Posted on 02/13/2007 5:15:20 AM PST by RWR8189
THERE IS NOW a broad consensus in this country, and indeed in the world, that global warming is happening, that it is a serious problem, and that humans are causing it. The recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded there is a greater than 90 percent chance that greenhouse gases released by human activities like burning oil in cars and coal in power plants are causing most of the observed global warming. This report puts the final nail in denial's coffin about the problem of global warming.
In addition, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has identified a warming climate, and the resulting melting of sea ice, as the reason polar bears may now be threatened as a species. The US Center for Disease Control's National Center for Environmental Health has cited global warming as the largest looming public health challenge we face. And President Bush has himself called global warming a serious challenge that we need to confront.
Indeed, if we fail to start substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the next couple of years, we risk bequeathing a diminished world to our grandchildren. Insect-borne diseases such as malaria will spike as tropical ecosystems expand; hotter air will exacerbate the pollution that sends children to the hospital with asthma attacks; food insecurity from shifting agricultural zones will spark border wars; and storms and coastal flooding from sea-level rise will cause mortality and dislocation.
To confront this challenge, we have reintroduced the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act. The bill, which has growing bipartisan support, would harness the power of the free market and the engine of American innovation to reduce the nation's greenhouse gas emissions substantially enough and quickly enough to forestall catastrophic global warming.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
"As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age."
Read the entire article at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html
Now that was just a bit less than 33 years ago, so in less than that time the earth has transformed itself from entering an ice age to another catastrophic global warming like the last one that ended the most recent ice age.
Do you wonder why some of us are skeptical of recurrent "sky is falling" hoaxes?
Gregoire's executive order was a sop to the leftist greenies who put her in office. She is very beholden to them for all the fraud. But I am surprised that you as an economist would support limits on capitalism to support unproven science, when China and India would out weigh any gains from the US effort, even if the science and technology supported it.
There can be no serious discussion of environmental issues until someone separates the political issues from the scientific fact and balances the real projected costs against the real projected benefits. That is never going to happen because you can't talk logic and facts with the post modern socialiststs who are using this issue to reign in the US capitalism.
Also, on another subject, someone was looking for an article on the court case by the Asian students who sued for in-state tuition along with the illegals who graduated from local high schools, but we couldn't find it. Do you have any information on that, or can you direct me?
Which makes in ancient history. Seriously, the climate sciences have advanced a lot since then, and we now know the cause of the brief cooling period the article is talking about: particulate pollution. After catalytic converters and other pollution controls became mandatory, particulate pollution decreased, and the warming trend resumed.
All science is unproven to a degree. In a world of uncertainty like ours, you have to go with what the data tell you is most likely.
BTW, as far as putting limits on capitalism, there have to be some. No one today, on the right or the left, seriously argues that there is no need for any government intervention. Do you want to end the regulation of natural monopolies like electricity transmission? If so, be prepared to pay through he nose. Do you want to end all regulation of air pollution? As an asthmatic, I would seriously object to that.
A free market works the vast majority of the time, but there are times when it does not. One of those instances is when there are what we call "externalities," that is, costs associated with certain economic activity not born by the person engaged in it. There are many costs associated with consuming a gallon of gasoline, for example, that are not factored into the price of gasoline, so they are not paid for by the user of gasoline. The exhaust that comes out of your tail pipe cause respiratory problems that you don't pay for. And the evidence suggests (though not with certainty) that the exhaust also contributes to global warming, which also creates costs. In these instances, it is necessary for some intervention to at least attempt to make prices reflect the external costs not born by either consumer or producer.
when China and India would out weigh any gains from the US effort, even if the science and technology supported it.
As far as I know, right now, Europe, the US, and the developed parts of Asia dwarf these two in terms of CO2 emissions. However, yes, you're right, their emissions are growing, and will eventually eclipse us in the not too distant future. However, both of these countries already have nuclear technology, so I don't see any problem with giving them incentives to move toward reliance on nuclear, which IMHO is the most cost-effective way of reducing greenhouse emissions. At any rate, this is a global issue and needs to be dealt with internationally.
And just so you know, I don't support Kyoto. That's a hysterical knee-jerk reaction to the problem that hasn't even considered the cost-benefit analysis. I would favor ripping that piece of garbage of an agreement to shreds and going back to the drawing board with a much more rational, cost-benefit approach.
There can be no serious discussion of environmental issues until someone separates the political issues from the scientific fact and balances the real projected costs against the real projected benefits.
I agree. There are lots of very reasonable and smart economists working on this as we speek.
That is never going to happen because you can't talk logic and facts with the post modern socialiststs who are using this issue to reign in the US capitalism.
That's why rational people on the right need to pull their heads out of the sand and deal with this isssue seriously. If we don't, then the post-modern socialists, as you call them, will dominate the discussion and the result will be something we really don't like.
Also, on another subject, someone was looking for an article on the court case by the Asian students who sued for in-state tuition along with the illegals who graduated from local high schools, but we couldn't find it. Do you have any information on that, or can you direct me?
Sorry, that's the first I've heard about it. I'm not tenured, so I try to keep out of political controversies here and focus on my research.
My nephew is an actuary, he says that you are wrong about what the data is telling us.
Consensus science is feminized science, it's about feelings, not facts. I have yet to hear one serious, rational proposal from an environmentalist. All they want to do is rage against big oil. They don't like nuclear power, they don't like hydro power, they don't like windmills, they don't even like people. To quote that professor from Penn, they are nothing but a bunch of "greenhouse gasbags".
The most important factor in a rational energy policy should be based on relative independence from OPEC. The left wants to use the politics of oil to strangle capitalism, and they are willing to sacrifice our national security to do it. They don't want to save the planet so much as they want to turn it upside down, with the white male on the bottom of the world heap.
Just about every climate scientist I have talked to says I'm right. I'm neither an actuary nor a climate scientist, so I have to defer to the experts. And no, most climate scientists are not leftwing moonbats.
Consensus science is feminized science, it's about feelings, not facts. I have yet to hear one serious, rational proposal from an environmentalist.
Me neither. That's why we can't let the wacko environmentalist wackos monopolize this debate. There are rational people who are coming out with proposals, however. Just because some of the people concerned about global warming are lefist moonbats doesn't make everyone concerned about it a moonbat. Nor does the presense of extremists on one side give any legitimacy to the other extreme position of global warming denial.
The most important factor in a rational energy policy should be based on relative independence from OPEC.
I agree, and this is a goal that would also reduce greenhouse emission. But national security concerns alone justify ending our dependence on oil. And it's not just imported oil, BTW. The problem is the market power that OPEC enjoys, not the amount of oil we import from OPEC per se. If we shift to other sources of oil, the rest of the world will continue to import OPEC oil in large qunatities simply because OPEC produces such a huge proportion of the world's oil. Thus OPEC's total share of the global oil market will remain unchanged, and so thus will their market power and hence their ability to hurt us. Unless we are able to find such huge reserves of oil so as to significantly reduce OPEC's overall marketshare, which is highly unlikely, the only solution is to get off oil. And I believe that is doable, given present technology.
The left wants to use the politics of oil to strangle capitalism, and they are willing to sacrifice our national security to do it. They don't want to save the planet so much as they want to turn it upside down, with the white male on the bottom of the world heap.
That's true, which is why we must not let the left monopolize the debate. But if we continue to deny reality and pretend global warming isn't a potential problem, that is exactly what will happen. The only rational way forward is to try to shift the debate to a cost-benefit analysis. We say, okay, there's a significant chance global warming is real and human caused, so what should we do? What are some things that could make an impact that don't cost too much, or that we should be doing anyway?
Again, much of what we could do to combat global warming are the same things we should be doing to reduce the power of OPEC. The left may not like some of these things (i.e. nuclear power and hydro), but they are things that we can sell to the public and thus use them to marginalize the left.
the problem has been that for years, the right has ignored this issue, had not rebutted it, and the left has continued to make gains (through lies, but what else is new) in public opinion on it.
you are mixing two concepts - energy policy and global warming. sure - nuclear power is good, alternative fuels are good, plug-in hybrid cars are good. that's an energy policy.
Which makes in ancient history. Seriously, the climate sciences have advanced a lot since then, and we now know the cause of the brief cooling period the article is talking about: particulate pollution. After catalytic converters and other pollution controls became mandatory, particulate pollution decreased, and the warming trend resumed.
Yeah, right. LOL!
Do you think that the Maunder Minimum, which just conveniently took place during the 70 year period that coincided with the coldest period of the "Little Ice Age" from 1645 to 1715 was just a coincidence?
For readers not familiar with the Maunder Minimum, it was an unusual period of time when there was almost no sunspot activity for 70 years. Normally, sunspot activity follows about an 11 year cycle where sunspots go from a peak number to a much smaller number, and then back to a peak.
Most honest scientists today believe that the Maunder Minimum represented a period of time during which the energy output of the sun decreased enough to affect temperatures on earth and other planets.
Not that I'd ever vote for this nut anyway, but he certainly has now proven that he'll say anything to ingratiate himself with the leftist media. His problem is that he can never win the nomination. An Independent, Republican-killing, Ross Perot-like (who is just as kooky as McSane) presidential run coming up.
Pray for global warming - no matter the cause. It can get real cold out there and has been for most of earth's history according to this chart. We are in one of just a few peak temperature cycles which historically have been hotter and have not lasted long (relatively speaking).
Judging from the graph, if one were to normalize the tempurature, it would be about 5 degrees below the 1996 nominal that was chosen as a baseline for the graph. Immagine the average tempurature 5 degrees colder on average. Winter would start in Early Novemeber and last until mid April. 6 full months of winter as opposed to 3 1/2 months.
My point is that global warming has implications for energy policy, and the energy policies that are good for us anyway would also help reduce global warming.
What does the Mauder minimum have to do with the brief cooling period in the middle of the 20th century? Why are you changing the subject?
But to answer your question, no one denies that non-human factors, like sunspots and solar flares, can influence the climate. That's irrelevent to this question however. Just because other things like sunspots can influence the climate doesn't mean that we don't. There are multiple factors involved, and human created C02 is one of them. Why do global warming deniers try to cast this issue as if it were an all-or-nothing proposition?
"There is now a broad consensus in this country, and indeed in the world, that global warming is happening, that it is a serious problem, and that humans are causing it."
"Consequently, we can and must act now to solve the problem, or else we will bequeath a dangerous and diminished world to our children and grandchildren."
George Will's recent Newsweek column on the subject:
"The consensus catechism about global warming has six tenets: 1. Global warming is happening. 2. It is our (humanity's, but especially America's) fault. 3. It will continue unless we mend our ways. 4. If it continues we are in grave danger. 5. We know how to slow or even reverse the warming. 6. The benefits from doing that will far exceed the costs."
Geeze, Will nailed it.
What is happening with the Republican party? First we have Republicans in the House who support the Article of Surrender, now McCain selling out to the global warming "consensus".
McCain and Lieberman further state:
"The debate has ended over whether global warming is a problem caused by human activity."
Oh really? The debate has ended? Who decided this? Did we have a cloture vote in the Senate which I failed to hear about?
If anything, the opposite is more true. It is the global warming alarmists who promote an all-or-nothing proposition.
Just look at the article:
" ... global warming is happening, that it is a serious problem, and that humans are causing it."
"The debate has ended over whether global warming is a problem caused by human activity."
Not "The earth is getting warmer, and humans are one potential cause of it." Not "We need to do something about the part of global warming causes we can affect". No such pragmatism!
Are some using scientific evidence of solar cycles and cosmic radiation's effect on the climate to completely dismiss potential human causes? Yes. But these are the rank and file, along with some political commentators, not the skeptical scientists and other officials.
But on the pro-human caused global warming side of the debate, the opposite is true. It is scientists, politicians, and officials who refuse to acknowledge the other factors.
In fact, those scientists, politicians, and officials who do acknowledge multiple factors are attacked as "deniers", threatened with decertifications, and generally vilified by the pro-human caused global warming alarmists.
Can you provide a link to the evidence to support this claim?
I can buy the reduction in particulate in coal-burning plants, but catalytic converters are not particulate reducers. And low-sulfer diesel (diesel being a high-particulate fuel) is just now being mandated.
Also, my educated guess is the reduction in particulates in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s has likely more than been offset by increases in the developing world such as China and India. A wild-card in this would be the collapse of communism, which reduced economic output (and likely the particulate output) in the Soviet Union, and via the reunification of Germany forced a clean-up of the filthy air in East Germany.
However, many other countries, especially in Asia, had horrible air pollution before the recent rise of India and China. Japan in the 1980s and 1990s had filthy air. As did Korea and Malaysia.
If you are correct that U.S. EPA actions around air pollution in the 1970s caused a worldwide climate effect, someone somewhere has to be predicting the effect of China's and India's air pollution output.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
I may have been wrong about catalytic converters. I know that they were a big factor in reducing smog, but you may be right that they had little to do with reducing particulate pollution.
Most vocal skeptics of global warming are not scientists.
But on the pro-human caused global warming side of the debate, the opposite is true. It is scientists, politicians, and officials who refuse to acknowledge the other factors.
Every single scientific paper on global warming I have seen aknowledges other factors. Even the UN's recent report does that. It's true that politicians (like the two in the article) and leftist columnists often ignore the other causes, but that's not true of the scientists.
In fact, those scientists, politicians, and officials who do acknowledge multiple factors are attacked as "deniers",
Nonsense. If that were true, then every single climate scientist would be called a denier. The only ones attacked as "deniers" are those who deny the evidence of a significant human component to the warming.
Before I'll listen to anyone even express an opinion on anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming, I've been asking them to take a simple, 3-question quiz for the past five years or so:
1. What gas is responsible for approximately 95% of the "greenhouse effect" on planet Earth?
2. Are the United States a net A) Emitter, or B) Absorber of carbon dioxide?
3. Is the global climate now A) Warmer, or B) Cooler than it was approximately 1,000 to 1,100 years ago?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.