Republicans Make Being An Idiot Litmus Test For Serving On Global Warming Committee
| March 22nd, 2007From the Gannett News Service:
House Republican Leader John Boehner would have appointed Rep. Wayne Gilchrest to the bipartisan Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming — but only if the Maryland Republican would say humans are not causing climate change, Gilchrest said.
“I said, ‘John, I can’t do that,’ ” Gilchrest, R-1st-Md., said in an interview. [...]
Gilchrest didn’t make the committee. Neither did other Republican moderates or science-minded members, whose guidance centrist GOP members usually seek on the issue. [...]
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, a research scientist from Maryland, and Michigan’s Rep. Vern Ehlers, the first research physicist to serve in Congress, also made cases for a seat, but weren’t appointed, he said.
“Roy Blunt said he didn’t think there was enough evidence to suggest that humans are causing global warming,” Gilchrest said. “Right there, holy cow, there’s like 9,000 scientists to three on that one.”
According to Raw Story, all six Republican choices to sit on the panel are global warming denialists. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), the ranking minority member of the committee, said in a statement: “Recent fluctuations in the Earth’s climates and temperatures have led to numerous sensational headlines describing an eminent doomsday scenario.”1
Fortunately, the six Republican denialists will be outnumbered on the committee by nine Democrats who haven’t been actively selected for their anti-reality delusions, so maybe this committee could actually get something worthwhile done (although I have no illusions that anything the Dems propose will be enough). But still, it indicates a lot about the current corruption of the Republican party: it’s not just that they don’t select the best people for the job. They actually make being incompetent and stupid a requirement.
- An “eminent” doomsday scenario? What is that, a doomsday scenario with an impeccable reputation compared to the other doomsday scenarios? The Representative needs office help who know the difference between “eminent” and “imminent.” Yeesh. (back)
March 22nd, 2007 at 2:21 pm
So, visited Isreal lately? :P
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 22nd, 2007 at 3:03 pm
(Clarification for the less spelling-obsessive; Amp has been misspelling “Israel” for a decade that I’ve known him.)
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 1:03 am
Tbe earth hurtling into the sun is the truly eminent doomsday scenario. But polar ice caps melting? pshaw, truly only a pauper planet would accept such a doomsday.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 10:25 am
Folks, there is a difference between denying global warming and doubting that global warming is anthropogenic. Personally, I *cough* “believe in” global warming, but I do not think that it is man-made.
This comment was written by Deep Thought.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 11:07 am
Personally, I *cough* “believe in” global warming, but I do not think that it is man-made.
Which means that you don’t believe the world scientific consensus and, frankly, which I find head-in-the-sand, conspiracy theory worthy, weird. But let’s go with this.
What if there is a only 50/50 chance that global warming is “man-made?” What’s the worst that can happen if we take steps to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and it turns out that humanity is not the cause of global warming? We waste a lot money creating a cleaner atmosphere and, possibly, a different group of people becomes super-rich. Now, what if humanity is the cause of global warming and we do nothing? What is the worst that can happen? Well, we can ask our grandkids & great-grandkids, I guess. Coastal flooding, increased and less predictable climatological phenomena (hurricanes, flooding, drought, etc.), a precipitous loss of bio-diversity, possible huge reductions in agriculture, a huge loss of fish population and so on.
Which of those possible responses has the better risk/reward ratio? I know which way I go on this.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 11:16 am
Actually, Jake, if you really believe that global warming would cause such terrible catastrophes, then a rational risk management approach would take the possibility of non-anthropogenic warming very, very seriously.
If the warming is mostly non-anthropogenic, and we focus our energy on carbon reduction and general environmental fuzziness, then we all die when the warming (caused by solar variability or whatever other non-human-controllable factor) really gets going. Plus, we wasted a lot of years huddling in the dark and the cold.
If we are actually concerned with dealing with the warming - regardless of the cause - then we can invest in technologies and approaches that will actually increase our control over the planetary temperature. Technologies that will work to cool the planet whether the problem is Mr. Sun or my new Lexus SUV with special carbon-emitting diamond wheels.
Kind of like just buying a bulletproof vest, rather than spending a year trying to figure out just who exactly is shooting at us.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 11:22 am
As far as I can tell, this is similar to the difference between “creationism” and “intelligent design.” Since the original nonsensical view has lost all credibility outside of extremist right-wing circles, people move to a “new” nonsensical position that’s actually only a slightly modified version of the old, discredited position.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 11:46 am
What’s nonsensical about it, Amp? The natural variability of climate even in historical times is quite sufficient to make “the planet is getting really warm all by itself and we need to find ways to cope” a perfectly reasonable point of view.
If anything, the non-human-but-real-problem position is more likely to result in taking effective steps. Reducing carbon is a crap idea anyway, and everybody knows this; solutions to problems predicated on everyone becoming good and unselfish are lovely for children’s stories, but have a pretty poor record out here in the real world. (Would you like to dismantle the welfare state and let private charity take care of the poor? If everyone would just give 10% of their money and time to helping others, that would suffice…so why do we need all this government? Oh right - because people suck, and aren’t going to behave nicely.)
Let’s just learn how to manage the surface and atmospheric temperature, and pick up some weather control knowledge while we’re at it, and fix the problem in the way we know we’re good at, instead of in the way we know we suck at.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Robert wrote:
Robert, please name a single Democratic leader (someone comparable in prominece to, say, John Boehner) whose approach to global warming can fairly be described as a call for “years huddling in the dark and cold”?
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Amp, why do you hate poetry?
(And America.)
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 12:36 pm
The view that current global warming is unrelated to human activities is irrational because it ignores the overwhelming scientific evidence and near-100% scientific consensus that human activities are a significant contributor to current global warming.
Yes, because it’s much more likely that humans will invent a big global temperature control machine than it is that we’ll invent cell phones, carbon-efficient vehicles, more efficient light bulbs, and so on.
Do you understand that statements like this make you look like someone who simply has no conception of reality, Robert?
You don’t think carbon reduction is a good idea. Neither do all of your idealogical fellow-travelers, who have such a good track record on this issue that most of them were denying that global warming even existed only five years ago. But the vast, vast majority of people whose track records on this issue don’t indicate that they have a problem with denying reality, think that carbon reduction is a good idea. That your arguments are so incredibly out of touch with reality that you actually state these people don’t exist only subtracts from your credibility.
But carbon-reduction isn’t selfless; it’s something that governments need to do as a matter of selfishness. An underwater, hurricane-blasted New York City is not something we all want because of selfishness, for example. It’s just a political and technological problem, not an overcoming-basic-human-nature problem.
To use your welfare example as an illustration, charity alone is no replacement for welfare. However, it has in practice been possible to put together a political coalition which will pass laws redistributing wealth in a manner that pretty much wipes out poverty (in much of Europe), or at least causes big reductions in poverty (in the US). Of course global warming isn’t identical to poverty (this is your example, not mine), but the basic principle that it’s possible to do things for the common good through political coalitions is what’s important.
Please link to some evidence that we are “good at” managing the surface and atmospheric temperature without addressing causes, and that we are “good at” effectively controlling larges-scale weather systems
In other words: “Let’s not stop the people firing bullets, or even reduce the number of shooters, because that would be too difficult; instead, let’s just create a machine which automatically and effectively makes being shot through with a bullet painless and harmless.”
Yes, a machine that made speeding bullets harmless to all would vastly reduce the motivation to stop people shooting other people. But those of us who are more reality-based will recognize that as hard as stopping shooters is, inventing the render-bullets-harmless machine is not a more promising approach.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Reducing carbon is a crap idea anyway, and everybody knows this; solutions to problems predicated on everyone becoming good and unselfish are lovely for children’s stories, but have a pretty poor record out here in the real world.
Sure, that’s true if your strategy is for voluntary reduction. If, however, laws and regulations require it, there is a good chance of that happening. For example, unleaded gas isn’t sold at gas stations in the US any more and seatbelts are required in all new cars.
Actually, Jake, if you really believe that global warming would cause such terrible catastrophes, then a rational risk management approach would take the possibility of non-anthropogenic warming very, very seriously.
Only if you believe that possibility is credible. I mean, by that approach, it’s important to take the possibility of a serial killing Easter Bunny seriously if I want to have a rational risk management approach to reducing murder. I’ll take the possibility of non-anthropogenic warming seriously when the consensus of the scientific community is that non-anthropogenic warming is a real possibility. Unfortunately, for the non-anthropogenic cause crowd, the scientific community stands solidly behind the fairly whelming evidence that global warming is being caused by people.
Now, I’d agree with your statement if I really thought there was even a 5% chance that humans weren’t the cause of our current, unprecedented in geologic history, global warming trend. But, given the evidence and the support given to the theories engendered by that evidence by the scientific community, that isn’t the case.
If anything, the non-human-but-real-problem position is more likely to result in taking effective steps.
How so?
Technologies that will work to cool the planet whether the problem is Mr. Sun or my new Lexus SUV with special carbon-emitting diamond wheels.
Unfortunately for that strategy, human impact goes beyond heating the planet. Look at the carbon concentrations of the oceans - they’re at levels that haven’t been seen in millions of years. Accordingly, even if we stopped all carbon emissions today, it would take 10,000 years for the carbon levels in the oceans to return to where they were 150 years ago. This increase in carbon leads to a decrease in pH which impacts the lower levels of the food chain enormously.
Honestly, this isn’t the most pressing issue on my agenda (no kids, no care and all). The only reason I really care about it is in a sentimental kind of way. It’d be a shame to share in the blame for the impending mass extinctions (which we have seen on the same scale but never in such a short time frame). Well, I guess there are other reasons - it’s embarrassing to be part of such collective stupidity and short-sightedness, I hate the idea of being part of yet another generation that is more than willing to put costs off to future generations unnecessarily, a general warm, fuzzy feeling of wonder that I get when I look at the earth’s ecosystems, and that sort of thing.
But, at least I won’t feel guilty about creating people who will suffer through a catastrophe that could have been prevented. Why folks with kids would care less than I do about this is bewildering.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Also, if you want to control the global thermostat, controlling the global atmospheric CO2 levels is a great way to do it. Easy? No, but then controlling the global thermostat is never going to be easy.
So even in Robert’s fantasy land, pushing down the atmospheric CO2 levels is one of the best ways to combat non-anthropogenic global warming that we have. The source of the global warming doesn’t actually matter. If the radiation from the sun were getting hotter, we would still need to cool the earth by decreasing green house gases. If we had the technology, we could prevent anthropogenic global warming by building a giant space sun screen that cut the amount of energy reaching the atmosphere.
Of course, one of those methods is readily available, and the other one is a crack pot fantasy.
Robert, what technologically feasible solutions to global warming other than reducing atmospheric green house gases are you proposing?
Of course, as Jake points out, global warming is not the only problem that our sudden massive increase in CO2 release is causing, so what is your solution to continuing and increasing acidification of the ocean surface waters other than decreasing CO2 emissions?
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Robert, what technologically feasible solutions to global warming other than reducing atmospheric green house gases are you proposing?
Albedo reduction is the easiest. Cover Arizona in tin foil, etc.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 6:52 pm
I’m not following this discussion. What difference does it make if humans cause global climate change or not?
For example, what strategies will work against human-caused climate change not against naturally-cause change? What stategies will work against naturally-caused climate change but not human-caused change?
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Accordingly, even if we stopped all carbon emissions today, it would take 10,000 years for the carbon levels in the oceans to return to where they were 150 years ago.
This is the type of thing that I mean. If you’re right, then the sequestration/reduction approach is a pointless waste of time and resources; the oceans are doomed. Better to figure out ways of getting along without seafood.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Amp, by everyone thinking carbon reduction is crap, I mean that ordinary people who understand that carbon reduction = less economic activity thinks that isn’t going to happen. Not that nobody in the whole world wants to see carbon reduction.
We can get collective political action to deal with things that are urgent and immediate. We have never yet gotten collective political action to deal with something long-term and vaguely defined. (You might get the political illusion of action - wind and fog from pols to fill human emotional needs - but you won’t get actual effective action.) We just don’t work well that way. We DO work well at finding technical solutions to specific problems, though.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Accordingly, even if we stopped all carbon emissions today, it would take 10,000 years for the carbon levels in the oceans to return to where they were 150 years ago.
This is the type of thing that I mean. If you’re right, then the sequestration/reduction approach is a pointless waste of time and resources; the oceans are doomed. Better to figure out ways of getting along without seafood.
Dude, this doesn’t make stopping human carbon emission pointless. At this point in time, the ocean isn’t yet dead. If we continue to add carbon to the oceans at an astronomical rate, they will be. Thus, stopping carbon emission now may save your descendants.
Or you can stick your fingers in your ears, shout, “I can’t hear you,” and let future generations suffer the consequences of your irresponsibility.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Dude, this doesn’t make stopping human carbon emission pointless.
Sure it does. If a 100% carbon stop - which isn’t going to happen - isn’t sufficient to fix the problem, what is the use of a 10% reduction? You’re saying “the patient is DOA, he bled out an hour ago, let’s get him on an IV drop and get some aspirin in him, immediately!”
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 7:27 pm
. If a 100% carbon stop - which isn’t going to happen - isn’t sufficient to fix the problem, what is the use of a 10% reduction? You’re saying “the patient is DOA, he bled out an hour ago…
Did I say the oceans are dead? I thought I made it clear that they are in immediate danger.
In fact, rereading my comment I find this statement:
At this point in time, the ocean isn’t yet dead. If we continue to add carbon to the oceans at an astronomical rate, they will be. Thus, stopping carbon emission now may save your descendants.
How you come up with, “the oceans are dead now,” from, “At this point in time, the ocean isn’t yet dead,” is beyond me.
If we stop carbon emissions altogether today, we know that the oceans won’t die. If we start reduction immediately, we can slow down the rate of acidification now and, hopefully, avoid killing the oceanic microorganisms on which we all depend. If, however, we continue to increase our emissions (or even maintain today’s levels indefinitely) we know that we are in for disaster.
Your interpretation is absurd and I suspect that you know it.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 7:36 pm
OK, well, maybe I’m misinterpreting you, Jake. You say that if we stop adding carbon now, it’ll take ten thousand years for the oceans to recover. That strikes me as a statement of doom, particularly since we know that we can’t stop adding carbon and are more likely, in fact, to increase carbon emissions than to decrease them. If things are as bad as you say, then I don’t see how marginal mitigation has any point other than making our finger-flutterers less anxious.
The three billion ghosts in this conversation, by the way, are the Indians, Chinese and African people who are bound and determined to get Western standards of living.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 7:37 pm
No, Robert, the oceans have been acidified to some degree, and they will get even more acidified as we keep upping the Co2 levels. If we stop upping the CO2 levels, then the oceans will get acidified less. We don’t know the exact rate at which more acidification will translate to deader oceans, so we aren’t sure to what extent the oceans are doomed.
Your response seems to be, “Well, the oceans are either doomed already, or it won’t be a problem no matter how much CO2 we dump into the atmosphere, so we should either accept that the oceans are dead and keep burning fossil fuels, or the oceans will be safe no matter how much fossil fuels we burn.” This a nonsensical reduction to a binary that makes no sense in this case. Both of your binary options are almost certainly wrong. We can still probably salvage much of the environmental function of the ocean, and we are probably capable of doing even more damage to the environmental function of the ocean, and changing the amount of CO2 we pump out is probably the most effective way to do either of those things.
Of course you also engage in the absurdist trivialization of ocean death by equating it to “doing without seafood”, a rhetorical strategy that probably sounds great to you when you type it in, but merely makes you look like a ridiculous ass who knows absolutely nothing about this subject and is merely talking for the shear pleasure of forming words with a keyboard to pretty much everyone else.
Likewise, carbon emission reduction does not equal less energy use, as was demonstrated with the idiotic fufara around Al Gore’s electric bill.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 8:00 pm
I may not be the most informed person on the planet when it comes to global warming and environmental science (especially from the carbon angle), but compared to you Robert, I’m a Nobel laureate. Any time I speak up on the subject I am prepared to be corrected since I’ve read only a small amount and may have misunderstood some of what I read. You, Robert, carry the same authority on this subject that I carry on Finnish history, which is none. I suggest that you read some of the science before you continue to spout nonsense on the subject
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Ah, Finland
Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I want to be
Pony trekking or camping
Or just watching TV
Finland, Finland, Finland
It’s the country for me
You’re so near to Russia
So far from Japan
Quite a long way from Cairo
Lots of miles from Vietnam
Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I want to be
Eating breakfast or dinner
Or snack lunch in the hall
Finland, Finland, Finland
Finland has it all
You’re so sadly neglected
And often ignored
A poor second to Belgium
When going abroad
Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I quite want to be
Your mountains so lofty
Your treetops so tall
Finland, Finland, Finland
Finland has it all
Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I quite want to be
Your mountains so lofty
Your treetops so tall
Finland, Finland, Finland
Finland has it all
Finland has it all
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 23rd, 2007 at 8:59 pm
And there I was going to go off on a tangent about, “fufara,” but thought better of it. Well, as long as we’re going on tangents bout “f” words, I’ll just say that in the context of voicemail, “Fagurger” is a hysterically funny name.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 26th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
A consensus? Even assuming that all scientists working in related fields (The 1.4 million economists and social scientists shouldn’t have a vote) are actually scientifically polled on the subject, it doesn’t really mean much. Newton’s laws were not voted on; they were confirmed. Even though they were confirmed and are very useful today Einstein showed they were still not exactly correct. Some day special, or more probably, general relativity (the gravity theory) will probably be shown to not exactly be correct. No vote will influence the ultimate outcome.
History is replete with widely held scientific views that turned out to be wrong. The fact is that there is a debate about the causes and the extent of global climate change. There simply is, whether you read about it in the NYT or not.
The problem is that this has moved beyond the realm of scientific debate into political realm. Michael Creighton made an interesting case that it has moved into the religious realm. So many people seem to have this almost religious like conviction on this issue. They just “know.” All the passion clouds the issue. Notice the relatively new term “denier” when referring to skeptics. Almost as though it is some proven physical law being denied. Or some concrete part of history like denying the holocaust. It isn’t.
I have no idea to what extent humans are influencing global climate change. Through all the noise I see one humbling fact:
The earth has been both warmer and cooler several times over its history. What that should tell us that there are mechanisms completely independent of humans that DO cause global climate change. So are we peeing in the bathtub or peeing in the ocean? No one knows for sure, but eventually they will figure it out and the debate will be over.
IMHO we should be patient skeptics and let the experts work it out.
This comment was written by FormerlyLarry.Report this comment to the moderators
March 26th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
There are still cranks who argue that the sun rotates around the Earth, Larry. So “the fact is that there is a debate about” if the Earth rotates around the sun. Just because a debate exists doesn’t mean that it’s a legitimate debate, or that one side of the debate isn’t overwhelmingly composed of ignorant people.
There are mechanisms completely independent of humans that can cause leaves to move (they fall off trees, they get blown in the breeze, animals can move them, etc.). Nonetheless, it is possible to look at the evidence and conclude that the habit of leaves to form into big piles and then gather into garbage bags in autumn is, in fact, a result of human acts.
The experts have worked it out, Larry. The debate is over. Humanity is having an effect on global warming.
Regarding Michael Crichton, keep in mind that he’s not a scientist. I’m not saying he should therefore be ignored, merely that he can’t really be used as an example of lack of consensus within the scientific community. Anyhow, for rebuttals of Michael Crichton’s scientific claims regarding global warming, see this post on RealClimate (a blog written by climate scientists) as well as this article on a skeptic’s website.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 27th, 2007 at 12:07 am
Looks like we’ll be building a lot of nuclear power plants, then. I’ll look forward to the support of liberals and environmentalists on the coming moves to junk the onerous regulatory regime that makes new nuclear plant construction essentially impossible in this country. We’ll need at least 50 new plants in the next couple of decades.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 27th, 2007 at 12:36 am
There is not a debate in scientific community about whether the sun rotates around the earth. There is about global climate change.
An effect? Sure, termites also have an effect. As do trees and every other living thing on the planet as well as complex weather systems and even things not on the planet (the sun). The debate, whether you acknowledge it or not, is the extent of our effect. If I compile list of some actual scientists working in the field not sold on the whole idea will you simply dismiss them as crackpots because they don’t subscribe to your personal 2nd hand belief system? (I describe as that because I am assuming you are not a scientist working in the field and are not busy peer reviewing scientific papers in your spare time.)
I didn’t use him as evidence for anything. I merely referenced his interesting article that compared evo belief systems and its parallels with religion. It was brilliantly done.
I didnt know I needed evidence to support my contention. Its rather self evident. Anyone who has studied science (hard sciences) would be familiar with the fact that they don’t hold votes on the outcomes. When not polluted by politics and religion that’s one of the beautiful things about the scientific process: in the end your personal opinion doesn’t mean squat (usually). Though the process usually isn’t pretty it is humanities ultimate quest for truth (imho).
This comment was written by FormerlyLarry.Report this comment to the moderators
March 27th, 2007 at 1:28 am
“Looks like we’ll be building a lot of nuclear power plants, then. I’ll look forward to the support of liberals and environmentalists on the coming moves to junk the onerous regulatory regime that makes new nuclear plant construction essentially impossible in this country. We’ll need at least 50 new plants in the next couple of decades.”
I don’t know if this is some sort of weird funky serendipity, but Jonathan Chait just released an article making fun of conservatives’ knee jerk embrace of nuclear in the climate change debate, which basically reveals their ideology to be little more than hippie-hating. Spiteful children, all.
This comment was written by sylphhead.Report this comment to the moderators
March 27th, 2007 at 1:50 am
It’s not so much hating hippies as loving nukes.
I don’t see how we can ever have enough nukes.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 27th, 2007 at 3:10 am
FormerlyLarry,
You don’t actually show any sign of understanding what consensus means, which makes arguing with you about this rather pointless.
As far as I can tell, you seem to think that consensus involves voting. Interesting.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
March 27th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Charles, how does one determine if you have a consensus? The most common way is to ask and tally the answers and compare that number to the population. In my book Tallying opinions is voting, whether the vote is formal or not makes no difference.
But all that is beside the point. A group of opinions are still just opinions and they matter not a whit in the end. Its just a “best guess” right now. Best guessing is fine for engineering, but its not for science. Even if I might grant that its the current prevailing theory or model, current prevailing theories are not physical laws.
This comment was written by FormerlyLarry.Report this comment to the moderators
March 27th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Tallying opinions is voting…
No it’s not. Tallying opinions is conducting a survey. Voting entails a formal expression of opinion. If I say, “Vanilla is the bestest flavor of all!” and you mark it down for a tally that you’re keeping, I haven’t voted. If, however, I walk up to you while you’re sitting at a table with a big banner that says, “Vote for your favorite flavor,” and I tell you that vanilla is my favorite, then I have voted.
I know, it’s a subtle difference.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 27th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
FormerlyLarry-
You are confusing the actual epistimology of science with the practical epistimology of people outside of science. Actual climate change scientists cannot rely on the consus of their peers when they make a judgement about the causes of global warming, they must apply their own expertise to make an independant judgement.
But science is hard. Those of us who are not climate change scientists must rely on the consus - counting up how many scientist think one thing and how many think another. And no, a simple marjority is not enough. If 40% of the appropriate scientists disagree, we non-scientists must take seriously the possibility that the 40% are right. But if it is 99 to 1, the rest of us would be foolish to take the 1% seriously. If the 1% are right, and they might be, it is the job of that 1% not to convince the rest of us, but to convince their colleages first. Science has a reward structure that gives top honors to those who overturn their most basic beliefs. That’s what the doctors who believed that ulcers were caused by bacteria did, and that is why we now believe them and they won the Nobel. But most of the time, the 1% ARE wrong, and it is up to the scientific comumity to determine which 1% apostates are correct, not the rest of us.
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
March 27th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Decnavda,
I didn’t confuse anything. In fact you kind of helped to make my point. That is why in my previous post I suggested that we all remain patient skeptics and let the experts figure it out. People hold these strong, heart felt, 2nd or 3rd hand opinions about very complicated things that even the experts don’t fully understand. I think that the dreadful state of science education in the US is such that most people probably have no understanding of the scientific method.
Regarding your point about the 1% needing only to convince fellow scientists. Yes normally I would agree, but the dynamics of this debate are different than most other scientific debates. Normally its just egos, reputations, and possibly funding on the line. Now its public excoriation and ridicule. It has even been suggested that if you are a scientific skeptic on the issue you should loose your job or not get credentialed. The debate has moved well beyond science into politics and I think it could end up (or already has) tainting the science in the short term. In the long term none of it matters (for the science), not the scientist’s opinions but especially not the public’s opinions, because they will eventually figure it out.
This comment was written by FormerlyLarry.Report this comment to the moderators
March 27th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Larry,
It’s the rule of “best data.”
Data are NEVER perfect. Well, in statistics class, maybe, but not in the real world.
So if science is war, you go to war with the data you have, not the data you wish you had. ;)
There is no particularly compelling reason to assume that either global warming, or the lack of global warming, are correct. There’s no objectively better null hypothesis. We need data to decide.
Many denialists claim they’re just being “skeptical.” this is an error.
Skepticism in the face of huge changes in science is logical: if I claim to reverse gravity, you should be skeptical. Skepticism in the face of lack of knowledge is unjustified.
If I claim to know that the next turn in the road will be to the right, you have no logical reason to automatically attack the truth of the statement. you may attack my lack of knowledge but that doesn’t give you info on the statement itself. If i don’t know, then that means I don’t know, not that the next turn in the road is, in fact, to the left.
So far, the data, as analyzed by large numbers of people who have done their best to come to conclusions based on said data, support the existence of global warming as a human-caused problem. So far, the data appear to be good enough to support said conclusion.
Are those data perfect? nope. We don’t know for sure. We can’t.
HOWEVER, those are the best data we have. And you have one of only three choices, really:
1) you can pretend that you have some sort of ‘higher ability’ to see that global warming ISN’T happening unless it’s proven. Returning to the example above, you can claim to have the magic ability to know that because I haven’t seen the road yet and neither have you, the turn is actually to the left.
2) you can bet on the odds: nobody knows, but 99 scientists who agree are, historically, much much much more likely to be correct than the line dissenter. Yeah, everyone talks about galileo and all that but the majority of lone dissenters were, and are, plain old wrong. perpetual motion, alchemy, etc… the annals of science are filled with those who defied authority and lost. Turns out, you see, that what they were often about was the “defy authority” part and not the necessary “…by using good science” followup.
3) you can bet against the odds. you won’t get burned at the stake any more if you’re wrong, but your grandkids might.
What’s your bet?
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
March 27th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Exactly! That drives me nuts. If Galileo weren’t the exception to the rule, why would he be so damn famous for overturning accepted knowledge?
This comment was written by defenestrated.Report this comment to the moderators
March 28th, 2007 at 12:52 am
they are supposed to do” bent; that certainly includes fathers and mothers.) I’m not anti-child support. But undischargeable debts bother me. ■Comment on Republicans Make Being An Idiot Litmus Test For Serving …（Google Blog Search: a-blog） http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2007/03/22/republicans-make-being-an-idiot-litmus-test-for-serving-on-global-warming-committee/#comment-268592 Larry,. It’s the rule of “best data.” Data are NEVER perfect. Well, in statistics class, maybe, but not in the real world. So if science is war, you go to war with the data you have, not the data you wish you had. ;) …
This comment was written by a-blog馬鹿.Report this comment to the moderators
March 28th, 2007 at 6:48 am
BTW - Galileo was wrong. No, really - he insisted on the Sun being the center of the universe and all planets having perfectly circular orbits. Neither is true.
The number of scientists who upset the consensus is actually rather large: Pasteur and germ theory (he finally proved the consensus wrong after decades of scientists that proposed germ theory being branded ‘fringe cranks’); the Michelson-Morley Experiments that proved a small group of scientists right and disproved the consensus on the aether; Rumford’s and Joule’s separate works that proved that heat is not a fluid that seeps from hot things to cool areas; Lavosier and Lomonosov finally disproving the phlogiston theory of fire; Aristotlean gravity was proven wrong by Newton - Newtonian gravity was proven wrong by Einstein - quantum gravity may well prove Einstein wrong; Carey’s theories of an expanding earth were quite popular for a time, but false; and let us not forget how proponents of Eugenics (which was a field of research and study at major universities around the world and was considered the ‘consensus opinion’) used fear as a weapon to draft coercive laws for our own good.
See, if global warming is not anthropogenic then the models showing an “Underwater, hurricane-blasted New York” are junk. If global warming is, indeed, a natural phenomenon then we can search the historical record for past weather pattern shifts and see that, well, it won’t be so bad at all. If global warming is not anthropogenic then the massive, expensive ‘for our own good’ coercing of governments will just keep poor people poor, make governments more powerful, and change nothing.
This comment was written by Deep Thought.Report this comment to the moderators
March 28th, 2007 at 7:37 am
Yay!!! It’s Deep Thought. Thanks for pointing out more exceptions, DT. You really think that you’ve named (or can name) the majority of lone dissenters? I appreciate the attempt to do so and I appreciate the effort that you, and many other Global Warming deniers, put into justifying your disregard of the science on the subject.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 28th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Jake,
Does this guy sound like an idiot or a quack?
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/20/2/2/1
He could be wrong, but he is not an idiot. The point is that there are actual scientists arguing about the science. You have people nitpicking through data, arguing about methods, theory, and at any underlying assumptions. Science needs these vigorous skeptics and even contrarians. That is the way it is supposed to work. Falsification.
There is still vigorous debate about the science and some scientists even question the existence of the so called “consensus.” There are too many unanswered questions, the dynamics of the earth’s weather systems and the sun are not well understood right now, computer models are thought to be flawed. Small errors (or changes) in non-linear systems can produce drastically different outcomes. The science of global climate change is relatively new and this stuff takes time for the scientific community to hash out.
Here is a transcript of a recent debate on the subject. It was designed for the public so its not too technical:
http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/TranscriptContainer/_GlobalWarming-edited%20version%20031407.pdf
Beyond the posturing, both sides make some good points. If you are a “true believer” for either side it will have something for you. I personally don’t have a strong opinion on the subject, but I do have tentative opinion. I am skeptical of some of the wild doomsday apocalyptic predictions. From everything I have read I would say that there is good chance that humans have a significant impact on global climate change. But a “good chance” isn’t enough for me to quit my job, sell my stuff, buy some land in the country, build a grass hut and live off the land.
This comment was written by FormerlyLarry.Report this comment to the moderators
March 28th, 2007 at 9:26 am
FormerlyLarry,
The point isn’t that there are NO reasonable, credible scientists who don’t agree that the evidence shows that human activity is (at least in large part) responsible for Global Warming. The point is that there are ALMOST NO (that is a very, very tiny minority) of credible scientists who believe the evidence does not support the theory that human activity is responsible for Global Warming. Given that almost every single credible, qualified scientist is on the side of anthropogenic warming, it would seem reasonable to start taking actions to minimize or repair the situation.
Could the consensus be wrong? Sure it could. But the chances are pretty small and the consequences of ignoring the considered opinion of the vast, vast, vast majority of credible, qualified scientists could be devastating. Do you want to gamble with your children’s and grandchildren’s lives? I don’t.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 28th, 2007 at 9:37 am
Given that almost every single credible, qualified scientist is on the side of anthropogenic warming…
Actually, no. Most of the credible, qualified scientists who have already come to a conclusion are on the side of anthropogenic warming. Most scientists don’t really know, or say we need more information. It’s the people who have already decided who have (mostly) come down on one side.
That doesn’t prove a scientific consensus; it shows that all of the people willing to jump to a conclusion have jumped to one particular side.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 28th, 2007 at 10:08 am
Most scientists don’t really know, or say we need more information.
I think that you’re wrong about this. Where have you heard that? The most recent numbers I’ve seen indicate that over 2/3 of qualified (meaning that Global Warming can be addressed their by their particular field) believe Global Warming to be caused by human activity.
A 2004 essay by Naomi Oreskes in the journal Science reported a survey of abstracts of peer-reviewed papers related to global climate change in the ISI database.[13] Oreskes stated that of the 928 abstracts analyzed, “none contradicted” the view of the major scientific organizations that “the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling.”
A critic of Oreskes’, Benny Peiser admits that:
…the overwhelming majority of climatologists is agreed that the current warming period is mostly due to human impact.
He does however, go on to say:
However, this majority consensus is far from unanimous.
So, I think that you are dead wrong on this. Unless you want to include social scientists, biologists, and so on who do not study climate, in which case I’ll concede your point while deeming it irrelevant.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 28th, 2007 at 10:29 am
I’m sure that most scientists have an opinion, or a tendency. I seriously doubt that the majority of climatologists have come to a decisive conclusion, however, in the way that you’re alleging. Every time I’ve seen a “1000 scientists say…”-type report, it’s always been that there was some survey of what people thought was most likely. There’s a distinction between everybody thinking something is a known fact, and everybody thinking that maybe the way to bet is X.
Scientists tend to be squishy people, and for good reason.
Do you have a source on the 2/3 report you assert? If you do, I’ll look at it.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 28th, 2007 at 10:51 am
I’m sure that most scientists have an opinion, or a tendency. I seriously doubt that the majority of climatologists have come to a decisive conclusion, however, in the way that you’re alleging.
Yes, it’s true that very few climatologists say, “Global warming is caused by human activity. I am 100% on this.” And it’s true that I am using some hyperbole. But most of them say that they’re 90% or 95% sure that Global Warming is caused by human activity. As long as they’re 90% sure, I’m going to advocate action based on what they think is a near certainty. When I’m 90% sure in my area of expertise, I’m almost always correct.
I don’t have a source on the 2/3rds and it was some time ago that I read it, so I don’t remember where it was. I should think that Naomi Oreskes paper should suffice as a source. She found that of 100% of 928 peer-reviewed papers, none contradicted the anthropogenic cause of the current Global Warming trend. The thing is, even critics of her paper concede that the overwhelming majority of climatologists agree that the current warming period is mostly due to human impact.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 7:42 am
Jake,
Yay! Jake totally misses the point - again! I do not “deny” global warming. The environment is getting warmer. BUT - earth’s climate is cyclic and I believe, as someone with the ability to evaluate evidence and access to such, that the current climate cycle is not anthropogenic.
And I appreciate your admission of hyperbole, but you keep pointing to climatologists. The astrophysicists who have an opinion overwhelmingly land in the ’solar variability’ camp.; is that a consensus? If it is, which consensus “wins”? Anthropologists and paleontologists who specialize in weather point to ‘natural climate variation divorced from human action’; if they combine with astrophysicists, will that “win”?
This comment was written by Deep Thought.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 6:56 pm
will make you laugh, cry and shake your fist in fury at the indifference of the heavens. Once more, with feeling, there is no Social Security crisis. Maybe you can be a conservative and not look like an idiot, Rep. Bartlett, but the House Republican leadership has yet to grasp this point. Pandagon: The book club post for “When Abortion Was A Crime”. Get out the popcorn, the bigots are fighting amongst themselves. Can you really be in favor of free trade but not free immigration? Yes, little wingnuts,
This comment was written by Pacific Views.Report this comment to the moderators
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:15 pm
There is an enormous difference between a postulation ‘not being contradicted’ and a postulation that is *proven*.
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 12:39 am
I ignored this thread because I remember when “Global Cooling” was all the rage in the 1970’s. I also learned, years ago, that many of the surface temperature sensors were being affected by the “Urban Island Effect”, which is the tendency of developed areas to be dramatically warmer — about 3 or 4 degrees Fahrenheit — than the area just a few miles away from the center of a city. I became even more aware of how dramatic this is when I bought my current car because it displays the outdoor temperature on the rearview mirror.
Anyway, so I made my usual joke about “Global Cooling” on a friend’s LJ and she pointed me at a video that’s current on YouTube — “The Great Global Warming Swindle” which explains why Algore is just plain wrong. Another video that’s on YouTube is “Global Warming — Doomsday Called Off”. Both can be found by searching on YouTube.
These are very scientific videos — one is a Channel 4 documentary and the other from CBC. For those of you who believe in Global Warming, I encourage you to view both from beginning to end. For those of you who know Global Warming is a crock, I encourage you to spread the names of these videos as far and wide as possible.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 1:44 am
I believe, as someone with the ability to evaluate evidence and access to such, that the current climate cycle is not anthropogenic.
In the barrage of opinion, I’m beginning to be willing to concede that maybe it’s partially anthropogenic, partially the result of human-independent cycles/events. Either way, it does appear to be beginning to happen, and that is all that is particularly relevant. We have to start actually doing something about it - more likely, a bunch of different somethings. I’m disinclined to think that Al Gore’s ideas will prove of much use, but it’s possible that I could be wrong. There are a lot of other people who are likely to have some better ideas.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Robert writes:
I can see the bumper stickers now –
“Outlaw Sunspots!”
This paper happens to include several hundred years worth of sunspot counts. If you look at the early 1800’s you’ll see that the period of below average temperatures correspond to low sunspot activity, and the period from the early 1900’s through 1940’s correspond to warming in the first half of the 1900’s, followed by declining counts that led to cooling through the mid 1970’s, then increasing again into the end of the 20th century.
I’m all for anything you can do to get the sun to behave itself better. We should send a crew of cleaning people up there and clean up all those sunspots. They could do it at night when the sun is dark.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Note, Julie, that I said we needed to do something about it - not that we need to try and stop the process by freezing the inputs to the system at a fixed point. We can’t do anything about sunspots, but we can take steps to, for example, control our planet’s albedo.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Control our planet’s libido — is that the Republicans’ solution for EVERYTHING?
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 10:08 am
Is it just me, or is it getting awfully globally warm in here? (Slides out of shirt.)
Come sit on the couch with me and we can spoon and talk about carbon offsets.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Julie writes:
Global cooling may have been “the rage” in non-scientific publications, but in peer reviewed science journals there was no wide-scale consensus on global cooling the way there is now on global warming.
The 1975 US National Academy of Sciences report on understanding climate change – which has been cited by global warming denialists as evidence of an alleged 1970s global cooling scare — mentions global cooling in an appendix, but only as something with a “finite probability’ of happening in the next century, but more likely to happen over thousands of years. The main thrust of the report is that it isn’t possible to make predictions given the state of research at the time, so more research is needed.
So in the 1970s, contrary to what you’re implying, there was no widespread scientific consensus about global cooling. This is totally unlike today, when there is a near-total consensus among climate scientists that global warming is a real and immediate problem.
It’s called the Urban Heat Island Effect, and it appears to have little or no effect on measurements of global warming.
What on earth do you think “scientific” means, Julie? Neither of those documentaries was produced by any scientific institution, nor are they peer-reviewed.
The channel 4 (C4) documentary is a real winner, by the way. It’s been out less than two months, and already the producer has been forced to admit to misleading viewers about the source and the timing of his data. From the newspaper The Independent:
So why didn’t they use data from after the early 80s? Because the last 20 years of data shows beyond any doubt that solar activity can’t account for recent global temperatures. (Source). The article in the Independent discusses other wrong or deceptive data used in the C4 documentary.
Durkin, the person behind this documentary, takes criticism very well:
It should be noted that in the past, Durkin has been officially reprimanded for dishonesty in his reporting (using out-of-context quotes to change people’s meanings, for instance). And already, the most respectable scientist to appear in “The Great Global Warming Swindle,” MIT’s Carl Wunsch, has accused Durkin of distorting his views with out-of-context clips and deceiving Durkin about the purpose and theme of the documentary. (See the first letter to the editor following this article in the Guardian. The article itself is quite good, as well.)
As far as the data on sunspots goes, you’re simply wrong. To quote from the above-linked Guardian article:
See also this post on RealClimate (the blogger, incidentally, is a climatologist who works for NASA).
[Edited to correct a mistake: I referred to the C4 documentary's graph as being about "sunspot activity," when it was actually about solar activity. --Amp]
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Robert,
I’m not sure how we can control the earth’s albedo, short of telling men they can’t flush Viagra down the drain (sorry — nobody.really made me do it!)
The biggest impact on Earth’s albedo isn’t anything we do, it’s cloud cover. From space, asphalt parking lots are invisible — they can’t even be seen, but giant clouds are visible from the moon, even. And clouds aren’t controlled by what we do down here, more or less, they are controlled — and I don’t know anyone knowledgible who disputes this — by cosmic radiation seeding in the atmosphere.
There are some things we’ve done that are bad for the environment on a massive scale, but even those aren’t global climate drivers. The damming of the Colorado river has altered the local climate. Not sure it altered it in a “bad” way, but definitely — the creation of the reservoirs on the Colorado has dramatically increased evaportation in that watershed and it’s changed water temperatures and species distributions and some of that might be “bad”, depending on your point of view. But it’s definitely not driving the global climate.
The problem with ‘doing something’ is that what are we even supposed to “do”, strictly on the subject of climate change. Not “we should stop using non-renewable fuels because we really will run out some day”, but “we should stop burning fossil fuels because they are climate drivers.”
The planet really has survived warm periods much warmer than what we have now, and for centuries on end. Since our fixation on fossil fuels is relatively short-lived in the grand scheme of things, I simply don’t see any way to conclude that WE are driving global climate change.
We might be harming the environment, and our long term viability as an industrialized planet, but not because we’re actively warming or cooling the entire planet. Where things make sense from both a long term economic and environmental survival standpoint, as well as from the unproven and unsupportable “anthropogenic global warming” perspective, let’s do those things. But calling for, as many have done, an end to the industrialization of the developing world, that’s just insanity. Let’s get the developing world up and running on 20th century fossil fuel technology, then, once the infrastructure is in place, let’s bring them into the 21st century with renewable energy techologies, which by then will be much cheaper and much more plentiful.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Amp,
One of the points from those films — and I read about the bogus science of “Global Warming” about 2 decades ago, those films are just something convenient because they are on YouTube — is that of course scientists “agree”. They’d like to gets their money.
But what they also pointed out was that you can use the data to forecast the weather. Figuring I’d go look at some recent data, and see if there was anything interesting, I happened to stumble across sunspot data for both 2005 and 2006. If “sunspots cause cosmic rays and clouds to go bye-bye” hypothesis is true, there should be predictable weather events based on 2005 and 2006 sunspot counts.
What the data (it’s from the January 2007 edition of the NOAA space weather report “The Weekly”) show is that 2005, and particularly 2005 during the northern hemisphere’s tropical cyclone season, was a particularly intense period of sunspot activity with significantly more (by SWAG about twice) sunspots in the same time period that 2006. Additionally, 2005 was above where it should have been given that the solar minimum is this year. Extra high sunspot level after the solar maximum in 2000 sounds like it supports the “high sunspots make the clouds go buh-bye” hypothesis.
Here’s the 2005 raw data –> Click me!!!
Here’s the 2006 raw data –> Click me!!!
You’re, uh, free to read them. You might also want to look at July and August 2005 and think about names like “Katrina”.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Julie,
I thought about trying some point by point responses, but when you have already declared that any peer reviewed science that you don’t believe in is created by nefarious liars out for research money, there isn’t any way to discuss things with you. I could cite a hundred peer reviewed articles and go out and research the current state of climate science and come back with a massive summary explaining why the science supports the significance of anthropogenic climate change, and you would simply claim that the research is all lies and then make some eyeballed guesses about how Hurricane Katrina was caused by sunspots (which you claim “make the clouds go buh-bye,” which is a bit odd for something that you claim was responsible for an unusually hot year and massive hurricanes - what is it you think makes up a hurricane? Also, why is it that 2006 was only a tiny bit less than the hottest year on record - just short of 2005, when it had massively less sunspots? No wait, don’t bother to make up a reason, it really isn’t worth it).
When you cite a documentary in support of your argument that is complete junk, and then ignore the criticism of the documentary by explaining that scientists all lie (except the ones funded by Exxon and right wing foundations…) and then excuse this by claiming that most of your knowledge of climate science is 20 years out of date, I’m not sure that there is any reason that you are deserving of anything other than mockery (well, other than basic human decency…).
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
“The planet really has survived warm periods much warmer than what we have now, and for centuries on end.”
The planet has.
We would have been unhappy in the Carboniferous.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Actually, I think we’d have been pretty happy in the carboniferous era, it is just the process of shifting to the carboniferous over a few centuries that is the problem. Just as there is nothing wrong with having oceans that are 20 meters deeper than they are now, but you don’t want to be around while they are flooding the state of Florida, it is the warming, not the warmth that is the problem.
Temperature change isn’t our only problem. If the planet has ever seen a rate and scale of change in CO2 concentrations anything like the current rate and scale (doubling within a 2 century period), it has only happened accompanying some of the great extinction events, and even then, it is unlikely that the rate was as fast. The effects of this change on the oceans are profound and not beneficial for most things that live in the ocean.
I’m sure that Julie can drag out a few canards about the geological scale carbon cycle and volcanoes to amuse us all.
We already have the first extinction event that has hit terrestrial plant diversity. We are in the middle of one of the great extinction events to hit terrestrial animals, and now it appears that we are going to also cause a marine extinction event as well (rapid change in CO2 concentrations cause acidification of the ocean surface, slow change in CO2 concentrations cause slow acidification of the entire ocean, since the surface waters have a much smaller volume than the entire ocean, the acidification will be more severe with rapid CO2 change, potentially enough to produce an extinction event).
But hey, no need to do anything to make it possible for the third world to leap-frog over the 20th c 1st world technologies directly to a 21st c post-fossil fuel era. No, China needs to build a few billion cars with the fuel efficiency of a 1950’s Ford first before it starts building hybrids or electric cars. The magic of the market place will solve all our problems, anything else would be equivalent to calling for the complete dismantling of industrial society. :p
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
No, China needs to build a few billion cars with the fuel efficiency of a 1950’s Ford first before it starts building hybrids or electric cars.
It’s funny because it’s true!
I was thinking the same thing when I saw that comment earlier.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
“Just as there is nothing wrong with having oceans that are 20 meters deeper than they are now, but you don’t want to be around while they are flooding the state of Florida, it is the warming, not the warmth that is the problem.”
My (possibly flawed) understanding is that it would also reduce the amount of, or at least radically alter the composition of, land that we would find habitable.
This comment was written by Mandolin.