Posted on 01/01/2007 5:11:40 PM PST by neverdem
Amid the shouting lately about whether global warming is a human-caused catastrophe or a hoax, some usually staid climate scientists in the usually invisible middle are speaking up.
The discourse over the issue has been feverish since Hurricane Katrina. Seizing the moment, many environmental campaigners, former Vice President Al Gore and some scientists have portrayed the growing human influence on the climate as an unfolding disaster that is already measurably strengthening hurricanes, spreading diseases and amplifying recent droughts and deluges.
Conservative politicians and a few scientists, many with ties to energy companies, have variously countered that human-driven warming is inconsequential, unproved or a manufactured crisis.
A third stance is now emerging, espoused by many experts who challenge both poles of the debate.
They agree that accumulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases probably pose a momentous environmental challenge, but say the appropriate response is more akin to buying fire insurance and installing sprinklers and new wiring in an old, irreplaceable house (the home planet) than to fighting a fire already raging.
“Climate change presents a very real risk,” said Carl Wunsch, a climate and oceans expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It seems worth a very large premium to insure ourselves against the most catastrophic scenarios. Denying the risk seems utterly stupid. Claiming we can calculate the probabilities with any degree of skill seems equally stupid.”
Many in this camp seek a policy of reducing vulnerability to all climate extremes while building public support for a sustained shift to nonpolluting energy sources.
They have made their voices heard in Web logs, news media interviews and at least one statement from a large scientific group, the World Meteorological Organization. In early December, that group posted a statement written by a committee consisting of most of the climatologists...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
About time.
Well we do know that CO2 is rising.
We also see what extremely high level of CO2 does to planets (see Venus).
All the same, I don't believe we are causing irreparable damage to the environment. Technology is improving emissions output, and increased plant life will filter out the CO2 in the decades to come.
ALGORE will be deeply upset....
Meadow Muffin
What about the O-Zone layer, the liberal cause back in the 1980s?
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I'm not sure if that's really a middle stance. The argument is over who should pay the economic cost of controlling greenhouse gas. The liberals say the US should pick up the tab. The conservatives say that there are other nations that produce greenhouse gas, and they're getting a free pass.
We also know that the CO2 level reaches a "point of diminishing effect" and that Regular H2O in the form of water vapor is way more powerful as a "greenhouse" gas than carbon dioxide.
The Al Gore libs hate it when that fact leaks out.
The position described here is scientifically bankrupt. It is an admission that the science doesn't support the idea of man-made "climate change" (note that the "global warming" rubric seems to have become passe), but that the facist solutions proposed ought to be followed anyway "just in case", as insurance.
That makes the position also morally indefensible. Either there is a problem or there is not. If there is not, then we should get on with things. If there is a problem, then we need first to understand it, for only then can we fashion an appropriate response. Spending money building a solution that may not only fail to work, but which might actually make things worse, is stupid. To do it because it builds the facist infrastructure and molds the population to a facist mindset is evil.
There is nothing middle-of-the-road about the position outlined in this article. It would be more appropriate to term it bottom-of-the-ditch.
I just checked because that name sounded all too familiar. The Slimes and Columbia University did get one very crucial part of the following right. Care to guess which part?
"A graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism (M.S.) and Brown (B.S.), Mr. Revkin taught environmental reporting at the School of Journalism in 1989 and 1990."
I humbly suggest the Bravo Sierra after Brown.
*Why, you condescending, supercilious, smug, arrogant, nasty bowtied b1tchpunk.
Serves me right for reading anything with "NYT" in the header.
I'll present a fourth position, there are a lot more pressing problems in the world than if the average temperature rises a degree or two, even.
Let's worry about the growing threat of world wide Islamo-fascism, then we can take on global warming. I'm more concerned with whether our kids will live under sharia law than I am worried about the oceans rising.
WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE! yeeargh!
The sun is presently the major driving force for climate change.Core samples from the ocean floor measuring precipitating plankton over thousands of years support this fact.
Here is the dose:
Al Gore and his enviro running dogs simply want power to remake the world in their own image. What a bunch of petty tyrants!
He quotes Dr. Pielke: “We do have a problem, we do need to act, but what actions are practical and pragmatic?”
I would say that a better statement would be: Global Warming is real. It is part of a natural cycle of climate change. Man's activity is having some effect, but it is small and civilization and the biosphere can both easily adapt to these changes.
It is fascinating to me that the leftists all want to blame humans for "global warming". Instead of cutting down on SUVs and all kinds of other nonsense, let's talk about REALLY addressing a cause of "global warming" - the global megalopolis'.
Huge metropoliran areas such as LA, Chicago, New York, Houston, London, Paris, Hong Kong, etc., etc., create a "heat island" effect that raises regional temperatures. If the leftists REALLY want to fight against human-induced global warming, perhaps they should start by tearing down some of these megalopolis' and re-locating the displaced populations elsewhere.
Let's see how well THIS idea goes over.
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