I know there is a great debate over whether global warming is real or imagined. I don't know if the wild weather we've witnessed over the last decade or so is related or can be attributed to humans or natural weather patterns.
What I do know is that I want people in political office who are concerned about the warming of our planet and that is why I'm happy with Barack Obama's decision to listen to what our scientists have to say about this issue.
For those of you who don't believe that humans have an effect on the environment, just look at the pollution in Bejing, China before the Olympics, and the lack of air pollution during the Olympics. The difference was like night and day. The reason for the reduction in pollution was due to mandatory restrictions that reduced the amount of vehicles on the road and restrictions placed on factory emissions during the Olympic games.
That proved to me that humans do effect the environment. Now only if we can find the proof that humans are contributing to global warming.
What is your take on this issue? Is global warming real or imagined?
Obama names John Holdren, Jane Lubchenco to science posts; vows to improve global warming response
Updated Saturday, December 20th 2008, 6:14 PM
Simoni/Getty/Getty Images Glaciers in Patagonia. 'It's about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it's inconvenient – especially when it's inconvenient,' Barack Obama said.
A New Yorker who captured the Nobel Prize for his genetics research will become one of President-elect Barack Obama's top science advisers.
Obama has tapped Dr. Harold Varmus, a Long Island native and head of the city's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, as part of a new science and technology team that will tackle climate change, energy independence and health.
Taking a page straight out of Al Gore's global warming playbook, Obama said Saturday that advancing American science is "about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it's inconvenient - especially when it's inconvenient."
Underscoring Obama's focus on addressing global warming, the President-elect named John Holdren his director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Holdren, a Harvard physicist and energy expert, has been outspoken on climate change and advised Gore on his famed documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."
Obama's selections were heralded by some as an about-face from the Bush Administration's sometimes-strained relationship with the science community on issues like pollution and stem-cell research.
But Varmus, who will work with MIT's Eric Lander on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, told the Daily News that politics are far from his mind.
"What I'm focused on is the fact that we have some serious problems and we have a new president who is going ask scientists to help solve them," said Varmus, 69.
"One of the things that really attracts me to Barack Obama is that he sees the connections in our society between education, science, health, energy [and] climate," he added.
Varmus, who grew up in Freeport, L.I., received a Nobel Prize in 1989 for his studies of genes that influence how normal cells grow into cancerous tumor cells.
In his new advisory position, Varmus - who grew up frolicking on Jones Beach before attending Amherst College and Columbia Medical School - says he will remain in Manhattan and at his job overseeing Sloan-Kettering.
Varmus "is not just a path-breaking scientist, having won a Nobel Prize for his research on the causes of cancer - he also served as Director of the National Institutes of Health during the Clinton Administration," Obama said.
Obama also named ecologist Jane Lubchenco as head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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Comments: 122
I've been hearing a lot of talk that the warming of our planet is nothing more than cyclical weather patterns, but like you said, the change in these cycles are alarming.
I truly hope that the team he is putting together will get to the bottom of this issue. We need to know what is really going on.
We finally have someone in office who does care about this issue.
I with you. I believe it's real and that we are playing a role in the warming of our planet.
It's about, Dad-GUM, time!
As you can see, it's only getting worse.
What a great quote. I do believe our actions impact the environment. How can they not?
Stop calling it global warming and where is the argument?
We had better hope that the warming is our fault or we may have had it. The climate changes can easily destroy our industrialized economies and if that happens we may never be able to get them back.
Sam, I love that line. :-)
I think I am going to refuse to take a tetanus shot the next time I ram a dirty nail through my leg. What do they know about it anyway.
I for one can not accept that this is normal, not when I can see for myself that it is not.
Yes, it is INCONVENIENT for the radical green meanies to acknowledge the FACT thousands of scientists disagree with their findings.
Let us be clear, NO ONE HAS PROOF EITHER WAY--- perhaps human beings DO have a role in the cyclical nature of weather patterns and DO cause gases to be trapped in the earth's atmosphere, causing UNNATURAL warming.
However, the same possibility exists that such cycles are in fact natural, and occur with or without mankind's ostensible contribution to the perceived problem.
We know without a doubt, warming/cooling patterns are littered across the history of our earth, occuring LONG BEFORE mankind ever appeared on the scene.
Therefore, doubt is not only a logical conclusion, but equal in power/authority to any faith that concludes "the debate is over."
One can only hope the Obama administration will in fact, listen to ALL scientists, and not merely those that agree with his own ideas.
The debate is far from over, and to squarely place the blame on mankind, at this point in our scientific understanding of the earth and it's weather patterns, is arrogance in the extreme.
Inconvenient or not, all scientists should be heard on this issue, and NOT just the scientists Al Gore promotes as infallible sages utterring unquestionable edicts.
There are plenty of pre-history geologic examples of quick violent climate change. Does that excuse us, as "crown of creation," from ANY stewardship of what we can control?? Of course not.
For me the great benefit of anti-carbon efforts is the dimunation of the oil industry. If that means we carp about "global warming" or protecting blind cave fish, so be it.
What if the global warming has happened before man began burning oil, what if all the carbon that is in the atmosphere, the oceans, and plants was here from the beginning of time, what if the cause of global warming has more to do with the oceans and that CO2 concentrations in the air, what if the sun has cycles of energy it releases, what if with all their models they have can’t predict the global temperature next year or the year after, could the cause be something greater than man?
How much will we spend on preventing global temperature rise? What if we can’t prevent it?
Have consider any of these questions? If not, why not? If so, what are your answers?
Have you ever considered that the whole carbon swaps (polluters trading with non polluters) is an awful lot like the mortgage swaps that got us into the current financial crisis?
good one *chuckle*
All of those questions you ask about global warming have been considered and examined. We know the effects of CO2 and other gases, we know where it comes from, we've measured the effect of the sun, etc. We're at the stage that we've identified global warming as real, man as the major cause, and now we're trying to more accurately predict what changes are in store in terms of the specific climates in specific regions of the world.
And carbon cap and trade is nothing at all like credit default swaps or anything regarding the financial crisis... except that you've used the word "swap" to label both. But they really have nothing in common.
Now maybe we can get to the bottom of this issue.
'It's about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it's inconvenient – especially when it's inconvenient,' Barack Obama said.
This is a great quote and I hope that others will listen to what our scientists have to say.
I believe that global warming and pollution may have some things in common.
"Welcome to Government by Grownups."
Could you please clarify this for me?
Thanks.
Lloyd
If we can determine that this is being caused by human activity, then we better begin to take drastic measures to reverse this trend.
However, it's natural for many of use to second guess those who say that the observed warming pattern is due to "natural" i.e. non-human causes.
It goes against what we've been seeing, reading and actually experiencing over the last decade or so.
We can't be selfish about this issue. Like you wrote:
"This is our lives and our children's lives and our generations lives on the line."
It's time for the scientific community to take a closer look at the facts so we can get to the bottom of this issue.
This issue is too serious to bring partisan politics into the picture.
Although you may disagree with Al Gore's view on global warming, he has raised our awareness of this issue.
I give him credit for doing that.
In my opinion, we should have weened ourselves off of fossil fuels decades ago. And hopefully, Barack Obama and his team of scientists will help us move in that direction.
Should we even consider if they are "right" about the cause of the global temperature rise?
These are the kinds of questions that need to be answered in a scientific manner.
Episodes of dramatic climate change are pretty much documented, but what I'm concerned about is the rapid changes we have been experiencing.
I'm not up to speed on carbon swaps.
What is your best guess at what it will cost for all the efforts to reverse the temperature rise?
I must admit I have yet to read or here anyone that believes that man is the cause of global warming even suggest that the data coudl be misinterpreted and there maybe something other than man that can be credited for the global warming. Can you direct me to where that discussion is captured?
As for the "cap and trade" (if you prefer), as I understand it those that are poluting can purchase the credits on paper from those for not polluting for the pollution (pounds of carbon) that they genrate. To me that seems like a trade on paper of carbon credits for money and carbon debts. You may not like the swap, it sure seems like one. You may not like the anology with the mortgage swaps, but weren't the loans swaps based on trading on paper the risk of bad loans for insurance credits.
Wasn't the Kyoto agreement suppose to reduce pollution with China exempted and yet it seems that China is now the biggest polluter. Do you wonder why I am skeptical?
I have no idea what the costs would be. However, I can't see why it would cost more to manufacture solar panels or establish wind farms than exploring for oil or digging for coal.
Many people have documented our effect on the warming of the planet, but nothing has been conclusive. That is why it's time to get to the bottom of this issue by using all of our scientific resources. Let's find out what we can and cannot control.
As far as cap and trade goes, I'm not really interested in any loopholes that allows a business to continue to pollute at the expense of those who don't.
The Kyoto agreement was flawed from the beginning. Either it's a agreement that involves everyone or it isn't an agreement at all.
That is, IF-- still a BIG IF--- it is an "issue" at all.
The rising seal level is slowly engulfing Tuvalu, a tiny island nation on the Pacific Ocean, thus forcing its inhabitants to migrate to their neighbor countries and creating the first global warming refugees of the world.
MOST OF us have not heard about Tuvalu. In fact, what importance can a sparsely populated island – the third least populated country in the world, with an economy that survives on subsistence farming, fishing and foreign aid with no natural resources, be of to the global community?
Oblivious to the vast majority of the people on this planet, this tiny Polynesian island nation has succumbed to global warming, forcing evacuation of its inhabitants and creating the first global warming refugees of the world.
Tuvalu, with its four reef islands and five true atolls, lies on the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. The rising sea level, the obvious outcome of global warming, is gradually engulfing this island nation.
In the next 50 years, the country would completely disappear from the face of the earth. The highest point of the nation is only five meters above the sea level. 3000 Tuvaluans have already been evacuated and the remaining 8000 are waiting to leave the country, sometime in the near future.
For the Tuvaluan refugees, challenges of settling in Australia and New Zealand are myriad. Tuvalu was a country where its inhabitants were used to live simple life in small islands with few cars, where locals spent most of the time barefoot on the sand, living in communities where during hot nights one can even sleep on a local airstrip. For these simple islanders, adjusting to large cities with their high-rises and highways is not easy.
Nonetheless, Tuvaluans prefer to immigrate to the neighboring countries, as they notice the gradual environmental changes on their island. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has detected Tuvalu’s sea level rising at a rate of 5.5 millimeters every year, on par with average sea level rise worldwide.
Once again, Global warming is a reality. Just ask the Tuvaluans.
The science isn't based on simply anecdotal evidence. There's a lot more to it.
Duane,
"I must admit I have yet to read or here anyone that believes that man is the cause of global warming even suggest that the data coudl be misinterpreted and there maybe something other than man that can be credited for the global warming. Can you direct me to where that discussion is captured?"
That discussion occurs in peer reviewed scientific journals. This is where experts in the relevant fields examine submitted research. They make sure the methodology is sound, the claims made are warranted, that the work meets quality and accuracy standards, and that there are no personal opinions. The ones who will tend to misinterpret the data are the outside observers who don't know the science, as well as the media. And of course there's those who want to misinterpret data to suit their agenda, which is what you'll generally find at global-warming contrarian sites. They seem exist just to provide (faulty) ammunition for deniers, which doesn't help the discussion at all.
The IPCC is the independent scientific panel that operates under the auspices of the United Nations to analyze and interpret climate data. As such, they represent the current state of science on climate change. They have spoken clearly and loudly to support the idea that climate change is caused by humans, not sunspots, not radio waves, not volcanoes, not anything else. Just people.
Sure it is, the question is whether or not warming patterns are cyclical and natural occurances, or is mankind adversely impacting the environment?? No matter which conclusion is reached however, the next question is, "can we do anything about it, even if we are the problem?"
Just ask the Tuvaluans
Anecdotal evidence is meaningless, sorry.
This is where experts in the relevant fields examine submitted research. They make sure the methodology is sound, the claims made are warranted, that the work meets quality and accuracy standards, and that there are no personal opinions.
It is also where thousands of scientists opinions are disregard, simply because they are not in agreement with "the sky is falling" crowd.
Sylvia, you are correct of course, anyone -- including scietists, that dares to disagree with the convential wisdom of the day are ignored, ridiculed, and ostracized.
Global warming is a phenomenon primarily caused by the bad human habit of burning massive amounts of fossil fuel and thereby releasing billions of tons of CO2 into the sky.
Such a belief is faith based, and cannot empirically be proven, without doubt. The fact is, no one can prove either way, whether mankind is having an impact or not. The fact is there is AMPLE disgreement about whether or not such a belief is "true."
They have spoken clearly and loudly
Unfortunately they have not done so with ONE VOICE ! ! ! The fact is many scientists that belong to the IPCC disagree with their brethren, and do not believe mankind is having a significant impact on climate change.
the idea that climate change is caused by humans, not sunspots, not radio waves, not volcanoes, not anything else. Just people
Then why did drastic changes in climate, both warming and cooling, occur on the planet, long before mankind ever arrived on the scence, much less the burning of fossil fuels in amounts only found after the Industrial Revolution?
The simple fact is, climate change has occured on earth, creating drastic fluctuations in weather patterns since the big bang.
Mankind cannot be blamed for such events if he wasn't even populating the planet before such things occurred.
"It is also where thousands of scientists opinions are disregard, simply because they are not in agreement with "the sky is falling" crowd."
That's just not true. The idea that scientists aren't professionals and don't objectively look at someone's research just doesn't hold up. Show me a study that was rejected on frivolous grounds. They do explain their objections in the rejection.
Read the first 4 paragraphs in the link below to help clear up your perception of scientists:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/the-debate-is-just-beginning-on-the-cretaceous/
To answer your question about the causes of historical changes in climate, see the following as a starter:
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/FAQ/wg1_faq-6.1.html
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/FAQ/wg1_faq-6.2.html
Yes, it most certainly IS true, sorry.
Read the first 4 paragraphs in the link below to help clear up your perception of scientists
Read your own comments to help focus on your overweaning hubris. The world exists beyond your personal faith based convictions about climate change.
To anybody who has driven a motorcycle into town, you can feel the heat rise as you enter a town. You can feel it from the outskirts.
Anyone ever notice how cloud cover can raise the temperature at night. If that cloud can raise the temp 15 degrees locally, what can the billions of human caused gasses do?
Damn, I know global warming is real, how I wish I was wrong.
I believe that all energy sources should be used based on their economical viability. I have been making and effort not to be wasteful whether it is energy or other materials, my kids have been doing those same things since they can remember.
The total cost of energy includes everything from discovery to end use, including all activities in between such as the manufacture of all the equipment necessary for delivery. You may feel that people that let the oil companies drill on their land should get some of the profits, guess what the people where the windmills and solar panels are placed also want to be paid, in reality it is easier to drill a hole in the ground than it is to make silicone disks to deliver the same amount of energy, until it gets tougher to drill the holes and find the fossil fuel energy. It is all economic, the equalizer is green and everyone has the same vote.
In my part of Michigan there are several areas that are appealing for windmills. Guess what happened when a community found out people were looking at developing wind farms, they changed the zoning to restrict (create barriers) wind farms. It isn’t just oil refineries and nuclear plants that fall to “Not in My Backyard”.
Wasn’t just last year how the Federal government put so much support (money) behind ethanol? What happened plant construction is being stop and production is being cut back (we won’t even discuss the cost increase in corn around the world at that time).
The media may want you to feel that there is a magic bullet to save the world from man and give us all cheap clean energy. There is no magic bullet, just because people want perpetual motion does means that simple legislation will make it happen.
I am not sure that the scientific community is unanimous on the cause of the global warming. Nor am I sure that the rigor of peer review you credit the scientific community with for global warming is all that above politics, it surely isn’t true for world of academia. I do not believe that even the Nobel Prize selection process is about politics.
It seems that not so long ago the scientists were telling us that the only place to get stem cells for research was from embryos. Since then it seems there has been a great deal of success with many different stem cells, none of which have been from embryos. I am suggesting that there was a political motivation to get Federal dollars for academic research and development. You may feel that the global warming community is pure and above that, I ma not.
I do feel that even though a significant number of scientists and politicians believe that man is the sole cause of global warming and that CO2 has the greatest impact on the temperature change, that a discussion in a public forum of what are the consequences and the costs of trying to stem the temperature change is fair and appropriate. I for one believe that the earth will not be destroyed by higher temperatures (it has in the past). I feel that the balance of consequences should be an open discussion and not left to a small group of scientists.
With all the concern higher ocean levels, I would say that it has happened before based on the exposure of remnants of settlements being found with the melting of the ice in Greenland.
...says someone who has no clue about what the science actually involves and instead takes it on faith that there's a conspiracy among scientists to undermine the good science because they aren't interested in the truth, but rather are a bunch of pranksters who think nobody would bother to take a close look at their published data....
Adult stem cells can't do all that embryonic cells can do. It wasn't till recently that they were able find a way to reverse the differentiation process adult stem cells would undergo to serve a particular function such as becoming brain tissue as opposed to skin tissue. Science had to come up with a way to basically turn adult stem cells back into embryonic stem cells. It certainly wasn't a lie that adult stem cells were not sufficient for all the uses scientists had in mind for stem cells. Again, no conspiracy there... and what a pointless conspiracy that would have been...
As for Greenland and warming of the past, we're aware of that. But just because something happened in the past does not mean it'd without consequence to happen now, or that it would have the same cause or would happen in the same manner or timeframe or to the same extent. This is where the science discussion is now... trying to predict the unknowns and find the costs of various solutions versus the costs incurred without those solutions.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Hello Chris.
Sorry that I misunderstood where you were coming from. I agree with you and I think that reasons you give for global warming are legitimate.
We burn too much fossil fuel and release to much CO2 into the atmosphere. It's as simple as that.
I can't see why people think we would be able to do this without any environmental consequences.
"Then why did drastic changes in climate, both warming and cooling, occur on the planet, long before mankind ever arrived on the scence, much less the burning of fossil fuels in amounts only found after the Industrial Revolution?"
I understand that there as been dramatic climate changes in the past. It's just that it seems that our planet is heating up at such a drastic rate now.
There is no evidence that sunspots, radio waves, volcanoes or anything else other than the increase burning of fossil fuels is causing the warming of our planet.
I wasn’t commenting on stem cell research, my comment was how the politics of the issue had distorted the conversation. The way the issue was framed denigrated the potential benefit of adult stem work by stating that it was embryonic stem cells where the hope for treating spinal cord, M/D, etc. was, never in listening to the testimony and interviews was there any consideration given to adult stem cell potential. Since there was no law preventing embryonic stem cell research, the whole testimony was simply to get Federal money. You may not think that the quest for Federal dollars isn’t political and the hearts of those seeking the dollars are pure. I am skeptical of that purity based of what they said and how they acted to get that money
It sounds like you are saying that because it has happened before then it has to be different now even though they can’t explain why it happened then or why it ended then. It seems to me that we hear all too often “it is different now” and then afterward it seems it wasn’t different. I just feel we should have the discussion about what if it is the same as it was before and we (humans) don’t have the power over the world environment. Why don’t you feel we should have a discussion of what the consequence of letting things get warmer and what the cost may be? I continue to hear how CO2 and global warming will destroy the earth, any yet they never describe how it will destroy the earth? If earth has been warmer before and the world still is here, why should we believe that if gets warmer again it destroy the earth this time?
As best I recall from my history it was the ice age that destroyed life it wasn’t the warmth.
It is www.realclimate.org rather than www.realclimate.com
“I know that many people don't want "this or that" in "their backyards", but I believe if given a choice between more drilling for oil, building nuclear plants, digging for coal or manufacturing solar panels and building windmill farms, people will choose the more environmentally friendly forms of alternative energy sources.” This is counter to human nature (people best respond to what is personal and what is immediate) and what we are encouraged to do (spend, use credit, don’t save) doesn’t seem to be to sacrifice for the long-term.
“It's in the best interest of the American people and people throughout the world to find cures for the many debilitating diseases that have no cure.” It isn’t that it doesn’t have the potential, it is simply the way it was presented and expectation that we should have blind faith in the potential to the exclusion of all other considerations. Would you want a company to develop a product without consideration of all other elements and factors such as alternatives, such as consequences, such as ethics?
Why shouldn’t we encourage open consideration of alternatives, of consequences of those alternatives, public questioning of the scientists when we are spending taxpayers’ moneys?
I appreciate that the discussion has moved on from the trading in “carbon credits” and how they aren’t like the financial swaps that have gotten us in the current difficulties. But I am still struggling with the need to better understand what they are. My understanding (I am looking for corrections) is that there is a financial market that trades “carbon credits” that are based on carbon that one organization avoids releasing or even removes from the atmosphere so others can use those credits to continue to release carbon. So I operate a wind farm I can sell the credits for the carbon that I don’t release or if I plant trees I can sell those same credits, there is a market financial market the does nothing but trade those credits, and in that market there or people that buy those credits to justify their continued use of old technology and burning of fossil fuels. There is no product or service that is exchanged, it is simply selling of good practices to allow bad practices. The mortgage swaps were written to support (the good intentions) giving loans to people that couldn’t afford (bad practices).
"The way the issue was framed denigrated the potential benefit of adult stem work by stating that it was embryonic stem cells where the hope for treating spinal cord, M/D, etc. was, never in listening to the testimony and interviews was there any consideration given to adult stem cell potential."
I disagree. The issue was being framed that embryonic stem cells were unnecessary because there had been a lot of progress in treatments using adult stem cell, and that using embryonic stem cells somehow caused fetuses to be aborted. But that argument entirely ignores the fact that embryonic stem cells had their own benefits and properties that were important for the development of certain treatments that could not be replicated by adult stem cells, and the embryos that would be used in the research would simply have been discarded if not used for research.
That logic is like saying that new drugs that have been tested successfully on rats should just be released for mass public use rather than being tested higher animals and going through human clinical trials. The success in one area does not automatically negate the additional benefits and features in another area.
As for your comments on global warming, I believe some of the links I've provided above actually begin to address the questions you raise. And the effects on global warming is where the scientific focus and debate is right now. So those questions are legitimate. I don't think those questions are being ignored or that the debate isn't happening. It's just that what you'll typically find in non-scientific debates is the same polarized crap you see in political internet forums. My first link kinda describes just that.
And for carbon trading... I know of two general proposals (each with some additional variations, but they still seem to fall into the 2 categories, and are often combined as a sort of fail-safe).
One method is simply a carbon tax. That is, you tax carbon emissions. So you'll basically know the price of carbon emissions, but you won't know how much it will reduce emissions.
The 2nd method is a cap and trade. That is, allow for a certain amount of carbon emissions through carbon permits, and these permits are auctioned off. So you'll know how much carbon will be emitted, but there will be uncertainty about the price since it's set by market forces.
There's a lot more complicated economic and political detail involved. It's not as simple as it seems. But that's the gist of it.
What you've seemed to describe is the idea where polluters would be assigned credits based in part on their current carbon emissions, and then they would have to buy from fellow companies in order to release more carbon, or they could reduce carbon emissions and sell their excess carbon credits. This just seems like a bad idea. I think some people who are opposed to any taxes were pushing this version, as they wanted to keep it revenue neutral. But it makes for for a bad idea, as it seems like it'll always be an unfair giveaway to someone any way you slice it. I don't think this idea is being seriously discussed as a possible proposal. But even still in this situation, companies wouldn't continue to use old technology that releases more carbon than they have to if the better financial decision is to save on carbon credits by polluting less. But as it currently is, there is no cost on emitting carbon. Business only has to meet any regulations, but gets no benefit from further reductions.
Especially liked the logic given back to the science suppressors, like jJack Midknight et al., from you and others.
*chuckle* conspiracy ??? You can read my comments as many times as you like, and you won't see the word "conspiracy" or even the suggestion of a conspiracy.
I merely point out there is no "consensus" on the subject. I simply state the debate is not over, and the data isn't as clear cut as some of the accolytes of the faith based science of climate change preach as if it is infallible truth.
I didn't even suggest mankind has no role in what is happening. I said nothing that could leave room for discussion-- my point is easily grasped, NO ONE KNOWS ! ! ! ! !
I didn't say anyone was wrong in their beliefs, I didn't suggest they were insane for believing what they believe, and I certainly didn't attempt to suppress anything. *chuckle*
As I said before, anyone that dares to disagree with the true believers, is in for a vicious attack of vitriol, and froth fill rhetoric without reason, bereft of any meaningful defense of their faith, and implicity designed to intimidate the ostensible heretics into silence.
As always, it has been yet another reminder of the blind pack behavior so predictable in your average human being's behavior.
I thank you for the rote nature of an ongoing lesson.
Says he who claims the experts who take part in conducting peer reviews will disregard good science that is contrary to some global agenda...
"As I said before, anyone that dares to disagree with the true believers, is in for a vicious attack of vitriol, and froth fill rhetoric without reason, bereft of any meaningful defense of their faith, and implicity designed to intimidate the ostensible heretics into silence."
Maybe you should take another look and see where the vitriol and the froth filled rhetoric is coming from. There's an old saying about a pot and kettle that applies here...
I merely point out there is no "consensus" on the subject. I simply state the debate is not over, and the data isn't as clear cut as some of the accolytes of the faith based science of climate change preach as if it is infallible truth.
I didn't even suggest mankind has no role in what is happening. I said nothing that could leave room for discussion-- my point is easily grasped, NO ONE KNOWS ! ! ! ! !
I didn't say anyone was wrong in their beliefs, I didn't suggest they were insane for believing what they believe, and I certainly didn't attempt to suppress anything. *chuckle*
I said nothing about scientists disregarding "good science" either. I said they disregard anyone that disagrees with them, and ridicule them in the process.
I didn't call you, or anyone else an asshole, or stupid, or any other derogatory name.
Tell me, what is it you believe I should see with a second look ???
What is it you believe I have missed???
You don’t believe that money was the issue in the embryonic stem cell campaign and it was a purely academic quest for government approval of unrestrained use of embryos.
In one of your links I read how to respond to a question about historic warming by placing the burden on the questioner about what was their theory of those events. I was surprised that they didn’t include the real cause and why it didn’t apply now. The method seemed classic politician, when you don’t have the answer put the burden of prove on the one raising the question.
Since I am not a scientist, I am look for rationales/logic that can describe historic events and related them to today’s experiences and project how they will apply in the future, I am trouble when questions I have are avoided.
It will take time ( I am a slow reader) but I will work on the RealClimate.org articles, and see what I can glean from them.
I wish you could have or would have answer some of my questions, as I said I am trying to think through the issue as a layman and wish the reasoning could be put at my level of thinking and in not the hype of the Nobel Lauriat.
"I didn't even suggest mankind has no role in what is happening. I said nothing that could leave room for discussion-- my point is easily grasped, NO ONE KNOWS ! ! ! ! !"
No one knows yet, but I'd rather be proactive when it comes to the warming of our planet and find out what we as humans can do to prevent irreversible damage to our environment.
I agree with you that we should take a second look. That is why I'm happy with Barack Obama's decision to let the scientific community play a larger role in his administration.
"It will take time ( I am a slow reader) but I will work on the RealClimate.org articles, and see what I can glean from them."
I'm doing the same thing. There's a lot of information to dissect.
Second is the fact that oil drilling that takes place is not going to be wasted as there are uses for oil that will continue for the next fifty years and the foreseeable future. Those new wells will not go to waste! The lack of domestic energy threatens or potentially threatens, our security both militarily and economically! The use of alternative fuels and the conservation of energy both can play a role in the responsible acquisition and use of energy. We are not going to convert to alternative energy overnight or in the next ten or even twenty, years. Oil is going to be the primary source of transportation energy for a long time, like it or not. At least according to those who are in a position and should know! But the more we can diminish the consumption of oil and enhance the production of oil, the better positioned we will be, as a nation.
Whether this warming is man made or natural, I'm not at all sure we can do much about it without catastrophic negative effects. But I am sure in my own mind that we have the need, and have an obligation to try, as the current stewards of this situation.
These factors need fair consideration in conjunction with the science involved. I believe that they will get that consideration from Obama's management!
That is why I choose to error on the side of caution as we work towards getting to the bottom of the issue of global warming.
I'm aware that we won't be able to begin using alternative energy sources overnight, however we should be doing our best to ween ourselves off of using fossil fuels.
"Whether this warming is man made or natural, I'm not at all sure we can do much about it without catastrophic negative effects. But I am sure in my own mind that we have the need, and have an obligation to try, as the current stewards of this situation."
I couldn't have said it any better. We have an obligation to take care of our planet.
Lloyd
1. Is there benefit to becoming better stewards of the planet
2. Would controlling/curtailing the negative externalities of our civilization support that stewardship?
3. Do we have the ability to do something?
Put more simply: Is it worth it to reduce our foot print? Can we do it? If the answer to the first is yes, then the second is foregone.
The fact is, we live on the only known true space ship with a limited, recycling water and food supply, but with a limited and precious cargo and we crew members are insanely organized into competing factions of nations and states. What's available to us is getting that we're all in this together and then acting collectively from that place, rather than treating our "ship" as a zero-sum game token due to the last one standing.
That's why I personally choose to error on the side of caution.
I can deal with it if it doesn't exist, but what in the Hell am I going to do if it's real.
Heaven help us all.
It is very relevant if this is the case. If we are contributing to the warming of our planet, then we can do things to reverse this trend.
Reducing our carbon footprint may be costly at first, but it's in our best interest to do it. We can't let this decision be influenced by the financial impact it may have at this time.
If we make those decisions based on costs alone, the consequences of our inaction could prove devastating.
I agree with much of what you say. Personally I am not motivated by what I leave following generations. It starts with the immediate responsibilities of simply not being wasteful.
The responsibilities to succeeding generations should be to provide them with the tools to face life whatever it is. Simply giving them a pristine planet doesn’t help them to preserve or improve it. Many people we disagree, but we have given them more than we were given, science, technology, health care, abundance of food, so much that being efficient is a luxury we can take advantage of and they should build on. The ability to worry about clean air and alternative energies is a luxury that is only now occurring in the developed world. AS an example China was exclude from the Kyoto agreement because it was felt they were too underdeveloped and yet today they are at the top of those doing what that agreement was to address.
I am not against curtailing the use of fossil fuels, I feel their use as an energy source has out lasted the benefits of its convenience. I strongly believe that fossil fuels have far greater value in their chemical traits from being polymerized to forming new compounds such as in medicines.
I would like the discussion of what are the consequences of global warming and how are they balanced by the efforts to reverse that trend, or the consequences of global cooling. The oceans rise and people are displaced, there have been massive migration of peoples in our history. They were disruptive but didn’t end civilization so maybe managing the migration may be a more effective approach. Is the extreme of this warming another mini ice age and could that have a far greater devastation than the warming on civilization? It surely did that last time it happened.
As hopeful as I am that you are right about Obama, my skepticism of career politicians tempers it.
Thank you for bring a fresh vie to the discussion.
I truly believe if we had a description of a livable planet, the discussion would be less confrontational about the cause of global warming and more focused on what and how we should address the livability.
“That is why I choose to error on the side of caution as we work towards getting to the bottom of the issue of global warming.” The cost of trying to find and change what is causing global warming maybe far more expensive and does less to affect the impact of the warming than helping civilization adapt to the new climate. That is what I would like to see discussed.
There are many examples in life that the current can be worse than problem, so simply trying to solve a problem is always the most effective answer.
The most daunting challenge is getting anyone that believes man has to be the cause is that they aren’t willing to even consider what we are trying to save and what would be the best way to do it.
I can assure you global warming will not destroy the earth, it never has. It may severely affect the livability, but we can’t agree on that until we have the description of what we are trying to avoid (what is the illness).
I am glad you have joined the conversation, you bring a fresh view which is good.
I was first introduce the term sustainability over 20 years ago, in was by the management of the company I worked for. It was presented on creating a positive foot print in our society, with our products and services, by reducing our negative impact on the environment. They re-enforced by developing measures in those areas, setting goals, and establishing consequences (both positive and negative around those goals). That is the way I look at your first question and it gives answers to your other two questions.
Many try to make this discussion and either-or. I think they are wrong and it gets to you spaceship analogy. If we can discuss where we want to get to, we have a much better chance of envisioning a goal together. Once we have the goal then we can discuss how to get there. Currently it seems there are no discussion on the goal and only an ultimatum on what to do.
It doesn't matter if mankind has a role in the ostensible warming of the planet???
Wow, that's a whole new argument I haven't heard before. I mean, it seems to me the ENTIRE JUSTIFICATION for "doing something" is DIRECTLY related to the idea we caused the problem, so we have to fix it.
I would suggest that IF-- and no one knows for sure, but IF mankind is NOT playing a detrimental role, IF mankind's burning of fossil fuels is NOT heating the planet in such a way as to cause UNNATURAL activity, then it MUST be a naturally occurring cycle of atmospheric patterns.
Unless one is suggesting this particular warming cycle is UNPRECEDENTED in the history of the planet, then there are only the two options laid out above. Either we are causing it, or it is a natural occurrence.
If it is a natural occurrence, why would anything need to be done???
The only logical reason for anyone to be suggesting "something needs to be done," is IF-- if we are the cause, AND --- PARTICULARLY AND--- IF we can do something about it.
No one can prove mankind is to blame, and no one can offer a "solution" even if we are the culprits.
The idea human beings could somehow control "mother nature" is simply absurd, IN THE EXTREME. I'm not talking about destroying mother nature, of course, if the Chicken Little's of the world are correct, we could conceivably, without consciously knowing it, degrade the atmosphere.
But actually knowing how to PURPOSELY MANIPULATE the same dynamic, unpredictable system ???
That's a horse of an entirely different color altogether.
"I can assure you global warming will not destroy the earth, it never has. It may severely affect the livability, but we can’t agree on that until we have the description of what we are trying to avoid (what is the illness)."
I agree that global warming will not destroy the earth, but it show can make living on earth a living Hell. That is why I feel we have to be pro-active in regards to doing the things we can do to avoid damaging our environment.
Our choice is to keep doing what we are doing and let Mother Nature react to it with higher temperatures, wild weather swings and increased flooding or we can do our best to avoid these scenarios.
I believe that trying to avoid these scenarios is our best bet and will provide a more livable environment for us and future generations.
Why keep trying to hold back the flood? Why not help people move to higher ground?
As an analogy: Consider how much has been spent protecting New Orleans from nature, why couldn't we have at least discussed moving New Orleans or planned for a smaller New Orleans and manage the area better?
Maybe man isn't all powerful and controlling the global environment is only happens in the movies.
If man is not the cause, then maybe man cannot stop nature. Maybe we should be willing to discuss what can be done to make living in the new nature better. Why not discuss what is livable and how that can be done in the future.
As best I can recall species died out during the ice age and they flourished during the warming cycles.
Why not discuss it before going headlong and throwing all resources at a problem that we may not be able to solve?
There is a market in the "carbon credit" swapping. You can trade in the "carbon creidts" through Barclays Ipath Global Carbon ETN (GRN) you can also get into to the trading in "carbon credits" through CAMCO GLobaal (CAO) and ECOSECUToties (ECO).THese were developed with the support of the World Bank, governments of Canda, FInland, Japan, thwe Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, BP, Deutshce BAnk and so on. This is from an article "Doing Well by Cleaning the Air" by Marc Gunther in the November 10, 2008 Fortune magazine.
It sure has all the smell of "swaps".