Al Gore Warns of Global Warming Doom Seconds Before CNN Reports 'Monster' Winter Storm

Al Gore Warns of Global Warming Doom Seconds Before CNN Reports 'Monster' Winter Storm By Noel Sheppard Created 2009-12-09 11:00

Al Gore warned CNN viewers Wednesday about imminent planetary doom at the hands of his favorite bogeyman global warming just seconds before Kiran Chetry reported the "monster storm paralyzing travel in more than a dozen states" with "winter still two weeks away."

On "American Morning" to discuss issues surrounding the United Nations climate change conference taking place in Copenhagen, the former Vice President said, "All the mountain glaciers all over the world are melting, many of them at a greatly accelerated rate, threatening drinking water supplies."

Shortly after this ominous forecast, Chetry told viewers, "Winter still two weeks away, but snow plows are out from the plains to the Northeast. A monster storm paralyzing travel in more than a dozen states."

The Global Warmingist in Chief also downplayed the significance of the growing ClimateGate [0] scandal as e-mail messages "from ten years ago out of context" that "the noise machine of the climate deniers" are blowing "out of proportion" to "fool some people into thinking they have substance" (videos in two parts embedded below the fold courtesy our friends at Story Balloon [1] with full transcript):

A groundbreaking climate change summit underway in Copenhagen, Denmark. President Obama will be there next week.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. And in preparation he spoke with former Vice President Al Gore who's been sounding the alarm about global warming for decades. And this morning the former vice president and Nobel Peace prize winner joins us for an exclusive interview.

ROBERTS: He's also the author of "Our Choice." It's a new book, a plan to solve the climate crisis. Mr. Vice President, thanks for dropping by. It's always good to see you.

ROBERTS: We should let folks know too we're going to spend an extended amount of time on this because there's lots of questions to ask. First and foremost among them, I'm sure that you're familiar with what's being done, climate-gate, University of East Anglia, the Climatic Research Center, all of those e-mails that were hacked. We saw language like, trick, used, hide the decline, resistance to Freedom of Information Act requests. I wonder what your thoughts are about this. And on the surface at the very least, does it look suspicious?

GORE: Well, they took a few phrases out of context. These are private e-mails, more than ten years old, and they've tried to blow it up into something that is really not.

Just to pick one example, some of those exchanges you're talking about had to do with years ago whether or not a study that they thought was of poor quality and shouldn't belong in the scientific report should be excluded from the report. Well, they had exchanges back and forth, it ended up in the report.

GORE: Fully analyzed and discussed. So if you take one little thing from ten years ago out of context and describe it inaccurately, then it becomes a controversy without any real substance.

ROBERTS: Some of them were from ten years but many of them were far more recent than that, some as recent as last year. You know, I talked with Professor Peter Liss, who is the interim director of the Climatic Research Unit. He thought that, in fact, this would have some sort of an impact on public opinion, that people who weren't sure or were skeptical might become more so. What do you think?

GORE: Well, that's a separate question. Is there any substantive reason to worry about them? No. Does the noise machine of the climate deniers blow them out of proportion and fool some people into thinking they have substance? Well, that's another -- that's another matter. And I don't know how to respond to that. Over time the scientific process whereby all these scientists pick over every detail openly and fully, that process works and that's the process they followed.

CHETRY: You know, it's interesting. In some parts of the book you talk about how it was harder to prove concrete or to have concrete examples several years ago, but as we've progressed in the years, it's gotten easier and easier to point to data suggesting this.

CHETRY: Yet there were still people like Senator Inhofe who's going to this Copenhagen summit who says that it's the greatest hoax ever perpetuated. When we talk about public opinion, it's dropped a little bit in terms of whether or not global warming is caused by humans. In fact, we asked it last year. Fifty-four percent believed it. We asked it just last week and only 45 percent believe it.

Is it frustrating for you to think that perhaps less people believe humans are responsible for at least some of our climate change?

GORE: Well, again, if you put it in a longer context, 10, 12 years ago when the last of these big meetings took place, virtually no heads of state went out there. There was still a raging debate on points that have long since been settled. Now more than 70 heads of state are going to be in Copenhagen. They're close to getting a final agreement. It will probably be finalized next year after the political agreement that's expected next week.

But to the first part of your question, there's an air of unreality about the discussion of arcane points from e-mails from long ago. The north polar ice cap is melting before our very eyes. It's been the size of the continental United States for most of the last three million years, and now suddenly 40 percent of it is gone and the rest of it is expected to disappear within with five, 10, 15 years.

All the mountain glaciers all over the world are melting, many of them at a greatly accelerated rate, threatening drinking water supplies. We've had these record storms, record droughts, floods, giant fires, unprecedented all over the world. The evergreen trees of the American west are dying by the millions because the warming trend is making them vulnerable to pests that they could resist in the colder weather in which they evolved. Climate refugee flows are beginning and could reach the hundreds of millions, destabilizing political systems around the world. Sea levels are rising.

These changes are now beginning to unfold right in front of our eyes. The fact that they're distributed globally causes this problem to masquerade as an abstraction. It's not an abstraction for those who are being affected, nor would it be for our children and others who will be affected unless we take action now.

CHETRY: And it's interesting that you say it's not an abstraction. In your book "Our Choice," you also talk about what needs to be done. And moving forward, you say that you have to overcome change in the way we think, the cost of carbon and the political obstacles.

CHETRY: Right now, one of the political obstacles in the way is this economy. A lot of people are out of work. A lot of people are saying we can't afford to do anything right now. What do you say to that?

GORE: Well, there's been an interesting consensus building around the world that actually one of the best ways to create millions of good new jobs and stimulate the economy is by investing in green infrastructure. When the world went into this global synchronized recession from which we're now thankfully beginning to emerge, interest rates were so low that economic policymakers couldn't use that tool so stimulus spending was the instrument of choice all around the world. And infrastructure spending was the favored option.

Many countries devoted even far, even larger percentages of that stimulus to building green infrastructure, in China, South Korea, et cetera. They see these industries as the key industries of the 21st century.

China will overtake the United States in wind next year, soon thereafter in solar. They're building the largest smart grid or super grid in the world. We have an opportunity to take these new jobs that are going to be created and plant them in local communities here in the United States and create millions of them. They can't be outsourced.

ROBERTS: Right. You know, in the book you lay out sort of a blueprint for how we can solve some of these problems. You talk about solar and wind, but that could only handle a percentage of things. You also talk about nuclear power, and the environmentalists pretty much put a bullet in any nuclear power development years ago.

Now they're coming out saying, well, this has to be a critical part of our infrastructure going forward. If they hadn't tried to kill nuclear power a couple of decades ago, how much further ahead would we be right now?

GORE: Just a brief part on the first part of your question, John, more sunlight falls on the surface of the earth in one hour than is necessary to provide the entire world's energy for a full year.

GORE: Those limitations are yielding to dramatic improvements in the technology. But let me turn to your question about nuclear.

What really led to the stop -- almost a stop in nuclear power, was the cost. It's been going up 15 percent a year for 30 years. A $400 million reactor is now $4 billion reactor.

GORE: Well, I'll not sure that's actually the case. Some of it was. But the environmental regulations by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have long since been redesigned to the industry's liking.

I'm not opposed to nuclear power, John. I don't believe that it was either the safety or environmental concerns that resulted in the primary obstacles that led to the industry coming to a standstill. It is the cost and where the global distribution of nuclear power plants is concerned. It is the demonstrated linkage between nuclear reactors and the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation. These cannot be placed by the tens of thousands around the world without putting nuclear weapons technology in the hands of people who we really do not think should have it.

ROBERTS: Let's leave it there for a second. I think we've got to take a break and we'll come back. We've got some viewers who have been selected over the last 24 hours. We'll put those to you right after the break.

ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. We are back with our exclusive interview with former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore.

CHETRY: That's right. And this morning, he's answering some of your questions. We let our viewers know that you would be here, and so there are a lot of people who want to ask you and find out a little bit more about this.

Tim Gibson wrote in, and he said with the revolution of scientists apparently, quote, "shifting data to suit the argument one way or another, how am I supposed to believe anyone one way or another?"

GORE: Well, the climate deniers tried to create the impression that that's what was in those stolen e-mails, but when you put them in context it's clear that's not what they were doing. This was an open process in which the studies that were being argued about actually were fully included and openly discussed and analyzed. So this was an example of people who don't want to do anything about the climate crisis taking things out of context and misrepresenting them.

ROBERTS: You know, he asked another question which was repeated by a lot of people as well. So, I think it's fair to give him two questions here. And that is, is there a natural cycle between ice age and warming? People keep arguing about, how much of this is just natural and how much of this does have a human component to it?

GORE: Yes, that's a great question. There are natural cycles related to the sun, related to the planet's orbit around the sun and so forth. But those natural cycles are now overwhelmed by the fact that we're putting 90 million tons every day of global warming pollution into this thin shell of atmosphere surrounding the planet.

The magnitude of the manmade changes has now overtaken and far surpassed the natural cycles. And many of the natural cycles actually are pointing in the opposite direction. The manmade global warming is now so pronounced that it is not only overwhelming in magnitude, but it is reversing what would otherwise be the effect from the natural cycles.

CHETRY: And that goes along with what David in Arizona asked you. He wants to know, please tell us what percentage of carbon dioxide is caused by human activity relative to other sources of carbon dioxide.

GORE: Well, the majority of it is caused by human activity, and a cutting-edge study now quantifies the different causes of global warming. About 43 percent or almost half is from CO2. Twenty-seven percent, a little more than a quarter, is from methane. Then there is black carbon, also referred to as soot, which in some areas of the world is a very, very pronounced cause. And then you have the nitrous oxides and carbon monoxide and so forth. But the largest single source is manmade CO2.

ROBERTS: Right. And Jim in Cleveland asks this question. He says, quote, "In a worst-case scenario, what's the soonest that the planet could reach critical mass if global warming persists at the current rates?"

People have talked about a level of, I think it's 350 parts per million as sort of the threshold here.

ROBERTS: But he's wondering how much more carbon dioxide and how many more greenhouse gases can be pumped into the atmosphere before it reaches critical mass that no turning back point?

GORE: Well, in the view of many scientists, we have already reached critical mass if you define that phrase as reaching the point where there are going to be dramatic changes on the planet.

I mentioned earlier the north polar ice cap is disappearing right now. We're at 389 parts per million, almost 390, and some scientists, as you said, Kiran, say that 350 is probably the safe level we should shoot for.

They have already reached a kind of a compromise with the science in saying the best the political systems can imagine doing is stabilizing at 450, which is way higher than many scientists think is a safe level. But the danger is that we'll barrel through 450 and go way on up there, just making this an entirely different kind of planet from the one that had conditions that were conducive to the rise of human civilization.

CHETRY: Right. Which leads me to my question about what you hope comes out of this Copenhagen conference. I mean, even in the best-case scenario, we have the E.U. promising more than President Obama may promise.

CHETRY: And he could still face a lot of pushback at home dealing with the wars and dealing with health care as well.

GORE: Well, I think this meeting, sometime toward the end of next week, we will probably see a political agreement among the heads of state gathered there, including President Obama, that will give instructions to the negotiators to fill in the details and get a binding treaty early next year. But in this political agreement they're shooting for, they will hope to also get specific commitments country by country to start the reductions process sooner than would start if we just waited for the treaty next year.

Now, this is where CNN's official transcript [2] at its website ended. However, there was more:

CHETRY: Thank you so much for answering the questions from our viewers as well. There's a lot of interest in this. Thanks a lot. Well, still ahead, it's three minutes past the hour. We have a look at the top stories right now. Winter still two weeks away, but snow plows are out from the plains to the Northeast. A monster storm paralyzing travel in more than a dozen states. Extremely dangerous, blizzard-like conditions and blizzard conditions themselves forecast for parts of the Midwest. Mix of rain, sleet, and heavy from New York all the way up to New England.

Absolutely delicious. Yet, from what I can tell, CNN didn't include that in its 7AM ET transcript [3] or its 8AM ET transcript [4].

I'm looking forward to the coming decade of colder winters... :-)

Dalton Minimum Returns

21 Apr 09 - Paul Stanko of NOAA writes meteorologist Anthony Watts to tell him of an interesting development in his tracking of the International Sunspot Number (ISN).

Paul writes:

My running mean of the International Sunspot Number for 2009 just dipped below 1.00. For anything comparable you now need to go back before 1913 (which scored a 1.43) which could mean we're now competing directly with the Dalton Minimum. Just in case you'd like another tidbit, here is something that puts our 20 to 30 day spotless runs in perspective… the mother of all spotless runs (in the heart of the Maunder Minimum, of course!) was from October 15, 1661 to August 2, 1671. It totaled 3579 consecutive spotless days, all of which had obs. To say that that we in interesting times is a huge understatement. We are about to enter a Grand Minimum, which in the past have produced a cooler planet, while our government is preparing for run-away global warming. Who could have predicted this stupidity?

Is a new Dalton Minimum approaching?

Russ Steele

Well 2008 arrived last night and Sunspot Cycle 24 was absent. While we had a flurry of excitement a few week ago when a patch of reverse polarity showed on the Suns surface it soon faded. The Sun reverses polarity with each cycle change. As we have discussed in the past the length of the roughly 11-year sunspot cycle is correlated with temperature and a late arriving cycle can have some long term climate implications for us folks here on Earth. The Cycle 23 solar minimum was at 1996.5, so with an average 11 year cycle we should have seen the new minimum in mid-2007. Here we are in 2008 and the next cycle is already six months late, and the defining minimum generally occurs 12-20 months after the first spot of the new cycle. This would indicate the ending minimum of Cycle 23 and the start of Cycle 24 will come in mid 2009, resulting in a 13 year cycle, the longest since 1784-1797. Interesting to note that this cycle started a long series - 13.6, 12.3, 12.7 years, which coincided with the cold period known as the Dalton Minimum. Stay tuned, these are going to be interesting times. Sun cycles indicate cooling and the politicians are trying stop global warming. We may need a little extra warming over the next thirty years.

Thanks to David Archibald for this graphic showing the relationship of cycle length to temperature in New Hampshire.

Dalton Minimum

The Dalton minimum in the 400 year history of sunspot numbers The Dalton Minimum was a period of low solar activity, named for the English meteorologist John Dalton, lasting from about 1790 to 1830. Like the Maunder Minimum and Spörer Minimum, the Dalton Minimum coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures. The Oberlach Station in Germany, for example, experienced a 2.0° C decline over 20 years. The Year Without a Summer, in 1816, also occurred during the Dalton Minimum.

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