, Kumi Naaidoo (Greenpeace International), Celine Charveriat (Oxfam), Jim Leape (WWF).)
A panel of civil society executives discussed the overall status of the negotiations and outlined possible scenarios for a Durban outcome, highlighting how much is at stake at these talks and what Ministers arriving in Durban need to do in the second week in order to secure a successful conference. The panel are from left David Turnbull (CAN International), Kumi Naaidoo (Greenpeace International), Celine Charveriat (Oxfam), Jim Leape (WWF).
Image: Flickr/WWF@COP17
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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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DURBAN, South Africa—By 2020, human activity could produce some 55 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases per year, up from roughly 36 billion metric tons currently. All the accumulating gas is enough to raise the global average temperatures by more than 3 degrees Celsius by century's end—more than triple the amount of warming that has already occurred. Emission reductions pledged under the 2010 Cancun Agreements, which cover some 85 percent of all national greenhouse gas emissions in the world, are meant to slow that warming. "I think its safe to say the current commitment is scientifically sound," argued Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman of China's National Development and Reform Commission and lead climate envoy, in a press briefing here on December 6.
Most climate scientists, however, would beg to differ. The latest science suggests that international negotiations are proceeding far too slowly to have any significant impact on global warming and may well dawdle too long to prevent catastrophic climate change. To meet the international target of restraining the warming of global average temperatures to just 2 degrees Celsius will require greenhouse gas emissions of just 44 billion metric tons in 2020. And even that amount might not be enough: James Hansen of NASA said this week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco that the 2 degrees C target "is a prescription for disaster."
What's happening is that research keeps finding new trouble signs. Thanks to a rebound in global economic activity, 2010 saw the biggest single year increase in emissions ever—5.9 percent higher to be exact, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Another analysis, published December 4 in Nature Geoscience, found that nearly all of the nearly 1 degree C warming observed over the last century or so could be attributed to human emissions of greenhouse gases. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) The U.K. Met Office stated in a December 5 report that as many as 49 million people could be at risk from increased coastal flooding because of climate change, and along with many others from a drop in the production of staple food crops. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) argues that emissions must be halved by mid-century to have any hope of restraining warming to 2 degrees C. "After four rounds of IPCC reports, is the science not clear enough?" asked Jato Sillah, Gambia's minister of forestry and environment during a speech on December 6.
"You can look at the science and see the trajectories, and it ought to inform what ought to be done. It might well cause us to say 'Gee, we need to do more'" to meet a 2-degree C target, says U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern.
In fact, if the world does nothing about greenhouse gas emissions and continues growing at the present rate, Earth could warm by as much as 6 degrees C, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Implementing the Cancun Agreements, negotiated at last year's climate meeting, would bring that temperature rise down to 3.5 degrees C. But to hit the 2-degree C target, the energy sector would need to decrease CO2 output after its peak in 2020, explains Laura Cozzi, principal analyst in the office of the chief economist of the IEA. "Oil demand and coal demand will have to go down from current levels."
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42 Comments
Add CommentI really like Delingpole's obervation on Mann-made global warming and climategate yesterday:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...The conclusion of Soon & Baliunas? That the vast majority of published, peer-reviewed papers on the MWP conclude that it was both geographically widespread (not, as Warmists and their amen corner in Wikipedia like to pretend, a little local anomaly confined to Northern Europe) and significantly warmer than now.
This irritates Michael Mann and his Hockey Team no end, for it contradicts their view that late 20th century warming is both unprecedented and catastrophic. So how do they respond? Do they counter it with new, learned papers demonstrating in closely illustrated detail just where Soon & Baliunas have got it wrong?
Of course they don't!
Instead, what they do is gang up to shoot the messenger. They conspire to have Climate Research closed down; to have Chris de Freitas sacked; then, they write to the head of his university in Auckland to see if they can't get de Freitas deprived of his living too. Nice!"
I think we have the Mafia running our science establishment. That assessment isn't much improved by the recent observation that MOST university biomedical research articles CAN'T be replicated by drug companies trying to come up with innovative treatments.
@ Brock2118 and all: I'm a retired teacher of middle grade Science and High School Biology from the USA. I currently live in Shenzhen, PRC. I just did some quick research and found that Soon and Baliunas's research has been widely criticized by the vast majority of Climatologists, subsequent reviews have shown that their research paper was deeply flawed, and further that much of their funding comes from the petroleum industry. That Brock (if that's his real name) doesn't believe that Ocam's razor would therefore lead an objective observer to agree that Soon and Baliunas' paper was indeed flawed indicates to me Brock dosen't understand science and the scientific method or else has another agenda.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBack to the SA article, as I said I live in Shenzhen, PRC. There are many great things about China. One of them is decidedly not the air quality here. China also is not nearly as tolerant of dissenting opinion from that of its government. That Mr. Xie is satisfied with the Cancun agreements is certainly not surprising. If he weren't it is a good posibility that he'd be sacked. All this is by no means to discredit Mr. Xie: I'm sure that Hillary would also lose her spot if she didn't do as Obama's team wanted.
Let's talk some common sense. If the vast majority of medical doctors tell you that you have to get an operation to remove a life threatening tumor, or the vast majority of auto mechanics tell you that it is time to buy a new car because the old one is just not going to be able to be repaired, or the vast majority of plumbers tell you that you should replace your water heater which is no longer working, or-you get the idea- what do you do? Take their advice or not?
Brock2118 apparently thinks not is the best idea. If there is a Mafia at work here I for one believe that it is the petroleum industry. I think that we should listen to the experts, especially those not in the pay of the Mafia.
If you want to know how "skeptic" bunkum is really rebutted in the scientific community, look here:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.skepticalscience.com/clouds-over-peer-review.html
And if you think Willie Soon is an unbiased scientist, check here:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Willie_Soon
Dirty energy has a HUGE incentive to spread doubt about climate science. It's the same incentive that the tobacco industry had to spread doubt about the links between lung cancer and smoking. Since the top 5 oil companies made $1 TRILLION in PROFIT over the last decade, the few million they pay to "skeptics" like Willie Soon isn't even chicken feed. The same goes for political contributions and lobbying, which has a return on investment of over 70-to-1 EACH and EVERY year! They're not evil, they're just using (and abusing) the VERY loose campaign finance laws (which are now almost non-existant due to the Citizens' United decision, which was no accident, mind you) to maximize "value" for their shareholders. As a corporation, they are LEGALLY required to do so. This doesn't make it right, and the system needs to be changed so that short-term shareholder return aligns with long-term sustainability and better lives for people.
Makes sense, It cant be easy for politicians to keep up with the cherry picked data and the "proof" generated by a fantasy world in a computer model.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave the politicians even started claiming we must pour more ice into the ocean to get rid of the heat in the ocean that the climate failed to receive for the last 10 years?
That is probably my favorite part of this article. Lets see, supposedly the climate will heat up in 100 years more than triple what has happened already. Except, the prediction for the last decade was effectively Zero, since the warming DID NOT OCCUR AS PREDICTIED, so if I remember my multiplication basics, anything times zero is nothing at all.
Oh sorry, I forgot, he meant to say the warming as predicted in the make believe computer model climate. My fault, I forgot climatologists do not use observed reality and the real climate for their theory.
How exactly do you have a Zero carbon infrastructure on a planet where life is based on carbon? What happens when 50 billion people on this planet and the livestock they raise all start breathing? Oh yeah, I forgot, somehow heat from the sun is only affected by CO2 from industry, not CO2 from breathing or cooking fires. My fault again.
They should change the name of this magazine to 'Climate change American'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow, you're a disrespectful little internet troll...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlways quick with the ad hominem when you don't really have an argument...
Look up the definition of the "Strawman Argument". You constantly employ this logical fallacy in almost all of your posts, but all it really means is that you don't really have a legit argument. OF course a lot of the excess heat the Earth is retaining due to man-made climate forcing; the oceans' heat capacity is orders of magnitude greater than the heat capacity of the atmosphere. If you think the heat going into the oceand just dissappears, well...that just shows how ignorant you are of actual climate science. See the monster El Nino of 1998 to see how all that heat buildup in the oceans can get right back into the atmosphere without warning.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you think climatologists don't use observed reality in building models and then test models against observed reality (hindcasting), well...that just shows how you're even MORE ignorant of climate science.
I know you wont' look, but the links to the PEER-REVIEWED papers are right at the bottom of this compilation of evidence:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/Guide_to_Skepticism.pdf
You see that? Almost 70(!) peer-reviewed papers backing up EVERY SINGLE CLAIM in this paper. Peer-reviewed papers backing up EVERY ONE of your claims: ZERO. Maybe opening up your mind and realizing all that dirty energy propaganda is wrong: PRICELESS.
Sasult
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisrepeat...a corrupt official from Gambia has ZERO credibility when speaking on a scientific issue. These 'ministers' from tinpot dictatorships are lobbying to have their pockets filled with my tax dollars.
The answer to my Representative....NO.
What is particularly troubling here is a problem today that goes beyond the particular (if particularly serious) particular issue of carbon footprint related global warming. This being the plethora of crises facing our closed global system -- ecological, economic, and socio-political.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe salient features here are:
1 - The ever-tightening couplings of our global reality that are leading to evermore nonlinearity in whatever equations of state dynamics are applicable.
2 - This leads to a rising magnitude x settling-time severity of fringe deviations -- approaching towards complete deterministic chaos.
3 - The nonlinearity also leads to cross-coupling of the crises. In effect, it has become one single crisis.
4 - Per the case in point, even were a tractable solution found, new dimension/magnitude of the problem break out that carry it that obsolete this solution. But in fact for the whole, nothing even vaguely approaching a real solution is on the horizon. It appears the fruition of Einstein's ominous prediction of the problems resulting from the creations of human intelligence require solutions of a higher order of magnitude than that intelligence.
5 - We keep talking to the issues in various diplomatic platitudes and appeals, while not taking note of fundamental immediate self-interest motivation -- individual, corporate, and national that make such appeals worse then meaningless. Point in fact, self-interest joins the vain chorus to its advantage, propaganding to the moral high ground while pointing the finger elsewhere to deflect it.
Is there some miracle to deal with all this? Perhaps one that starts out quite simply. Focus on individual responsibility, guarantee of each other. Look to educate in this at a grass-roots level, the full, gut realizaion that the very interdependence of the world means that on your well-being, at least basic needs survival, intimately dependend my own. Such a new, sincere-to-the-bone all for one, one for all outlook as opposed to the present every man for himself, would immediately take us from a disintegrating humanity with arrogantly feigned piece-meal solutions to "others" problems, to an integrated one seeking holistic solutions matching an integrated global reality. Perhaps we can evolve in joing our individual talents like flocks, or supercolonies of bacteria -- of exponentially expanded perceptions and strategic/tactical intelligence.
The classical religous proposition of "Love they fellow as thyself," and modern "enlightened self-interest," may now have be survival.
OK, so underneath the headline it says the latest research suggest we need to be more aggressive, but I don't see the latest research mentioned below it, just the same old people like Hansen and the same old politicized "science" called the IPCC report and the same old conclusions that we're headed for climate catastrophe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ geojellyroll et al., I surely agree with Sault on his characterization of you, geojellyroll, as a disrespectful little internet troll. I just did some research on Mr. Sillah. He's 49 and got his BSc from a college in Cyprus and a MSc from the University of Gottingen in Germany. He is an expert on tropical forestry. He speaks 7 languages including English, French, and German as well as some African languages.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a MA and a BA from two universities in the USA and retired from teaching High School biology two years ago. Please tell us Mr. Geojellyroll what your academic record is and why you are such a arrogant American bigot.
As for Mr Priddseren please refer yourself to Sault's comments at #9. I agree with him completely with regard to your use of strawman arguement. Also his reference to you regarding the almost 70 peer reviewed papers that support the claims in this article vs ZERO that support your point(perhaps it is better phrased lack of point) of view ought to keep you from inserting your foot further into your mouth. By the way what is your education and area of expertize?
Don't blame IPCC, it's their mandate. Confer with scientists, come to a consensus and propose policies to the world leaders.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvery proposal is "negotiated" within the IPCC and highball / low-ball estimates are usually rejected. Scenarios x probability are presented versus "Business as Usual" which in itself is a forecast since the future path of the current curve can not be predicted with 100% accuracy.
Rest assured that all this is taken in consideration when presenting the options.
So, we should forget about science and put our faith in well educated PhD's? Deifying PhD's sounds like religion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wouldn't trust a plumber to do cardiac surgery on me any more than I would trust a cardiac surgeon to unclog my toilet. If expertise means nothing to you, and peer-review means nothing to you, then you might as well ditch your computer, brought to you by PEER-REVIEWED science by the way, and move to an Amish colony!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@engineer.sci et al., I agree that there appears to be a plethora of crises facing our closed global system. I'm impressed with your use of the adjective 'closed' to describe our system because it certainly is for the purpose of these crises. But many people do not understand that and do not want to see themselves in the same boat with the rest of humanity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe that the real trouble lies with the leadership of the corporate sector. Many of these individuals appear to see themselves as better than the rest of us by orders of magnitude, seem to be oblivious of the damage they are doing and focus entirely on their own short term gain. Recall their referents to us as: "the little people". Some doubtless have more 'mensch', rationality and scientific knowledge. Let's hope they win the day.
With regard to your #4, let's all hope that Einstein was wrong. Look on the bright side, we stood 30-40 years ago on the brink of nuclear armagedon and we walked back from that brink. No small task.
I agree with your last two paragraphs but at the same time this needs to be a global political coming together because I believe that the scientific solutions are out there already. It is the political will that is lacking. Somehow this coming together has to reach the highest levels of decision making. There has to be a subjugation of corporate interests to global sustainability. There has to be a realization among the so called movers and shakers that they are responsible for global sustainability and not just lining their own pockets. Until that happens I wouldn't bet against Einstein.
@jayjacobus et al., I don't deify anyone, everyone makes mistakes even scientists. And it appears that you are the who is denying science not me. All those peer reviewed articles out there that Sault referenced, those PhDs are the climate scientists, not I and probably not you. And for the record I made my living teaching science to gifted children in Florida. I know the scientific method and how to judge good science. Do you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisev guy: The Gambian minister is NOT a climatologist. He is a corrupt minister in a corrupt government. His opinion is no more valid than that of a con artist selling time shares.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience is about 'science'. It is not about tinpot dictatorships and their agenda to get more money from western tasxpayers.
The Gambian minister should be demanding population control within his own country. But, nope, his message is 'send us more money'.
Please provide proof that the Gambian minister is corrupt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDid I say that I disagree with the climatologists' perspective?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA scientific article is evidence of the problem, but without doing my own analysis, I am not being scientific to rely on someone elses opinion.
I can see the strengths and weaknesses in my computer. I don't need to get an acedemic opinion that computers are perfect or not. I can draw my own conclusion.
Climatologists want me to forget about my own conclusion and take their word for it.
If they have qualms about equipment, record keeping, inconsistent data, statistical variations, assumptions, biases, inaccurate analysis and trending; will they say so? Or will they focus on only the scientific methods that support a forgone conclusion?
If I come late to the table because of my uncertainty, you must forgive me. I do not have the means to draw my own conclusion.
The problem with generating action on this issue is simple. On the one hand, there are graphs, and position papers, and consensus statements, etc., all so apparently abstract. On the other hand we look around and say "gee, everything seems pretty normal at the moment, and it would cost us a lot of money and effort to do what they're recommending, and besides China (or India, or the U.S., or insert your favorite scapegoat) isn't doing their fair share, so why should we increase our own costs, etc. etc." So, nothing gets done.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis means that nothing will get done until we can no longer look around and say "gee, everything seems normal at the moment". I.e., until the globe heats up quite a bit more, with all the attendant deleterious impacts on agriculture, sea levels, political unrest, etc.
10. geojellyroll in reply to sault 04:17 AM 12/8/11
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Sasult"
It says much that you can't even copy and paste the user name of the person you are replying to. Is your fact checking likely to be any more rigorous?
The temperature has not kept pace with CO2 emissions, the Arctic Ice & Antarctic Ice has not melted nor even declined in four years, the prediction that on average every second year would become the new hottest on record has failed to materialise, no Island State has been swamped by rising sea levels, hurricane & cyclone numbers & severity are down, new release of Climategate emails reveal more corruption, the Durban conference will fail. Strange that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPersonal attacks against a scientist and his funding are wrong. Heaps of papers are funded by the IPCCC and governments who have bought into the global warming agenda. Many scientists have found that if they do not toe the global warming line, they will not get money and the papers will not be published. The only proper response to a scientific paper is another, properly documented paper that refutes what he/she found.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn this case, what really matters is the answer to a few simple questions:
1. Is the world warming? No. It hasn't warmed for the last 10 to 15 years and even the IPCC has no expectation that will warm in the next 20 years or more.
2. What evidence is there that the warming between 1975 and 2000 was caused by man-made carbon dioxide? None. (Excluding flawed computer models) If you look at the past temperature history increases of temperature at the same rate have occurred quite often. Models that claim it can only be replicated by adding CO2 are simply the result of ignoring natural factors that could have caused the warming. There are many that we know of and, probably, lots more that we don't know about. We simply do not understand how the climate works.
3. If the world was warming, and if it was caused by man-made carbon dioxide, would the enormous expenditure on renewable energy, carbon trading and the like make any difference? No. The savings in carbon dioxide from this expenditure of more than $1 trillion are negligible. In many cases the expenditure has increased carbon emissions. If the world really wanted to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide it would have a crash program for nuclear power which is the only large-scale, safe and environmentally friendly method of power generation that has any chance of doing this. (Do remember that no one has, or will, die from radiation from the Japanese nuclear accident. At the same time, 7 people died from a dam failure and something like 25,000 from the tsunami. Yet everyone concentrates on the nuclear accident, and forget the poor people who actually did die.)
Dangerous man-made global warming is the biggest fraud in the history of the world. It is perpetuated by people who are making huge amounts of money out of heavily subsidized renewable energy, carbon traders, scientists who see it as an endless source of research funds and politicians who see it as a good way of scaring the public into believing that they alone can save the world. And science magazines that see it as a way of increasing their circulation.
Absolutely.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fossil fuel disinformation team continues its work on SciAm. Unable to cite any real information to disprove global warming, they simply insult the scientists, the science, the data, the IPCC, and make wild-eyed claims about the secret conspiracy among thousands of scientists to get money for research. Seems to me it would be kind of hard to conceal a conspiracy that large among so many people dedicated to finding the truth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the other hand, the conspiracy to suppress and cast doubt on the truth of global warming is right out there in public, and the people who post here are part of it. You can argue against them all you want and they will just start over from square one the next time an article relating to global warming comes out. They aren't interested in the truth, only is making it look like global warming is false.
I will repeat my challenge to them, one that not one of them has ever answered. (Hope springs eternal.)
If you had the opportunity to bet that global warming theories were false, what would you bet? Would you bet $100? How about $100,000? How about your children? How about New Orleans? How about all the coastal cities of the world? How about civilization itself? How confident are you that global warming theories are wrong? Give me a probability. What are the chances you are wrong about this?
So how do you debate with a green mind. Actually probably a watermellon, red on the inside.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDid you know your Gish is galloping?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGlobal Warming, fact or myth is a mute point. The countries of this planet are hooked into a financial system that insists on 'growth'. No growth means debt and disaster. And how can this growth be sustained without energy? Energy which in the long run will depend on fossil fuel. The bankers are only interested in interest and don't give a fig about anything else. Until we have a way of changing this the planet is in for a heat wave.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree that we'll all need to bond together and help each other because our orientation and behavior is the only thing we have some control over. Our future will be very different than what we've been used to. Fewer and different species of plant foods will change our life style and diet and there's nothing we can do about it but adapt and be patient as we make the transition. Even the animals we propagate and eat will change because the range lands are changing with furious speed. Crops like wheat and soy are under heavy stress as we speak and these are staples we depend on. "Species shift due to globalization could turn out to be much more of a threat than climate change."-Troy Weldy director, manager for Eastern New York Nature Conservancy
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile we're arguing over causes and scratching our heads,obvious changes are taking place. Bit by bit, plant scientists say, the American landscape is becoming less American."We are going to our national parks now and seeing Europe," said Tom Stohlgren, a research ecologist for the U.S. Geological Survey. "We are homogenizing the globe at a very fast rate."Experts say the trend has many causes, but the biggest one may turn out to be globalization.European traders and settlers have been bringing Old World plants to the Americas since colonization, but the process has accelerated with every advance in travel.
In the past 100 years 50 native plant species have disappeared from New York alone. This process will change everything for us, including what we and are livestock eat Tom Stohlgren , researcher sates,"It took 170 million years for the continents to drift apart, but only 400 years to move them all back together," he said. "I describe this as Darwin on steroids, and we are going to see extremely fast changes because of it."
I think you miss the point. Mann and friends were willing to go to any lengths to SQUELCH opposing viewpoints as we now see by the Climategate emails. Is it healthy for scientists to be such avid political partisans?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisApparently you choose not to debate, and insult instead. I'll take that as proof that you admit you are wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll your concerns are answered during the process of peer review. Since niether you, me nor 99.99% of the people blabbing on about climate change are experts in the field, we wouldn't be able to accurately review climate science, now would we?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat this peer review process highlights is that there is overwhelming evience that human emissions, primarily CO2, are jacking up the climate. Now, unless you can design, build and test your own spectrometer or drill your own ice core, then I'd leave the peer review to the peers.
Do you even realize that a scientist can get INSTANT noteriety and prestige if they were to find any major flaws with climate science? These people have an ENORMOUS incentive to find flaws in the data or methodology, yet no serious scientists has found them. Do you think they have an even greater incentive to be "in" on the world-wide conspiracy to fake climate dataso that they can....umm, get LESS prestige and grant money...? That doesn't make sense.
However, the polluters that get to use our atmosphere as their open sewer for free have a HUGE incentive to protect that privelage as long as possible. They get to offload the true costs of using their products onto society and they take those artificially high profits straight to the bank. the top 5 oil companies made $1 TRILLION in profit over the last decade. They spent a tiny, tiny fraction of it bankrolling climate "skeptics" and "think" tanks, while they used the majority of it to buy back their own stock. Do the math, and you'll see where the incentives lie.
Please post ANY credible sources so that we know you aren't just making this stuff up. I could say the moon is made of cheese all day long, but I wouldn't really expect anybody to believe me unless I started making fondue with moonrocks!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf energy, in the long run, depends on fossil fuel, we're all screwed. But I guess you don't think Germany getting 20% of its electricity from renewable sources isn't real, or the fact that an electric car uses LESS electricity to go 100 miles than a gasoline-powered car (remember, oil refining uses A LOT of electricity). Or the fact that solar PV prices have dropped 50% in 2 years, with no signs of slowing down.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe answer of course will lie in Natural Selection and Evolution. Those organisms able to thrive in a warmer environment, if it indeed this is caused by humans, will be able to get through the bottleneck and populate a post human world. I suspect a white bear might re-evolve from Asiatic brown bears to hunt baby seals again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou assume that the greenhouse gas contribution by humans will keep increasing. A warmer earth will cause humans to burn less carbon for heating. And, most significantly, if global temperature increase melts the polar ice and causes sea level to rise and inundate the coastal cities where most humans live, then that will act as nature's control to climate, if humans fail to set their own controls, won't it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am sure geojellyroll's calling sault "Sasult" was likely a Freudian slip. You know, a combination derived from 'insulter' and 'assaulter'. Both of which I have heard used to describe sault in the past.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe do not need "more aggressive action to avoid the catastrophic effects of global warming" because global warming is not caused by CO2. Dr. Martin Hertzberg a few years ago wrote a report about the lynching of carbon dioxide, which showed that CO2 does not affect climate (report at http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/hertzberg.pdf). Dr. Hertzberg shows that carbon dioxide cannot change Earth's temperature because CO2 already blocks all 15-micron photons. Decreasing CO2, or increasing CO2 in the atmosphere thus has no effect on climate change!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow...do you even realize that the warmer climate humans are inflicting on the planet will mean that all those species that go extinct will be killed off by...wait for it...ARTIFICIAL SELECTION! There's no NATURAL selection going on when people are jacking with a climate that was previously on a long-term cooling trend.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat if we burn more coal to run air conditioners? What if we have to pour A LOT more energy into growing food because the services that nature normally provides aren't where/when/magnitude they are normally? What if we burn a bunch of fuel in resource wars over water sources and arable land? What if all those positive feed-backs like melting ice, methane release from melting permafrost, increased wildfires, etc. take over and then it doesn't matter how much those disasters cut our carbon emissions?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOkay, so where are Dr. Hertzberg's peer-reviewed papers highlighting his AMAZING discovery that all the world's REAL climate scientists somehow overlooked? I mean, if he's found something that has been hiding under the noses of the world's ENTIRE scientific establishment for decades, then he must surely be in the pipeline to get his Nobel Prize, right?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, he tends to publish in "Energy & Environment" which has a horrible track record in admitting substandard papers:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Energy_%26_Environment
Needless to say, Energy and Environment is not taken seriously in scientific circles for obvious reasons.
Yes, the good Dr. is a retired Navy meteorologist and studies combustion. He is not a climatologist and is trying to talk out of his area of expertise. For an utter demolition of Dr. Hertzberg's silly hypothesis, see here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect-advanced.htm
or here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/saturated-co2-effect-advanced.htm
This is the usual denier approach, sidestep the peer-review process by publishing in a shady journal or bypassing peer-review altogether an presenting your findings to a public that doesn't know any better. Dr. Hertzberg is trying to wade into a scientific issue that was settled over 100 years ago, just like all the other "skeptics" that think they've found some glaringly apparent detail that the world's ENTIRE scientific establishment has somehow overlooked.
This is a distraction from the work we NEED to be doing to lower our emissions before it's too late.
warmists haven't produced a concensus model that predicts the future with any reasonable level of confidence. A scientist can prove or disprove a fixed theory, but warmists have developed so many theories, no scientist has the time to disprove all of them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this