Once again, we are hearing that “unless we act within ten years,” we’re all doomed from global warming. Of course, that was first said nearly ten years ago, but never mind. Being a global warming hysteric means never having to say you are sorry. (Although Al Gore did just apologize for pushing ethanol subsidies as a cure for warming. But then, he was running for POTUS, and so different rules applied to him–as they always do.)
Now, a global warming expert says we MUST STOP ALL GROWTH!!!!! From the story:
In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years. This would mean a drastic change in lifestyles for many people in countries like Britain as everyone will have to buy less ‘carbon intensive’ goods and services such as long haul flights and fuel hungry cars. Prof Anderson admitted it “would not be easy” to persuade people to reduce their consumption of goods He said politicians should consider a rationing system similar to the one introduced during the last “time of crisis” in the 1930s and 40s.
He then says such a Draconian imposition would barely cause an inconvenience. Ha! Can we spell d.e.p.r.e.s.s.i.o.n?
And that, my SHS friends, is why I call it global warming hysteria.
November 30th, 2010 | 12:35 pm
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November 30th, 2010 | 2:30 pm
The thing is, I’m not sure that would be all that bad of an idea.
The ability to cheaply fly is a great benefit, but it also has caused families to be spread across entire nations and lose contact with each other. The car culture in the USA has resulted in unlivable suburbs and massive commutes. Cheap goods are fine, but they also have destroyed local economies. The trend towards increased production seems to have an aftereffect of destroying communities and social norms.
I agree its stupid to use climate change as a pretext to make draconian changes, but I’m starting to wonder if that kind of sacrifice is as evil as people make it out to be. It might be that lessening production might give us all a richer life in other ways.
November 30th, 2010 | 2:50 pm
There’s an alternative perspective few are admitting to.
It’s too late to effectively correct global warming. It is inevitable that the coasts will be under water in 100 years, flooding will occur due to increased moisture content, disturbed ecosystems will cause water distribution issues, and agriculture will suffer as plant growth seasons have changed* – this will lead to famine. [It will hit poor nations the hardest - given current economic trends and the shrinking middle class coupled to a consumer economy, it is debatable if the US will be a rich nation in 100 years.] Granted, many of us will be dead by then.
Privately, many scientists are admitting this. Publicly, I have not encountered many admitting that it is too late.
If politicians acknowledge that it is too late -then they admit to failure or the necessity for drastic action, which voters don’t want. Their approach is to either “keep up the good fight” however unproductive, or adhere to denialism.
Just be honest, though. There is no need for denialism. Futile politics achieves the same outcome.
*data and evidence supporting plant claim:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17478009
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16832654
November 30th, 2010 | 3:18 pm
I wonder if ecomomic growth was stopped in the misguided belief that ecomomic growth was going to cause the planet to overheat.
The factors that resulted in the 20th century global temperature run-up have been discovered. The contribution of atmospheric carbon dioxide is between small and insignificant. The time-integral of sunspot numbers and effective sea surface temperature are the main contributors.
A simple equation, with inputs of accepted measurements from government agencies, calculates the average global temperatures since 1895 with 88% accuracy (87.6% if CO2 is assumed to have no influence). See the equation, an eye-opening graph of the results and how they are derived in the pdfs at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true (see especially the pdfs made public on 4/10/10 and 6/27/10).
The future average global temperature trend that this equation calculates is down.
November 30th, 2010 | 3:28 pm
Perhaps one day George W. and Cheney will admit their $1 trillion mistake (Iraq) and their $10 trillion mistake (tax cuts), but I wouldn’t count on it.
So Mr. Gore admitted supporting ethanol subsidies for primarily political reasons was a mistake. The horror.
You typed: “Once again, we are hearing that “unless we act within ten years,” we’re all doomed from global warming. Of course, that was first said nearly ten years ago, but never mind.”
Wes, I really that obtuse or are you playing your readers for suckers? When it was said we had 10 yrs, it wasn’t meant as “until the Earth melted”. If we had acted seriously 10 yrs ago we would be well on our way to keeping the temp increase below 2C (very uncomfortable consequences). It’s now ten yrs later and we are discussing keeping the temp rise to 4C (catastrophic consequences).
Stopping all Western development won’t happen.
dblade makes some wonderful points about our culture, although the dangers of global warming are no pretext.
November 30th, 2010 | 3:29 pm
Dblade’s musings,
are not uncommon, except for the ironic twist that it would not be “us all” that enjoyed a “richer life”, it would be those already possessing what they needed. Those still struggling for ways and means to survive would be – literally – forced out into the cold without the ability to recover. Little loss to those who “have”, but truly tragic to the remainder.
November 30th, 2010 | 6:43 pm
Dan Pangburn,
Why don’t you submit your original research to Science, Nature or some respectable climate journal? If you have, would you be so kind to share the reviewer responses? If what you say is claim is true you are destined to become the most famous climate scientist in the land.
December 1st, 2010 | 8:06 am
And the hysteria continues, “It’s too late to effectively correct global warming. It is inevitable that the coasts will be under water in 100 years…”
First, there is the false assumption that man could have controlled the climate.
As Dr. John Christy, an IPCC lead author and an actual climate scientist, stated: “Our ignorance about the climate system is enormous, and policy makers need to know that. This is an extremely complex system, and thinking we can control it is hubris.”
But then hubris has been the root of most of the hysteria.
And then we have the inevitable Al Gore litany of coasts under water in 100 years, etc., …ho hum
MIT’s Richard Lindzen: ‘Using climate models that don’t test out very well to predict long into the future…is almost like appealing to a ouija board’
December 1st, 2010 | 8:32 pm
Michael Snow,
Man is changing the climate today. By reducing greenhouse gas emissions we can slow the rate of change, but are unlikely to stop warming.
Doctors Christy and Lindzen are in the distinct minority amongst climate scientists.
What is your scientific argument to refute the theory that greenhouse gases are causing global warming?
December 1st, 2010 | 9:41 pm
Jeffery,
The equation, links to the source data and detailed instructions are all provided. Anyone competent with a spreadsheet can check it.
From 2001 through October, 2010 the atmospheric CO2 increased by 21.8% of the total increase from 1800 to 2001 while the average global temperature has not increased significantly and the trend of the average of the five reporting agencies from 2001 through 2009 is down. The 21.8% CO2 increase is the significant measurement not the comparatively brief time period.
As this wide and rapidly growing separation between the rising CO2 level and not-rising temperature continues, more and more climate scientists are beginning to realize that maybe they missed something and more of the general public are becoming aware that they have been deceived.
December 1st, 2010 | 11:32 pm
Dan,
Why don’t you submit your research to a reputable journal? Have you presented your hypothesis to climate website, such as RealClimate? You could get very rapid feedback there from working climate scientists. Wouldn’t that be more productive than trying to sell a technical argument here? Your hypothesis may be correct but shouldn’t it be evaluated by experts?
And the trend from 2001 through 2010 is up. The trend from 1991 through 2010? Up. The trend from 1981 through 2010? Up.
You do understand that surface temperature measurements are a surrogate for the heat content of the oceans and land masses, right?
As such, variations in the temperature record occur based on ocean currents, wind patterns, La Nina, El Nino, aerosols, clouds, albedo, and yes, solar variations.
I hope you are right and the Earth will cool. Unfortunately, it appears 2010 will be one of the warmest years in human history.
December 3rd, 2010 | 11:59 am
Jeff,
The main journals are hopelessly biased. They won’t print stuff from a famous climate scientist like Dr. Roy Spenser (he now has his own website) so what are the odds of them even looking at something from an unknown Mechanical Engineer like me? There are other journals though and that is in the works.
As to most blogs being a lousy venue, I agree. But it’s easy. Sort of like the guy who lost something in a dark area but was looking for it in a lighted area because he could see better.
In general, many people who perceive themselves as climate scientists actually lack relevant knowledge in many related disciplines. In studying their work over the years, I have observed a lack of understanding especially in heat transfer (I have 9 units, post graduate after the usual 4 units undergraduate) which includes heat storage and thermal radiation. Why did they ignore the oceans for so long when the thermal capacitance of the oceans is of the order of 100 times that of the atmosphere? Also, why do they talk about the increased absorption of solar radiation near the poles if the ice melts, when, because of the shallow incident angle, much of the radiation would be reflected from water? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflectivity) .
I see little evidence that they fully understand the limitations imposed by the first law of thermodynamics.
I am astounded at their failure to grasp why the type of models that they are using (the 20 or so GCMs and AOGCMs) are useless for predicting more than a few days into the future. This has been demonstrated in their abysmal failure to predict average global temperature (agt) for the last decade or so. And they insist on applying high positive feedback factors which, if they understood feedback control theory, are demonstrably impossible. The paleo temperature and CO2 records from the last glaciation (and other periods) demonstrate that there can not be significant positive feedback from atmospheric CO2.
Since the whole AGW thing is rapidly collapsing, “trying to sell” has become less applicable than trying to educate. The continuing rise of atmospheric CO2 and not rising temperature trend will do the selling. I just happened to discover why agt has been doing what it has for over a century.
Climate Scientists usually use a 30 year period to define climate. It was warming during the first 20 of the last 30 years and it has been flat the last 10 or so. If you fit a straight line to the 30 years (like Climate Scientists are prone to do) it shows warming but is misleading since it ignores the fact that something has changed. The equation which calculates temperatures since 1895 with 88% accuracy (87.6% if you ignore any influence from CO2) is a much better indicator of the trend of what is going on. The calculation indicates that we are now in a cooling trend. The NOAA assessment of the heat content of the oceans is shown on page 7 of the 4/10/10 pdf. (The link given there is broken but I think that you can restore it by deleting the last word, ‘temperature’) It shows that the heat content has been on a declining trend since about 2004.
The oceans (71% of the planet is covered by oceans) have huge thermal ‘inertia’ (In thermodynamics talk it is called thermal capacitance) so response is very slow. Even if there were no sunspots (like the Maunder Minimum) it would take about 27 more years for the average global temperature to decline to ‘normal’. Temperatures over land which is remote from the oceans will decline faster.
Whether 2010 will be the warmest recent year is too close to call. Both 1998 and early 2010 saw major el Niños. By selecting only one of the reporting agencies it could go either way. I plot all five and (grudgingly) accept the average. Again, it’s too close to call. The average now (through Oct, 2010) is a bit higher but agt has been dropping rapidly since March, 2010 and still is. Even if 2010 turns out to be a bit warmer, it will not refute the assertion of no significant increase for about a decade. The reported uncertainties are greater than any change that might be reported.
The prediction of the declining future temperature trend, as calculated by the equation, stands.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Not the warmest year in human history, by the way. The warmest year, if it happens, on record. That only goes back about 100 years. It was warmer when the Vikings colonized Greenland and during Roman times when grapes could be grown in England. We also had the Little Ice Age, from which we are emerging.
December 3rd, 2010 | 6:35 pm
Dan,
Good work. I hope you are correct.
Wes,
I’ve learned something new. Would you please cite a reference for your hypothesis that it was warmer than now during the Viking and Roman times?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Jeffrey: Here’s one, from a skeptical blog: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/04/jo-nova-finds-the-medieval-warm-period/ ; http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm Warming types say it wasn’t global, like they claim today is.
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