Was this drought caused by climate change? Yes.
FAIR has noted the tendency of corporate media to play down the connection of extreme weather to climate change. (See Neil deMause’s piece in Extra!, 8/11.) This summer, as the country is beset by another devastating wave of drought and fires, the approach seems to be to acknowledge climate change—in the 10th paragraph—but end up by concluding that it’s impossible to say whether there’s any connection between climate change and any particular weather phenomenon. As in this L.A. Times piece (7/2/12):
Since 2000, it has not been uncommon for wildfire seasons to end with a tally of 7 million to 9 million blackened acres nationally. Though total burned acreage dropped during a few years of milder weather, it spiraled again last year when flames galloped across parched Texas.
Researchers predict that rising temperatures associated with climate change will lead to more wildfires in much of the West. But it is hard to tease out the effects of global warming from natural climate cycles, which in past centuries have seized the region with long, severe droughts.
“We’ve had conditions like this in the past,” [Forest Service research ecologist Bob] Keane said. “So you can’t say with any degree of certainty…that this is climate change. But what you can say is that it certainly meets the model of climate change.”
On a conceptual level, this is just wrong: It’s not as though there are some weather events that are caused by climate change and some that just happened, and there’s some way to tell one from the other. Once you’ve altered the atmosphere, every single weather phenomenon—every storm, every dry spell, every unremarkably pleasant day—is a result of that altered atmosphere. If we had not changed the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide from 280 parts per million to almost 400 parts per million, in other words, we would have entirely different weather every day.
That’s not to say that we didn’t have storms and droughts and pleasant days before we changed the climate. But scientists can tell you whether we’d be more or less likely to have any given type of weather with an unaltered climate. And with droughts and forest fires, the answer is clear: We’d be having less of them. This is something reporters should be pointing out in every story on the extreme weather of the summer of 2012.
From the Associated Press:
A man plummeted four stories to his death from a building in Chicago today.
Investigators are unsure whether it was a suicide or an accident. Regardless, some scientists believe it to be associated with the so-called “laws of gravity”.
The insurance industry denies the existence of such laws. A spokesperson for the American Insurance Institute stated, “He could just have easily fallen upward, and landed safely on top of the building. The fact is is that there is no conclusive proof of gravity, only circumstantial evidence.”
He then dropped his pen, picked it up, tossed it upward and caught it on the ascent.
“What goes down often comes up,” he stated, to laughter from the reporters present.
Hay lets not forget that when we have all those ‘cold storms’ it makes it harder to read the thermometer so all those scientist are using incorrect data.
Said it once, will say it again, it is very hard to convince people of a particular view point, when there paychecks are very dependent upon them not seeing that point of view.
My Father used to put it best: for some people if their butts were on fire, they would rather stand there and burn to death, then admit someone else was right.
The answer is not yet clear to scientists. Your NASA link is a summeary of IPCC findings which are based on problematic models which are diverging from actual measurement as identified by AMS scientist who tested the IPCC models here:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/j/j/global_temperatures_09.pdf
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
There is also a 132 year published record compiled by 27 scientists from the “Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project” which created a global recreation of 132 years of weather indicators in 6 hour intervals and found no significant changes.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
There is a reason why climate scientists will not say with certainty that current weather anomalies are caused by increased CO2. They don’t know yet and the resolution of their models has been poor and diverging so there is no scientific support for any such claim. The IPCC itself provides warns about model use to make prediction claims saying, “In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
By your unscientific and illogical standard we can claim that the new record for the longest period of time without a major hurricane landfall in the entire history of the US is due to climate change, that the decrease in incidence of F3 to F5 tornadoes is due to climate change, that the increase in record current crop yields is due to climate change, that fewer deaths from flooding are due to climate change, etc.
Climate change “loads the dice” and makes extreme weather more likely to happen. round the world, devastating extreme weather events are becoming more common and severe. Take the U.S., for example, which in 2011 experienced 14 weather disasters that cost the country $1 billion or more. That’s well above the long-term average of three such events a year. This is consistent with what scientists have long been warning us — that climate change is increasing our risk of extreme weather such as heat waves, heavy rainstorms and droughts. Bad weather has always been with us, but climate change makes certain kinds of extreme weather far more likely. By pumping carbon pollution into the atmosphere, we are playing games with our weather system with loaded dice. And the odds are not in our favor. http://realitydrop.org/cb/gnO
What really peeves me about all this, is the people who are trying to deny it, regardless of the amount of evidence on the one side, while the amount of evidence on the other is nothing more than another Ronald Reagan ‘Oh, I don’t think so’ dismal.
It’s like you want to shake them and say “wake up, you fool, you don’t have a future if we all keep doing this, cause no one is going to have a future. I don’t care how many ‘left behind novels’ someone writes.
Weather is what happens every day. Climate is a statistical record of weather over a long period, such as the 30 year period used by The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
“NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) released the 1981-2010 Normals on July 1, 2011. Climate Normals are the latest three-decade averages of climatological variables, including temperature and precipitation. This new product replaces the 1971-2000 Normals product. Additional Normals products; such as frost/freeze dates, growing degree days, population-weighting heating and cooling degree days, and climate division and gridded normals[.]”
Go here to learn more:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/normals/newnormals.html#WHATARENORMALS
I think it’s safe to say that Jim Naureckas is an incredibly effective media critic, but he is not a climate scientist. Very few scientists, particularly when it comes to weather phenomena, will speak with the kind of absolute certainty that Jim does in this paragraph: “On a conceptual level, this is just wrong: It’s not as though there are some weather events that are caused by climate change and some that just happened, and there’s some way to tell one from the other. Once you’ve altered the atmosphere, every single weather phenomenon–every storm, every dry spell, every unremarkably pleasant day–is a result of that altered atmosphere.”
It appears that Jim’s issue is not with the reporter, but with the ecologist, who is speaking the language of science–which is, by definition, cautious and loaded with qualifications, but pointing toward a possible, and testable, conclusion. Jim’s conclusive
statement presents an overly schematic picture of climatology, and is really not testable science.
Keep in mind that even climate scientists, working within the climate change paradigm, will work hard to prove their own science wrong–and it’s why the ecologist quoted above used the phrase “meets the model” of climate change, without definitively saying the fires resulted from a buildup of carbon in the atmosphere.
Jim wants scientists to speak this way, because then reporters will find it harder to dissemble when talking about the weather, but climatologists are smarter than that.
The media have denied global warming long since it became obvious to anyone with a pulse. My two favorites:
1) A George Will diatribe (Newsweek, October 13, 2007) claiming global warming scientists are “zealots” promulgating “loopiness” and “climate porn” that concludes: “If nations concert to impose antiwarming measures commensurate with the hyperbole about the danger, the damage to global economic growth could cause in this century more preventable death and suffering than was caused in the last century by Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot combined.”
2) A segment of NBC’s Morning Joe program (July 3, 2008) in which Jack Welch agrees with Pat Buchanan that global warming is “a neo-Marxist hoax propagated for the transfer of wealth and power.”
It’s amazing how people with no scientific background read a couple of books or articles on climate change then pontificate on the subject as if they are scientists. As someone with a little scientific background (BSCE) I accept what the overwhelming majority of climate scientists are telling us: climate change is real and we are the cause. But even if climate change is not real or we are not the cause, shouldn’t we do something about it? After all, our existence depends on it.
As for the subject at hand, whether or not the current anomalous weather events are due to climate change does not invalidate the majority scientific opinion any more than unusual cold weather in the Midwest does.
The reason there is a media ‘white out’ is because ‘Climate Change’ is a government euphemism. It is covering up what is really going on. Chemtrails spread by aeroplanes are altering our weather and weather modification has been going on for decades. Please watch ‘What in the World are they Spraying? On you tube.
You know even if the deniers used a little common sense they would see that even if the scientists were wrong about their findings it would be a still be a good thing to switch to renewable energy and become an energy independent country. The fact that they can’t see the oil companys want to keep their golden goose alive out of greed, really just blows me away.
buSHIT ! If you can’t see the connection between CARBON, POLLUTION and the INCREDIBLE EXCELLERATED PACE of MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING, you MUST HAVE YOUR Republitarded head IN THE sand. after THE ice caps melt, earth will get blasted by the other 90% OF harmful RADIATION. the GOP IS NOT ONLY EVIL & GREEDY BUT A vehicle FOR global destruction. the entire GOP offends me !
@Dan Merritt: The GOP is evil. What have the Dems done about the climate? And don’t give me that nonsense about the Republicans halting any progress in Congress. The answer to that is: how come the Democrats aren’t halting regression in Congress? Why are we steadily moving to the right? Why don’t the Dems move us steadily to the left (rhetorical questions)? The answer is because they are owned by the very same interest. They just speak a little softer and move us to the right a little more slowly.
If climate scientists can’t state that a specific event is directly attributable to climate change with a standard degree of certainty, then they should be doing exactly what they are doing, saying that they can’t make that connection. I don’t get what the problem is here.
The media are controlled by the 1% and large companies. Of course they lie.
I truly do not understand the wealthy and powerful. The Republicans, the toadies of the rich, are always companioning about the national debt [plus they lie about who’s responsible for it]. “Oh! Oh! We’re burdening our children and grandchildren with money debt. Oh! Oh! Woe! Woe!” Meanwhile the rich and powerful are destroying the environment and will leave their children and grandchildren an infinitely less pleasant world. But this they think is no problem compared to a few pennies in national debt..
There are two and only two possibilities. (1) The powerful truly are convinced that global warming is a hoax. (2) They care nothing at all about what happens to their children and grandchildren. My guess is the latter. Which is what I cannot understand. When did all family feelings die out? When did folk lose all affection for their children?
The weather is affected by a lot more than temperature. The winds are driven by the sun and by the earth’s motion and the magnetic fields and the heat emanating from the earth’s core all affect it the weather. Science is very good at telling us what will happen if we change one factor or even multiple factors, but every choice for “change” we make sets up other choices, which in turn set up other choices, which set up other choices. What science cannot tell us is what choices we will choose! So any statements that science makes about the future should carry the caveat “if nothing about the current givens changes”. It’s not what WILL happen. It’s what may happen. Will Rogers once said that horse sense is that faculty that keeps the horses from betting on people. We are “wild cards”, exercising our free will sometimes for postive change and sometimes for harmful change.
What we know for sure about planet earth’s weather is that we are a planet that on average has plentiful rain, moderate temperatures and at least as many sunny days as stormy days. Climate change usually means that weather that was infrequent or unknown in some parts of the planet become known or more frequent there, and weather that used to be taken for granted no longer can be. People usually don’t like change. It makes them feel insecure. We tend to see change as all bad. Not all effects of climate change are bad. Areas that were once not hospitable to animals and plants become so and places that once were not arable become so, and places that were marginal can improve their ability to support animal life, including people. Moving to the new “improved” places involves a lot of inconvenience and disruption and dislocation, but humankind has done it before when the climate changed. We are so numerous because we are about the most adaptable species ever to arise on this planet. If we put our minds to it we will be able to adapt again. It is this challenge to adapt that holds the key to our future happiness as individuals and as a species.
Turning back climate change is probably not possible. The planet does what the planet does. People may hasten it or impede it, but we dont’ determine it. We wish we did. It’s frustrating not to be in control of the universe, but we are not. Focusing on living in a sustainable manner, with an eye out to monitor what the planet is doing is a better approach to life than hair shirt wearing finger pointing about who is “green” and who is not.
We need to care for one another, not divide from one another if we want to adapt and survive–as individuals and as a species. But of course that attitude doesn’t raise much money for NGOs or for governments. Waving the latest crisis while passing the hat brings in the cash. But it does little for the long term response–adaptation–which is where our money and our minds and our hearts ought to be focusing–together.
Science Daily News references mostly peer-reviewed research on all subjects scientific. I recommend this apropos this discussion;
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120705204935.htm#.T_b-4y_a1EU.facebook
Also, due to global warming we have warmer winters on average which means more pine bark beetles survive into the next Spring and Summer. They are a major enemy of mature pine trees. Once killed, the pine trees dry out, still standing, and add considerably to the flammability of the forest. So that’s a direct, cause-effect connection between climate change and the fierceness of forest fires.
Corporations do influence our elections with their money, and are funding politicians who deny global warming. But the public has what the corporations do not: the ability to push non-climate denying legislators into action. And there are more of them than the corrupted deniers. Don’t throw your hands up; go to the website of CitizensClimateLobby.org; contact one of the 57 chapters near you right now; or start one if if there’s not. We can make our government work for us if they know they must.
Hi: If you have to explain global warming to someone, as to how it “looks” from our perspective, it is like trying to explain a joke to someone who has not laughed. It is basically pointless. Reading some of the above, paraphrasing, “but this does not match up or this study does not seem to show data in this direction.” For people like this, the reason is one of two choices for their viewpoint, MONEY or Stupidity. I don’t say this lightly at all. There are people who can be very “book” smart, but lack reasoning and common sense. Something can be right in front of their nose and they still don’t see it…
Anyway, for me, I don’t waste my time anymore… I have better things to do than to talk to masonary walls…
…..Bill
please, FAIR, can we re-frame the dialog? clearly, we humans are manufacturing own demise – but the cause is POLLUTION – climate change is a possible (likely?) artifact of pollution, but to demand that we identify climate change as the underlying problem is to miss the mark entirely – as many journalists and media outlets are doing. tomorrow 350.org is going to melt a block of ice – on a hot summer day in washington DC – that spells out the word HOAX – does anyone REALLY think that ONE SINGLE PERSON is going to say to themselves, “by god, they’re RIGHT – the climate IS changing – and i’m going to do something about it!” with this kind of petty, snarky action?? personally, i am sick and outraged about the failure of those of us who understand the urgency of the problem to move people to action. i wrote this article for truthout.org on the subject during the gulf oil disaster and feel more desperate than ever to find a way to resolve the problem, which is clearly semantic: http://archive.truthout.org/change-is-dead-long-live-change57879
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/03/bill-mckibben-on-the-global-warming-hoax.html
I’d like to talk a bit about why I think Climate Change is real and why we humans are doing it this time around.
From the way I see it, there are four primary factors that, taken together, add up to a new and dramatic change in our climate that’s coming down the tracks at us like a run-away freight train.
First, Population. It took 10,000 plus years of human history to get half a billion of us on the planet, but only the most recent 400 years to gain 15 times that, or an added six and a half billion of us. Why? The industrial age and modern medicine.
Second, the discovery of oil in the 1860s (therefore none burned before that date.)
Third, the industrial Age with the discovery of electricity and the use of steam, diesel, and gas engines. Over a very short period we began burning vast quantities of coal, oil, and natural gas, with carbon dioxide (CO2) as a primary byproduct.
Forth, a key characteristic of CO2: That it acts as a partial blanket for heat energy but not for sunlight. Essentially, sunlight comes through the atmosphere and warms the earth, but some of that warmth cannot pass back through the atmosphere because CO2 blocks it. Until now this has been good because it helps stabilize the Earth’s temperature and makes life as we know it possible.
So, as our modern industrialized world, driven by the needs of 7 billion of us, pumps unbelievable amounts of additional blanketing CO2 into our atmosphere, our Earth can’t do anything but warm up.
How does a warming Earth affect climate change?
Our Earth’s climate is a hugely complex system and complex systems can make radical changes with seemingly very little outside pressure. These are called “tipping points”. What do I mean? Let’s say your standing next to someone and they reach up and lightly push against your shoulder. You shift your weight slightly and nothing happens. But let’s say you are standing on top of a narrow fence post with nothing to hold on to and someone pushes you. Almost guaranteed you will fall off the post. Climates are like you on the fence post – subject to dramatic change with the smallest push.
So, in conclusion, it is my belief that only a small rise in temperature, thanks to our burning all these fossil fuels, may very well cause catastrophic change in our climate. So if we don’t do something soon, that run away freight train will get us.
I should also add that the climate change I’m talking about hasn’t happened yet – may not happen for 20,30 or 40 years. The reason I’m concerned is that, if we’re to effectively stop it, we have to act now and act in very big ways. If we wait 20 years it will be too late. I want to keep climate change from happening, not for myself, but for my children and grandchildren. At 73 I probably won’t be around long enough, but they will, and I care about them and their future.
I do agree that we have contributed to the issues of global warming. The climate change is made worse by the government’s daily practice of iillegal and copious amounts of spraying in the ionosphere. If you get a chance, please watch the short video on chemtrails “What in the World Are They Spraying?” I did not believe the “theory” until I simply started looking up more. It’s being done right in front of us. I’ve seen perfectly normal, rain producing clouds vanish in a very short time if they are spraying in the area. You will have to come to your own conclusion about the validity of the “theory” as well as the countless reasons our planet has become a huge petri dish. I just hope you will keep an open mind.
Science getting settled
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/08/26/lawrence-solomon-science-now-settled/
“The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC & other global warming doomsayers won’t be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays & the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.
The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN.
Yet this spectacular success will be largely unrecognized by the general public for years because CERN remains too afraid of offending its government masters to admit its success. Weeks ago, CERN formerly decided to muzzle Mr. Kirby & other members of his team to avoid “the highly political arena of the climate change debate,” telling them “to present the results clearly but not interpret them” & to downplay the results by “mak[ing] clear that cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters.””
Eat twice as much food and you gain weight.
Double the carbon in the atmosphere in a few centuries, carbon that took million of years to be turned into coal, petroleum, and gas, and you get global warming.
No one is diputing that carbon traps heat. That the ice is melting. That less light is reflected back into space. That oceans are warming. Oh! The “debate” will be over shortly. Nature will provide the definitive answer.
I foresee a day in the not too distant future when climate-deniers, religious zealots, rightwingers and other Regressives will be advocating to legalize division by zero. They will dismiss counterarguments by virtually all mathematicians as “much ado about nothing,” and they will really mean it, too.
If climate scientists can’t state that a specific event is directly attributable to climate change with a standard degree of certainty, then they should be doing exactly what they are doing, saying that they can’t make that connection. I don’t get what the problem is here.
Godshatter: Scientists may not be able to tie a specific WX event to climate change if they are looking only at the WX over any specific “local” at a particular time. However, if they look at wide area trends, global trends, rolling in all the measurable variables and establishing a way of modeling the less readily measured – not to mention identifiable – they should have no problem drawing credible scenario conclusions.
The reality is overwhelmingly obvious to all but the most committed naysayers. One is reminded of the ‘Flat Earthers’ and, with all due respect, those who believe the earth – the universe! – was created only about ten thousand years ago.
In any case, it seems to me, given the terribly primitive lack of energy efficiency at this stage of human civilizations’ evolution, doing a measurably cleaner and more efficient job of energy generation and distribution is, argueably, a good thing to do.
Godshatter: Scientists may not be able to tie a specific WX event to climate change if they are looking only at the WX over any specific “local” at a particular time. However, if they look at wide area trends, global trends, rolling in all the measurable variables and establishing a way of modeling the less readily measured – not to mention identifiable – they should have no problem drawing credible scenario conclusions.
The reality is overwhelmingly obvious to all but the most committed naysayers. One is reminded of the ‘Flat Earthers’ and, with all due respect, those who believe the earth – the universe! – was created only about ten thousand years ago.
In any case, it seems to me, given the terribly primitive lack of energy efficiency at this stage of human civilizations’ evolution, doing a measurably cleaner and more efficient job of energy generation and distribution is, argueably, a good thing to do.
This article has its own trail of “fuzzy”proclamations.And it is what we on the other side of the coin have warned people about for years on this subject.
.The idea seems to be that because China(lets say) has released more carbon into the air…..we now can say that any weather,anywhere in the world,whether warm or cold,wet or dry, is somehow connected to that release of carbon.Remember the butterfly that flaps its wings in Russia is felt here?Now in a sense with one string grasped in your tight little hands, you believe you own, and understand the whole cloth.And more so must move to own, and regulate the making of that cloth for the sake of us all.Beyond any science ,you libs have such a predictable knee jerk reaction.You need to control the hive to bring it in line with(wait for it) YOUR BELIEFS!
Look every summer as it warms up we hear this.(We should have our summits in needles Cal….and nobody gets air conditioning.)If it is a brutally cold winter like in eastern Europe -not so much.My question is what to do about it even if you are a die hard?Here you move to control ,contain ,and yes destroy industry and the creation of wealth.Obama you hoped would carry that water bucket for you.But what do you do, to do that with emerging countries?Or monsters like China or India?I suppose you move to dominate,and control them till they see the light of your brilliance.We become the leaders in the new power grab ….called global climate change.Yeah that and a buck will get you a cup of coffee….. ESPECIALLY in places like China.FAIR gets angry when anyone in the press breaks the liberal template that ALL WEATHER conditions should now be seen under the” control group”heading of due to global warming.Nobody can just say that yeah it is hot -but Ive seen a hell of a lot worse 70 years ago.The though police are on duty.
While individual weather events are not attributable to global warming, shattering heat records and comparing them to shattering cold records is. We have shattered many more heat records over the course of the year than cold records. And that is true all over the globe.
Is it really the sun?
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DamonLaut2004.pdf
To Will Ozier
I think it would be unwise to make the comparisons that you did.People who do not think that the “science is closed” concerning the weather ,and how much, or how little man effects it are really not the same as those who believe in the Easter bunny or Santa.There are those on the conservative side who would have you believe that the “science is closed” on when life begins.Therefore you on the left are murderers, or at the very least condoning and subsidizing murder of the most innocent among us.And while millions MAY die due to cow farts and car emissions…..Millions HAVE died and continue to die on an abortionists table.So lets just agree to disagree…Ok?
Elaine Im having more fun than a Fox in a hen house reading that 2004 article you sent,and I thank you for including the references.Spend some time tracking down the contributors ,the research facilities, and the grants.Then take a look at the faulty data over the last 4 years and watch names pop up all over the place that tie one to the other,and to this article.
But all that is yadda yadda yadda.The earths weather is changing.We can say that positively.We should move not to pollute our environment.That is a given.We can all agree on that.I think massive tax breaks should be given to those who add to the cleanup of our environment.The burr in the saddle is should government take control.You say yes ….I say no.
So you want a more recent one?
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/02/05/419064/nasa-human-activity-not-solar-activity-drives-global-warming-350-ppm/
It’s sad to see this article demonstrate yet another journalist suffering from innumeracy. Weather is inherently variable, with highs and lows and occasional records being set. Scientists believe that Global Warming is contributing to the variability. Scientists worth their weight in carbon also say that any weather event (heat wave, tornado, hurricane, cold snap, etc) can never be attributed directly to Global Warming. This FAIR journalist is railing against, not a scientists, but at basic statistics.
Even more depressing is that a recent poll indicated more Americans are believing in Global Warming. Was it the scientists and researchers who convinced them with their models and statistics and probabilities? Was it that the American people just finally began trusting the vast majority of scientists over the random crank denialist? No. It was simply that they had seen a few records fall in recent months.
Innumeracy is everywhere.
The real problem is that the question doesn’t make sense, so it’s no wonder the answers are never satisfying. Scientists tend to try to answer whatever question is asked literally. And then they usually try to give an answer to a more sensible question. This sounds to many people like the scientists are uncertain or hedging, when really the questioner doesn’t understand enough to ask a sensible question.
The right question is not what causes particular weather patterns, because the answer to that would be a complex web of interacting factors, much of which we can’t quantify. Of course global warming does not “cause” a particular heat wave. There is no single cause of any particular weather event. But ask any climate scientist if global warming affects the weather, and the answer will be an unambiguous YES. If something influences the temperature, it is bound to affect the weather.
When the energy in the earth system is increased (by greenhouse gases that allow less heat to radiate into space), that energy can’t just disappear. That would violate the conservation of energy, a basic law of physics. Some of it will be transferred into kinetic energy, causing more severe weather, and some will remain as heat, warming the air or the oceans. Some will melt land ice and snow, causing more flooding, and causing sea level to rise. Some will increase evaporation, causing heavier rain or snow. Some will reduce the extent of sea ice, causing oceans to warm faster in a positive feedback loop. Some will warm the permafrost and shallow Arctic ocean floors, releasing more greenhouse gases – another positive feedback.
Climate scientists predicted all of these things would happen, and every one of them has been happening. Of course they can’t predict exactly how much of each change will happen by when. But they have tried to give prediction ranges based on models or on looking at past times. In most cases their predictions based on models have been right as far as direction, but many of the changes were larger or came faster than predicted. Predictions based on past conditions have usually been much more severe, but it’s difficult to know how quickly those changes will come, since in the past CO2 rise has been much slower. Predictions will continue to improve with time, but it is extremely risky (and stupid) not to make big changes as quickly as we can based on the predictions and changes we have already seen. The system has a huge amount of inertia, and the greenhouse gases we have already released will continue to increase global warming for many more decades, maybe centuries. Heat waves will keep getting worse for generations, as will the other negative changes. If we care about future generations, we need to change our energy system now and do everything we can to stop global warming.
Brian: Do you really want to know what your Congress (at least the House of Representatives) is doing to address global warming??? They voted to deny the reality of global warming and man’s role in it.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/04/06/207842/gop-led-house-rejects-science-240-184/
It’s all about marketing and having a big enough megaphone, and a concerted effort by those alarmed at rising atmospheric temperatures to break through the corporate wall of denial.
Remember “three out of four dentists say….”?
How about “999 out of 1,000 global climatologists say that the earth’s atmosphere is heating up, ice is melting at an alarming rate, weather patterns are shifting and becoming more extreme, and it’s all due to humans pumping more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”
Hundreds of concerned scientists should gather, sit for a group portrait, with the message above somewhere on the resulting poster, one produced and distributed widely. Or maybe a television ad campaign. Or this “global warming” poster sent to all public and private schools, to science teachers. Or maybe a picture of people up to their necks in water with Global Warming at the top might get the message across.
IOW, in-house scientific studies just don’t cut it, even if they do get reported on accurately in print somewhere. We need visual representations of what will happen to the world and humanity if atmospheric CO2 concentrations continue to rise and the ice keeps melting, visuals that are simple but get the message across. And then these visuals need to be widely disseminated. Only this might cut through the right-wing corporate noise and denial campaign.
The website Sceptical Science is brilliant at explaining all the detailed arguments as to why AGW is happening, and includes a very comprehensive section of properly science-based arguments to refute every conceivable point that deniers could try to make. It’s even got a widget you can install in your Browser for quick access to these so you can demolish deniers quickly & easily whenever you come across them:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/
Personally I feel climate science can’t yet prove that the extreme weather events we’re experiencing are caused by climate-change, but that we’re now getting near to the point when it will be able to:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120705204935.htm#.T_b-4y_a1EU.facebook
In an effort to get the latest on any regulation of greenhouse gas, I found that the E.P.A. apparently promulgated its own standards for the emission of CO2 as a human safety issue. The E.P.A. was challenged in court by certain states, but it prevailed in court. Romney promises that, if elected, he will amend the Clean Air Act to exclude CO2 from its purview. Perhaps someone has more recent info.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/27/science/earth/epa-emissions-rules-backed-by-court.html?_r=1
All I know is that I’ve lived in Georgia for 30 years. Only in the last two years have we had temperatures over 100 (that’s Farenheit). Usually 90s, which, yes, is more often than I really like. This year we had a peculiarly delightful cool spring. Now we’re having an extended period of temps over 100. I think this is week No.3. It’s an amazing thing to go outside when the thermometer says 90 and find it to be “cool.” Talk about an ability to adjust.
The previous periods of drought weren’t nearly as hot; just dry. Very dry. Now it’s both hot and dry. What I learned the last go was that there have always been droughts here. The difference, however, and this is important, is that the frequency of their happening is more. Once upon a time it was 20 years between droughts. Now it’s less than five. Just little things like that could make a person believe that the climate is changing.
Anyway, I have nothing to add except that the comments are always interesting and amazing. Proving, once again, that we do believe what we want to believe, although some of us back it up with actual science. I sure hope I’m around when Miami floods as I would really like to read about what people believe caused it. New York and Washington DC too.
And, yes, I’d like to believe that this is all a hoax as I would like my grand children and great grand children to have as wonderful a life as I’ve had.
For those like Michael-e “fuzzy” to them is wrong. Only their clear cut 100% supernatural certainty will they accept. And that isn’t something in which science does. Just the photos of the retreat of most of the glaciers from the 19th century to today is one obvious example. But it means them changing their profligate ways and they won’t. Glenn Beck’s cry that he will use even more gasoline to waste and pollute is echoed all over the Reich Wing networks. Also the Plutocrats don’t mind because it means that the Iron Heel of control will be dealt to us and everyone else in order to “save and protect us” from the coming hoards of the poor, hungry and thirsty who will not die quietly.
For them it means a bonanza of control. People will be clamoring to the safety of their wage slave hives for the comfort of food, clean water and cool surroundings while the others will be suffering and fighting and killing each other for food in the not too distant future. For them it will the a global slums and an eager work force to pick and choose from. billions may die but they too don’t care. They are preparing for it, are we?
Night gaunt…..So I get it ,you have bought into the absolute certainty of this “science”.Now what would you do about it?Elaine and the rest of you die hards same question.Lets see where you are going with all this.Sounds like (wait for it)…..more government controls to my ears.By the way new studies indicate almost no melting of Hymalayan glaciers in the past ten years in complete repudiation of warming models.How weird
I agree with Windy about the science. I’m all in favour of reducing my carbon footprint and all eco measures but we don’t know anything about the weather. It’s so insulting to be called a denier. I deny certainty based on almost no evidence, If we had kept records for only a week no one would consider that a good basis for drawing conlusions. If we had records for a thousand years it wouldn’t be much.
The nuclear industry sees itself as the solution to climate change (previously known as global warming). If the climate wasn’t changing , that would be weird. One day there won’t be any humans, big deal!
If we had a real media, then the fact that government and corporations are trying so hard to push us over the edge of environmental destruction to maintain short-term profits would be the lead almost every day until it changed.
Tishado that would be true IF you actually believed we are going over the edge toward environmental destruction.Or that it is the fault of government….. or corporations(what ever that means).Beyond that the press is under no obligation to carry the water for the liberal agenda by yelling “the sky is falling please oh mighty FED step in and save us all”.
We argue about climate change and we die! Individuals that work for media outlets that deny the science behind AGW will have blood on their hands. Don’t most religions, Christian, Muslim, Jewish etc. etc. have “higher powers” that hold individuals accountable for their actions? It doesn’t matter that it is their job to lie and twist and ignore the science, it matters that they have a conscience, listen to it and speak out accordingly. Period. I would like to hear the replies from the whacked out religious right when their “God” asks them why they “destroyed the Earth”. There is a scripture in Revelation that states God will destroy those destroying the Earth. I am not a Christian but do have a knowledge of the Bible. I am not trying to start an argument for or against any religion. My only point is in pointing out the hypocrisy.
In reply to michael e who seems to “think” along the same lines as the other gibbering fantasists who have brought America to current sad state, you can clamp your hands over your ears and yell la la la la la la la all you like or try and brow beat media or whoever into silence but reality is still going to kick your sad gluteus maximus as it is indifferent to your feelings which you seem to think are inerrant while reality is frequently in error. In reply to John, stop being so apologetic, religion is a big part of what it wrong with America… all those peolpe living in a sick make-believe world and foisting their sickness on anyone who presumes to rub two braincells together. I’ll take them seriously when they can pray away the heatwaves and not a moment sooner. I resent the fact I have to share a planet with such arrogant nut bags no matter what they call themselves, Taliban, Fundamentalist christian, orthodox jew…
Typhon: Amen!
Wow Typhon ,hell of a hate filled diatribe there.John Q thanks for agreeing with him.Always good to know what it is “we” are fighting against.So you resent sharing the earth with anyone not so enlightened as you ….along lets say the same paths that have made you such a happy,loving, caring ,giving person huh?And anyone who believes in God is a gibbering,arrogant nutbag- no different from lets say the Taliban?Where is that acceptance and open mindedness that conservatives always get lectured on from the left?You are the arrogant on.The close minded one.Not an ounce of inclusiveness,or acceptance.An elitist.And as I was so used to seeing when I worked for Bill clinton…filled with venom.
John….Do you remember Al Gore giving a speech at a beach front community warning them that in a few short years they would be under water due to Global warming?He bought a house there for 5 mil 15 feet from high tide.John we are not going to die(at least not from this).The sky is not falling.We can not force China and India and all the developing nations by force of arms to stop carbon emissions.We can do our best to stop polutting.We are doing a great job of it as we speak.Have a good blessed day.
In a 1-week period last summer our area suffered from an earthquake, hurricane, tornado, and massive flooding. This past June, in a 1-week period, my sister-in-law’s family were floating around in west-coast Florida’s flood, my cousins’ city of Colorado Springs was on fire, my stepbrothers in Arizona were hit by haboob. Over 40,000 records of high temperatures were broken so far this year. And states like North Carolina and Virginia are making laws banning the discussion of climate change and sea levels? And Republicans and corporate-bought Democrats want to do away with regulations? Has this country gone insane or is it just stupid?
No Marie it is not stupid.What is happening is we are inundated with “stat” watchers now.All looking for changes and aberrations in the weather.Listing this correlation and that.That difference and this .News is to the minute.As if all is happening in an end of the world scenario.Rolling one upon the other.Storms in Singapore.Earthquakes in China, and tsunami’s in Japan.Hail falling on the capital and 6 foot snow drifts in moscow.Australia is flooding.New Orleans is sinking.Philadelphia is hot enough to cook eggs on a bald mans head!
Marie one of the top things pointing to global warming was the glaciers melting in the Himalayas.Remember in 10 years they would all be gone?Well ten years later they are right back to where they started.No melting at all.This is only one thing.But it proves that global warming did not know their asses from a hole in the ground over 10 minutes.Ten hours.Ten days..weeks ,OR years.So it may not be time to run for the bomb shelters yet.
Spoke to a farmer last month.God bless him he is 101 yrs old.Still vital.Asked him about Global warming and he laughed.He said(and I quote)”I ve seen it hotter…colder…stormier and as calm as a church.Sometimes it rains and sometimes it dont”.He told me with a sly smile that when he was a kid out in the midwest there were men that would come through preaching the world was nearing armageddon after a twister.They would be selling bibles.Now he said the government is selling the bibles.
The science on all this is new.And very little hard science it is contrary to what you may think.They never have their GW conventions in moscow during January do they?It is someplace like Arizona in August.As we speak there are studies all over the world being funded by governments to prove global warming.Or as they call it now ..man made weather change.Scientific funding.Funding that means to find proof that would allow Obama to move in and take over.For our own good of course.The baby step so far is that there is a consensus(not science)among those being funded to find this information, that the world is warming slightly .And the cause may be partially due to us.When asked if the world would be warming if we were not here, the answer they give is…Maybe yes…Maybe no.Because in the past(believe it or not)it has happened millions of times without any input from us..As I say the time to build a bomb shelter is a week from” no time soon.”.So don’t panic.And don’t believe that anyone who still owns a glacier park in the Himalayas is a crazy corporate owned denier.Maybe ten years ago when you called them that you had a basis.Now that you know you,were wrong just say your sorry and quietly slip away.Al Gore go home to your 5 million dollar beach house you said would be under water by now.Sometimes it rains.Sometimes it don’t.
For millions of years we have had cycles of global warming, and they have even proven that co2 emissions peak 800 years after the warming, basically co2 levels are the RESULT of a natural warming cycle, not the CAUSE. Why is Mars going through global warming? Ours is manmade, because of all of the crap they can sell ignorant people that believe it is. If there were people on mars would we blame them for it’s warming too, and try to tax them for co2 emissions also?
Greg i dont argue what you state is right or wrong. But I would ask you to see that people who believe in this are not ignorant(in the pejorative sense).The tide;the push to believe in this that leads so many to ask the government to step in and save them is well funded and deeply rooted.Many good decent people believe this because they are told that is where the science now sits.How we got here is best put by Obamas defunkt green zsar.”We shall use the global warming/green planet movement to gain control.When enough scientists have obtained grants to prove this thesis,it will take on a momentum of its own, and be very hard to contain”…..what began as a simple power grab has in fact mushroomed.Slowly it has been contained as Americans recoiled from government over reach.Now the job is to let science work beyond politicizing forces.
Global warming means the average temperature of the earth is increasing due to increased trapping of solar energy. That part is not that complicated and not at all controversial.
The atmosphere is a fluid system and when fluids are heated they move around in complex ways. That part is very complicated. Most areas get warmer, but some can get colder.
not every glacier on the planet is going to disappear in our lifetime. This doesn’t mean that the entire body of evidence supporting global warming is wrong.
Tim the problem with the “movement”is that it see’s this warming(not the last 100 million years of course) as totally due to man.And so ….we needed a strong leader to take control.And control damn near everything .To right the wrong man is doing upon mother earth.And by extropulating this theory forward ,would by necessity mean controlling every other country, since without their acquiescence what good is it?The instantaneous moves to CONTROL the US economy were startling, and right out of Van Jones notebook.And yes it is a worrisome that so much is being based on bottoms up scientific theorie.Very little hard fact.Global warming models are often wrong.And saying wether it gets warm OR cold that it is still GW, does not really give one confidence in this theory.People yelling the science is closed ,give us the keys to your life….before the science has even begun.Al Gore saying a certain beachfront community will be under water in ten years.Then he buys a 6 million dollar house there 15 feet from high tide.The cooking of the books.
Your last line is correct.And furthermore we should be working on lessoning our polluting ways across the board.Actually America is doing a great job in that direction.China/India not so much.Government over reach sent this countries freedom loving people running for the hills.Obamas middle name should be “over reach”.Maybe Mitt will have a more sensible ,rational way of dealing with these matters.BAMS heavy fisted glove does not work well here.
the press is under no obligation to carry the water for the liberal agenda by yelling “the sky is falling please oh mighty FED step in and save us all”. –michael e
That is correct, michael e. The press is under no obligation to ANYONE other than their corporate masters. The public is permitted to “enjoy” whatever nasty droppings may occur after their slaughtering, slicing, and immolation of truth.
Your assumption here is that there is a “liberal” agenda that is being pushed by virtually every climate scientist in the world. Does this infer that virtually all the world’s scientists are “liberal” in their political philosophy?
Good science cannot be had where outside influences are permitted to have their say in the results of scientific research, such as in the case of michael e’s apologism for right-wing, 1% corporate protectionism of the Democratic and Republican party policy platforms.
The FED refers to the nation’s Federal Reserve System, not the FEDeral government. People who use the term “Fed” as a nickname for our national government are using it incorrectly. Please use standard, recognized terminology rather than your own self-styled and confusing memes. If you wish to refer to the federal government, you might say “Washington,” or “D.C.” or “inside the Beltway” or the like.
I’m all for berating the media for ignoring the effects of climate change, but it seems to me to be at least as urgent to berate them for not pointing out the relationship between extreme poverty and massive death tolls in this kind of event.
Whatever happens to the climate – and I’m not denying the importance of man-made change – natural disasters have always happened, and alas always will. What makes all the difference to the death toll is the wealth or otherwise of the communities affected, which in general determines the solidity of their buildings.
You can argue all night about whether climate change is man-made, but it’s extremely difficult to argue that poverty isn’t.