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Common Ground On Climate
Preface: I studied global warming
in the 1980s at a top university. My environmental credentials are solid
by any measure. I have no dog in the climate debate, other than to do
what is best for the people and the planet.
The American people are deeply divided on climate change.
An April Rasmussen poll found:
When it comes to global warming, 47% of voters say climate change is
primarily caused by long-term planetary trends. Thirty-six percent
(36%) disagree and believe human activity is more to blame. Ten percent
(10%) are undecided. While more voters have blamed planetary trends
since January 2009, this is the widest gap between the two since July of
last year.
There is a huge and perhaps
unbridgeable gap between global warming activists and skeptics (using
the terms the various groups themselves use). Each side continues to
make arguments about how the other is uninformed, corrupt or plain
stupid (just look at the comments to this article). Counter-productive
measures are being contemplated, but we are too busy arguing to notice
... or to take effective action to demand something smarter.
Unless we agree on common ground and demand that our politicians take
constructive actions, no positive policy changes will be made and -
instead - ineffective or even harmful policies will be enacted.
A Window of Opportunity
A few weeks ago, one of the largest coronal mass ejections ever observed reinforced dire predictions by NASA and other government agencies that heightened
solar activity in the next couple of years could knock out power grids
throughout many parts of the world and lead to numerous nuclear
meltdowns.
Many scientists were also worried that increased
solar output could warm the Earth. As I wrote 5 years ago, after
explaining in detail the affect of carbon dioxide on climate:
Scientists have also found that cosmic rays linked to global warming are increasing. The sun is simply getting hotter. Indeed, solar output has been increasing steadily ever since scientists have been able to measure it.
Not impressed yet? How about this: there is evidence of global warming on Pluto, on Mars, on Neptune's moon, and on Jupiter.
And guess what? The next "solar maximum" -- the 12-year peak of solar activity -- might be a really big one (see also this article).
However, just this week, scientists from the US Solar Observatory and the US Air Force Research Laboratory have discovered
- to their great surprise - that the sun's activity is declining, and
that we might experience the lowest solar output we've seen since
1645-1715. The Register describes it in dramatic tones:
What may be the science story of the century is breaking this evening.
Scientists who are convinced that global warming is a
serious threat to our planet say that such a reduced solar output would
simply buy us more time ... delaying the warming trend, but not stopping
or reversing it.
On the other hand, scientists who are skeptical about global warming say that the threat is a new mini ice age. (Remember that scientists
have been convinced in the past that we would have a new ice age, and
even considered pouring soot over the arctic in the 1970s to help melt
the ice - in order to prevent another ice age. Obama's top science advisor was one of those warning of a new ice age in the 1970s. And see this.)
Common Ground Number 1: Use the Reprieve to Harden Nuclear Reactors or Decommission Them
Whatever
you believe about climate change, if you are a person of good will you
presumably can agree that a period of reduced solar output gives us some
extra time to harden our nuclear reactors from the risk of a power
outage. If you are not familiar with the extreme danger, please read this.
In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, the near-miss in Alabama, and the still-fluid situation in Nebraska,
we should count the lower solar output is a blessing in terms of giving
us the time to preventing global nuclear problems during the next
mega-solar event.
Common Ground Number 2: Authoritarian Rule Is Never Justified
Noam Chomsky and James Lovelock (environmentalist and creator of the "Gaia hypothesis") have both said that they would be okay with an authoritarian approach to tackling global warming.
But whatever one might think about climate change, all people of good will can agree that fascism is never justified.
Common Ground Number 3: Let's Not Do Something Rash Which Makes Things WORSE
Currently, "government scientists are studying the feasibility of sending nearly microscopic particles of specially made glass into the Earth's upper atmosphere to try to dampen the effects of 'global warming.' " Others are currently suggesting cutting down trees and burying them. Other ways to geoengineer the planet are being proposed.
The
harm caused by many of these methods have not been thought through ...
and they could cause serious damage to our health and our ecosystems.
So
- whatever you think about climate - you can obviously agree that we
should approach climate change from the age-old axiom of "first, do no
harm", making sure that our "solutions" do not cause more damage than
the problems.
Common Ground Number 4: Reduce the Carbon Footprint of War
As Harvey Wasserman notes,
continuing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will more than wipe out
any reduction in carbon from the government's proposed climate
measures. Writing about the escalation in the Afghanistan war,
Wasserman says:
The war would also come with a carbon
burst. How will the massive emissions created by 100,000-plus soldiers
in wartime be counted in the 17% reduction rubric? Will the HumVees
be converted to hybrids? What is the carbon impact of Predator bombs
that destroy Afghan families and villages?
[See this
for proof that the military is the biggest producer of carbon.] The
continuance of the Afghanistan, Iraq, Libyan and others wars completely
and thoroughly undermines the government's claims that there is a
global warming emergency and that reducing carbon output through cap
and trade is needed to save the planet.
I can't take anything
the government says about carbon footprints seriously until the
government ends the unnecessary wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and
elsewhere. For evidence that the Iraq war is unnecessary, see this. Read this
for evidence that the U.S. could have taken Bin Laden out years ago
and avoided a decades long war in Afghanistan. And for proof that the
entire war on Muslim extremists is unnecessary for our national
security, see this.
War is also very harmful to the economy. See this, this and this.
So whatever you think of climate change, all people can agree that ending the wars is important.
Common Ground Number 5: Reduce Soot
Without taking a position on carbon dioxide (which I've been reading about for 30 years), I have extensively discussed that soot has been discovered to be a leading cause of snow and ice melting in the Arctic and the Himalayas, and soot has a much faster influence on temperature than CO2. It is also relatively easy to reduce soot.
In addition, breathing soot is horrible for people's health, so reducing it is a win-win.
So all people of good will - whatever your view on climate - should agree that reduction of soot is a worthy goal.
Common Ground Number 6: Abandon Cap and Trade
The proposed solution to global warming being pushed by the powers that be - cap and trade - is a scam. Specifically:
- The economists who invented cap-and-trade say that it won't work for global warming
- Many environmentalists say that carbon trading won't effectively reduce carbon emissions
- Our
bailout buddies over at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley,
Citigroup and the other Wall Street behemoths are buying heavily into
carbon trading (see this, this, this, this, this and this).
As University of Maryland professor economics professor and former
Chief Economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission Peter Morici writes:
Obama
must ensure that the banks use the trillions of dollars in federal
bailout assistance to renegotiate mortgages and make new loans to worthy
homebuyers and businesses. Obama must make certain that banks do not continue to squander federal largess by padding executive bonuses, acquiring other banks and pursuing new high-return, high-risk lines of businesses in merger activity, carbon trading
and complex derivatives. Industry leaders like Citigroup have
announced plans to move in those directions. Many of these bankers
enjoyed influence in and contributed generously to the Obama campaign.
Now it remains to be seen if a President Obama can stand up to these
same bankers and persuade or compel them to act responsibly.In
other words, the same companies that made billions off of derivatives
and other scams and are now getting bailed out on your dime are going
to make billions from carbon trading.
So if cap and trade is not the answer, what is?
Decentralization of power generation and storage.
That would empower people and communities, produce less carbon,
prevent nuclear disasters like Fukushima, reduce the dangers of peak oil, (and thus prevent future oil spills like we had in the Gulf), and have many other positive effects.
Conclusion: Let's Use This Window of Opportunity
The
dramatic shift this week in scientist's forecasts for the sun's output
gives us a window of opportunity to make sane policy choices.
Let's use it.
Both
global warming activists and skeptics can agree on the 6 points of
common ground discussed above. Whatever we may disagree on, we should
all demand from our politicians that they adopt policies in line with
these 6 points which are win-win for everyone ... and the environment.
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Your "scientific training" is *mostly* hogwash. Sometime in the not too distant future, you will know how utterly stupid you are.
High priests of science are no different from high priests of religion.
The medieval history of europe supports your point.
Older (pre global warming) books talk about a warm period during early medieval times. A little north of the Ruhr area in Germany is a village called "Vinnum" what is latin for wine.
Today it is not feasible to grow grapes to make wine in that village.
wow, we will drinkenze vin fin in ze north, on the Oresund!
I think that your point is that throughout the history of man a warmer climate has always been a boon to humans while cold has always been bad.
For me, the thought of global warming gives me a toasty feeling as I know that humans will thrive and culture flourish. Cold brings despair and death.
Apparently you are much smarter than 90% of scientists. Note that nearly 100% of corporations have looked at the science and take global warming scenarios very seriously. Most large compaines are planning accordingly, but then I guess you don't think they are the smartest guys in the room.
The pretense of 'scientific consensus' supporting AGW is also a lie by the Warmistas. There's no such consensus, and in fact there seems to be a clear majority of scientists who oppose the scam of AGW. The core problem is that the Warmistas gained control of key scientifc paper publishers early on in the rise of the AGW scam, and subsequently suppressed any papers opposing their viewpoint.
Here are a few indicators of the true state of scientific views on AGW:
http://papundits.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/realclimate-now-ponders-why-no...
RealClimate Now Ponders: Why No Warming?
Summing up: some of the scientists most prominent in promoting the theory that man is heat the world to hell now promote a paper saying that theory is actually questionable, and we now face a prolongued period of no temperature rises instead, contrary, it says, to what leading climate models predicted.
http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php?t=271355
Antarctic sea ice expanded by 300,000 square kilometers since the 1970, say 4,000 scientists
http://climate-change.suite101.com/article.cfm/top-scientists-assess-cli...
Top Scientists Assess Climate Change Emails
Full Analysis of Global Warming Scandal
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/9035/SPECIAL-REPORT-More-Than-1000-Interna...
More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims - Challenge UN IPCC & Gore
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/12/30/lawrence-solomon-75-clima...
75 climate scientists think humans contribute to global warming
How do we know there’s a scientific consensus on climate change? Pundits and the press tell us so. And how do the pundits and the press know? Until recently, they typically pointed to the number 2500 – that’s the number of scientists associated with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Those 2500, the pundits and the press believed, had endorsed the IPCC position.
To their embarrassment, most of the pundits and press discovered that they were mistaken – those 2500 scientists hadn’t endorsed the IPCC’s conclusions, they had merely reviewed some part or other of the IPCC’s mammoth studies. To add to their embarrassment, many of those reviewers from within the IPCC establishment actually disagreed with the IPCC’s conclusions, sometimes vehemently.
Many more resources on AGW here: http://everist.org/archives/links/
Nearly 100% of CORPORATIONS have looked at the "science" and take "global warming" scenarios very seriously. Most large companies are planning accordingly, IN ORDER TO PROFIT FROM YET ANOTHER GLOBAL SCAM BEING PUSHED DOWN THE SHEEPLE'S THROATS.
It should be no ones surprise that Chomsky supports a global eco-fascist regime.
After all he's nothing more than controlled opposition. Of all the types of NWO lackeys, he belongs to the worst of the lot.
You studied at a "top university" but you type "1980's" instead of "1980s."
Newsflash: plurals have no apostrophe.
For hell's sake - it's just "the 1980s." Nothing is possessive - there's no plural.
http://achewood.com/index.php?date=09122008 note the last frame.
You are my favorite Fat Fuck on this site, Fat Ass.
lol, the poor sop gets his butt kicked for being prim and proper; instead of wiggling his fat butt in moonshining humor.
1980s as in, "You probably haven't cleaned the sand out of that dried up excuse for a pussy since the 1980s".
Take your grammarian authoritarian litany elsewhere.
not only that, he's wrong. perfectly fine to use an apostrophe to pluralize numbers (or letters) which are filling in for words
Scientists are not english majors. You sir are an anal-retentive douche bag.
on the contrary. Al Gore studied English for two years at Yale, but since he was in the bottom 20% of his class he switched to poly sci. And he is the leader of the band. Not good at science or english!
AlGore is one smart guy. Via his human-induced global warming scam, he's sold about $500 million worth of "carbon offsets" to his guilt-ridden liberal friends. As for Chomsky and his "acceptance" of an "authoritarian solution" to "global warming", more of the same, this time from the Left: libs, socialists, and Reds are always looking for new Fronts to conceal their ultimate purpose - a global gulag regime - and the human-induced global warming scam was/is just that.
Oh, hockey stick.
Just when I was starting to enjoy his poetry ;-)
One thin September soon
A floating continent disappears
In midnight sun
Vapors rise as
Fever settles on an acid sea
Neptune's bones dissolve
Snow glides from the mountain
Ice fathers floods for a season
A hard rain comes quickly
Then dirt is parched
Kindling is placed in the forest
For the lightning's celebration
Unknown creatures
Take their leave, unmourned
Horsemen ready their stirrups
Passion seeks heroes and friends
The bell of the city
On the hill is rung
The shepherd cries
The hour of choosing has arrived
Here are your tools
ROTFL!!!
English majors are usually not whores who will create junk science with bogus data to get grant money.
The "science" part at most universities in science and medical is all about grant money anc cocktail parties. The waste and stupidity is incredible. People working on research projects who have no clue what they are doing. It is very common.
English majors seldom get invited to cocktail parties. This must change!
Go suck it, Fat Ass.
"Newsflash: plurals have no apostrophe."
Unless they're single digits. Zero and one would look ambiguous in front of an "s" unless there were an apostrophe between them. Writing "0's" and "1's" is better than "0s" and "1s".
And, because it's harder for many people to remember this exception, it's forgivable to let them always use an apostrophe. I just read a popular usage guide that made this recommendation ("Woe Is I," p. 102), presumably for that reason.
Got anything better to do than be a grammar whore?????
Every message board there is has one, and your all despised.
You mean "you're all despised", I do believe. ;--))
grouchie, mutch ? lolz.
Rule of thumb: If the government is pushing it... then it's yet another scam to transfer more wealth from the people to the owners of the government.
The problem isn't global warming. It's global cooling.
Solar Physicist Dr. C. de Jager predicts Grand Solar Minimum will last until 2100
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/06/solar-physicist-dr-c-de-jager-predicts.html
Main driver of climate? The Sun.
Experimental results support cosmic ray theory of climate
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/05/blog-post.html
I was politically active against Cap and Tax since before the bill passed the House in August 2009, it never made it to the Senate because of the Climategate scandal the following November and solar minimum. I rode the solar minimum hard as a topic on sites like Watts Up With That to get people to realize, It's the Sun Stupid, causing Climate Change.
It's about time the government is acknowledging the extended solar minimum that caused the last two severe winters and broke records with no land falling hurricanes for more than 1000 days as well as the La Nina and lower tornadic activity.
Conclusion; The weather and climate are not your fault folks. You have enough that's blamed on you already. The blame for climate change belongs to something else besides man. Take comfort in this revelation.
Unearned guilt is the jackass upon which the charlatan rides.
Well said.
Global Warming and Global Cooling are two sides of the same coin. I don't know what the fuck that means but I think it could have legs...
I agree. I think the question is whether or not there is accelerated climate change due to recent (historically speaking) human activity - not a question of warming or cooling. And whether or not there has been such a change I don't know. The evidence seems contradictory - maybe because it has been cast as in these terms.
You wil have to clear this with Koch Industries.
With a proposal actually named "Cap and Trade" most thinking people would have been shocked - shocked I tell you - to discover that the money sluts on Wall Street would have been involved.
I'll bet they are some of the biggest environmentalists around.
As usual, George, you get things almost exactly backwards. Scientists are actually predicting the possible skipping of the next sun spot cycle...which could very well foretell cooling--not warming.
http://www.earthtimes.org/climate/sun-spot-decrease-ice-age-scientists/1...
Since we're throwing credentials into this mix, I studied meteorology and climatology at UC Berkeley (real science involving engineering sequence physics, chem and math...not 'environmental science') and worked on the GOES weather satellites I-M.
Today we learn that sea level data has been fudged by the supposed keepers of that data as well. Is there any depth of subterfuge to which agenda-driven leftist scientists living off government grants will not sink?
http://newsnewmexico.blogspot.com/2011/05/nasa-funded-group-caught-fudgi...
There is a reason that we skeptics and alarmists cannot get along: the alarmists have been hiding and corrupting data and real scientists think that their politicized, filthy lucre driven self interest is the reason. No AGW, no more USG grants and no more jet setting to Bali for wine and cheese at the taxpayer's expense.
No, there is no limit.
The whole mess started with manipulating temp-records itself. So talking what is a cause of "global warming" is an erroneous thinking because we don't know if there is such any "warming" at all.
Indirect indicators do not show any special alarms. Glaciers are still bigger than in medieval period. Trees grows fantastic well, but the cause is not increased temperature, but increased CO2 concentration.
My bottom line is (serious, without sarcasm): fissile fuels are dead nature, taken out of circulation by geological traps. We the people, are the heroes bringing this carbon, fundamental element for any live, into circulation again. Enrich the earth! Bringt back into live and action!
Off Topic
Hey PD quig, what do you know about haarp and the stuff seen here. I'd like an experts take on it.
sorry my html is a litle weak too
http://www.youtube.com/user/dutchsinse
Thank you for this post.
Another appallingly idiotic pseudo-scientific horse-apple was this tidbit:
Studying 'global warming' must consist of an awful lot of studiously avoiding any real science. Getting the link between solar maxima/minima and cosmic rays exactly backwards is damning. Then getting the possible effect of cosmic rays on 'warming' exactly backwards is incredible.
If you really want to understand the connection between climate and cosmic rays. Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKoUwttE0BA
Excellent list GW. My arguments aren't with the science, but with the mass of uninformed people who think we should shut down global industry to make the world a better place. And that America should lead the way. They have no concept where their jobs, or even their food comes from.
Yes, the science is interesting and important. No, we shouldn't shoot ourselves in the head b/c of it. And we especially shouldn't give bankers a license to gobble up all spare cash in the world with a "cap and trade" policy, that would create a commodity that only gets more expensive with time. Talk about can't lose. Naturally, common folk would be banned from the market.
Common ground Number 7: Reduce human population to 1 billion, as the malthusian NWO lackey, "Dr." Holdren, has proposed in his book.
Fact: deployment of tabletop, even man-portable generators is what could make all this discussion moot. But as you might have guessed, TPTB will fight tooth and nail to prevent these generators from full scale deployment:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/16/pocket-particle-accelerators-l...
Shhh! That project is supposed to be a secret. Except for a few noteable slip-ups like Bill Gates mentioning population reduction via immunization campaigns, the plan is going well but quietly. The genetic engineering work is complete, there's now the capability to create delayed action oncogene bearing viruses, for inclusion as tiny trace additives to serums such as for the H1N1 immunisation.
Really was a shame that one didn't work out. Next time we need a much more scary epidemic, so there's no chance of people getting all skeptical and choosing not to get the shots.
That's why we produced a '3 shot' set for H1N1 - the first two were just to judge the public acceptance. If we'd seen 80%+ participation, the 3rd shot would have had the magic ingredient. Only getting 5% participation was so disappointing! Can you imagine the fuss if over the next few years most of those 5% died of various cancers! Shit, someone would be sure to figure it out, and we Elites would be toast.
No, we really need a much higher participaton, so the 'sudden mysterious cancer epidemic' seems to be hitting pretty much everyone. No one will suspect some immunisation shots from a few years back.
Really can't wait to get the population down to under a billion. It will be so much easier to exert our natural right to rule. Feudalism is a really cool political system, don't you think? Pointless to let the serfs have any frivolous high tech luxuries like Internet, medical care, electricity, and so on. Those will be just for us.
Another interesting fact surrounding the h1n1 vaccine: in sweden and finland a clear relationship has been noted between cases of narcolepsy and taking the vaccine. Now h1n1 doesn't cause narcolepsy, and a vaccine is supposed to be a neutered sample of the disease, so where the fudge does the narcolepsy inducing effect come from?
GW, before I understood peak oil I thought like you do. Now I understand there is no need to worry about CO2 because oil and coal production are peaking. The problem will take care of itself.
It is much more important to focus on environmental contamination, which is why I support your efforts on nuclear safetly and the gulf oil spill.
Kudos to you, and just one criticism -- be consistent. Your article talks about solar maximum and a little ice age at the same time. It just means nobody knows nuthin. So you should raise them as probabalistic risks, not something to get jazzed about now.
The Titan probe proved that methane can be abiotic. There's oceans of it there. Has anyone shown that the same process can't operate on Earth?