In the continuing controversy over climate change it is difficult to sort out the validity of conflicting reports. Here, for example, is a Financial Post column by Lawrence Solomon, “Not Easy Being Green.” According to Solomon:
Arctic ice has made a comeback, advancing so rapidly that the previous decade saw less ice at this time of the year than exists today. And previously balmy Arctic temperatures just nose-dived, according to the Danish Meteorological Institute, which has tracked Arctic temperatures since 1958.
Alarmists shudder when looking south, too, at the stats from Antarctica. There the sea ice extent started growing early this year, and the ice cover remains stubbornly above average. All told, the global sea ice — including both polar caps — now exceeds the average recorded since 1979, when satellites began their measurements.
But then we read this from Emily E. Adams, “Where Has All the Ice Gone?” Here’s Adams:
In September 2012, sea ice in the Arctic Ocean shrank to a record low extent and volume. The region has warmed 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since the 1960s—twice as much as lower latitudes. With less snow and ice to reflect the sun’s rays and with more exposed ocean to absorb heat, a vicious cycle leads to even warmer temperatures. Thinner ice combined with rising temperatures makes it increasingly difficult for the sea ice to recover. The historically ever-present white cap at the top of the globe could disappear entirely during the summer within two decades. . . .
While Greenland’s ice loss is astonishing, on the other side of the globe, parts of Antarctica’s vast ice sheet may be even less stable. The continent is flanked by 54 major ice shelves, which act as brakes slowing the movement of ice in land-based glaciers out to sea. Twenty of them show signs of thinning and weakening, which translates into accelerated ice loss. After the 3,250-square-kilometer Larsen B Ice Shelf collapsed in 2002, for instance, the glaciers it was bracing flowed up to eight times faster than before. The most dramatic thinning is in West Antarctica.
Which is right? Obviously they cannot both be. The two reports are separated by only a week, yet their respective accounts as to what is happening to the polar ice caps could not be more divergent. As a complete layman in the field, I am incompetent to judge the veracity of the two reports, which I am certain is true of most other readers as well.
However, in the absence of certainty on the issue, our political leaders must still make policies while weighing in the balance the various conflicting considerations at stake. The balance will never be perfect, of course, but in general it seems to me that, even if anthropogenic global warming is not occurring, we still have an obligation to pursue policies to protect our physical environment, both for the sake of future generations and in recognition of our responsibility before God for his creation. We may not be able to settle the debate, but it seems wise to err on the side of caution and of minimizing the environmental risks to our descendants.
March 12th, 2013 | 11:47 am
What side is the side of caution? Is reduction of CO2 an appropriate response to this situation that you can’t figure out, or is CO2 actually the sort of thing you want more of?
Here is my bet- whatever the government does is likely to be wrong. They bet on the wrong things. Solyndra. Do you know how long fuel cell technology has been the next big thing, just coming around the corner? And what about nuclear power? Not just the big government mandate nuclear plants that are legally allowed to leave spent fuel rods laying about in ponds, but the industry that would have created small and much safer nuclear reactors if it had not been suppressed.
What you are expressing does little more than give you a momentary sense of satisfaction. “Look,” you say, “Gaze upon my most holy reasonableness.” Bull. This is a total abdication of responsibility to the truth. If you don’t understand the situation, go here: http://bishophill.squarespace.com/
Learn the truth. You don’t even need the science. All you need is the record of lies. It is not reasonable to follow their advice, even with regard to what is or is not an environmental risk.
March 12th, 2013 | 12:15 pm
David, go to the data: https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/longterm. Solomon assumes you’re too stupid to fact check. What he’s trying to pass off as recovery is the difference between summer minimum ice and winter maximum ice. That has been trending up. Of course! Because summer minimum area/extent is dropping like a rock, and winter max has always been limited by land, so it stays roughly the same each year. Volume, however, is another story. Since 1979, summer minimum volume has dropped 80%, and winter max volume has dropped about 33%.
March 12th, 2013 | 12:21 pm
One more comment on Arctic temp. Solomon claims that Arctic temp just nosedived. Gasp! Go to the DMI website to see what he’s telling you and not telling you: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php. You’ll be looking at 2013 (see the nosedive?). Click on 2012. Yah. For a longer-range view, look at Kaufmann et al. (2009): http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/kaufman2009/kaufman2009.html.
March 12th, 2013 | 12:42 pm
Surely we can do better than throw up our hands in the air as if there is no way to assess the validity of the two positions.
First of all, both texts can be right and likely are right — the differences largely stem from what one chooses to report, and how one chooses to report it. Look at this graph of Arctic Sea ice: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png. Adams is correct that ice was at record lows in September 2012 (although “record”only refers to the last few decades) and I am correct that the ice has since made a comeback.
Both sides in this debate want to protect the physical environment. But the course that the global warming alarmists promote has led to the flooding of river valleys for uneconomic dams, the conversion of foodlands into fuel lands for ethanol production, and the replacement of old growth forests with trees deemed more efficient at taking carbon out of the air.
In the end, we must insist on the truth — there is no shortcut in finding the right path to pursue in the global warming controversy.
March 12th, 2013 | 12:55 pm
Well said. If fossil fuels are the only hope of a good life, should we not leave some for our children to enjoy by using renewable energy when we can? To say nothing of pollution. As someone wiser than me said, if we switch to renewable energy and find out the climate wasn’t warming, we’ll have made the world a better place for nothing.
Anyway, as for the ice, you have to watch out for extent versus total volume. Sometimes a strong wind over the ocean will create a large but shallow extent.
March 12th, 2013 | 12:57 pm
From Wikipedia:
“Lawrence Solomon is… the founder and executive director of Energy Probe”
“Energy Probe is… a subsidized free-market lobbyist for fossil fuels”
From Linkedin and Wikipedia:
Emily E. Adams is a “Staff Researcher at Earth Policy Institute”
“Earth Policy Institute is a neoliberal environmental organization”
Weigh accordingly.
If climate change is not occurring, we don’t need to pursue policies that limit greenhouse gases. If you’re unsure, do you err on the side of limiting climate change or promoting economic growth (poverty reduction)?
There’s no avoiding it. Our policies have to be guided by who’s right.
March 12th, 2013 | 1:29 pm
There really is no confusion here, other than that sewn by denialist. Any of these bigger questions can be answered pretty easily. The best rule of thumb is to look for information on websites, not in the business and the political media, but rather on the sites of the scientific organizations whose job it is to collect and interpret such data.
As soon as you do, you’ll find such simplifying facts as, the Met Office/Hadley Center, never said that there has been no global warming recently. That sort of thing comes from shills in the Daily Mail. Instead, what you’ll find, at NOAA, NASA, etc., are clear explanations that sometimes warmer overall air means more moisture and more snow. Some glaciers, at just the right elevation and in the path of moist air, will grow remarkably – even though ninety plus percent of them are wasting away rather dramatically.
In general, global warming does not mean a warm park-like climate. It means more wet snow in New England, A dryer hotter climate in the mid west (where we grow our food.), and more frequent large floods in the upper mid west (where we also grow food.).
First, you can’t make a mistake as to what short term temperature fluctuations mean. The temperature over the north pole took a dive… in February… How shocking. No serious paper ever suggested that we would stop seeing winter. This kind of obfuscation is about as convincing as people who look at the paleoclimate record, and scream that the earth has always changed; but, never seem to realize how obvious the hypocrisy of that is, when it is the very people who study our climate history, and who spend their lives researching these very points, who are also telling us that this time is different, happening very rapidly, and will this time effect us.
And, it is. Now for the ice:
The increase in arctic Sea Ice is very…
March 12th, 2013 | 2:26 pm
I would argue why bother paying attention to this at all? For the average reader, they will have little to nothing to do with solving global warming, if it even exists. All the solutions will be systematic and need to be imposed from the top down or built into technology. This is not something most people can accomplish, and the case must be made to others with the power to do so.
If anything, we seem to be more concerned with the possibilty of GW solely because we can’t realistically solve it and it demands no effort from the average person. The big issues take our focus, while our own home towns crumble from neglect. Such is human nature, I guess.
March 12th, 2013 | 2:28 pm
So Lawrence Solomon responds and admits he was talking about ice coming back for the winter and that Adams is right. I guess that settles it.
March 12th, 2013 | 2:54 pm
As we’ve explained before, we cannot allow multiple-part comments or comments over approximately 300 words. That is why some comments on this thread have not been posted.
March 12th, 2013 | 2:55 pm
The problem, David, is that the Scientific Establishment, by appealing for lots and lots of money from the Political Establisment, and receiving it, has become compromised in the eyes of us ordinary folk. They staked alarmist claims of the earth overheating, utilizing the same bogeyman, air pollution, that they gave us 40 years ago for why a new Ice Age was upon us. With their fear-mongering they established new pipelines for taxpayer money to fund their “fight against this catastrophe” and they are understandably loathe to see this cut off. When they were asked some pointed scientific questions (by other scientists) the response was generally to say “the discussion’s over” and dismiss these as flat-earthers. These are also the same people who continue to tell us the world is overpopulated, people are pollution and we need stop the birth of third world children. I have enough truth now to withold “erring on the side of caution”. But I’m willing to listen if they have any more facts, not PR.
March 12th, 2013 | 3:25 pm
The goal of science is to continually become less wrong, and the track record of science in this regard is good. Today the vast majority of practicing climate scientists agree that the climate is warming and that at the very least human activity is a contributor.
I am not a scientist, but find it difficult to believe that a human population that has exploded to seven billion by consuming fossilized energy is a benign influence.
I also agree with the late George Carlin that it is not the world, or nature that we need to worry out, but ourselves and our societies. Until our sun turns Earth into a cinder, the planet will continue to do just fine, with or without us. We will probably do OK if our activities do not trigger the kind of tipping point that shatters our societies.
March 12th, 2013 | 3:29 pm
John cites Wikipedia to the effect that “Energy Probe is… a subsidized free-market lobbyist for fossil fuels.”
Wikipedia’s source for that comment, which he may have missed, is a thread from the Canadian nuclear industry, which Energy Probe has long opposed, and whose expansion it has ended. The nuclear industry assumed, wrongly, that we were funded by the oil industry.
In fact, Energy Probe is one of Canada’s oldest environmental organizations, the chief critic in Canada of the energy industry for some 40 years, and a registered charity. Apart from opposing nuclear power, we have historically opposed tar sands and other energy megaprojects, and been successful in helping to stop many of them, and to clean up the industry. Because of environmental pressure, the fossil fuel industry has enormously cleaned up its act to become relatively benign — something environmentalists should take pride in.
Energy Probe receives no grants from the fossil fuel industry (and almost no grants from any corporation or government, for that matter).
Although we have been Canada’s chief proponents of renewables, we oppose industrial wind farms — these mega-scale renewables have become an environmental monster.
March 12th, 2013 | 3:57 pm
I definitely agree that we should err on the side of caution, however, I have never seen a policy that actually makes a difference. By making a difference, I mean a policy that would actually make the earth cooler.
We could stop using all cars, and greenhouse gas emissions (if those are truly the cause of global warming) would not be impacted enough to make a difference. We could stop breeding all cows, but this still wouldn’t be enough to make a difference. And, realistically we know that these measures are too drastic to achieve political acceptance.
Given that we have no strategy to actually make a real difference and the political unacceptability of these drastic measures if they could be proven to be prudent, if global warming is occurring, we need to figure out how best to cope with its impact. It seems to me that technological advancement and economic growth is the only way to deal with climate change.
March 12th, 2013 | 4:35 pm
Or as George Will has put it, how much are we willing to spend to have no effect on global warming?
March 12th, 2013 | 4:52 pm
I’m a skeptic but I think the first extract is a little misleading as it suggests that arctic sea ice extent in February 2013 was higher than February extent in the last 10 years (“past decade”). It could also be interpreted as higher than some Februaries in the past decade which would be true.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2013/03/Figure3.png
It’s right in saying that Antractic sea ice extent is well above average, however, a point that alarmists like to gloss over, and that has been on an incline since records began
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/s_plot_hires.png
It’s also a fact that the global surface temperature has cooled for 11 years now:-
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2002/plot/wti/from:2002/trend
whereas CO2 levels continue to climb in a nice steady fashion:-
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:2002
Changes in global temperature can not be predicted. Nobody knows if the world will be cooler, warmer or the same in 10 years time despite what environmental activists masquerading as scientists like to claim.
March 12th, 2013 | 8:24 pm
What about the idea, which I have heard recently, that we are overdue for an ice age and that possibly it is man-made warming that is keeping such an event at bay. Ice age, warming …I choose warming. So what is the side of caution then?
March 12th, 2013 | 9:24 pm
Don’t believe anything. Just look at the facts. Is it currently warming as the theory predicted? That’s all you need ask. Did the theory predict what happened or did it fail to predict the lack of warming this last 16 years?
Belief doesn’t come into it.
March 13th, 2013 | 12:13 am
Climate change denialism, like other conspiracy theories, contains kernels of truth but they’re so easily refutable if you bother to look at the contexts. E.g., global temperature dropped from 1998 to 2012. Global warming debunked, right? Now look at the graph. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
Fred, you can say the same thing about pretty much anything you do. No one country can halt climate change. But every country doing its part can.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact