then that must be the same for the ENTIRE WORLD. Myopia thy name is Timray
"Another propaganda piece for the hoaxers. Keep talking with each other, twits. Real people have moved on."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMr. Rational once again demonstrates the dangers of wearing you tie to tight.
"WHY would we want to stop the global warming? The medieval warm period was when humanity flourished."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBecause their is such a thing as too much of a good thing? Because I like our coastal cities where they are now.
Alright here we go again,for 2 million years Ice Ages have been coming and going.Another one is on its way in 5 to 10 thousand years,maybe next year.A slow warm up is far better than a rapid cool down.A quick freeze right now would result in the death of billions,due to starvation. A world war would be next,because hungery people will not die with out a fight.At least we will know who to blame when an Ice Age is caused by reducing Co2's.I wouldn't want to in their shoes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDarn it. This should read:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMr. Rational once again demonstrates the dangers of wearing your tie too tight.
The thoughtless personal attack of the warmer/leftist is acceptable in your culture. People like me are ignoring you now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou have nothing to add. You may continue to squawk with your retarded leftist friends, and defend the propaganda outlet SA - but screaming "denier" at the people who are just asking for the data and analysis methods has finally jumped the shark.
You are dismissed.
@Jack,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"A world war would be next,because hungery people will not die with out a fight.At least we will know who to blame when an Ice Age is caused by reducing Co2's.I wouldn't want to in their shoes."
What kind of madness is this? You want to close your eyes to the present threat in order to be prepared for one that you imagine is 10,00o years in the future? I think you just walked through the Looking Glass, Alice.
@ Mr. Rational,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst you say:The thoughtless personal attack of the warmer/leftist is acceptable in your culture. People like me are ignoring you now.
Then you say: You have nothing to add. You may continue to squawk with your retarded leftist friends, and defend the propaganda outlet SA - "
You said all that without a trace irony did you not? Sigh
."..but screaming "denier" at the people who are just asking for the data and analysis methods has finally jumped the shark. "
You are not just asking. Your ilk get the data and then do nothing with it or practice "blog science" incompetently.
Want data? Here you go all of the following data is Raw and unprocessed.
Satellite Data:
AMSU
http://amsu.cira.colostate.edu/
Mirador
http://mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/mirador/presentNavigation.pl?tree=project&project=SORCE
A-Train Data Depot
http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/atdd
Sea Temps:
http://www.marine.csiro.au/~ttchen/argo/gmap.htm
http://icoads.noaa.gov/
Tide Gauges:
http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/data.html
Aerosols Data
http://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Ground Temps Stations
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2/
Glaciers
http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/dataexp.html
Paleo Data
NOAA:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/data.html
Pangea:
http://www.pangaea.de/
Ice Core Projects:
http://www.gfy.ku.dk/~www-glac/ngrip/index_eng.htm
All of the above has been available for YEARS. Now you know why you clowns are considered Bozos.
Forest Fires happen naturally and will continue to happen so arson is impossible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBad logic. It should be "Forest fires happen naturally, so will occur whether there is arson or not"
Natural forest fires and arson are totally unrelated things and do not affect each other.
Forest Fires happen naturally and will continue to happen so arson is impossible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBad logic. It should be "Forest fires happen naturally, so will occur whether there is arson or not"
Natural forest fires and arson are totally unrelated things and do not affect each other.
Your disagreeing with it does not make it false.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Dondad,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Natural forest fires and arson are totally unrelated things and do not affect each other."
That is the point. The same phenomena, forest fires, can have different causes. That is why it tremendously stupid to say since climate change has happened in the past humans can not be the cause now.Did you stop to think at all before you wrote?
Here is another one for you to puzzle on:
Lung cancer has occurred long before cigarettes ever appeared so cigarettes can not cause lung cancer.
Same sort of reasoning.
"Your disagreeing with it does not make it false."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, and....?
We could of course build 2500 new nuclear power plants in in the US, 10000 world wide. No more Oil threats from the middle East, no more global warming, no more peak oil, no more air pollution, no more oil companies, and lotsa good high paying jobs. Cost would be less than three years of oil revenue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven you deniers would go for it.
But where would all those campaign donations and full page magazine ads come from with no Big Oil money?
For the how to look at:
http://skirsch.com/politics/globalwarming/ifrQandA.htm
www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-kirsch/add-a-gigawatt-a-day-to-k_b_261728.html
It's odd reading the article and the comments. Humanity seems to be reeling between the idea that climate change is a "fixable problem" and the idea that climate change is a "hoax". It's like watching monkeys argue about Mt. Everest. I've never known a natural system to bother to take people's ideas into account.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's odd reading the article and the comments. Humanity seems to be reeling between the idea that climate change is a "fixable problem" and the idea that climate change is a "hoax". It's like watching monkeys argue about Mt. Everest. I've never known a natural system to bother to take people's ideas into account.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet me get this right.Why wait,lets maybe start another Ice Age right now,because of what, might be bad science.Talk about madness.The debate is not over,its just begun.Sure it might be 10,000 years from now or it might be a year .We don't know.but I think we can wait a decade or two doing some real research before doing something stupid like reducing Co2's by a huge amount.The climate record shows that there was a cool down just a few hundred years ago,and the people who died didn't just imagine they were starving to death,but there is real evidence of reoccuring Ice Ages over the last 2 millon years ,and I doubt that their going to stop,just because somebody wish's so,and yes a billion or more unarmed people would die of starvation before a world war finally happens,and its not something I wish for.The only real threat I see is letting a small handfull of people lead the rest of the world blindly down a path of destruction.The study of the subject of climate change is just in its infancy.Who knows what little things we can do that might bring big unwanted changes.All I am saying is lets wait till we know a little more.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's frustrating that there ares till that mamy deniers of what really is happening (see "Gloom, gloom, ...) Do You have children? Do You see the already ongoing change in teh lives of many people 'round the world. Can You imagine that wars are (like in Darfur area) and will be fought because of droughts and the resulting food tightness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't be blind, make up Your mind as voter and consumer. Urge our politicians and managers to do the right thing. And be a model for Your personal environment.
It's frustrating that there ares till that mamy deniers of what really is happening (see "Gloom, gloom, ...) Do You have children? Do You see the already ongoing change in teh lives of many people 'round the world. Can You imagine that wars are (like in Darfur area) and will be fought because of droughts and the resulting food tightness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't be blind, make up Your mind as voter and consumer. Urge our politicians and managers to do the right thing. And be a model for Your personal environment.
It's frustrating that there ares till that mamy deniers of what really is happening (see "Gloom, gloom, ...) Do You have children? Do You see the already ongoing change in teh lives of many people 'round the world. Can You imagine that wars are (like in Darfur area) and will be fought because of droughts and the resulting food tightness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't be blind, make up Your mind as voter and consumer. Urge our politicians and managers to do the right thing. And be a model for Your personal environment.
It's frustrating that there ares till that mamy deniers of what really is happening (see "Gloom, gloom, ...) Do You have children? Do You see the already ongoing change in teh lives of many people 'round the world. Can You imagine that wars are (like in Darfur area) and will be fought because of droughts and the resulting food tightness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't be blind, make up Your mind as voter and consumer. Urge our politicians and managers to do the right thing. And be a model for Your personal environment.
WHAT we actually have to do is to try our best to be kind to our environment without saying anything...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor any of those naysayers, whose views are clearly blinded by their own ego, I would draw your attention to the following article:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense
Seriously. Take a read. Maybe, just maybe, you'll learn something.
@Jack,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Let me get this right.Why wait,lets maybe start another Ice Age right now,because of what, might be bad science.Talk about madness.The debate is not over,its just begun.Sure it might be 10,000 years from now or it might be a year"
Jack, that is one of the most monumentally stupid things I have seen written by A denier in the past 12 hours. No, Ice Ages just do not up and start. Perhaps you should go do a search of what a Milankovitch Cycle is and learn why we are not due for an one for another 20,000 years.
SA trotting out the "usual suspects" in support of catastrophic global warming. Groupthink galore, same old same old!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"SA trotting out the "usual suspects" in support of catastrophic global warming. Groupthink galore, same old same old!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis message brought to you by: Exxon-Mobil.
The last sentence of the article was the most significant:"to solve the problem we need to eliminate net emissions of CO2 entirely". As one of the posters above remarked, this moves out of the realm of science and into the realm of politics when society is asked to do something about it. If the author believes, as the production of CO2 in the world moves to the East where belief in all this is not high and out of the reach of Western environmentalists, that this is about to occur, than he is more insane than the so called deniers. If China comes one day to believe, the chances of them launching a $100 million geo engineering project rather than destroying their economy look pretty good indeed. The idea of China saving the world from leftist,eco-fascists of the West is droll indeed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe gorvernament of the USA, CHINA, having that stop for the reflections. Are the great in the ecomomy world today, with industry strong, please!!!!!!!! save world .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe gorvernament of the USA, CHINA, having that stop for the reflections. Are the great in the ecomomy world today, with industry strong, please!!!!!!!! save world .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHear me out
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore people, less food, everyone starves.
Would you rather live five years in squalor and then starve to death, or never be aware that you ever existed (try telling me a ball of cells without neurons can think)
The fastest way to cut CO2 emissions is a two-child policy, and, to not allow a gender imbalance because some areas are too backward to appreciate women (much of India) one if it's a son.
This will reduce energy demand, world hunger, slow and eventually halt deforestation for farmland, and solve a whole host of other problems. It will also be less stressful on parents and result in a better-educated world.
What's so wrong about it? Oh, let's say a ball of cells, without neurons, can think. Well I'm sure any one of us would choose to make it quick instead of barely surviving, badly malnourished, constantly starving, for a few years and then dying of hunger.
WE NEED TO TAKE ACTION NOW, NOT LET CONGRESS BLITHER ON ABOUT MORALS, You can't discuss ethics and morals when YOU ARE DEAD FROM WORLD STARVATION!!!!!
One BIG answer is biochar. It is a food AND fuel system that will lock Co2 permanently in the soils, where it will increase soil biota and decrease the amount of fertiliser required for farmers, which is also very energy-intensive to produce. It's a win-win-win for rural communities. Also local counties could collect lawn clippings and other local green waste, run it through a biochar cooker, and generate biochar to sell to local gardeners, *some* fuel to run their city-council fleet (will this fleet be hybrid trolley-truck & diesel engines soon?), AND claim carbon credits in the future carbon market. Local councils could have a new income stream other than taxes!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVegetation captures CO2 from the air. Biomass pyrolysis converts biomass into biogas, biofuel, hydrogen or charcoal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe technique needs no energy, emits no pollutants, and is economical at all scales. See www.eprida.com for details.
It is evident that this technique is Nature's 'perpetual motion machine', fed in fact by the sun. But mankind still needs to find energy efficient techniques so as not to waste this eternal source of power...
What a great article. The author claims no certain knowledge of the consequences of human generation of CO2 and yet sensibly shares the factors that worry the scientific community. It was remarkably even handed and clear. This is one of the best pieces I have read on climate change so far.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, it's just this kind of even handed approach that gives the conspiracy theorists and climate change deniers lots of room to pontificate. Fortunately, judging by the responses to the article, they are much more comfortable in outright denial or firing insults than they are in generating discussion. Which is why, sooner or later, they will have to go along with the rest of us and work toward climate control. Forgive them, it's all part of growing up.
Natedog,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClimate Change? What happened to Global Warming? Seems most of the FUD is coming from those trying to insitutionalize this issue into a religion that must be followed by all. Just because you dont like someone's views does not mean the view is irrelevant.
There is no more a primeval freedom than your right to have as many children as you want to have. Or, to put it another, way, your freedom to not be ruled by some tinhorn group of despots at a distance who want to limit your reproductive freedom according to their subjective ideas of the worth of your family to the world is fundamental.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPioneer American families were the antithesis of such thinking. Even Jewish families to whom coming to America in the 19th century meant coming to a crowded slum in Brooklyn still perceived urban America as such a potentially prosperous frontier that women would have 15 or 16 babies and somehow the whole family would get fed.
Any frontier can be viewed as being "too tough" when examined by experts at a distance, but to desperate people on the ground it looks like nothing but a golden opportunity.
Especially in today's world, technology constantly changes and in doing so it makes for new opportunities for people to eke out a living or even prosper on the edge of civilization.
An informative evidence of this tendency can be found in squatters on public or private lands who simply move in and often prove to be too politically difficult to evict. In public parks in my state the so-called homeless are actually squatters who want to live without rent, eat the fat geese that over-populate our parks, or even catch salmon in season by tying together grocery carts and throwing them into streams.
To limit anyone's right to reproduce on the basis of anthropogenic global warming theory would be absurd. As Lening once observed, no revolution can succeed against a vigorous, strong government, but once a government becomes weak, inept, corrupt, and foolish at every level, no revolution can fail to succeed.
There seems to be some consensus that the worlr should be getting colder rather than warmer. Wouldn't it be easier to deal with even the wildly-exaggerated effects described in this article than with the effects of another little ice age?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMr Rational, you're asking for data? What's wrong with the IPCC? What's wrong with every climate institute on the planet agreeing with the basic premise? What's wrong with the Radiative Forcing Equation? What's wrong with every major SCIENCE institute on planet earth agreeing with the premise? You ask for data? Go speak to the experts. "Asking" here just shows you're absolutely REFUSING to truly *ask* the real experts who actually HAVE all the data. "Asking" here is actually just stirring the pot.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are the one who is dismissed.
Eclipse,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisData is not conclusions. I think he is asking for the former, not the latter.
And everyone should be asking for a full audit of the studies based upon the CRU scandal. By doing so, they will validate the findings of all the studies based upon that (now missing) data, or cause more work to be done.
The problem with this scandal is that apparently some of the AGW advocates see it as a refutation of AGW. It can be, but in and of itself it is not. It is a refutation of some of the studies and definitely of the authors. In order to validate the AGW hypotheses, a full audit of the methods and data needs to be performed by the scientists. And an end to their witch hunt on any who would question (which is necessary and critical) the studies. Science is not a popularity contest.
Scientists and governments continue to ask questions about possible scenarios to aid how they see our planet as needing aid. But, with no system in place to receive comments, and that are daily read, by a panel who will sift through proposals, then for one to suggest a saving solution is a complete waste of their time, not to mention the remaing time to civilization and the items that we have come to depend upon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo Mr. and Mrs. scientist and government, get off your ass and quickly set up an organisation such as that. Surely you people who are so focused on your learned trades cannot believe that we the John/Jane Q. Public, of who many of us know several trades, such that our memories are able to see the light down a distant end of this narrowing tunnel while you people don't know to look up.
Do we wish to receive accolades and cash for our innovative knowledge, of course we do, but, who amongst un-wealthy ones can afford a lawyer for anything, let alone hiring the services of a patent attorney.
Should we attempt to have a business gain an interest on an innovative system, their first offer is for us to sign a paper that automatically leaves us with little in the way of recompence or of acknowledgement. Not only that, but they shelve the idea, or system, until one is old and grey or passed-away. That is a pizz poor way to run country or a business.
The Ancient One
Please wake up! I will start, and finish with, "do you realize that it takes over 16 pounds of air to burn one pound of gasoline". We have very serious negative problems! The possible positive side is that we have some awfully smart, and capable, people that CAN solve them if they were "tasked"to do it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf I became a climate change denier, would that mean the problems the planet is facing would no longer exist?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is basic logic lacking in our science world today. The Earth has a static volume, it is not growing larger as a planet. However the activity on the earth is a simple give and take, action and reaction scenario which our scientist have overlooked. If the earths core is spewing lava out then something is going back in to replace it or the core is shrinking. The core can not be shrinking because sea levels are rising - not going down. Therefore, logic says the core stays relatively equal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, when the volcanic action spews lava up and creates land masses like atolls above and below sea levels, it then displaces the oceans volume of water thereby raising sea levels, raising ambient temperatures (as water retains heat and reflects solar energy around the planet). with regard to the rise in acidity in the oceans, well logic says volcanic flows are high in acid.
Just because underwater volcanic activity may only be identified in the Pacific, the oceans flow a r o u n d the earth and mix with the other seas and oceans.
Science that takes an idea and proves it does not make it so. Any idea can become a reality if all energies are focused on it. Why is no one looking at the cause and effect, action and reaction to the earths movements?
When the sea floor raised to cause the Tsunami in the mid 2000�s, logic says: That land mass displaced the ocean waters and therefore the sea levels rose.
With Hawaii�s volcano's constant out flow for thousands of years and other new islands forming, logic says: somewhere water or land is sinking back into the core As these islands grow they too displace the ocean waters and cause a rise in sea levels. This heat from new land and the heat of the volcanic flows contribute on a grandiose scale to global climate changes.
Yes Human growth and development contributes to global warming, if nothing else all the roofs are reflecting solar rays back into the atmosphere instead of the greenery absorbing it.
Yes we need to stop extracting minerals and fuels from the earth and turning it into gases. Logic says you can not take and not give back without causing some global effect.
I have to say the Science reports and theories we hear today about global warming is superfluous. Sometimes the saying "keep it simple stupid" speaks volumes.
Regarding reproductive restraints, I totally agree in reducing the amount of children per person. I am a parent and can say a Mother has a maternal gut wrenching fear for her children when she can not feed them or get clean water to drink and bath. Women that came to America way back when had no other option but to have the children conceived, and they suffered extremes. It is ignorance or self righteousness that speaks of total freedom without responsibility. The world population and its effects on the planet are incalculable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople that live on the land, need lots of hands to make it work. Whereas people that live in suburbs should not have more than 1 child per adult. Otherwise the balance between nature and humans goes out of kilter. There has to be some balance. Presently, wars seem to be the only check and balance to growing population.
Its not about the change itself, but rather the rate of change. Life in general will recover, over time. However it is the effects on the quality of life that are of concern.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) Most of the earth's population lives in low-lying areas. Once they have to start moving up-hill into their neighbors land it will create a lot of tension. If you think we can just "adapt" to that, get back to me after you have solved the Israel/Palestine dispute. Maybe I'll believe you then.
2) The current eco-systems of the earth are centered around post-ice age flaura and fauna. It will eventually recover, but on a biological, not human, time scale. In the mean time there will be effects from inter-dependencies between species resulting in chaining extinctions.
2a) Technologically advanced peoples with complicated material support for agriculture will adapt to this quickly. People doing subsistence farming or hunting and gathering will get hurt as the species they depend on for their ways of life change rapidly in numbers. So we wind up pumping money into putting people into despairing welfare who didn't even contribute to the problem in the first place and had no desire to change their way of life. All because we like our stuff, not really because of eliminating poverty. Kind of a "dick" thing to do.
2b) If you don't think all human policy should be dictated by human needs alone there are all sorts of other issues. But that is a controversial topic which depends on people's core beliefs so I'll leave that alone.
3) Yes climate changes occur naturally, but is that any excuse to cause one ourselves? To me, that's sort of like saying "sometimes people get hit by moving objects, and I don't feel like turning right now, so I guess I'll plow over that guy over there." Yes we need to weight how much to turn, and what types of turns will run over more people, and all the usual utilitarian stuff, but just abdicating responsibility for the results of our actions isn't responsible either.
When is humanity going to learn that Nature is primarily responsible for "climate change"? The historical record is replete with untold numbers of instances that climate has changed due to natural processes. The idea of trying to stop climate change - i.e., maintaining the status quo - is like standing in front of an avalanche and trying to stop it with a snow shovel. Climate change is inevitable. Get used to it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere comes a time where we need to stop being five year olds and move on. We have a responsibility to curb what our impact is on the world. This is the price we pay for being conscious of our own existence. All these technologies that we love and use daily have a price. Let’s stop being children and pay it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo global climate changes happen on their own: yes. Do they happen as quickly as they have over the last 150 years: no. What’s the only difference: us. Not rocket science to put two and two together to make four instead of five.
Fact of the matter is that all pollutants cause changes even when we don’t understand them. Oh sure, winter is a little less harsh now that the whole world went up three degrees, so why isn’t this a good thing? Well what about the places that were growing deserts and already hitting well above 120? You think they want another three degrees? How about the acid in the ocean? I don’t see that being helpful either. It sounds nice but not when you look at the big picture. Back in the day, industry didn’t think twice about dumping mercury into the water. Now we have to worry about the types of fishes we eat and have messes like Lake Onondaga in Syracuse, NY.
It’s time we grow up as a society and take on some responsibility. Otherwise mommy and daddy might not let us take the car out for a joyride anymore.
whether or not humans are causing climate change is not the issue (http://www.truthout.org/change-is-dead-long-live-change57879) - the issue is that pollution is unhealthy, and burning fossil fuels causes pollution. the ONLY rational and immediate way to deal with this is through free technology each and every one of us has available to us right this moment - the ability to conserve. americans use TWICE the resources of europeans and 4 times the resources of asians. it's time we americans stopped wasting resources simply because we can and learned instead how to operate at maximum efficiency.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.theobviousobserver.com
I find the facile comments here really scary. The world would be nicer if it were a bit warmer???? Do you ever read the details??? Some places would get warmer, some would get colder, all would experience changes not in the space of millenia, but in the space of DECADES. Those living close to sea level would NOT enjoy global warming as their islands drown. Those who would experience more wild weather events like tornadoes and hurricanes would NOT enjoy a warmer planet. Those who rely on a stable food supply for subsistence would NOT enjoy global wamring. Yes, the world has lived through many swings in temperature, but they took place over EONS, not our lifetimes. You people obviously are interested enough in science to read this magazine; why don't you pay attention to what scientists are saying and not Rush Limbaugh, that well-known climatologist, NOT! Yes, it is science, not politics, but it's correct to say it's politics too, when people choose to listen to political hacks rather than scientists in that field of study. And follow the money???? The money is in oil and gas NOT global warming. Bottom line is it's amazing that you deniers can say we are dupes for believing what practically every scientists tells us is true, and yet you swallow every lie and falsehood put out by Fox News and their ilk.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdismissing any data that disproves their theory"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat data are you referring to. I know of NONE. Maybe you could search the internet for a few days and try to find something. You wont be successful.
Please dont provide someone's opinion.
the one question I still haven't seen adequately addressed is this: Is climate change bad?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think it is one hell of an assumption"
Assumption!?! There are so many papers and articles written on this subject that your statement amazes me. The average study suggest the fix will pay for itself, with some suggesting returns on the investments.
Next you'll say we need to study the climate more to see if its warming.
" i've lived long enough to realize climate changes and it's cyclical."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLOL!
Climate normally changes over many centuries and sometimes millenia, so I guess your a little older than most of us.