When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988, I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind’s use of fossil fuels.
But I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic.
My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true.
But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather.
In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.
This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened. Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.
Twenty-four years ago, I introduced the concept of “climate dice” to help distinguish the long-term trend of climate change from the natural variability of day-to-day weather. Some summers are hot, some cool. Some winters brutal, some mild. That’s natural variability.
But as the climate warms, natural variability is altered, too. In a normal climate without global warming, two sides of the die would represent cooler-than-normal weather, two sides would be normal weather, and two sides would be warmer-than-normal weather. Rolling the die again and again, or season after season, you would get an equal variation of weather over time.
But loading the die with a warming climate changes the odds. You end up with only one side cooler than normal, one side average, and four sides warmer than normal. Even with climate change, you will occasionally see cooler-than-normal summers or a typically cold winter. Don’t let that fool you.
Our new peer-reviewed study, published by the National Academy of Sciences, makes clear that while average global temperature has been steadily rising due to a warming climate (up about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century), the extremes are actually becoming much more frequent and more intense worldwide.
When we plotted the world’s changing temperatures on a bell curve, the extremes of unusually cool and, even more, the extremes of unusually hot are being altered so they are becoming both more common and more severe.
The change is so dramatic that one face of the die must now represent extreme weather to illustrate the greater frequency of extremely hot weather events.
Such events used to be exceedingly rare. Extremely hot temperatures covered about 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent of the globe in the base period of our study, from 1951 to 1980. In the last three decades, while the average temperature has slowly risen, the extremes have soared and now cover about 10 percent of the globe.
This is the world we have changed, and now we have to live in it — the world that caused the 2003 heatwave in Europe that killed more than 50,000 people and the 2011 drought in Texas that caused more than $5 billion in damage. Such events, our data show, will become even more frequent and more severe.
There is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious time. We can solve the challenge of climate change with a gradually rising fee on carbon collected from fossil-fuel companies, with 100 percent of the money rebated to all legal residents on a per capita basis. This would stimulate innovations and create a robust clean-energy economy with millions of new jobs. It is a simple, honest and effective solution.
The future is now. And it is hot.
James E. Hansen directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
No it is not, all of our scientist are just plain wrong. Geez even I can see it.
Depends on what scientist’ article you read. For every 100 studies for global warming, there is 100 against. Both have viable proof, to we nonscientist. Who knows whats happening. I’m bettin’ we’re in for a wicked winter, and i’ll bet my shovel…..
Wow. Incredible stats. Data and citations please.
Have you got a computer? Look it up….
In other words, you don’t know where you heard or read this, but it must be there somewhere. If you had a reliable source you would not hesitate to refer others to it.
If you can’t use a computer, and prefer to have someone else do your work, why then you don’t belong here, in this forum, on this topic. Look it up yourself, ya lazy dink. I find that if I sited references, you either wouldn’t read them, or you wouldn’t understand them. Waste of my time either way. Good night!
You make a claim which you cannot substantiate. It indicates either you are lying, or simply incapable of carrying on a civil discussion.
If I google republican or right wing lies, it provides so many links I could not read them all if I lived to be 150 years old.
So how could I possibly post the links to both arguements for you to ponder? If the right wing posts that many, then you would be 300 years old to ponder the lefts. It is not that you lie, or are incapable of carrying on a discussion, it is just that you are ignorant. And it’s not your fault, it is just what you have been programmed to believe. I,ll see you at the ice-cream shack after you get out of church on Sunday……
And we can’t efficiently cite all the even more valid references to the reality of AGW.
Enough of the name calling. I’ve been accessing and assessing) scientific information for decades.
I do that all the time and as a scientist for decades, I read a lot (including before computer availability) on a number of topics including analysis by other scientists. This string is too long, what did you want me to look up? Oh yes, you trust everything you see on “computer”, Google, etc.?
So your a scientist. Can you provide data and citations please. If you can’t remember what I suggested you look up, than you may of forgot, or didn’t understand, what you’ve been reading for decades….
After reading your posts, I do start to believe the “computer” may be wrong….
What field is your degree in?
http://www.petitionproject.org/
31,487 Scientists have signed….
The petition states: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
That list was nothing more than a publicity stunt. All that was required to sign it was that the individual have at least a BS (Bachelor of Science) in some field. It did not require they be doing work with climatology related fields.
For an accurate assessment look up the first name on that list, Earl M Aagaard phd.
9,029 signers of the petition have PhD’s…
It was hardly a publicity stunt if most of the public hasn’t heard of it at all and Gopher40 still says there is a consensus among all scientists when it comes to AGW when clearly that is not the case….
If you want to see what a real publicity stunt looks like just take a look at these quotes from the 1970’s from climate change alarmists that wrote books saying that global cooling is the result of Industrialization!
It’s the same old story, same old song and dance my friend, just now with a different twist:
”There are ominous signs that the earth’s weather patterns have begun to change and cool dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political
implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food
production could begin quite soon. The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that
meteorologist are hard-pressed to keep up with it.”
– Newsweek, April 28, (1975)
“This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000.” – Lowell Ponte “The Cooling” (1976)
“The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and
exploding population.”
– Reid Bryson, Global Ecology (1971)
“This cooling trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century.”
– Peter Gwynne, climatologist, Newsweek (1976)
“If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000…This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age.”
– Kenneth Watt, Earth Day (1970)
“In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.” – Prof. Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970)
Even those with Phds are in fields not related to climate science, and do not have any experience in that research. Some are mathematicians, some medical doctors, nuclear physicists, etc. The first one listed is a biologist who believes in creationism and thus already lacks credibility.
All of the listed signers have formal educations in fields of specialization that suitably qualify them to evaluate the research data related to the petition statement. Many of the signers currently work in climatological, meteorological, atmospheric, environmental, geophysical, astronomical, and biological fields directly involved in the climate change controversy. Most of the MD and DVM signers also have underlying degrees in basic science.
A medical doctor has no professional knowledge of climatology. Neither does a mathematician, gynecologist, or nuclear physicist.
Look up Richard Muller’s recently or soon to be published study. He was formerly (until his study) a climate science denier. His study was funded in part by the Koch brothers, well known climate science deniers. He has changed his attitude and now concludes the claims of AGW are for the most part true and accurate. Whether the Koch brothers will change or continue to fund propaganda against climate science remains to be seen. I personally doubt they will change their current efforts since their wealth has depended so long on oil.
Not even the supposed “climatologists” even know what the facts are when they themselves are basing their data and research on climate models and not the data itself…
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.”
– Prof. Chris Folland,
Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
“The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful.”
– Dr David Frame
climate modeler, OxfordUniversity
“We need to get some broad based support,to capture the public’s imagination…So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts…Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
– Prof. Stephen Schneider,
Stanford Professor of Climatology,
lead author of many IPCC reports
Actually, he was a well educated skeptic. Good that he came out from the Dark Side.
Why quote from books that are 30-40 years old? Look at current research.
Because it shows that climate alarmists have been fear-mongering for at least 30-40 years and those same climate alarmists were so-called “experts” in the field then and their predictions have turned out to be false and now the same bunch are saying that your breath, CO2, is causing global warming. Why should we believe them now when they’ve cried wolf before? I guess it’s because now they want to tax breathing!
I haven’t checked to see if those you quote have changed their opinions, but will assume you are correct. That means that scientists actually follow the scientific principle, which is come up with a theory, test for evidence to substantiate or disprove that theory, and adjust the theory to match the evidence. Gee, they did REAL SCIENCE.
Yeah, I agree with you 100%. Real science is test a theory, and publish the results and allow for peer review. The fact that there is not a consensus among scientists right now means that those scientists who do believe that global warming is caused by Co2 need to grow up and stop calling other scientists who have come up with different conclusions based on their findings “deniers” because it goes against everything science stands for as you pointed out so eloquently in your last message.
Heat transfer to the atmosphere by CO2 has been known for at least a century. If it weren’t for this effect of greenhouse gases (H2O, CO2, etc.) our climate would be much cooler and prone to wide swings. Atmospheric CO@ is on the increase.
I did not say that. And your cites demonstrate old data and supposition.
This is an exact quote from you:
“We scientists and other critical thinkers of any stripe (including the non-degreed) agree that AGW is real.”
in reply to Patten_Pete
Oh, that one again (emphasis on one). As pointed out before, based on old, insufficient data.
The problem is that most “scientists” who deny global warming is caused by humans only have an honorary degree, or if a real degree, it is one not related to climate research.
Don’t believe me? You have a computer, look it up.
The American Academy of Scientists, which supports the claim of AGW, is made up of scientists with real degrees in the related field.
That is one of the stupidest claims ever made in support of AGW. What a maroon.
It is good to see that facts really rile you up. Look up the references and type of degree that many climate science deniers have. Many are honorary degrees, degrees in history, statistics, or religion. Also, many receive funding from the Koch brothers and other energy companies which have a vested interest in denying global warming.
Look up “The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism”.
Elitist twaddle and complete rubbish. Whenever George Soros or the Koch brothers become part of the argument, all credibility is lost.
why? what he said about them is not a lie?
Cop out. Elitist my foot. Credible, yes.
Speaking of …
actually something like 9% of scientist believe in global warming. So that stat is wrong until you cite the source.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/06/scientists-overwhelmingly-believe-in-man-made-climate-change/1#.UCEdaPZlTak
I hate being that far off….
Huh?
97% sorry
WOW!
This is science? Anyone thumping a Bible in the street proclaiming the apocalypse is considered nuts, but this is the same exact thing. But hey, nonsense like this sells more ad space.
Well played, Bangor Daily Nobodies.
No concept of statistics? Puts you in a lot of company, unfortunately.
Nope everything’s fine out there!
Someone earning a living from or, in Al Gore’s case gets very rich from, promoting climate change cannot possibly be objective. Climate change is a hoax. It’s promoted by the left & the UN is involved. One needn’t any more proof than that.
http://www.globalclimatescam.com/
Stupid, unsubstantiated comment.
You are kidding, right? Why don’t you tell that to the people in the MidWest? Go tell them that George Dubya Bush was right and two summers of predominately high 90s and low 100s are a figment of their imagination.
There was a reason you sociology majors went into sociology – you weren’t very good at math and science. Here you are confusing weather with climate.
The father of the “Gaia Theory”, recently called all the global warming hysteria “green drivel”.
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/06/22/green-drivel
Didn’t you get the mermo about how the data have been falsified?
That memo? That falsehood? Only sociology majors agree to AGW? News flash. We scientists and other critical thinkers of any stripe (including the non-degreed) agree that AGW is real. And your academic accomplishments are … ?
http://www.petitionproject.org/
31,487 Scientists have signed….
The petition states: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
this is a total crock. All you have to do is mail it in. There are not controls on who can print and mail one in. I could even do it and they would be non the wiser. People could mail in 10 with different names and degrees and they would have no Idea. There is no control over this petition.
Signatories are approved for inclusion in the Petition Project list
if they have obtained formal educational degrees at the level of
Bachelor of Science or higher in appropriate scientific fields.
really because I just went to the website and and could print off a copy and mail it in. They just take it on my word that I have a B.S degree or above. There is not checking of anything other then there verification process, which they do not outline.
How do you know they just take your word for it and don’t vet things out? How about you sign it and see if you can get your name on the petition and come back and tell me how that works out for you.
The people who sign should have enough professional integrity to not falsify their credentials anyway. If someone dishonestly signed the petition it doesn’t in anyway take away from the fact that thousands of professionals with integrity and the scientific discipline to complete degrees in their fields of study find enough inconsistencies with the global warming mantra put out by the big foundations that dish out the grant monies that fund the climatologists who perpetuate the global warming rhetoric.
See I have cited a source that says 97% of scientist believe in global warming. You come back with a petition that can be gotten anywhere by anyone. How do they vet them? Do a simple good search? Anyone with a degree that they want can submit the petition. This is no way a credible source.
As I’ve stated before, the beneficial effect of increased CO2 reaches a limit pretty rapidly making this opinion speculative at best and not backed up by subsequent research. Also, the real wild card is the effect on clouds and other aspects of atmospheric water vapor (which is the most prevalent greenhouse gas although with not as high an IR absorption as CO2 and methane). Maldistribution of rain (and snow) can be expected to be a result of global warming.
Regional effects are even more pronounced, especially at high latitudes. Check out the article in the August Scientific American on the catastrophic collapse of several ice sheets in just one area of Antarctica, most of which have been intact through several natural cycles since their formation at the beginning of the last ice age. Ask anyone in Alaska (with a couple of exceptions, of course) about the effects they’ve seen in their environment in the last few decades.
I don’t think you know enough about the subject to unequivocally state that a trace gas like CO2 “reaches a limit pretty rapidly”.
I also think you’ve drunk too deeply of the warmist ambrosia and that you’re no longer capable of objective thought – that “maldistribution of rain (and snow) bit is a real humdinger.
He has a D.T. (Doctor of Trolling) from Under the Bridge University
Oh Goodie! I am glad you called them out on faking the disappearance of the Polar Ice Cap. Now I can sleep better knowing noone is crapping all over our planet for profit. I like knowing there will be something left for my Great Grandchildren. Maybe you can explain what happened to the corn crop in the U.S. too. By the way, I aced science and math in college. Major was Industrial Arts.
The Polar Ice cap is receding and is not restoring in the winter as before. For a coupl of years now, the long sought Northwest Passage is a reality.
OMG – has this ever happened before? As in:
“It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us,
must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated.
(This) affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.”
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th
November, 1817 [13]
http://climate.nasa.gov/kids/index.cfm Here“s a NASA website which maybe can explain it in a language you can better understand.
The U.N. considers it a cornerstone of its plan to redistribute wealth from the United States to poor nations that for whatever reason never made anything of themselves.
The thieves at Goldman Sachs view it as a way to make trillions. That’s trillions, not billions. And that’s at the little man’s (in the U.S.) expense.
Conspiracy again. Yawn.
Conspiracy hound? There’s another conspiracy under every trashcan.
ignorance is bliss
“According to lawsuit papers filed, Hansen, a virulent global-warming activist
who once accused the Bush Administration of trying to silence him (in print) at
a time when he had given over 1500 interviews, features and speeches, and was
caught deleting old NASA climate data to skew the results of his fraudulent
experiments, has failed to properly document over one million dollars in fees
and awards he received from the green movement, or to receive approval to accept
such monies. “
What is the source of this quote?
Organic Gardening – January 1977
So this quote appeared in a magazine in 1977, and refers to a man who had not yet been President? You just lost all credibility.
You really don’t get it, do you?
The only thing I get from your posts is that you are willing to falsify information because you do not have a valid argument.
And what I get from your posts is that you aren’t very bright.
So, you like to post false information in the hope that no one will catch you at it, but when someone does, you resort to name calling. Grow up.
“Grow up”? That’s the best you can do? I had this conversation in grammar school.
Look up “sarcasm” in the dictionary and then re-read “Organic Gardening – January 1977” and then take a decade to think it over.
This is too easy…
“There is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious time. We can solve the challenge of climate change with a gradually rising fee on carbon collected from fossil-fuel companies, with 100 percent of the money rebated to all legal residents on a per capita basis. This would stimulate innovations and create a robust clean-energy economy with millions of new jobs. It is a simple, honest and effective solution.”
What???? Sucking money from the energy producers and handing it out to the people will solve climate change????? You gotta’ be kidding. Of course, there are a lot of uneducated people that will fall right in line with your thinking as long as they think they’ll be getting a piece of the pie.
It’s time to stop the hoax. The climate changes on its own, and there’s nothing that we can do about it, and no amount of money-grabbing that will change anything. The climate change agenda is just a ploy to steal money to fund a global government. Wake up, people.
Wake up, denialists, (and conspiracy advocates). The climate does vary “on it’s own” but we’re augmenting it. Big time. You’re the ones perpetuating the hoax.
So, just what will carbon credits and redistribution do to fix it? Let me tell you…..Nothing at all but make a lot of hoax perpetrators very, very rich.
I’m beginning to think you have a hand in the whole scheme since you so vehemently defend it. What’s in it for you?
What the — will drill baby drill solve?
Other than More of the Same?
It will lower gas prices, genius!
but it won’t really, all that oil will no go to the USA but the highest bidder. They think it will lower the prices by increasing supply. However OPEC controls so much of the production they can shut it down to maintain the prices they want.
Nothing in it for me, monetarily that is. Should be benefits for my kids, grandkids, and all those younger than me (and that’s a bundle). Also, satisfaction from analyzing a situation as good as I can based on as good data a I can get. If intellectual honesty is pride and a vice, so be it.
So when did the tables tip? The industrial age? the automobile age? or was it some population point at x million? or did it have to do with increase in sq. footage of houses, or number of car miles driven? Maybe it was when most of the forests which covered N. America were cut down—Maine’s virgin forest was largely gone by the mid-1800’s.
Or maybe none of this is revalent, only CO2 emissions is? So when we examine ice cores we find much higher levels of CO2 and lower temps in cycles.
So am I the only scientific skeptic who realizes the connection to CO2 emissions is tenuous, and if there is one, I have a waiting woodlot and garden to swallow up those emissions and refresh the atmosphere with oxygen and water vapour…..just like Mother Nature intended!
I hope you appreciate that the rapidity of onset of consistent warming is much more rapid than at any time in history (including geologic). I believe you said you were an engineer. How much difference will your woodlot and garden make. You do realize, don’t you that your woodlot will eventually be oxidized, just at slower rate than burning it directly. Also, closed system studies have shown that increasing CO2 amounts will not continually increase plant growth. It tops out pretty fast.
Prove it!
Complicated situation to be sure but as stated before, the rate of increase in the last couple of centuries dwarfs any natural cycles in (geologic) history. 100% proof will come a few decades down the road but there’s an increasing higher probability of Global Warming and the “A”–human induced–is definitely there.
Sure, It’s a hoax!
They are burning up crops and flooding out southern cities just to make up a story to make more money!LOL
I hope it is real! I live about 800 feet above sea level and I want waterfront property!
Better deed it to your kid’s, kids, your in for a long wait!
I live at the 150 foot level and I’m not buying any Gopherwood either. However, think about certain Pacific Island countries where the average elevation is only a few feet above and no spot is over a couple of cozen feet.
Aren’t the islands subsiding rather than the sea level rising?
You might want to look at the data that says these islands are sinking. Which means they will end up underwater even if sea level does not change.
To call the thousands of scientists that have contributed to the body of knowledge confirming man’s effects on climate operating solely from a profit motive is ignorant, judgmental, and dishonest. Not even worth commenting on more fully than that.
I would dare say that since the data source has been proven to be unreliable and altered, the “thousands of scientists” have been fed bad data. And, yes, many of them do have an agenda. I choose to rely on my experience working with the data and the fact that I knew how easily it can be manipulated, and the effects the extremes, or removal of extremes, can have on the outcome.
Bad fed data…? Have you a clue how many different countries are doing this research? How many decades of research has been manipulated…? What planet are you sending these comments from?
Let’s see, from when the thermometer was invented and weather centers established with hundreds of years of records up to the point when NASA and Hansen lobbied to substitute sat. observations for these ground level observations in the 80’s.
Or was it when KYOTO 1 focused on N. European left wing universities, and totally ignored the S. hemisphere and the oceans…’not enough data’.
In the scheme of things these observations have proven unreliable predictors of future climate change; solar radiation rules all….as usual.
Thousands of scientists, in a couple dozen countries, over decades of work, in two, three, four dozen different disciplines from atmospheric, to oceanographic, to paleo-geologists, to physical chemists…
What is it with you people, cherry-picking information that fits your uninformed prejudices about the scientific method and the scientific record on climate science…?
You have no credibility. None, whatsoever…
So now we’re a conspiracy “advocate”?
Do you realize how many sources of data are being used by those around the world? 2 for the primary base data sets, and they both come from the US and can be modified during extraction. And the data set that was being used by the majority of the scientists was found to be in error last year.
It only takes one embedded routine that calls an external module with a single parameter modified to change the entire data set.
More and more are jumping from the climate change express. Some of us were smart enough to not get on in the first place.
Can be, can be. No proof.
EJ, One factor totally ignored by Hansen is the fact that CO2 concentration in the atmosphere lags behind temperature change. This in itself is a strong indicator that CO2 concentration is an effect of temperature change and not a cause. There also happens to be basic physics involved that supports this view.
Can be manipulated, but was it? You’ve been saying your former boos said it could be done, but can he “prove” that it was done. Did he? Denialists want “proof” but are unwilling to “prove” their side.
Stop the global warming hoax.
Stop the AGW denianlism hoax/falsehoods.
No, they are not falsehoods. The truth must be killing you people.
I’m doing quite nicely with the real truth rather than the ostrich-like complacency of the denialists. Skeptics are one thing, but denialists …
My garden just lit itself on fire and you tell me not to worry?
It’s just a Hoax?
LOL
Stick your head outside and see what is going on in the world, thats if you can pull it away from the Fox News Channel!
My broccoli is 3′ tall, pepper plants of many varieties are covered with fruit, and my eggplant think they are in S. Italy…..warming has been very, very good to Maine gardeners and growers. Bring it on.
Until your well goes dry!
At 960 ft above sea level I only can rely on rain!
Must be pretty rocky or full of ledge (I know,what part of Maine isn’t?). However, groundwater exists at some pretty high altitudes.
As stated before, plant growth enhancement will only last so long. And you obviouslly know about the redrawn climate zone maps that have moved one zone North in the last few years. Interesting that you acknowledge that.
No, it’s not. Global warming is fake and the earth is flat. There is no such thing as evolution and God put dinosaur fossils on earth to test our faith.
LOL (if they weren’t so serious).
Yeah, if the earth moved around the sun we’d feel it moving.
Certainly in your case there’s no such thing as evolution.
Oh wow, science denying AND personal attacks! You must be really intelligent.
Do you ever put down the crack pipe and read the vacuous tripe that you write? My dog could drag his ring piece over a mimeograph machine and make more sense than you do.
O.K. I know I’m not a climate scientist, so I have to figure out who to believe. On one side are scientists who may be risking their credibility for some acclaim and grant money, probably tens of thousands of dollars. On the other is the petroleum industry and other corporate interests who’s stake in the status quo runs into hundreds of billions. I should believe that sending massive amounts fossil fuels and sending tons of CO2 into the sky won’t upset the balance of things? Of course not. The Koch brothers would never lie to me. Just like the tobacco industry.
Trust your Instincts!
It’s August and my Tomato Plants are dead, the lawn is brown and apples the size of grapes are falling off from the trees on their own. Lately It either rains in a Monsoon or it is dry for months! This is NOT the Maine Climate that I grew up in during the 60’s!
And the climate you grew up with in the sixties is not the same as it was in 1850. It was much cooler then. In Ireland potatoes were rotting in the ground.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/monitoring/climate/surface-temperature
My tomatos are fine… Don’t have apples though.
The one thing in life you should have learned is nothing is ever the same.
I learned that when a Mopar plowed into my 57 Chevy.
I try to avoid abrupt radical change ever since!!
It’s a pretty good policy
The Irish potatoes were rotting because of a blight.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Little-Ice-Age-1300-1850/dp/product-description/0465022715
According to this gentleman the blight came about because of a period of intense continual rains that occurred at the end of the “Little Ice Age” of the previous 500 years. The variety of potatoes that was adopted as the popular strain in Ireland was particularly vulnerable. Potato varieties in other parts of Europe were not so afflicted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_M._Fagan
Yeah, it’s just been getting warmer …
Only because it was getting cooler in the previous 500 years… Its all relative.
http://www.becominghuman.org/node/bookreviews/little-ice-age-how-climate-made-history-1300-1850
Thousands of scientists, in a couple dozen countries, over decades of
work, in two, three, four dozen different disciplines from atmospheric,
to oceanographic, to paleo-geologists, to physical chemists, biologists…
Most scientists I know, and having a degree in chemistry I’ve met a few, do their work at least partly because there is a paycheck. They can’t be blamed for making a living in what many of them love to do: research. But the accumulation of knowledge on the subject of climate across a very broad swarth of disciplines, over many years, in many places, all pointing in a particular direction with a great degree of certainty, a consensus, really, as it has been accurately described by many, doesn’t support a profit motive as being a primary driver in climate science.
You are correct to be suspect of a profit motive to those that fund pseudo-science and obfuscation of the issue. The Koch brothers or ExxonMobil stand to profit from the status quo to a much, much greater extent than a scientist in some remote location drilling through miles of ice on the Greenland Ice Sheet, or on a research vessel collecting data from submersed sensors in the ocean. These people can throw millions of dollars at creating doubt, while honest scientific inquiry gets by on grants and funding that can be scared up, not always very reliably.
I appreciate your concern but I’m hoping the arctic ice melts long enough that we can bring a big, harsh-environment semi up there and spud a couple of dozen exploration wells. Jobs for the boys, cheaper fuel, and the joy of working with a mega-machine.
A perfect example of the attitude (shortsightedness…?) that will likely contribute significantly to the hardships and possible demise of your grandchildren…
A billion or more people that live in coastal regions will more than likely be displaced… I doubt that will be done in a tidy, orderly way that will leave the rest of humanity untouched, unaffected…
I wept for hours after I read you’re thoughtful reply. But then I remembered I’m working on a bid tender for a deepwater drilling program off the coast of Madagascar and reality hit like an under-$650k day rate.
Having written that, I did notice the tide at our cottage in Saturday Cove was several millimeters higher than usual last night and could not help but regret the billions of deaths that must have caused.
You’ll be dead anyway, right? Nice… Nothing nilihistic in that, eh?
Eh? You’re Canadian? With excellent national healthcare and abundant tar sands? I can’t claim nihilism but when it comes to drowning billions in coastal regions, I am an adherent of flaucinoccinihilipilification.
Yawn…I thought this nonsense had died…Even Al Gore has crawled under a rock since the story of all the false data broke..The true believers still worship at the alter I guess…LOL…
This whole thing is fairly dumb for all of academia behind it. I do not dispute that human kind has contributed to “global warming”. I am just not so sure on the whole if it matters all that much when you look at history.
There have been radical shifts in climate many time in the last 10,000 years since the last Ice Age and the sudden dramatic melt that gave rise to humanity. Global climate patterns have affected populations, governments, famine, and history as a result. Had the earth not cooled dramatically during the Little Ice Age we might all be speaking Chinese or many names like Sullivan Clooney and Caitlin might not now be part of the American tradition.
My point is that throughout history climate change has occurred with dramatic results. Understanding humanities impact is important … but I am not sure climate changes can ever be “reversed” or “slowed” and I am not sure it really matters.
“Global climate patterns have affected populations, governments, famine, and history as a result. ” I am not sure it really matters. ”
True, If you only live for 80 years in a 10,000 year cycle whats the differance of a few degrees in “your” lifetime ?
or any lifetime, and what are you going to do about it if it did?
How about our descendants lifetimes?
The entirety of human history is littered with cases of dramatic and sudden climate changes. China withdrew and dismantled its navy and dismantled its colonies in the Indian Ocean because of a sudden dramatic global weather change. He used the materials to build barges to send rice upstream to feed the population of the interior because of permanent weather changes.
Again my source is Anthropologist Brian Fagan referenced elsewhere.
Please understand that I do not deny the probability of human induced climate change.
Banning CFC’s when it was discovered that holes in the ozone layer were being caused by CFC’s reversed the damage being done. Personally, I think we are probably too far down the road to prevent catastrophe, but that just might be my Scottish reticence. I don’t believe for a second this is a problem that “adaptation” will mitigate. There is evidence supplied by chaos theory that once a certain threshold is crossed a system can undergo a significant irreversible realignment that may render human’s existence a much more tenuous proposition.
Those that call this a hoax are simply and absolutely upside down and backwards in their thinking…
Ok, I’m on board with the CFC ban. I am also NOT on board with those that believe that man has “no effect” on climate. I think the evidence is too great.
Where you and I diverge, I guess, is on the idea that we are creating our own grave. I don’t think that things are nearly that bad. Already the northern nations of the world are laying claim to Arctic territories. Russia China Canada & the US among them. Plans are being laid for Arctic cities, Northwest passages etc.
In the Antarctic much the same is going on… People adapt.
I also think that there is a tendency to overstate the issue…(IE Last year we had 6 feet of snow and this year only 2 feet as evidence of climate change or my tomatos did fine last year but not this. A “market” has been created around climate change and there is a great deal of money involved in it being “true” and that can’t help but shape perception and policy.
The science, or rather the chemistry that takes place whether with CFC’s, or CO2 and CH4, doesn’t give a damn about perceptions, markets, year to year snow fall, or tomatoes (as nice as your tomatoes might be…) The uncertainty in climate science is not around whether it is taking place, as you rightly say, but to what degree we may be jeopardizing our future. It is a gamble with potential existential consequences… The science indicates as much. Not a gamble I’d willingly take, but one that is being forced on civilization by those that, simply put, don’t get it. The profit motive is THAT strong… People adapt, until the wall of water, or the tornado, or the hurricane storm surge is unprecedented and the overwhelming force of nature outstrips even the capacity of adaptable human ingenuity, resourcefulness, or adaptability.
Honestly, I hope you are right that adaptation is possible. There isn’t a lot of evidence that adaptation even if possible would be tidy, democratic (in as far as watching out for the many and not just the privileged few), or not something more along the lines of the Black Plague that left Europe of that day TOTALLY, fundamentally different. The environment will survive; there are no guarantees our species will. Natural boom and bust population cycles when adversity strikes a given population of critter are often a precipitous decline following the upward slope of growth.
I really like this author having read several of his books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_M._Fagan
My favorites and on topic.
The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300–1850. New York: Basic Books, 2000 (hardcover, ISBN 0-465-02271-5); 2001 (paperback, ISBN 0-465-02272-3).
http://www.amazon.com/The-Little-Ice-Age-1300-1850/dp/0465022723
The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization. New York: Basic Books, 2003 (hardcover, ISBN 0-465-02281-2); 2004 (paperback, ISBN 0-465-02282-0).
http://www.amazon.com/The-Long-Summer-Climate-Civilization/dp/0465022812
As for the idea of a Black Plague taking us down as a species, It could happen.
It has always been possible. Maybe by a newly drug-resistant strain of a common flu or just because in some South American Jungle a child flips over a rock and comes in contact with some previously unknown bacteria. It could happen. Not likely but possible.
That’s the key. How “democratic” will the scramble be? Sounds more like seeds for war, pestilence, genocide, etc.
If you were living in Oklahoma and enjoying temps of 100 degrees on a daily basis and fleeing forest fires caused by drought you may think twice about adapting to climate change. Some may others may not.
The 1936 North American heat wave was the most severe heat wave in the modern history of North America. It took place in the middle of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl
of the 1930s, and caused catastrophic human suffering and an enormous
economic
toll. The death toll exceeded 5,000, and huge numbers of crops
were destroyed by the heat and lack of moisture. Many state and city
record high temperatures set during the 1936 heat wave still stand to
this day.
The states of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Minnesota, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Nebraska, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and New
Jersey also experienced record high temperatures. The provinces of Ontario and Manitoba set still-standing record highs above 110 °F (43 °C). Chicago Midway airport recorded 100 °F (38 °C) or higher temperatures on 12 consecutive days from July 6–17, 1936. Later that summer in downstate Illinois, at Mount Vernon the temperature surpassed 100 °F (38 °C) for 18 days running from August 12–29, 1936.[1]
The frequency and intensity of current hot spells is something like 3 or more standard deviations from the norm, unlike the frequency and intensity of similar past events as what happened then, or at any other time that evidence of strong warming or cooling trends can be positively identified. Those events followed a more normal pattern of distribution.
Apparently one thing about the Dust Bowl that made that particular drought so damaging, with dust from the Mid-West showing up in East Coast skies, was that over-farming and poor farming and grazing practices had a lot to do with depleting the soil setting up the conditions for the dust storms and the lack of productivity. Part of FDR’s stimulus programs included planting millions of trees and wind blocks, and teaching farmers and ranchers good practices, thus preventing a re-occurrence. The drought we are experiencing now is not expected to produce similar dust conditions but the damage to crops and herds is still very significant now, and promises to continue to be until the drought breaks.
The poster seemed to indicate that it was something new. Obviously he/she is incorrect. If you go back further into history a couple thousand years. You would be.
Plant and animal communities can’t move northward fast enough with the current and reasonably anticipated warming.
And what will we do when the permafrost melts? When the muskeg releases even more methane? Etc., etc.
I can’t answer that. But my answer will not impact it one way or the other in any event. Neither will yours I expect.
Hopefully not redundant, but the current trends are progressing (regressing?) at a faster and more consistent rate than before.
Not exactly true. Climate change happens frequently. Read your history.
Maxxxx panic, sound the alarms…..
A Letter To Charles Koch: Do You Consider Climate Science To Be On A ‘Solid, Firm Foundation’ As Richard Muller Does?
As you know, one of your grant recipients – Dr. Richard
Muller of University of California Berkeley – recently published an
op-ed in the New York Times about his “total turnaround” from climate
skepticism based on the results of his latest study. The Charles G. Koch
Charitable Foundation granted at least $150,000 to Dr. Muller’s
Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) study. Dr. Muller’s results
are consistent with decades of scientific evidence, fully convincing him
that global warming is happening and “humans are almost entirely the
cause.”
Based on Dr. Muller’s evidence and the views of virtually all climate
scientists, I am writing to inquire about the influence of these
findings on your previously expressed skepticism about climate change.
Dr. Muller explained in a recent Greenpeace Radio interview that he
spoke directly with you about the BEST project and your personal
interest in his analysis:
“I did talk to Charles Koch. He emphasized from the beginning that he
was concerned about valid issues in the science. He wanted us to
straighten out those issues. He didn’t know what answer we would get. He
just wanted it to be put on a solid, firm foundation. That’s what we’ve
done.”
For years, you and your brother, David Koch, have directly provided
over $61 million to organizations that deny science and cast doubt on
global climate change, in addition to millions more in hidden funding
through your “Knowledge and Progress Fund.” This includes support for
the Heartland Institute, which is currently supporting a project run by
the retired TV weatherman Anthony Watts in attempts to discredit the
results of the BEST study. You may recall that the Heartland Institute
ran the infamous billboard comparing the Unabomber with those who
acknowledge the existence of global warming.
Organizations you finance continue to delay action to curb global
warming even as the United States is experiencing unprecedented heat
records, drought, wildfires, and violent storms. Your own home state of
Kansas is at the center of the summer’s extreme drought, which has led
to prairie fires and forced ranchers to sell their cattle due to lack of
grass and water. Your oil and gas business activities, not to mention
the political funding you can afford, have helped ensure that these
all-too-real disasters will become more frequent as the global climate
continues to warm.
Our country desperately needs to reduce carbon pollution in order to
take a lead on the global stage, and you have an opportunity here to
stop obstructing such leadership. Please tell us, Mr. Koch: do you now
consider anthropogenic global warming to be on a “solid, firm
foundation” as Dr. Muller does? Will groups that deny climate science
continue to receive support from Koch Industries and its associated
foundations? If so, will you urge them to discontinue such unscientific
and unproductive interference in policy-making focused on addressing
climate change?
We look forward to your response and urge you to take this inquiry
seriously. Too much is at stake to continue delaying solutions to
civilization’s largest challenge.
Good synopsis of some salient facts concerning global warning… Hoaxers need not read…
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/08/global-warming-the-years-the-locust-hath-eaten.html
And more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/24/greenland-ice-sheet-thaw-nasa
The sky is falling, the sky is falling!
Funny how all the extremists can fix the problem with truckloads of OUR money!
It will take truck loads of our money to fix the damage caused by warming. The conservative sensible way would be to fix it sooner rather than later.
And the energy industry (and we, the consumers) have not been paying the necessary price for our lifestyles. The debts are coming due. Tick, tick …
This is more proof that some people will fall for anything!
Precisely…
Your concept of “proof” is interesting to say the least.
You mean like the warmistas who proclaimed that street lights were melting in Oklahoma because of global warming?
Turns out the melting was caused by a dumpster fire.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/02/alarmist-fact-checking-street-lights-dont-melt-at-115f/
While I will
not disagree that there seems to be a trend toward hotter summers and even
colder winters in some places that is understandable and even predictable by me,
several years ago. If the earth is indeed heating up, because of the earth’s
tilt and rotation the earth’s warming trend will not be evenly distributed and
can create extremes of both heat and cold in some areas. But what I do question
is the cause of this warming trend, is it man made or the result of other
factors? I say this because as a boy I remember seeing pictures of Mars and was
fascinated by the large Polar Ice Caps on Mars as shown at the time by pictures
taken from Mt. Palomar and other huge telescopes of that time. It showed canals
that scientists theorized might have been made by water melting during the
Martian summers. These pictures can still be seen today but they are getting
rarer and harder to find, but they did and do exist. However recent pictures
from various Martian Explorer satellites show a different story with Mars
having little to no ice caps at all.
My point being
that 35 or 40 years ago Mars had Polar Ice Caps larger than those on earth
today at one time. Al the inventor of the internet Gore has suggested that it
is our gas guzzling SUV’s that is at the heart of our own Polar Ice Caps
melting and the subsequent rise in temperature. I just have one question, does
he also suggest that it is large Martian SUV’s that has caused the
disappearance of that planets polar ice and behind that planets warming as
well. Obviously Mars has less of an atmosphere than earth and if this warming
was a result of solar activity, than that would explain why Mars’s ice caps
have almost totally disappeared; earth’s ice caps have not. I noticed in the
news not long ago NASA was questioning what had happened to our Sun’s sunspots?
Sunspots are actually cooler regions of the sun and appear as dark spots when
viewed by special satellite imaging cameras. Since these cooler regions have
temporarily seemed to have disappeared, might logic suggest that maybe the sun
is putting out more radiation in the form of heat here on earth? Is that a possibility?
Now suppose you
are not buying any of this and you insist that global warming is the direct
result of our use of carbon based fuels, and suppose you are someone who wants
to do something about it. What would you do? What I would do is put people like
Mr. James E. Hansen and other NASA scientists to work on developing Hydrogen
energy. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the known universe; we would
never run out of clean, renewable energy. The main byproduct of burning
Hydrogen is water vapor clean enough to drink. That’s it, just clean water.
Hydrogen can be extracted from any water source, including waste water so even
a landlocked State such as Arizona could conceivably supply much of their own energy
needs. Every coal fired electrical generating plant could and should be
converted to burn clean, renewable (every time it rains) inexpensive (if every
State produced their own Hydrogen) Hydrogen fuel. Windmills cannot run your
car, but Hydrogen can. This idea is hardly pie in the sky, BMW and several
other car manufacturers have already built Hydrogen fuel cars (not battery
operated like a toy) cars that have been driven over 3 million miles. In fact
Hydrogen was selling with a very limited production of it, cheaper than
gasoline was all during this Obama Administration in California. Hydrogen is
safe, as safe as propane or gasoline both of which can be extremely dangerous
is mishandled. NASA scientists should be used to research and develop various
ways to produce and store Hydrogen, to replace all gas stations as quickly as
possible with Hydrogen fueling stations. Let’s face it, when we are on the road
we want to pull into a filling station fill up and be on our way, don’t we? Who
wants to plug their car in like a toy and wait 3 to 6 hours for the batteries
to recharge? Hydrogen is the only energy source that is clean enough and
available in unlimited quantities to replace carbon based fuels. Hydrogen has
been greatly maligned, who hasn’t seen pictures of the Hindenburg in school?
But go look at those pictures again, you will see while the ship burning
completely, that is the reason is burns so cleanly, it also burns slowly enough
that most people in the airship escaped as well as ground crew on the ground.
Imagine if that had been propane, or gasoline, a large chunk of New Jersey
would still be in orbit around the earth.
So if you are a
global warming proponent start doing something about it, contact every elected
official and ask them why we are not moving ahead with Hydrogen cars now? Why
are we burning even more coal in our Midwest Electrical plants? Tell them that
even if they get millions from the oil companies to not even speak the name
“Hydrogen”, they still have to live on the same planet you do, and
the money won’t do them much good if the earth is slowly incinerated. Ask your
local colleges to support and start R&D programs into Hydrogen development
and production, storage and distribution plans. Nuclear energy has been
proposed by the Obama Administration, but you can’t put nuclear power in your
car, they will become terrorist targets, and as we saw in Japan anything man
builds with all his safeguards, can be destroyed in seconds by nature. They
haven’t even figured out what to do with spent fuel rods, why on earth would we
want more of them? Wind farms only make sense for the developers of Wind
energy, they are inefficient, unreliable, and expensive and do little to supply
our expanding energy needs or reduce costs to consumers.
Now imagine
every State in the US supplying their own energy needs and one day even
exporting cheap, clean, renewable energy to the rest of the world. We could
stop sending billions of dollars to terror sponsoring Countries in the Middle East;
we may even see peace break out there. Because they wouldn’t have the billions
to export their brand of terrorism any longer, they would have to support their
own people. In any case it is just insanity on our part to continue transferring
the wealth of this Country to the Middle East; we are only pouring fuel on an
already dangerous fire there. Only Hydrogen meets all the requirements for the
environment, for availability, for the next generation. Imagine if Hydrogen
fuel was selling for less than a dollar a gallon as gasoline once was? People
would be on the move again; this Country would be on the move again. That is
possible. Now imagine if the 3 trillion dollars that Obama has added to our
National debt was spent on actually putting people back to work building
Hydrogen production plants. Imagine the engineers, scientists, building contractors,
laborers, plant workers, new spinoff businesses and towns that would spring up
to support all these new workers. Imagine this Country actually getting back to
work, while reducing pollution, smog, asthma, bronchitis and other breathing
ailments. Reducing acid rain that affects our lakes and streams, fish and
wildlife. This Country runs on energy, we can see the results of nearly four
years of $4.00 a gallon gasoline in our everyday living. Higher energy costs
mean higher food costs, higher everything because everything is brought to us
by vehicles using gasoline. By extension much lower energy costs mean everyone
gets an immediate raise in income. New and good paying jobs that didn’t exist
in the past will be created, as just like with the space program there will be
new technologies created to make all this happen. New programs at the
Universities needing new teachers, more money for R&D, more everything if
we just have enough guts and vision to make it happen. Do you? Will you help me
spread the word that this is the only direction that makes sense for the
environment, the Country and the world? I am convince it will happen, but some
want to wait until all the oil has been pumped from the ground, greedy Middle
Eastern oil sheiks and greedy oil companies. But we cannot sit around and wait
for the earth to destroy itself, if as people say carbon based fuels are the
root cause of an unnatural spike in global warming. I raised questions I didn’t
say it wasn’t happening; even if carbon based fuels turned out not to be the
culprit, the benefits I just mentioned far outweigh doing nothing or continuing
on the path we are now on. We do know the Dinosaurs died out, if we don’t want
to suffer a similar fate, I suggest we do something now.