Posted on 06/22/2002 11:49:00 AM PDT by Jean S
No one is saying that the current drought is due to global warming. I post the article as an example of a not-so-happy consequence is increased warming (climate change). You can expect lots more like it if global warming is real.
Because Lindzen is doing science to understand a process, not hunting for facts to hang on an agenda.
All I saw in SA was a letters debate and you brought up Lindzen.
I am quoting scientests on the methodology used, which is science.
Name calling, I've seen that pattern of behavior before .
A page or more of listings discussing the article. Since I haven't read it in awhile - and have never seen the discussions - I'm going to go through it also.
Ah, perhaps you are becoming one of us, I dare say! The march towards the Kyoto abyss has been from the start a political gambit, an exercise in massive scientific/environmental fraud, for political and negative economic reasons. To even begin to accept the fact that there is not a broad consensus for support of the theory of CO2 based-human caused climatic change runs counter to the political and psychological strategy of the international leftist environmentalist movement that has husbanded the Kyoto accords. In fact many of the world's leading climatic scientists have powerful and well supported cases against accepting the narrow view of CO2 based global warming, including Lindzen Essenhigh, and Michaels; and now we hear notable revision by the originator of the "greenhouse gas" theory Dr. James Hansen, trying to explain the lack of correlation between the current reduction in greenhouse gas accumulation, and observed fact, and continued "apparent" global warming. Perhaps there is even more "revision" and rethinking in the offing.
Supporters of the Kyoto treaty are supposed to discount experts in the field who attempt to debunk human caused climatic change by either attacking their credentials or simply labeling them right wing ideologues. Despite the blanket statements regarding scientific consensus for human caused global warming in the leftist press, no one is accusing Dr. Hansen of being a right wing ideologue. . Perhaps Michelle Mitchell of CNN should heed your very sage advice about pretending the other side has no creditable scientific credentials when she reported "...that the Academy study (NAS study) was "a unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse, and is due to man. There is no wiggle room." Such a typical press blurb, clearly meant to sway the uninformed, is patently and intentionally false. Needless to say, the wall of politically reinforced ignorance that has characterized the move towards Kyoto, is well on it's way to crumbling.
The scientific arguments we are witnessing, deal with the reliability of predictive computer models, and the mechanics of heat absorption and radiation. Much has been made of the observable data, and it's interpretation. But what is not at all in dispute are the basic facts of atmospheric composition. From the article I linked before, "Carbon dioxide accounts for less than four thousandths of one percent (0.0033%) of our atmosphere. By contrast, nitrogen and oxygen account for roughly 78% and 21%, respectively." Only 2% of this "four thousandths of one percent" of the atmosphere, about 5 to 6 billion tons, is human contributed. By far the most prevalent "greenhouse gas" is H2O, water vapor, 300+ times more common in the atmosphere than CO2. The Kyoto treaty has no provision for water vapor reduction, needless to say. Even with the addition of all other pollutants as "greenhouse gases", common sense tells us that now is not the time to be mindlessly stampeded into an economy destroying treaty cobbled together for the purpose of global income redistribution, and not for any real environmental remedy.
I welcome, and am glad you do too, continued scientific examination of the claims over human caused climatic change, and will continue to try and cut through the obfuscation, semantic confusion, and outright fraud used by Kyoto proponents to scare the public into ignoring rational climate science, and precipitously implementing destructive legislation that would have no provable beneficial effect on the environment.
I found a speech by Bjorn Lomberg - here I think;
Dissent in the Maelstrom (you have to search for the correct section)
which provides the best analysis and policy recommendation that can be had, given the present state of scientific knowledge.
Just my seat-of-the-pants feeling.
Then why, in your post #6 do you imply that humanity may not survive climate change? I quote you in full: ”Life has adapted but not necessarily human life. And the adaptation has often been very, very painful.” (Emphasis added).
Look, I realize that arguing in sound bites can lead to misunderstanding. But, that is one of the problems with those who, for political or financial reasons, are determined to scare people by asserting that climate change is due to human activity, and who then wish governments or supra-national agencies increase the regulation of individual activity.
1) The ability to adapt is limited and often painful. It depends on how much is being asked of the creatures and how fast they have to do it.
If we have a hundred years to adapt to rising sea-levels we can easily do it. If a hundred foot tidal wave sweeps across Los Angeles you can be sure many, many people will die.
2)The science supporting the idea of human-caused global-warming is still in dispute (To a certain extent it will always be in dispute because very little is ever known with absolute certainty). I am unable to follow the technical arguments, unfortunately, but the idea seems reasonable to me. We have been, and are, pouring enormous amounts of heat, gases, and pollutants into our air and oceans, altering the flora and fauna, and changing the surface properties of the earth (for example, replacing trees and grasses with parking lots and buildings). These changes have been shown to alter conditions locally (smog, local weather changes). It seems reasonable to me that they might cause global weather changes as well...or have other, unwanted consequences. Whether that turns out to be global warming, global cooling, global poisoning or nothing at all is for the scientists to say.
3)When there are serious consequences to policy decisions there will be winners and losers and you can be sure the losers will scream. The more they're asked to pay, the louder will be the screams. It helps if the policy decisions can be justified by something more than greed or jealosy or vengeance ... but not much. That's human nature. It's too bad it's like that because it clouds the reasoning supporting the decisions but that's the way it is.
4) In my last post, #48 I think, I linked to a speech by Bjorn Lomborg. He takes the IPCC best prediction and shows that Kyoto is not good idea and proposes something much more reasonable. If it turns out that the IPCC has exagerated the problems nothing is lost. I like that approach.
But...there's a very disturbing piece of information in that speech; the cost of global warming, in real terms such as lost land, destroyed homes, increased number of and violence of storms, etc., will fall overwhelmingly on the developing world (the developed world may even benefit slightly from the changes). That means the developing world will experience few of the benefits of industrialization and most of its costs. Politically, that's a disaster. Morally, it's very difficult.
You modified your position by back pedaling from extremist statements in later posts. However, one’s mindset is often revealed when nuances are omitted. From your post, I gather that you believe global warming endangers human life. Well, I’ll accept that as a position, but not as a reasonable position.
”1) The ability to adapt is limited and often painful. It depends on how much is being asked of the creatures and how fast they have to do it. If we have a hundred years to adapt to rising sea-levels we can easily do it. If a hundred foot tidal wave sweeps across Los Angeles you can be sure many, many people will die.”
Are hundred foot tidal waves over Los Angeles part of the global warming scenario? If a 100 foot tidal wave hit the shore at Redondo Beach, how far inland would it get? Would it be more or less serious than an earthquake? There are all sorts of things that happen too fast for us to adapt, such as being hit by a bus.
”2)The science supporting the idea of human-caused global-warming is still in dispute (To a certain extent it will always be in dispute because very little is ever known with absolute certainty). I am unable to follow the technical arguments, unfortunately, but the idea seems reasonable to me. We have been, and are, pouring enormous amounts of heat, gases, and pollutants into our air and oceans, altering the flora and fauna, and changing the surface properties of the earth (for example, replacing trees and grasses with parking lots and buildings). These changes have been shown to alter conditions locally (smog, local weather changes). It seems reasonable to me that they might cause global weather changes as well...or have other, unwanted consequences. Whether that turns out to be global warming, global cooling, global poisoning or nothing at all is for the scientists to say.”
The idea that humans cause global climatic changes is popular and sounds reasonable because humans beings are naturally self centered. In order to determine whether it IS reasonable, human impact on the global ecology has to be put in perspective. The primary culprit of the “humans cause global warning” school is carbon dioxide. This gas “accounts for less than four-thousandths of one percent (0.0033%) of our atmosphere. …Far from being a "pollutant" (as some proponents of human-induced global warming proclaim), CO2 is as essential a gas to plant life as oxygen is to animal life. Further, nature performs a wonderful balancing act whenever CO2 levels increase. Through photosynthesis, plants convert CO2 to new growth (using the carbon atom, C, and releasing oxygen, O). As atmospheric CO2 increases, so does plant growth, thereby removing a significant portion of CO2 present as the byproduct of fossil fuel burning. This is merely one facet of the ongoing processes by which atmospheric CO2 is replenished and absorbed by natural processes each year.”
So then, we have to ask ourselves if mankind’s contribution to CO2 overshadows solar cycles and if the human production of CO2 is scrubbed from the atmosphere by natural processes. As someone with a degree in one of the hard sciences, none of the evidence I have seen (as opposed to assertions that have been made) persuade me that humans create global warming.
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