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The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter NCCommish
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Arsenal of Doom
Footballguy
timschochet
Footballguy
It looks like things are about to get real:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/lies-damn-lies-and-global-warming-rules-20140529
President Obama promised to take action on global warming with or without Congress's permission. Next week, he'll tell the world how he plans to do it.
The administration is preparing to release the central pillar of Obama's climate-change agenda: a proposal for far-reaching rules that will require power companies to cut carbon emissions.
The rules will mark the most significant federal action on climate change since Democrats' cap-and-trade bill died in the Senate four years ago, and they're Obama's best shot at adding broad action on global warming to his legacy.
The rules will also touch off a political war of the first order, offering battleground for environmentalists, industry groups, and politicians to fight over the nation's energy future.
Here's what to watch for when the administration pulls back the curtain.
Don't Believe the Hype
Industry backers and environmentalists are serving up plenty of spin in an attempt to win the public-opinion battle over the Environmental Protection Agency's climate rules, but the messaging will be long on fiction—or, at the very least, on speculation—and short on facts.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is claiming that the regulations for existing power plants will force consumers to pay billions of dollars in additional electricity costs, while the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental heavyweight, claims that the rule will actually lower your utility bill.
The messaging reflect both sides' recognition that the way to make the public care about these rules is to connect the policies to people's wallets. But attempts at carbon accounting on both sides of the political spectrum are highly speculative and virtually guaranteed to come up short.
That's because these rules are in their opening act, and answers about them won't come until we're much closer to the finale.
Monday's regulations are a draft and aren't expected to be finalized for at least another year. That means variables that enter into electricity price determinations—such as the way the rules affect state policies, market forces, and technology innovations—won't be set in stone for a long time. Economic models used to project costs may serve as an educated guess for now, but that still makes them a guess.
Then there's the projection problem. States aren't expected to begin complying with the rules until sometime between 2018 and 2020. That's a long way off, and a lot could change between now and then.
Variables like the cost of electricity ginned up by fossil fuels and renewable energy are subject to change over time. Natural-gas prices, for example, are famous for their volatility. And while gas prices are relatively low right now, there's no way to know with absolute certainty how long that will last. As a result, price predictions based on assumptions about the future price of gas and renewables are likely to be wrong.
"Generally, replacing low-cost sources with higher cost sources can raise power prices. With this many unknowns, however, any generalization is likely to be generally wrong," said Kevin Book, the founder of energy analysis firm ClearView Energy Partners.
The Hype Will Be Massive
The rule's results won't be clear for years, but the massive political, lobbying, and legal battle will begin immediately.
Industry players see the regulations as a threat to their bottom line, while environmentalists view the climate rules as their best bet to crack down on power plants' carbon pollution. And so both sides are waging a two-track campaign in which they will both lobby the administration and vie for public support.
Capitol Hill is also clamoring to get in on the action. Democrats who are secure in their seats have already given the president plenty of cover by loudly defending the regulations. Republicans, on the other hand, are doing their best to tear down any justification for the rules. House Speaker John Boehner sharply criticized the climate rules ahead of their release on Thursday, saying: "Every proposal that has come out of this administration to deal with climate change involves hurting our economy and killing American jobs."
The White House is putting its highest-profile people front and center to defend the rule.
After the Chamber of Commerce said on Wednesday that the regulations would kill jobs and cause electricity prices to soar, EPA took the unusual step of directly rebutting the report while senior White House adviser John Podesta took to Twitter to bash the analysis.
The climate rules are the president's best chance at shoring up a legacy on climate change, and he knows it. For the president, it's personal. And it's high-stakes for everyone involved.
The Whole World Is Watching
EPA's authority ends at the U.S. border, but the rules' influence won't.
Getting the rules out ahead of upcoming United Nations talks is important, said Robert Stavins, a Harvard University expert on international emissions policy. World leaders will convene in Paris in late 2015 for a make-or-break meeting that is supposed to yield a global pact on greenhouse-gas emissions.
"It will increase the credibility of the U.S. representatives in the international negotiations in Lima in 2014 and Paris in 2015, and may therefore enable the U.S. to be somewhat more influential in the talks," said Stavins, who's with Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Other nations will be watching carefully.
"The Paris Agreement will be heavily influenced by the sense of whether the U.S. is taking the issue of climate change seriously or not," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate and energy program at the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank. "If the administration does propose regulation that is ambitious and demonstrates leadership to decarbonize the power sector, it will certainly inspire more ambition from other countries."
The White House, for its part, clearly views the domestic rules as a diplomatic tool. Obama has repeatedly argued that a more-aggressive U.S. carbon policy is needed to create leverage in international climate talks, where the United States will attempt to win meaningful commitments from China (the world's top carbon polluter) and India to address their contributions to climate change.
He made that point briefly in a foreign policy speech Wednesday while taking a direct shot at GOP climate skeptics.
"American influence is always stronger when we lead by example," Obama said in a speech to West Point graduates. "We can't exempt ourselves from the rules that apply to everybody else. We can't call on others to make commitments to combat climate change if a whole lot of our political leaders deny that it's taking place."
The Rules Will Make Their Mark in the Senate's Tightest Races
Look for the rules to play a political role in several close Senate races where vulnerable Democrats are seeking reelection in conservative states.
Republican political operatives alleging the rules will hurt the economy will seek to tether lawmakers, including Louisiana's Mary Landrieu and Arkansas's Mark Pryor, to Obama's climate agenda. Both have opposed greenhouse-gas regulations in the past; look for them to try to separate their own energy platforms from the one emerging from the White House.
Climate change is never a top-tier issue in polling. But it could emerge in the political foreground like never before this year. In addition to the rules, billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer is planning to pour $100 million into Senate and governor's races to promote candidates who support emissions curbs.
The Rules Could Create New Daylight for Carbon Taxes—But Not Where You Think
The rules will reportedly require carbon cuts in the range of 20 to 25 percent, but they're expected to provide states and utilities with lots of leeway on how to meet that mandate: Think initiatives promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Some states have already moved ahead with cap-and-trade systems—which already exist among a group of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states, as well as in California—and those plans may pass EPA muster if their caps are tight enough.
But what about carbon taxes?
They're dead on arrival at the federal level, even though some economists call them the most straightforward, market-based way to gain emissions cuts. They haven't caught on at the state level, either, but some carbon-tax advocates want EPA to signal that a state could decide to impose its own carbon tax as an avenue for complying with the regulations.
This paper from experts with Stanford University and the Brookings Institution, who say a carbon tax is the most cost-effective way to cut emissions, makes the legal case that the Clean Air Act provides EPA plenty of leeway. It also argues, "EPA can encourage this approach by providing the states with model tax levels and compliance schedules in its emission guideline."
So will EPA use the "T" word?
"The hope is that EPA will give states broad flexibility to deploy whatever policy mechanisms make the most sense for them, which could include a carbon tax that would achieve the needed emission reductions," said Megan Ceronsky, a senior lawyer with the Environmental Defense Fund.
"I don't know what kind of specificity the agency will provide in terms of 'examples' of policy mechanisms that would be approvable—you might instead see a set of criteria that would ensure that the needed emission reductions will be achieved and are enforceable," she said.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/lies-damn-lies-and-global-warming-rules-20140529
President Obama promised to take action on global warming with or without Congress's permission. Next week, he'll tell the world how he plans to do it.
The administration is preparing to release the central pillar of Obama's climate-change agenda: a proposal for far-reaching rules that will require power companies to cut carbon emissions.
The rules will mark the most significant federal action on climate change since Democrats' cap-and-trade bill died in the Senate four years ago, and they're Obama's best shot at adding broad action on global warming to his legacy.
The rules will also touch off a political war of the first order, offering battleground for environmentalists, industry groups, and politicians to fight over the nation's energy future.
Here's what to watch for when the administration pulls back the curtain.
Don't Believe the Hype
Industry backers and environmentalists are serving up plenty of spin in an attempt to win the public-opinion battle over the Environmental Protection Agency's climate rules, but the messaging will be long on fiction—or, at the very least, on speculation—and short on facts.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is claiming that the regulations for existing power plants will force consumers to pay billions of dollars in additional electricity costs, while the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental heavyweight, claims that the rule will actually lower your utility bill.
The messaging reflect both sides' recognition that the way to make the public care about these rules is to connect the policies to people's wallets. But attempts at carbon accounting on both sides of the political spectrum are highly speculative and virtually guaranteed to come up short.
That's because these rules are in their opening act, and answers about them won't come until we're much closer to the finale.
Monday's regulations are a draft and aren't expected to be finalized for at least another year. That means variables that enter into electricity price determinations—such as the way the rules affect state policies, market forces, and technology innovations—won't be set in stone for a long time. Economic models used to project costs may serve as an educated guess for now, but that still makes them a guess.
Then there's the projection problem. States aren't expected to begin complying with the rules until sometime between 2018 and 2020. That's a long way off, and a lot could change between now and then.
Variables like the cost of electricity ginned up by fossil fuels and renewable energy are subject to change over time. Natural-gas prices, for example, are famous for their volatility. And while gas prices are relatively low right now, there's no way to know with absolute certainty how long that will last. As a result, price predictions based on assumptions about the future price of gas and renewables are likely to be wrong.
"Generally, replacing low-cost sources with higher cost sources can raise power prices. With this many unknowns, however, any generalization is likely to be generally wrong," said Kevin Book, the founder of energy analysis firm ClearView Energy Partners.
The Hype Will Be Massive
The rule's results won't be clear for years, but the massive political, lobbying, and legal battle will begin immediately.
Industry players see the regulations as a threat to their bottom line, while environmentalists view the climate rules as their best bet to crack down on power plants' carbon pollution. And so both sides are waging a two-track campaign in which they will both lobby the administration and vie for public support.
Capitol Hill is also clamoring to get in on the action. Democrats who are secure in their seats have already given the president plenty of cover by loudly defending the regulations. Republicans, on the other hand, are doing their best to tear down any justification for the rules. House Speaker John Boehner sharply criticized the climate rules ahead of their release on Thursday, saying: "Every proposal that has come out of this administration to deal with climate change involves hurting our economy and killing American jobs."
The White House is putting its highest-profile people front and center to defend the rule.
After the Chamber of Commerce said on Wednesday that the regulations would kill jobs and cause electricity prices to soar, EPA took the unusual step of directly rebutting the report while senior White House adviser John Podesta took to Twitter to bash the analysis.
The climate rules are the president's best chance at shoring up a legacy on climate change, and he knows it. For the president, it's personal. And it's high-stakes for everyone involved.
The Whole World Is Watching
EPA's authority ends at the U.S. border, but the rules' influence won't.
Getting the rules out ahead of upcoming United Nations talks is important, said Robert Stavins, a Harvard University expert on international emissions policy. World leaders will convene in Paris in late 2015 for a make-or-break meeting that is supposed to yield a global pact on greenhouse-gas emissions.
"It will increase the credibility of the U.S. representatives in the international negotiations in Lima in 2014 and Paris in 2015, and may therefore enable the U.S. to be somewhat more influential in the talks," said Stavins, who's with Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Other nations will be watching carefully.
"The Paris Agreement will be heavily influenced by the sense of whether the U.S. is taking the issue of climate change seriously or not," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate and energy program at the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank. "If the administration does propose regulation that is ambitious and demonstrates leadership to decarbonize the power sector, it will certainly inspire more ambition from other countries."
The White House, for its part, clearly views the domestic rules as a diplomatic tool. Obama has repeatedly argued that a more-aggressive U.S. carbon policy is needed to create leverage in international climate talks, where the United States will attempt to win meaningful commitments from China (the world's top carbon polluter) and India to address their contributions to climate change.
He made that point briefly in a foreign policy speech Wednesday while taking a direct shot at GOP climate skeptics.
"American influence is always stronger when we lead by example," Obama said in a speech to West Point graduates. "We can't exempt ourselves from the rules that apply to everybody else. We can't call on others to make commitments to combat climate change if a whole lot of our political leaders deny that it's taking place."
The Rules Will Make Their Mark in the Senate's Tightest Races
Look for the rules to play a political role in several close Senate races where vulnerable Democrats are seeking reelection in conservative states.
Republican political operatives alleging the rules will hurt the economy will seek to tether lawmakers, including Louisiana's Mary Landrieu and Arkansas's Mark Pryor, to Obama's climate agenda. Both have opposed greenhouse-gas regulations in the past; look for them to try to separate their own energy platforms from the one emerging from the White House.
Climate change is never a top-tier issue in polling. But it could emerge in the political foreground like never before this year. In addition to the rules, billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer is planning to pour $100 million into Senate and governor's races to promote candidates who support emissions curbs.
The Rules Could Create New Daylight for Carbon Taxes—But Not Where You Think
The rules will reportedly require carbon cuts in the range of 20 to 25 percent, but they're expected to provide states and utilities with lots of leeway on how to meet that mandate: Think initiatives promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Some states have already moved ahead with cap-and-trade systems—which already exist among a group of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states, as well as in California—and those plans may pass EPA muster if their caps are tight enough.
But what about carbon taxes?
They're dead on arrival at the federal level, even though some economists call them the most straightforward, market-based way to gain emissions cuts. They haven't caught on at the state level, either, but some carbon-tax advocates want EPA to signal that a state could decide to impose its own carbon tax as an avenue for complying with the regulations.
This paper from experts with Stanford University and the Brookings Institution, who say a carbon tax is the most cost-effective way to cut emissions, makes the legal case that the Clean Air Act provides EPA plenty of leeway. It also argues, "EPA can encourage this approach by providing the states with model tax levels and compliance schedules in its emission guideline."
So will EPA use the "T" word?
"The hope is that EPA will give states broad flexibility to deploy whatever policy mechanisms make the most sense for them, which could include a carbon tax that would achieve the needed emission reductions," said Megan Ceronsky, a senior lawyer with the Environmental Defense Fund.
"I don't know what kind of specificity the agency will provide in terms of 'examples' of policy mechanisms that would be approvable—you might instead see a set of criteria that would ensure that the needed emission reductions will be achieved and are enforceable," she said.
MaxThreshold
Footballguy
So he's going to bypass Congress? I'd say "no way" but then realize the Democrats in Congress are sleazy and corrupt and don't care one bit about laws and checks and balances as long as it serves the far left POV.timschochet said:
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CBusAlex
Footballguy
So it looks like the goalposts have moved from "global warning isn't happening" to "global warming is happening, but it's not caused by human activity" to "global warming is happening and caused by human activity, but it's not dangerous".
Once that domino falls, what do we think the next one will be? My money is on "global warming is happening and caused by human activity and dangerous, but it's too late to do anything about it now".
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jonessed
Footballguy
It's already too late. There is absolutely nothing that can be done to stop it short of completely shutting down the global economy.Now that would be dangerous.
Thankfully, no nation is nearly that stupid.
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fatness
Footballguy
Fennis
Footballguy
Rove!
Footballguy
"global warming is happening and caused by human activity, and it's dangerous".
is the the party line being pushed by the administration and many in the media urging that we take action. It is not an unreasonable threshold to have to see if we should be concerned about it. When you hear somebody claiming a scientific consensus or that "it's a fact" we should be clear on what there is some agreement on.
jonessed
Footballguy
This goalpost has never moved. We have never been a position to stop Global Warming. The early propositions to stop it were never even remotely feasible.
If you believe it's as dangerous as some would like to think then you are best off supporting policies that will help the country adapt.
BustedKnuckles
Footballguy
world
This goalpost has never moved. We have never been a position to stop Global Warming. The early propositions to stop it were never even remotely feasible.
If you believe it's as dangerous as some would like to think then you are best off supporting policies that will help thecountryadapt.
Great piece, well worth the read
http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-113-SY-WState-DBotkin-20140529.pdf
http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-113-SY-WState-DBotkin-20140529.pdf
WRITTEN TESTIMONY TO THE HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY. MAY 29, 2014
From: http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-113-SY-WState-DBotkin-20140529.pdf
DANIEL B. BOTKIN
Since 1968 I have published research on theoretical global warming, its potential ecological effects, and the implications for people and biodiversity. I have spent my career trying to help conserve our environment and its great diversity of species. In doing so I have always attempted to maintain an objective, intellectually honest, scientific approach in the best tradition of scientific endeavor. I have, accordingly, been dismayed and disappointed in recent years that this subject has been converted into a political and ideological debate. I have colleagues on both sides of the debate and believe we should work together as scientists instead of arguing divisively about preconceived, emotionally based “positions.” I hope my testifying here will help lead to a calmer, more rational approach to dealing with not only climate change but also other major environmental problems. The IPCC 2014 report does not have this kind of rational discussion we should be having. I would like to tell you why.
The IPCC 2014 report is actually a series of reports, each long, complex in organization, and extensive in scope. Since it’s not possible to discuss the Summary Reports for Policymakers in detail today, I will highlight some of my thoughts for you here as they relate to the reports, hoping to bring a saner, more sober approach to this highly charged issue.
To characterize where we are with this report and this issue, I would like to quote James R. Schlesinger, the first U.S. Energy Secretary, who said: “We have only two modes — complacency and panic.”—commenting on the country’s approach to energy (1977)
Now to my major points.
1. I want to state up front that we have been living through a warming trend driven by a variety of influences. However, it is my view that this is not unusual, and contrary to the characterizations by the IPCC and the National Climate Assessment, these environmental changes are not apocalyptic nor irreversible.
2. My biggest concern is that both the reports present a number of speculative, and sometimes incomplete, conclusions embedded in language that gives them more scientific heft than they deserve. The reports are “scientific-sounding” rather than based on clearly settled facts or admitting their lack. Established facts about the global environment exist less often in science than laymen usually think.
3. HAS IT BEEN WARMING? Yes, we have been living through a warming trend, no doubt about that. The rate of change we are experiencing is also not unprecedented, and the “mystery” of the warming “plateau” simply indicates the inherent complexity of our global biosphere. Change is normal, life on Earth is inherently risky; it always has been. The two reports, however, makes it seem that environmental change is apocalyptic and irreversible. It is not.
4. IS CLIMATE CHANGE VERY UNUSUAL? No, it has always undergone changes.
5. ARE GREENHOUSE GASES INCREASING? Yes, CO2 rapidly.
6. IS THERE GOOD SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ON CLIMATE CHANGE? Yes, a great deal of it.
7. ARE THERE GOOD SCIENTISTS INVOLVED IN THE IPCC 2014 REPORT? Yes, the lead author of the Terrestrial (land) Ecosystem Report is Richard Betts, a coauthor of one my scientific papers about forecasting effects of global warming on biodiversity.
8. ARE THERE SCIENTIFICALLY ACCURATE STATEMENTS AT PLACES IN THE REPORT? Yes, there are.
9. What I sought to learn was the overall take-away that the reports leave with a reader. I regret to say that I was left with the impression that the reports overestimate the danger from human-induced climate change and do not contribute to our ability to solve major environmental problems. I am afraid that an “agenda” permeates the reports, an implication that humans and our activity are necessarily bad and ought to be curtailed.
10. ARE THERE MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH THE REPORTS? Yes, in assumptions, use of data, and conclusions.
11. My biggest concern about the reports is that they present a number of speculative, and sometimes incomplete, conclusions embedded in language that gives them more scientific heft than they deserve. The reports, in other words, are “scientific- sounding,” rather than clearly settled and based on indisputable facts. Established facts about the global environment exist less often in science than laymen usually think.
12. The two reports assume and/or argue that the climate warming forecast by the global climate models is happening and will continue to happen and grow worse. Currently these predictions are way off the reality (Figure 1). Models, like all scientific theory, have to be tested against real-world observations. Experts in model validation say that the climate models frequently cited in the IPCC report are little if any validated. This means that as theory they are fundamentally scientifically unproven.
Figure 1: Climate model forecasts compared to real world temperature observations (From John Christy, University of Alabama and Alabama State Climatologist. Reproduced with permission from him.)
13. The reports suffers from the use term “climate change” with two meanings: natural and human-induced. These are both given as definitions in the IPCC report and are not distinguished in the text and therefore confuse a reader. (The Climate Change Assessment uses the term throughout including its title, but never defines it.) There are places in the reports where only the second meaning—human induced—makes sense, so that meaning has to be assumed. There are other places where either meaning could be applied.
In those places where either meaning can be interpreted, if the statement is assumed to be a natural change, then it is a truism, a basic characteristic of Earth’s environment and something people have always know and experienced. If the meaning is taken to be human-caused, then in spite of the assertions in the report, the available data do not support the statements.
14. Some of the reports conclusions are the opposite of those given in articles cited in defense of those conclusions.
For example, the IPCC 2014 Terrestrial Ecosystem Report states that “there is medium confidence that rapid change in the Arctic is affecting its animals. For example, seven of 19 subpopulations of the polar bear are declining in number” citing in support of this an article by Vongraven and Richardson, 2011. That report states the contrary, that the “‘decline’ is an illusion.
In addition, I have sought the available counts of the 19 subpopulations. Of these, only three have been counted twice; the rest have been counted once. Thus no rate of changes in the populations can be determined. The first count was done 1986 for one subpopulation.1
The U. S. Marine Mammal Commission, charged with the conservation of this species, acknowledges “Accurate estimates of the current and historic sizes of polar bear stocks are difficult to obtain for several reasons–the species‘ inaccessible habitat, the movement of bears across international boundaries, and the costs of conducting surveys.”2
According to Dr. Susan Crockford, “out of the 13 populations for which some kind of data exist, five populations are now classified by the PBSG [iUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group] as ‘stable’ (two more than 2009), one is still increasing, and three have been upgraded from ‘declining’ to ‘data deficient’. . . . That leaves four that are still considered ‘declining’‐ two of those judgments are based primarily on concerns of overhunting, and one is based on a statistically insignificant decline that may not be valid and is being reassessed (and really should have been upgraded to ‘data deficient’). That leaves only one population – Western Hudson Bay – where PBSG biologists tenaciously blame global warming for all changes to polar bear biology, and even then, the data supporting that conclusion is still not available.3“
Polar Bear Status (Source: Polar Bear Science Website.)
15. Some conclusions contradict and are ignorant of the best statistically valid observations. For example, the Terrestrial Ecosystems Report states that “terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems have sequestered about a quarter of the carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere by human activities in the past three decades (high confidence).” I have done the first statistically valid estimate of carbon storage and uptake for any large area of Earth’s land, the boreal forests and eastern deciduous forest of North America, and subtropical forests in Queensland, Australia. The estimates of carbon uptake by vegetation used by IPCC and in major articles cited by the reports are based on what can best be called “grab samples,” a relatively small number of studies done at a variety of times using a variety of methods, mainly in old- growth areas. The results reported by IPCC overestimate carbon storage and uptake by as much as 300 percent.4
16. The report for policy makers on Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability repeats
the assertion of previous IPCC reports that “large fraction of species” face “increase extinction risks” (p15). Overwhelming evidence contradicts this assertion. And it has been clearly shown that models used to make these forecasts, such as climate envelope models and species-area curve models, make incorrect assumptions that lead to erroneous conclusions, over-estimating extinction risks.
Surprisingly few species became extinct during the past 2.5 million years, a period encompassing several ice ages and warm periods.5 Among other sources, this is based on information in the book Climate Change and Biodiversity edited by Thomas Lovejoy, one of the leaders in the conservation of biodiversity.6 The major species
known to have gone extinct during this period are 40 species of large mammals in North America and Northern Europe. (There is a “background” extinction rate for eukaryotic species of roughly one species per year.)
17. THE REPORT GIVES THE IMPRESSION THAT LIVING THINGS ARE FRAGILE AND RIGID, unable to deal with change. The opposite is to case. Life is persistent, adaptable, adjustable.
18. STEADY-STATE ASSUMPTION: There is an overall assumption in the IPCC 2014 report and the Climate Change Assessment that all change is negative and undesirable; that it is ecologically and evolutionarily unnatural, bad for populations, species, ecosystems, for all life on planet Earth, including people. This is the opposite of the reality: The environment has always changed and is always changing, and living things have had to adapt to these changes. Interestingly, many, if not most, species that I have worked on or otherwise know about require environmental change.7
19. The summary for policy makers on Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability makes repeated use of the term “irreversible” changes. A species going extinct is irreversible, but little else about the environment is irreversible. The past confirms this. Glaciers have come and gone repeatedly. The Northwest Passage of North America has gone and come again. The average temperature has greatly exceeded the present and forecasted and has declined only to rise again.
a. Implicit in this repeated use of irreversible is the belief that Earth’s environment is constant — stable, unchanging — except when subjected to human actions.
This is obviously false from many lines of evidence, including the simple
experience of all people who have lived before the scientific-industrial age and those who live now and so such work as farm, manage rivers, wildlife and forests.
20. The extreme overemphasis on human-induced global warming has taken our attention away from many environmental issues that used to be front and center but have been pretty much ignored in the 21st century. The Terrestrial report in a sense acknowledges this, for example by stating: “Climate stresses occur alongside other anthropogenic influences on ecosystems, including land-use changes, nonnative species, and pollution, and in many cases will exacerbate these pressures (very high confidence).”
21. Do the problems with these reports mean that we can or should abandon any concerns about global warming or abandon any research about it? Certainly not, but we need to put this issue within an appropriate priority with other major here-and-now environmental issues that are having immediate effects.
22. The concerns I have mentioned with the IPCC apply as well to the White House’s National Climate Assessment. I reviewed and provided comments on the draft White House’s National Climate assessment and, unfortunately, it appears that these issues have not been addressed in the final assessment. For example, I stated:
“The executive summary is a political statement, not a scientific statement. It is filled with misstatements contradicted by well-established and well-known scientific papers.”
“Climate has always affected people and all life on Earth, so it isn’t new to say it is ‘already affecting the American people.’ This is just a political statement.”
“It is inappropriate to use short-term changes in weather as an indication one way or another about persistent climate change.”
WHAT HAS GONE WRONG, AND HOW TO FIX IT
1. Rather than focus on key, specific and tractable aspects of climate-change science, the long-term approach throughout the 20th century was to try to create de nova a complete model of the climate.
2. This approach has been taken despite a lack of focus on monitoring key variables over time in statistically and scientifically valid ways, e. g. carbon sequestering by forests; polar bear population counts. As a result, there is an odd disconnect between theory and observation. The attempt to create complete models of every aspect of climate has meant that many factors had to be guessed at, rather than using the best scientific methods. Too many guesses, too little checking against real, observed effects.
3. The IPCC reports are the result of a very large number of people doing long reviews of the scientific literature. This easily leads to people being so overburdened that they misinterpret specific papers, fail to understand where the major observational gaps are, and have trouble making an accurate list of citations and all sources of information. The fundamental IPCC and White House Climate Change Assessment approach has been to gather a huge number of scientists from a large number of disciplines, on the assumption that a kind of crowd approach to what can be agreed on is the same as true scientific advance. While this might seem a reasonable and effective approach, there is some danger in relying on this “crowd-sourced” model of information sharing. Groups of people, particularly when credentialed “experts” are involved, are very prone to a condition called an “information cascade” in which error is compounded by group think, assumptions become unchallenged “fact” and observations play second fiddle to unchallenged models. The excellent scientists involved with the IPCC reports are no less prone to this than the excellent scientists who relied on Aristotelian models of a geocentric universe. Entrenched beliefs are hard to extricate, even amongst supposedly rational thinkers. This is probably in part responsible for the problems listed with the White House Climate Assessment report’s table of Biological Effects, discussed in my document reviewing that report.
4. What a scientist discovers is different from what a scientist says. The first is science, the second is opinion. Have small groups of scientists work on this problem, no more than can easily argue with one another, that is less than 20 and preferably even smaller, representing the primary disciplines. Divide the problem into areas, rather than try to answer all questions in one analysis. I have used this approach in my own work and found it to be successful.8, 9
5. The desire to do good has ironically overridden the desire to do the best science.
6. Under the weight of this kind of crowd rule and approach, some specific alternative approaches to the science of climate change, have not been allowed to rise to the surface.
7. Among the approaches that would improve climate science:
a. Return to the former reliance on science done by individuals and small groups with a common specific interest and focus.
b. Change the approach from trying to make a complete, definitive model of
every aspect of climate to a different level. See kinds of models that explore specific possibilities and phenomena.
c. Get out of the blame game. None of the above suggestions can work as long as global warming remains a moral, political, ideologically dominated topic, with scientists pushed into, or at least viewed as, being either for or against a single point of view.
9. We need to focus again on major environmental Issues that need our attention now (see the list above).
10. ARE THERE EXAMPLES OF THE KIND OF RESEARCH I BELIEVE WE NEED MORE OF? YES.
a. NASA Carbon Monitoring System (CMS)
b. Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study
c. Whooping Crane monitoring, e.g. of an endangered species
d. In-place monitoring on carbon flux, being done by the USGS in the Great Cypress Swamp, Florida.
e. Many others.
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Chaos Commish
Footballguy
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Rove!
Footballguy
Mister Martie
Footballguy
BustedKnuckles
Footballguy
the agenda is the big producers of coal and methane and co2 dont give a crap about the earth we live on as long as they can line there pockets with cash
Mario Kart
Footballguy
I'm on both side of the argument. Global warming is happening however to measure human impact is impossible to do. To deny any global warming due to humans is complete ignorance. A quick summary (6 minutes) from the recent Cosmos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlKTveJU4fY clears up the issue. America cannot do it by ourselves however it is a start. The whole planet needs to be on board but I don't see that happening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBdxDFpDp_k
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MaxThreshold
Footballguy
http://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/2008/paranoid-delusion/
It involves the person’s belief that he or she is being conspired against, cheated, spied on, followed, poisoned or drugged, maliciously maligned, harassed, or obstructed in the pursuit of long-term goals.
Small slights may be exaggerated and become the focus of a delusional system with a person suffers from a paranoid delusion.
The focus of the delusion is often on some injustice that must be remedied by legal action. The affected person may engage in repeated attempts to obtain satisfaction by appeal to the courts and other government agencies.
Individuals with paranoid delusions are often resentful and angry, and may even resort to violence against those they believe are hurting them or a loved one.
Paranoid delusions are most often diagnosed in the context ofschizophrenia. But they can also occur in non-psychotic disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, or the use of certain medications or street drugs.
Example: A man refuses to affix his signature to anything, even something so trivial as a birthday card, because he fears the government is watching him and will use the evidence to track him down.
Happy to help!
Paranoid DelusionBy RENÉE GRINNELL
A paranoid delusion is the fixed, false belief that one is being harmed or persecuted by a particular person or group of people. Paranoid delusions are known technically as a “persecutory delusion.”It involves the person’s belief that he or she is being conspired against, cheated, spied on, followed, poisoned or drugged, maliciously maligned, harassed, or obstructed in the pursuit of long-term goals.
Small slights may be exaggerated and become the focus of a delusional system with a person suffers from a paranoid delusion.
The focus of the delusion is often on some injustice that must be remedied by legal action. The affected person may engage in repeated attempts to obtain satisfaction by appeal to the courts and other government agencies.
Individuals with paranoid delusions are often resentful and angry, and may even resort to violence against those they believe are hurting them or a loved one.
Paranoid delusions are most often diagnosed in the context ofschizophrenia. But they can also occur in non-psychotic disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, or the use of certain medications or street drugs.
Example: A man refuses to affix his signature to anything, even something so trivial as a birthday card, because he fears the government is watching him and will use the evidence to track him down.
Happy to help!
cstu
Footballguy
This is the type of BS that the West is doing to Africa.
In Tanzania, the one African country I know rather well, it's the Chinese who are helping fund billion dollar coal plants - including a 600 megawatt plant in Mchuchuma which will nearly double their thermal power plant production. Tanzania has vast coal resources but until now without the help of the Chinese they were unable to build coal plants themselves. Instead they were stuck with constant power outages that sometimes would last for days, necessitating the need for people to run expensive diesel generators to power their homes and businesses.
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Two examples in the last few weeks. Prominent people get out of lock step with the agenda, they get quick backslash. It is this kind of black-balling as to why quoting stats which studies opinions in published journals about the scientific support for global warming is grossly slanted, because any words against the agenda can not get published.
Sand
Footballguy
I don't know if these alterations are scientifically justified (I'm sure there is a lot that goes into the data reduction here), but given these changes why don't we see error bars on these temperature measurements? If they're being corrected that much there has to be an uncertainty budget associated with those values.
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TheIronSheik
SUPER ELITE UPPER TIER
Sand
Footballguy
Which is why what I've been saying for a while should be a truism. We cannot and will not stop greenhouse gases from efforts internally. Developing countries will not and cannot afford expensive energy - they will pursue whatever they have access to.
The only thing that will change this is a dramatic change in energy production. All this money on climate change research is a ####### black hole of waste. Divert all that money to fundamental energy research in the US - that's the only thing that will stop this train.
The_Man
Footballguy
Today, NOAA reported that May 2014 was the warmest May on record. NASA and the Japan Meteorological Agency both independently reached that conclusion last week.
The JMA found that March through May – known as meteorological spring – was the warmest spring on record. NOAA’s analysis determined it was the second warmest, trailing 2010 by a slim margin.
And we're just getting started. The average temperature of the ocean surface was 1.06F degrees above normal - matching the biggest difference from normal in any month dating back to 1880. We're gearing up for an El Nino year, where the increased Pacific Ocean temp will pump heat into the atmosphere.
Almost not worth mentioning is that it was the 39th consecutive May with a global temperature above the 20th century average and 351st straight month above average.
The JMA found that March through May – known as meteorological spring – was the warmest spring on record. NOAA’s analysis determined it was the second warmest, trailing 2010 by a slim margin.
And we're just getting started. The average temperature of the ocean surface was 1.06F degrees above normal - matching the biggest difference from normal in any month dating back to 1880. We're gearing up for an El Nino year, where the increased Pacific Ocean temp will pump heat into the atmosphere.
Almost not worth mentioning is that it was the 39th consecutive May with a global temperature above the 20th century average and 351st straight month above average.
Koya
Footballguy
Actually, it would be absolutely shocking if we had a month dip below the 20th century average. We will go hundreds of more months without dipping below the 20th century average, so it is really not worth mentioning at all.
The winter of 2013 - 2014 will go down in the history books in the Midwest U.S. as a top-ten coldest winter on record, but ranked as the warmest winter on record in California. Temperatures averaged over December 2013 - February 2014 in the contiguous U.S. made it our 34th coolest winter since records began in 1895, said NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in their latest State of the Climate report.
Would that be the actual 20th century temperatures or the ones that NASA/NOAA artificially adjust downward to make the previous century look cooler than it actually was?
The_Man
Footballguy
Would be happy to look at any evidence at all showing the slightest hint this is the case.
I find the 351 consecutive months worth mentioning only because it sometimes lends clarity to people who haven't thought much about global warming and think maybe its existence is still a matter of debate. When they hear that figure it is often a little shocking and tends to change the lens through which they view the issue.
But - good news! The eastern half of the U.S. has been the coldest place in the world so far this year, when compared to normal average temperatures. We experienced one of the 10 coldest starts to a year on record - even as the globe was going through a record-warm spring. So if it doesn't happen here, if there's extra ice on the Great Lakes, then global warming isn't even real.
I will go on record now - 2014 will be the hottest year ever recorded.
32 Counter Pass
Footballguy
Here ya go nay sayers: http://www.bustle.com/articles/29252-attention-climate-change-deniers-youll-win-10000-if-you-can-prove-it
Should be easy money for all you neo-scientists.
Should be easy money for all you neo-scientists.
I could just as well offer $10,000 to anyone who can prove none of the climate change is due to natural causes. See how easy it is to play.
Those are awesome graphs and it shows you how ridiculous cherry-picking is done when you only consider the "years on record". Of course most headlines leave that part out and have you believe it is the warmest month ever, instead of just the last 140 years.
fatness
Footballguy
The headlines would have you believe that jon_mx exists, based on "years on record". But cherry-picking like that doesn't tell you the whole story. Is there any record of jon_mx existing before 1960? How about 1940? 1900? 1776?
Based on the lack of records of jon_mx existing through most of human history, or the history of the earth, it's ridiculous to assume he exists.
Based on the lack of records of jon_mx existing through most of human history, or the history of the earth, it's ridiculous to assume he exists.
BustedKnuckles
Footballguy
but nobody is saying that nature has`nt helped cause climate changejon_mx said:
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