Study: Northeast winters warming fast

[Chip]

. And with the change in administrations, it looks like the U.S. will begin to take an active role on this issue.

Read that second article linked above. The debate is less political and more regional currently.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Read that second article linked above. The debate is less political and more regional currently.

This thread remains relevant to hiking in the Northeast and lives on, along with "More New England Mountain Lion Rumors."

I think that the debate is indeed regional, but also remains political, albeit non-partisan (i.e., many politicians continue to ignore the science). On the same day that the three articles appeared in the WSJ, this one by Andrew Revkin, science writer for the NYT since 1995, appeared:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?_r=1


I am not necessarily lauding Revkin and the NYT, as they are as responsible as anyone for "manufactroversy," that is reporting that the science is unsettled when it is anything but. Until very recently, the mainstream media have been providing energy companies equal time for their disinformation campaigns, despite the climate science community having been largely in agreement about the link between carbon emissions and global temperature rise since NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen reported to Congress in June 1988.

Check out this documentary on NPR about Mark Bowen’s book “Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming,” which tells the story.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17926941


See page 12 of the following article that includes the infamous ExxonMobil "unsettled science" advertisement published as full page on 23 March 2000 in the NYT (funny that this ad can no longer be found on-line in either the NYT or ExxonMobil archives, but thankfully there are still a few hard copy archives around).

http://www.campaignexxonmobil.org/pdf/RiskingValue.pdf


I think that the global warming "manufactroversy" is similar to that created by the mainstream media when they provided the tobacco industry equal time for many decades when the science was overwhelmingly clear on the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.

http://www.exxposeexxon.com/facts/Smoke-and-Mirrors.pdf

Will be interesting to see if lawyers can bring class action suits against the energy companies the way that they did against the tobacco industry, especially given the present state of the global economy.

 

[Chip]

Natural Gas looks like part of the answer

Purists won't prefer it, but it's available, domestic and is much cleaner than current coal burning tech. T.Boone might know what he's talking about, afterall.

I think it's great (productive) to see a shift away from "the debate" to exploration of current, viable, economically feasible and domestically available solutions to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

In an attempt to catch up with "more New England mountain lion rumors" (over 12,000 views), here are a couple of recent articles of relevance to this thread.

The second was published in this week's Science, from a talk that I heard this past December at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/gre...mate_change_bill_could_end_regional_alliance/

http://www.boston.com/news/science/...rming_study_sees_smaller_shift_in_sea_levels/

 

[Barkingcat]

Will be interesting to see if lawyers can bring class action suits against the energy companies the way that they did against the tobacco industry, especially given the present state of the global economy.

Now that could be interesting to watch.

 

[Chip]

"Cool Roof" a simple solution or too good to be true ?

Lots of little things like this could add up, or not, I don't know.
Study could have been funded by roofing material suppliers, for all I know;

http://www.knowledgehound.com/khhow2s/cool_roofs.htm

 

[Stash]

Will be interesting to see if lawyers can bring class action suits against the energy companies the way that they did against the tobacco industry, especially given the present state of the global economy.

Maybe interesting for the lawyers. Going after an industry that is arguably killing people with zero benefit is one thing. Let the lawyers make their money on the evil empire. Both are still in existence making money hand over fist.

Going after an industry that, while its management has many flaws, provides a service to society that society can't realistically go without will do what? Divert funds to fight the law suits that might have gone to R&D. Funds that will no doubt be recouped by raising energy prices. Who benefits from that in the long run? The lawyers who will now have the money to buy the big houses that will burn more fuel to keep them warm.

 

[brianW]

Saw this on the news yesterday, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5389278/Obamas-green-guru-calls-for-white-roofs.html

My first reaction was "see it wasn't the emmissions the whole time it was the roof color" Makes sense to me.

My opinion on global warming, not human caused, may be different then most. However I do believe we need to protect our environment and keep it clean. Doesn't it make sense to do everything possible to conserve energy, use sources of clean energy (wind, solar, nuclear etc) as much as possible.

If we did this wouldn't emmissions go down and we would have a cleaner Earth? If global warming was caused be humans wouldn't this also slow or stop it? Makes sense to me.

On the flip side. We as the US/Canada/Europe can do all thes things but if India/China/third world countries do not, will it really matter?

I read recently (The Skeptical Environmentalist)that if you had a 300 mile square area of solar pannels at the equator it would produce enough energy fo all humans on the Earth. how many square miles of roof tops do we have? How many small dams does the northest have that do not produce energy? Tap into these sources. Enough energy fo one or two houses here, a town there...... All these little things would add up fast.

 

[DougPaul]

A study on the belief that humans are a significant cause of global warming: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_3_118/ai_n31587143/

Those who believe that humans are a significant cause:
* <60% of Americans
* <50% of Americans think scientists agree
* 85% of Earth scientists
* 97% of well-published climate experts.

This says something about poor scientific literacy in this country and poor communication between the experts and the population at large... (And maybe the effects of commercial FUD.)

Doug

 

[Barbarossa]

A study on the belief that humans are a significant cause of global warming: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_3_118/ai_n31587143/

Those who believe that humans are a significant cause:
* 60% of Americans
* <50% of Americans think scientists agree
* 85% of Earth scientists
* 97% of well-published climate experts.

This says something about poor scientific literacy in this country and poor communication between the experts and the population at large... (And maybe the effects of commercial FUD.)

Doug

Wow, Doug, this is more than a little bit insulting. Suggesting that those who disagree with your conclusion are likely swayed by advertising is quite condescending.

* Fear -- Global warming could kill us all.
* Uncertainty
* Doubt

Whoops, wrong side of the argument. I find as I get older, that nearly everything contains an element of uncertainty.

When someone comes along with a fairly new concept, based on which we should all radically change our lives (NOW!!!), this gives me pause. When asking tough questions, like, 'How did we manage to cool into the Little Ice Age after Medieval Warm Period?', typical responses range from insult to hysteria. When noting that the Medieval Warm Period, when the earth was warmer than it is now, came about without industrialization or mass consumption of fossil fuels, I become skeptical, without the help of an ad agency.

BTW, what is the propaganda technique you are using called? The '4 out of 5 dentists, 97% of climatologists (well-published ones, at least) believe, so you should to' technique? Appeal to authority? I'm uncertain.

I don't give a rat's tail what the cool kids think about climate, I'll continue to examine the issue for myself.

 

[cushetunk]

I don't give a rat's tail what the cool kids think about climate, I'll continue to examine the issue for myself.

When we want legal advice, we go to lawyers. When we want medical advice, we go to doctors. When we want our car repaired, we go to the mechanic. When we want to fix the hot water or the lights, we go to the plumber or the electrician. When we want hiking advice, we go to those with the most green squares.*

When we want to understand the relationship between carbon dioxide concentrations and our climate... we go with our instincts.




(*Just barely, I'm on topic. I should know better than to have gone anywhere near this discussion.)

 

[Barbarossa]

When we want to understand the relationship between carbon dioxide concentrations and our climate... we go with our instincts.

Informed decisions are best. Don't doctors encourage patients to seek a second opinion? Just don't do that with an auto mechanic; they never make mistakes


You can trust me. I'm an expert.

 

[TrishandAlex]

A study on the belief that humans are a significant cause of global warming: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_3_118/ai_n31587143/

Those who believe that humans are a significant cause:
* 60% of Americans
* <50% of Americans think scientists agree
* 85% of Earth scientists
* 97% of well-published climate experts.

This says something about poor scientific literacy in this country and poor communication between the experts and the population at large... (And maybe the effects of commercial FUD.)

Doug

ITA, Doug.

 

[TrishandAlex]

Informed decisions are best. Don't doctors encourage patients to seek a second opinion? Just don't do that with an auto mechanic; they never make mistakes


You can trust me. I'm an expert.

Agreed - informed decisions are best. Anyone really wanting to make an informed decision can look at the vast quantities of replicated data published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

A website to start, it's only a beginning.
http://www.ipcc.ch/

And I DO trust experts if they have independently replicated results to back up their claims.

 

[Stash]

When we want to understand the relationship between carbon dioxide concentrations and our climate... we go with our instincts.

Instincts and researching on one's own are two different things. I've read enough to do much of my own electrical, plumbing and auto repair over the years. I also did some reading and found that found that the hip problem I was having was more related to the herniated disk I had than the bursitis diagnosed by the first doctor I went to. While listening to educated opinions is worthwhile blind trust simply because “they’re the experts”, without fully understanding why they're saying what they're saying, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

When asking tough questions, like, 'How did we manage to cool into the Little Ice Age after Medieval Warm Period?', typical responses range from insult to hysteria. When noting that the Medieval Warm Period, when the earth was warmer than it is now, came about without industrialization or mass consumption of fossil fuels, I become skeptical, without the help of an ad agency.

The Earth was not warmer than now during the Medieval Warm Period, although the MWP was somewhat warmer than the Little Ice Age because of the orbitally-forced cooling that has occurred over the course of the Holocene interglacial (the past 12,000 years) and all of the previous 20+ interglacials during the past two million years or so. The manner in which the LIA (some think that the LIA was the beginning of the next glacial) was terminated is unique for such cooling events, with human-induced greenhouse gases believed to be the smoking gun. The link below, from a climate and vegetation modeler at Oregon State University, does a good job describing the science of global warming as of 2005 for the layperson; since then the Fourth Assessment of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) has reinforced this general view. Nothing "from insult to hysteria" here, just the best science available.

http://home.iprimus.com.au/nielsens/medieval.html

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

On the flip side. We as the US/Canada/Europe can do all thes things but if India/China/third world countries do not, will it really matter?

I have a real problem with this point of view, as we in the West are the ones responsible for injecting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to ramp up our standard of living over the rest of the world the past 150 years or so. Carbon dioxide, in particular, has a residence time in the atmosphere of about a 100 years. In my view, because we have subjected the entire world to our past misdeeds in atmospheric pollution, it is now our duty to take the lead in fixing the problem. If we lead, the others, including India, China, and the Third World, will follow, if only because they have the most to lose if they do not (see the article at this link).

http://www.ghf-ge.org/programmes/human_impact_report/index.cfm

 

[TCD]

Is there any credible guess as to how the MWP originated?

And, I would point out that we cannot predict the behavior of other countries. If we lead, China MIGHT follow. Or, they might laugh, and use our "leadership" to further their economic gains.

 

[Little Rickie]

Things are changing, we have a big and an ever growing impact on nature. We can only cange our behavior, the only thing we can control, to be more responsible with our limited resources.

It seems only prudent and in our best interests to try. Arguing until the stars fall out of the sky doesn't fix a thing. We know we do some dumb things concerning the enviroment, lets start with fixing them.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Is there any credible guess as to how the MWP originated?

And, I would point out that we cannot predict the behavior of other countries. If we lead, China MIGHT follow. Or, they might laugh, and use our "leadership" to further their economic gains.

If you look at the climate curves in Ron Nielsen's article (he has simply copied the climate curves from peer-reviewed science papers), you can see that there are lots of sub-millennial-scale coolings and warmings over the past couple thousand years, which are superposed upon the general orbitally-forced cooling of the past 12,000 years (I will look for another link with a graph that shows climate trends on longer time scales). We still do not know what forced these sub-millennial-scale natural climate changes, but they are probably caused by some combination of variability in solar irradiance, volcanic activity, and thermohaline circulation in the oceans.

China and India are already far ahead of us in pioneering green technologies, so I think that if the U.S. signs onto whatever global climate protocol replaces Kyoto this coming December in Copenhagen, the others will follow. If Rep. Joe Barton (Texas) and Sen. James Inhofe (Oklahoma) prevail in keeping the status quo in Congress, I think that the globe in screwed. But, there is hope (see second link).

http://unfccc.int/2860.php

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/05/inhofe-black-carbon-bill