Posted on 01/14/2008 9:29:35 AM PST by Lorianne
Presidential candidates traditionally blow off the environment as an issue. But can they continue to dither as the world heats up? Sierra asks four savvy election junkies when we'll see the campaign slogan: It's Global Warming, Stupid! ___ "What should be the nation's top concern?" When pollsters pose such a question to voters, few, historically, have answered "the environment." Yet when asked specifically about how important global warming will be to their vote for U.S. president in 2008, more than half of respondents to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll last May answered "extremely" or "very." To learn how the quadrennial mash-up of politics and the environment will play out this election year, Sierra turned to four expert observers:
MATT STOLLER is a Washington, D.C.–based political consultant and blogger who writes frequently for Open Left, MyDD, and the Huffington Post. He's worked for the campaigns of (successful) New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Jon Corzine (D) and (unsuccessful) Connecticut senatorial candidate Ned Lamont (D).
MICHAEL BOCIAN is a vice president at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, a D.C.-based polling and strategic consulting firm. He heads the company's environmental and conservation practice.
DAVID ORR teaches environmental studies at Oberlin College and is the author of five books, including Earth in Mind and Ecological Literacy.
NEWT GINGRICH was the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1994 to '98 and architect of the Contract With America--an effort criticized by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups. More recently, Gingrich has written (with Terry L. Maple) A Contract With the Earth, a plea for bipartisan environmentalism, and is chair of the nonpartisan organization American Solutions for Winning the Future.
... interview follows
(Excerpt) Read more at sierraclub.org ...
Irrelevant statistic. It could be that 100% of those people were anti-"global warming alarmists" who want to see the Kyoto Treaty used to protect the pantry floor from their new puppy.
“Total human CO2 emissions primarily from use of coal, oil, and natural gas and the production of cement are currently about 5.5 GT C per year (giga tons of carbon per year). A recent update says 8.6 GT, which probably includes the usual stretching.
To put these figures in perspective, it is estimated that the atmosphere contains 750 GT C; the surface ocean contains 1,000 GT C; vegetation, soils, and detritus contain 2,200 GT C; and the intermediate and deep oceans contain 38,000 GT C. Each year, the surface ocean and atmosphere exchange an estimated 90 GT C; vegetation and the atmosphere, 60 GT C; marine biota and the surface ocean, 50 GT C; and the surface ocean and the intermediate and deep oceans, 100 GT C.”
Shouldn't that be .... "It's Stupid Global Warming"?
"How important is it to you to elect a President in 2008 who supports spending 1/3 of our GDP to reduce global temperatures by 0.1 degrees a hundred years from now and reducing your lifestyle to that of a caveman?"
That would certainly eliminate the ambiguity.
Yes, but those mass and energy transfers are in careful balance and, who knows, the next 5 GT/y could be the tipping point! /sarc
It’s -35 now, but this is a warm spot on the valley floor. Villages are reporting -30 to -50, which has been going on for a couple m onths now. I care what Fingrich’s opinions are, but not as much as I care that even the ravens are keeping their beaks shut at this temperature.
GO TO HELL SOCIALIST SCUM!
Funny, all the polls I've seen have put it down around tenth place or lower.
The world isn't heating up. Local weather phenomenons is not global warming. Since it's been below average temperatures here for years, It must be global cooling, not global warming. Besides, why would anyone living in Northern latitudes want to make the world COLDER? Global warming would be a welcome relief.
It will definitely be important to my vote. Any candidate who parrots the eco-socialists won't be receiving it.
I find it somewhat amusing that the queens of Junk Science which is in fact no science at all, like Orr, accuse all those who oppose his science fiction as not following the science. Here are some more facts or aleast more plausible explanations for the naturaully occuring change that has always been:
“Humans cannot influence the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, because oceans regulate the amount to the most minute degree. Propagandists sometimes acknowledge this and sometimes contradict it. They acknowledge that oceans are absorbing increasing amounts of carbon dioxide, when they are pretending that the oceans are being harmed by the result. They contradict it in claiming humans determine the amount of carbon dioxide in the air.
It is a fact of chemistry that water absorbs carbon dioxide and establishes an equilibrium with the amount in the air. Equilibrium means absorption and release is continuous, while the concentration on either side is defined by the chemistry. Warmer water releases more carbon dioxide, and so does saltier water. If the oceans were not high in salt, there would not be enough carbon dioxide in the air to sustain plant growth.
As oceans heat up, they release more carbon dioxide into the air, which is why carbon dioxide levels in the air track with ocean temperatures. The reason why there has been an increase in carbon dioxide in the air over the past 150 years is because the oceans have been heating up, not because humans are producing more.
This equilibrium is observable when atmospheric carbon dioxide is measured. These measurements are made on a mountain in Hawaii, where the air is not disturbed by nearby human activity. The measurements show that when the Pacific Ocean heats up due to an El Nino, the carbon dioxide in the air increases; and when the El Nino disappears, the CO2 level in the air normalizes. This shows that oceans control the amount of carbon dioxide in the air rapidly and to the most minute degree. note
Carbon dioxide is not self-regulating based on supply and demand, because the upper limit of toxicity is very high, and the lower limit of availability is almost nonexistent due to the large amount in the oceans. A stable level only exists because the oceans regulate through solubility equilibrium.”
http://www.nov55.com/gbwg.html
CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll last May answered “extremely” or “very.”
It’s a CNN poll does anyone think it wouldn’t be biased?
Everyday people vote with in a free-market. I can, for a little while longer, buy light bulbs that convert electrical energy to light with accompanying heat as a byproduct or I can choose to buy ones that have a higher ratio of light to heat (more efficient as light source less efficient as a heat source perhaps requiring more heat generated form other sources). I can vote with a purchase of car, or even a bus pass. I can buy a 15 passenger van to haul my family or we can drive three subcompacts, (passenger miles over vehicle miles). I can choose to turn off mainstream media and cancel my subscription to the local news paper and news magazines because it reduces my carbon footprint or I can choose to turn off the network news and cancel the subscriptions because they are rubbish. I can choose to throw all the political campaign junk mail in the trash or I can choose to burn them in the fire place (to replace the heat lost by using those expensive light bulbs). I can choose to drive to the store to pick up groceries or for concern of the environment I can also pick up some beer (consolidating trips, reducing my carbon footprint...yada yada). But because I prefer dark beer brewed by Belgian monks with terribly inefficient methods (probably under incandescent light bulbs or carbon emitting candles) the beer purchase is the least I can do. I vote every day with my wallet, I have liberty (at least for a little while longer) to make environmentally sound choices. I don't need the government forcing me - I am already doing my part to part to produce global warming to save the planet from the threat of a global ice age.
I liked Gingrich in November of 1994. I’ve liked him less and less every day since then.
~~Anthropogenic Global Warming ™ ping~~
So that rules out Romney, McCain, Guiliani, and Huckabee. They all raised their hands during the Iowa debate, indicating they believed global warming was caused by man.
While small changes in atmospheric CO2 levels do correlate with recent ocean surface temperature changes, broad trends in CO2 levels correlate strongly with average atmospheric temperature. This is derived from ice core data going back about 420,000 years.
The ice core data shoes a correlation that is not linear, but rather, matches the solubility curve for CO2 and water, with respect to temperature, but the best fit is obtained by introducing a time lag between the temperature and CO2 level data points.
The CO2 levels change a bit more than a thousand years after temperatures changes. Thus, the current (last couple of centuries) CO2 increases are actually caused mostly by the Midieval Warm Period rather than anything that is happening now.
One could go through a hand waving exercise to explain why there would be a 1000 year time lag, but the important point here is that the time lag exists, not why it exists.
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