Global Warming "Debate"
I thought I’d write a quick post on the “debate” over global warming. Perhaps the first thing to note here is that there really are very few informed people actually debating. Of scientists covering the issue who publish peer-reviewed papers, there are very few who question the concept that human activity is raising the concentration of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses, which have caused — and will continue to cause — a rise in the temperature at the earth’s surface. I’ve met many of these people personally, e.g., Dr. Ramanathan at Scripps, and they’re enormously convincing.
Out of fairness, here’s a rare dissenter.
I point out three things:
1) As discussed here, the oil companies have spent a fortune creating doubt in the public’s mind about the validity of concern for global warming. With a brazen lack of regard for the truth and a callous indifference to your health and safety that rivals that of the tobacco companies, they’ve funded sham “research” companies whose sole purpose is to build a cloud of uncertainly regarding global warming. There’s no debate about that.
Now is it possible that, again out of fairness, those who stand to profit from global warming mitigation are campaigning in the opposite direction? I suppose so.
2) But even if the global warming hypothesis turns out to be incorrect, no one is saying that it isn’t likely. Is it sane to risk inaction that could result in complete ecological, social, and economic catastrophe?
Here is a video that I think everyone on this planet should watch, that offers cogent reasoning that mankind should take action to deal with the possibility that most climatologists are correct in their theories.
3) Again, even if the global warming hypothesis turns out to be incorrect, even fewer scientists doubt that increased CO2 levels are lowering the pH of the oceans, causing long-term damage to the fragile ecosystems therein.
I would think that this would make it intensely difficult to argue against controlling carbon emissions. But hey, I’ve seen incredible behavior from people where money is concerned before. Why should I think it will suddenly cease now?
Unlike the substantial reductions we’ve seen over time in the number of people in this country misled by misinformation circulated in an attempt to establish a link between Iraq and the tragic criminality of September 11th, 2001, the number of Americans who understand that humans play a significant role in climate disruption has actually fallen from 80% of the population a few years ago to 72% in a recent poll (still an encouraging majority).
I have a strong feeling that the same hardcore hardheads who persist in the Iraq/911 fallacy make up a major part of the disruption denial camp, but what I don’t as yet fully understand is how they’ve succeeded in growing their numbers.
Of course, as Ayn Rand said, “Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.” We must, however, oppose their conclusions, deconstruct their rationale and mitigate the success of their tactics with a moving and simplistic narrative of our own.
As a wise friend of mine observed, the likely root of the divide between progressive and retrograde ideologies is related to that extent to which an individual feels compassion for and responsibility toward other life forms, and perceives their links to that individual’s survival and prosperity – whether one realizes that all life is a part of a single web, and that any suffering and injustice effect the whole, or whether one feels that concern should extend to merely one’s self, or at most to one’s immediate family – expresses or determines much of that person’s thinking.
The widening awareness gap between people in ‘civilization’ and the natural world that sustains them is in fact only a chasm in awareness, not in effect – ignorance is not bliss, it has proven and will prove exceedingly painful. The profit driven focus on self our media and trade corporations have for the past century consistently reinforced play a significant part in the inability of persons to see beyond their own skin.
In order to preserve our dwindling but vital ability as a population to communicate ideas and influence policy, my suggestion for immediate focus is in the areas of net neutrality and campaign finance. Without the protection of human interests in these two arenas, any rational hope for positive change will rapidly fade.
U USED ALL THAT SPACE TO COMMUNICATE THE SIMPLE FACT THAT U DON’T LIKE “GOVT SUPRESSION” ? NITHER DO ANYONE OF US !
RENEWABLE ENERGY HAS BEEN HERE FOR 100 YEARS PLUS!! ALL PEOPLE AND LIVESTOCK PRODUCE FECES THAT CAN BE SAFELY RECYCLED INTO A COOKING OR GASOLINE REPLACEMENT. ALSO IF VERY SMALL DIESEL ENGINES ARE ALLOWED TO USE BIO-DIESEL TO PRODUCE ELECTRICITY, ONE’S CAR COULD GO 1,000 MILES ON A SMALL AMOUNT MAYBE 20% OF WHAT WE NOW BURN. IS THAT ENOUGH TIME TO MAKE ALL-ELECTRIC VEHICLES USING RENEWABLE SOURCES? I WOULD APPRECIATE ANY AND ALL REASONABLE REPLYS. THANK YOU!
Hey Rob, you must be of the “younger gang” “FREE” energy has been around since the “begining of time” but it won’t last to much longer !!!!!!!! WAKE UP, WE ALREADY HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY & YES ROB, CARS CAN GO FROM COAST TO COAST, NONE STOP;& for about 10cents worth of synthetic grease; but you & I will “never” benefit from this as long as the investors or money controllers remain connected to “oil” the world does not need oil !!! I sugest you start asking some questions to some “knowlegeable” people!!
You are correct in assuming that someone, somewhere is profiting from “scare-mongering” and as the old adage goes “if you want to know why – follow the money!”
I am all for making environmentally friendly decisions. I am for saving the rain forests, cutting emissions (our company converts cars to electric), but have to confess that I am alarmed at the global warming scare-mongers. If I look at http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data.htm what is apparent to me is government controlled data.
There are always two sides to a story, so when I look for the other side, I find http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=196
While I appreciate that the big bad oil companies would fund studies that counter global warming, by doing independent research I find tons of articles showing the earth is in what is part of a natural cycle.
I support government funding to focus more environmentally friendly approaches but decry the callous disregard for scientific research before making conclusions – the government studies seem to show a ready, fire, aim approach to justify expenditure. We can all see smog, we do not need convincing we would be better off with cleaner air. Mandate planting of trees and require cleaner industry instead of just imposing fines on the polluters.
I have no doubt man’s actions are a detriment to the environment but think the effect is over-played. Less scare-mongering and more spent on educating the community on the small things we can each do to make the world a better place is called for. Our attitude is what can make the difference.
BRENT, SOME OF IT IS ATTITUDE, BUT THE OTHER 90% IS CALLED “SUPRESSION” THE GOVT IS ALREADY INVOLVED IN TOOO MUCH !
It is unlikely that the global warming and coal pollution problems can be solved without nuclear energy.
The population density of India is 11 times greater than the population density of the U.S.; the population density of China is 4.3 times greater than the population density of the U.S. Even if we could use solar energy to end the use of coal, countries with higher population densities and growing economies would be dependent on greatly increasing their use of coal if they failed to build enough nuclear plants.
The strongest objection to nuclear is the amount of radio active nuclear waste created. However, our pressurized water thermal reactors (by far the most common type here) use only about 1% of the available energy in the enriched uranium fuel. The remaining 99%, which is wasted, could be used as fuel in fast breeder reactors thereby reducing the “waste” to about 2% of its present volume. And that waste, because of its shorter half-life, would need to be sequestered for only a few hundred hears.
Also, reactors have been designed to use thorium instead of uranium for fuel. Thorium is about 3 times more plentiful than uranium and is a very efficient fuel which produces very little waste.
Senator Feinstein of California is attempting to stop the construction of a solar plant in the CA desert because it would require bulldozing 60 square miles of desert. Solar energy could not provide all our energy needs without causing extensive environmental damage.
If we delay building more atomic power plants, we will only make global warming worse.
On the 1st of January, 2001, the Suns magnetic polarity reversed.
Did this make headline front page news around the world? NO !
One would expect that sooner or later, the rest of the planets in our solar system would follow suite.
Well the Earths magnetic field IS reducing, probably in response to the Sun, till it finally reaches zero and reverses.
The Earth has had many magnetic reversals over ancient history and we are overdue for the next change.
So what ?
The Earths Vanallen belt is in place simply by virtue of the Earths magnetic field.
As the magnetic field diminishes, the Vanallen belt thins.
The “belt” is actually like a shell and it reflects a great deal of the Suns harmful frequencies back out into space, e.g. x rays, the harsh end of the ultraviolet spectrum and of course HEAT radiation. With more Suns heat arriving, the oceans warm up and thus absorb less CO2.
CO2 FOLLOWS atmospheric warming, it does not PRECEDE it !! Mars North and South polar ice caps have been shrinking now for years. Perhaps the Martians have started up a whole lot of new industry there belching out CO2 from their chimneys. Greenland is AGAIN having its ice and snow melt. As recently as the 1600s, Norwegian farmers grazed cattle there. What major CO2 belching industry was there then ?? Nobody wants more pollution in our atmasphere, but to say that mankind is producing global warming from it is stupid. Ice cores taken from the Antarctic show what the atmosphere has been like over thousands of years. These clearly show that as regularly as clockwork, there are very warm and cold periods totally unrelated to CO2. These are completely cyclical and predictable. Let’s wake up to this scam that only hugely funded “climate scientists” are benefiting from.
My friend. The only thing that Earth has in common with the Sun, Mars, or ANY other celestial body, is that is round!, Every planet in our solar system behaves differently, we can’t draw parallels with them except that they orbit around the Sun. Just look at the enormous difference between “magnetic flips” of the poles between Earth and the Sun! There’s no comparison! our Planet is unique. (Like the rest of the other planets). attachment included.
Listen to this story (requires RealPlayer)
February 15, 2001 — You can’t tell by looking, but scientists say the Sun has just undergone an important change. Our star’s magnetic field has flipped.
The Sun’s magnetic north pole, which was in the northern hemisphere just a few months ago, now points south. It’s a topsy-turvy situation, but not an unexpected one.
“This always happens around the time of solar maximum,” says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center. “The magnetic poles exchange places at the peak of the sunspot cycle. In fact, it’s a good indication that Solar Max is really here.”
Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery
Above: Sunspot counts, plotted here against an x-ray image of the Sun, are nearing their maximum for the current solar cycle. [more information]
The Sun’s magnetic poles will remain as they are now, with the north magnetic pole pointing through the Sun’s southern hemisphere, until the year 2012 when they will reverse again. This transition happens, as far as we know, at the peak of every 11-year sunspot cycle — like clockwork.
Earth’s magnetic field also flips, but with less regularity. Consecutive reversals are spaced 5 thousand years to 50 million years apart. The last reversal happened 740,000 years ago. Some researchers think our planet is overdue for another one, but nobody knows exactly when the next reversal might occur.
Although solar and terrestrial magnetic fields behave differently, they do have something in common: their shape. During solar minimum the Sun’s field, like Earth’s, resembles that of an iron bar magnet, with great closed loops near the equator and open field lines near the poles. Scientists call such a field a “dipole.” The Sun’s dipolar field is about as strong as a refrigerator magnet, or 50 gauss (a unit of magnetic intensity). Earth’s magnetic field is 100 times weaker.
Below: The Sun’s basic magnetic field, like Earth’s, resembles that of a bar magnet.
When solar maximum arrives and sunspots pepper the face of the Sun, our star’s magnetic field begins to change. Sunspots are places where intense magnetic loops — hundreds of times stronger than the ambient dipole field — poke through the photosphere.
“Meridional flows on the Sun’s surface carry magnetic fields from mid-latitude sunspots to the Sun’s poles,” explains Hathaway. “The poles end up flipping because these flows transport south-pointing magnetic flux to the north magnetic pole, and north-pointing flux to the south magnetic pole.” The dipole field steadily weakens as oppositely-directed flux accumulates at the Sun’s poles until, at the height of solar maximum, the magnetic poles change polarity and begin to grow in a new direction.
Hathaway noticed the latest polar reversal in a “magnetic butterfly diagram.” Using data collected by astronomers at the U.S. National Solar Observatory on Kitt Peak, he plotted the Sun’s average magnetic field, day by day, as a function of solar latitude and time from 1975 through the present. The result is a sort of strip chart recording that reveals evolving magnetic patterns on the Sun’s surface. “We call it a butterfly diagram,” he says, “because sunspots make a pattern in this plot that looks like the wings of a butterfly.”
In the butterfly diagram, pictured below, the Sun’s polar fields appear as strips of uniform color near 90 degrees latitude. When the colors change (in this case from blue to yellow or vice versa) it means the polar fields have switched signs.
Above: In this “magnetic butterfly diagram,” yellow regions are occupied by south-pointing magnetic fields; blue denotes north. At mid-latitudes the diagram is dominated by intense magnetic fields above sunspots. During the sunspot cycle, sunspots drift, on average, toward the equator — hence the butterfly wings. The uniform blue and yellow regions near the poles reveal the orientation of the Sun’s underlying dipole magnetic field. [more information]
The ongoing changes are not confined to the space immediately around our star, Hathaway added. The Sun’s magnetic field envelops the entire solar system in a bubble that scientists call the “heliosphere.” The heliosphere extends 50 to 100 astronomical units (AU) beyond the orbit of Pluto. Inside it is the solar system — outside is interstellar space.
“Changes in the Sun’s magnetic field are carried outward through the heliosphere by the solar wind,” explains Steve Suess, another solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center. “It takes about a year for disturbances to propagate all the way from the Sun to the outer bounds of the heliosphere.”
Because the Sun rotates (once every 27 days) solar magnetic fields corkscrew outwards in the shape of an Archimedian spiral. Far above the poles the magnetic fields twist around like a child’s Slinky toy.
Left: Steve Suess (NASA/MSFC) prepared this figure, which shows the Sun’s spiraling magnetic fields from a vantage point ~100 AU from the Sun.
Because of all the twists and turns, “the impact of the field reversal on the heliosphere is complicated,” says Hathaway. Sunspots are sources of intense magnetic knots that spiral outwards even as the dipole field vanishes. The heliosphere doesn’t simply wink out of existence when the poles flip — there are plenty of complex magnetic structures to fill the void.
Or so the theory goes…. Researchers have never seen the magnetic flip happen from the best possible point of view — that is, from the top down.
But now, the unique Ulysses spacecraft may give scientists a reality check. Ulysses, an international joint venture of the European Space Agency and NASA, was launched in 1990 to observe the solar system from very high solar latitudes. Every six years the spacecraft flies 2.2 AU over the Sun’s poles. No other probe travels so far above the orbital plane of the planets.
“Ulysses just passed under the Sun’s south pole,” says Suess, a mission co-Investigator. “Now it will loop back and fly over the north pole in the fall.”
Right: Following an encounter with Jupiter in 1992, the Ulysses spacecraft went into a high polar orbit. It’s maximum solar latitude is 80.2 degrees south. [more]
“This is the most important part of our mission,” he says. Ulysses last flew over the Sun’s poles in 1994 and 1996, during solar minimum, and the craft made several important discoveries about cosmic rays, the solar wind, and more. “Now we get to see the Sun’s poles during the other extreme: Solar Max. Our data will cover a complete solar cycle.”
To learn more about the Sun’s changing magnetic field and how it is generated, please visit “The Solar Dynamo,” a web page prepared by the NASA/Marshall solar research group. Updates from the Ulysses spacecraft may be found on the Internet from JPL at http://ulysses.jpl.nasa.gov.
SEND THIS STORY TO A FRIEND
YES , PROFFESSOR; YOU KEEP UP THE SCIENTIFIC DEBATE & YOU ARE GOING TO COME IN IN LAST PLACE !
Craig, you asked me to comment, so I will as a Christmas present before I stop wasting time on the internet and shoot my computer.
You were correct when you said, “Perhaps the first thing to note here is that there really are very few informed people actually debating. ”
See above comments and the link to Lindzen: he’s apparently unable to comprehend the various nuances of climate science, and should shut up.
Prince Charles got it right when he said, “We should work toward a more cooperative world, because if the GWH is correct, we are going to ALL have to work together to survive in a much different world than we have now, and if the GWH is incorrect, wouldn’t it be a better world to live in anyway?” (paraphrased)
You see, it doesn’t matter so much whether what we are doing is causing global warming: there are OTHER REASONS why the way we are acting is bad. Overconsumption divides people and pits them against each other for resources that wouldn’t BE so scarce if we cooperated. Overconsumption directly leads to pollution of land and water. Overconsumption wastes resources that should be available for future generations.
Global warming is just a SYMPTOM of poor behavior by humans, and IT ISN’T THE ONLY ONE!
Humans are acting as though what they do now does not affect the future. We are acting like rodents or yeast, with no idea of what will be available tomorrow. What is the point of pretending to be sentient beings if we work so hard to AVOID THINKING?
What are people FOR?
Whether you believe humans were conjured from the mind of God or whether you understand evolution and randomness and Net Usefulness; it doesn’t matter as long as you respect and act to care for where you came from.
In other words, people must be useful to the soil, the earth, and the future if they are to continue to exist on this planet.
Not just useful for a profit, but Net Useful: creating usefulness for the future of these things over and above what we consume in resources.
Social cooperation is a resource, too. Turning everything into a competition destroys and pollutes the social commons.
We can’t eliminate stupid people from the debate, but we can darn sure smack them down when they say stupid things, like arguing over a carbon tax to cure the problem du joir of CO2. That’s just ONE resource we are wasting: what about all of the other things? We don’t need a “carbon tax”, we need a CONSUMPTION TAX. Those who would cry “REGRESSIVE!” need to think about what is more regressive, a consumption tax or a dead planet.
The “Global Warming” or “Climate Change” debate can be rendered irrelevant if we implement the right solutions (no matter which side of the argument you’re on). Forget government, forget big business. Turn off your TV. Rather than go into some long-winded rant, I’ll leave you with a quote from R. Buckminster Fuller which pretty much sums it all up:
“Revolution by design and invention is the only revolution tolerable to all men, all societies, and all political systems anywhere.”
Btw, I just built my own solar panel….it works! The solutions are out there. Look in the mirror!
Cheers Everyone! Happy Holidays!
Just saw an interview with Nathan Myhrvold on CNN. He has come up with a geo-engineering idea to inexpensively pump sulpher dioxide into the stratosphere at the poles to emulate the natural cooling that has historically followed major volcanic eruptions. He says preliminary modeling shows we can easily stop polar ice melt and bring down global temperatures 1 degree – about what we’ve currently warmed – without any side effects other than cooling. His concept is: if we can’t get over 100 countries to work together and cut back carbon, let’s engineer our way out of it.
There’s no question the world has cooled after major eruptions, so why not?
First Global Warming and pollution are very real. It is not a natural cycle. Just look at the facts. Visit the northern areas that are melting faster than anyone predicted. Look at our air pollution.
Nuclear is not the answer. It has a lot more problems that the radio active pollution. Like the large amount of water required, we import most of the fuel from Russia now, the plant costs way too much to build and they are a sitting duck for terrorist.
If we build zero energy building and or retrofit old ones then renewables like wind, solar and geo thermal can provide more than we ever need and right where we need it instead of a centralized plant with large tarnsformers and transmission lines.
The many new advanced battery vehicle can provide storage for the energy with V2G, vehicle to GRID. Composite materila ligheter safer vehicles don’t use as much energy. Well planned cities don’t require much transportation as you work very near where you live.
We have to be smarter and look at life cycle costs. Simple things like 10 times more efficient LED lights for home and vehicles will lead the way. Super insulated homes and vehicles don’t require much temperature conditioning heat or cooling.
I do not quarrel with the positions taken by many learned professionals that very consequential changes are occurring within our planet’s climate system. Therefore, I believe much needs to be done to deal with these changes.
My concern is that, even the best of minds, may not adequately understand the complexity of the earth’s climate system. For example, our poles are clearly undergoing drastic (and presumably adverse–even by mother nature’s standards) changes right now. Further, my understanding, as a layman only, is that our oceans are changing dramatically and their acidity levels are changing such that the organisms that live in these oceans may be in peril.
On the other hand, living in the norteast US, I quite frankly have not perceived a warming trend. As a sixty-something golfer, I look back to my youth and recall that March typically was the month of transition into the golfing season–some really nice days and some not so nice. Over the years however (and without pondering climate change in this regard), I have come to view April as the breaking point for golfing weather. Obviously, this is only anecdotal, but it’s a sense I’ve had for longer than the relatively recent intense climate debate. Also, as a child, I remember we could always count on 3-5 days in the summer that reached 100 degrees. Quite frankly, I do not recall the last time that has happened where I live. Moreover, I notice with interest the awful winter that Europe appears to be off to.
None of the foregoing is intended to minimize my concern for what is happening to our planet’s climate system. My concern is that the problem may not be “global” in a technical sense, and that attempting to cure a “global” problem when the problem may be less than global and more subtle than the experts understand, may result in missing the proper cure.
It’s simple – nature sequestered gazillion tons of CO2 over hundreds of millions of years and we come along and release half of it in 100 years and we stand around drinking mocas and frapucinos debating if we have a global warming issue!!!
The Copenhagen COP 350 initiative is old already, see the definitive source of where we stand:
http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/story_archive/CO2_Increase_Sep2002-Jul2008/
It’s sad – but we deserve everything get when mother nature turns the table on us – i’m talking about the selfish first world we live in. But what I’m most concerned is in how the less able and capable will surfer!! 3/4 of the worlds population!!!
It’s everyone’s responsibility to mend their ways – and FAST cuz your kids and grand kids future will be nothing like ours!
-w
MAN JUST ISN’T THAT CAUSATIVE!
I can’t get over the unbelievable arrogance displayed by those who insist on the anthropogenic WHY for “global warming”! Over the SUN, or some other potential cosmic possibility that they have not even the foggiest idea of yet! NO, it has to be MANKIND! Can you please, give me a break!
There isn’t a real scientist on the planet that would disagree with these facts:
1. The earth has been COOLING continuously for 60 million years; not once
has the long-term trend of temperature reverted and gone back up over
this time.
2. In the past 2 million years this cooling has significantly increased to the
point where the MEAN temp. has bottomed out in the middle of the
Glacial periods to around 10 Degrees C. and the frequency of these low
points has been increasing, especially in the past half million years –
which means the planet is getting colder as far as the trend is concerned.
This is what THE science says.
3. The warmest period in the past 150 years was between 1934-1940; it has
been COOLER since then – right up to present time. The very brief
increase in warming between 1988 and 2005 never even brought the
MEAN temp. up to the century average, let alone ANYWHERE near the high
mentioned above. Since 2005 the temp. has been declining with record
coldest winters over the past 4 years!
4. The SUN and what it does or doesn’t do has more effect on Earth than
anything man has ever done or will ever do; science has a lot of data on
this that I don’t need to explain here – just go study the earth’s history!
5. LONG before the Industrial revolution (1750) the planet’s CO2 was going
up and down in wider variances than the past 100 years. Man was not
causing this before 1750, so what was? Do you suppose that might still
be the case?
So, as much as we don’t like the smog of cities in places like Tokyo, LA, Denver, Mexico City, etc. and it sounds very convenient to say it’s MAN
and his fossil fuel burning that is the WHY, I don’t think so.
We are currently right now coming to the end of this Interglacial period
(it’s been about 11,000 years, almost). Whether we are AT the end, or near
the end or have PAST the end, is of lesser importance than the FACT that in the past 2 million years the Interglacial periods have been only about one TENTH as long as the GLACIAL periods, which makes this planet an ICE
planet, with only brief warming periods, surrounded on both sides with
glacial periods NINE times as long! These glacial periods have been getting
more frequent in the past half million years, which means the planet is COOLING, not warming! This is the trend; these are the facts – go do the
homework, find out for yourself and stop listening to those who are mimicking others with bigger certificates than their own.
Start looking for real estate closer to the equator and be glad we still have
a molten mantle that this eggshell you are standing on floats on!
Thanks very much for this, Jarrett. But if I may ask, what part of this theory explains:
the melting of the glaciers as evidenced by photos taken over the last century?
graphs like this one? http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2005/12/16/GR2005121600098.gif
P.S. ROB, THE COMMENT WAS NOT INTENDED TO OFFEND YOU, NOR TO ARGUE THE POINT ! HOW MANY MILES DOES A NASA ROCKET GO ? I REST MY CASE