2. Humans are likely responsible for most of the recent warming.

Is not tenable based on:

http://www.physorg.com/news86585073.html
 Scientists Work on Map of Climate Change

"They gather rock core from deep below the Antarctic sea floor, then analyze it.

So far, the cores show a dynamic ice sheet that advanced and retreated more than 50 times over 5 million years.

Some of the ice shelf's disappearance was probably during times when the planet was 36 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) to 37 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) warmer than it is today - "much like it will be in the next 50 to 100 years," said Tim Naish, a lead scientist on the project from Victoria University in New Zealand."

So, unless you can unearth a Chevy Cobalt, one for every 1,000,000 years, 50 times in the past...don't tell me it's Man.


Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

really, since human actions did not cause all past climate changes they can not cause one today?  Doesn't pass the sniff test.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/17/232454/78


"What if this weren't a hypothetical question?" -- unknown

Anyway, my uninformed impression is that the question of effects is far less settled than the question of warming's existence and cause. Is that true?

grist.org

We know more science every year and the data shows an escalation of time-lines.  

The science is not settled, the bad news just keeps coming home.  That then plays on the values of actions.

That's a good question.  Impacts remain a great uncertainty.  What we really want are estimates of the impacts of climate change at regional scales, so we can tell individual people how the elements of the climate they rely on will change.  It is not, at present, possible to do that.    

However, most analyses of the issue conclude that there is a significant risk of serious impacts.  That's the consensus point.  

There's widespread agreement in the scientific community about what we know and how confidently we know it.  In the case of impacts, we don't know it confidently --- and everyone agrees with that.  

This "middle ground" is available to anyone who wants to see it in the IPCC reports.

My take is that the arguments one hears --- e.g., Hansen vs. Wunsch --- are not over science, but over what we should do given our knowledge about the climate.  In other words, the arguments are over values.  The different constructs by Hansen ("tipping points") and Wunsch ("insurance premiums") are, as Nesbit would say, framing devices for advocacy, not differences in scientific understanding.

Regards.

And that article doesn't say what you seem to be suggesting, that because temperatures were higher in the past then we are not causing the climate to change today. No one denies that climate changes occurred in the past. But we know that we have pumped a lot of pollutants into the atmosphere in a relatively short period of time. And we're continuing to do so. We should be worried about the affects of what we're doing because a lot of people's health and lives are at risk. We know we're causing problems and it's irresponsible not to try to do something about it.

Even Richard Lindzen agrees that co2 is a greenhouse gas and more of it will warm the planet more (see my 4/06 "Yelling Fire on a Hot Planet" story for more on that.. easy to google).

As I just explained on www.realclimate.org as well, the orthodoxy that is in the public mind now is not the IPCC (which IS the orthodoxy for climate scientists, but is largely not what gets thru to the media and into policy realm).

There, the dominant framing now is the far 'hotter' notion that climate is a realtime crisis that can be solved with existing technologies and willpower.

The folks I focused this story on say that is NOT a useful approach and is flawed on every side. The building human influence has multi-decadal momentum. There is no quick fix. CO2 persists for generations and that is what creates need for prompt action. But even urgent action would not lessen current climate extremes, etc etc.

For the average American, all of that is news. And that means I've got to write about it.

I encourage you to review all of our recent coverage of the challenging climate-energy nexus here: www.nytimes.com/energychallenge .

Mostly sobering, some hopeful hints, and all vitally important.

Andy R

- Andy Revkin nytimes.com/revkin

What seems to be missed by all is that the Earth (a planet) is undergoing its own evolution.
You can not compare the past with now, unless you know how a planet evolves.

IMO, Earth was once similar to Venus, toxic hot, 90X atmospheric pressure....a hot rock.

If you think the Earth is static (as per creationism) complete with water etc... then carry on in the delusion that planets are immune to time.

Our world should be becoming colder as it moves away from the Sun, the Sun should be getting cooler as it winds down it's fuel......

The topic of planetary evolution is full of controversy as one would expect... it is all theoretical, but planetary evolution is a reasonable proposition considering what we know about the nature of things.

So given that, and given we really do not know what causes ice ages and the subsequent interglacial heating, it would appear to me that it would be prudent, considering that cloud cover is decreasing and droughts are expanding, to take a proactive approach to the climate change we are noticing.

IMO, the atmosphere is a dead duck, it has a window to space that allows heat to readily flow away, both during the day and more so at night.

The seas are the planet's heat storage organs, they are heated only when the cloud cover is reduced and I suspect that the heat/salinity of the sea is the underlying cause of ice ages/interglacial periods.... an harmonic oscillation is set in motion and augmented by events outside Earth.

So is global climate change man made ?.... there seems to be no other explanation other than yes.

How will it affect the life forms on Earth, namely people ?
well there is the possibility that an ice age will be triggered in the mid term, but short term drought will increase and affect us most.

The real problem is the tipping point for an ice age...... has it passed or is it still preventable? but once the oscillation starts, the could be no stopping..

Another apocalyptic scenario is..
because the ice caps are melting unnaturally, there is a risk of an imbalance being set up in the Earth's spin.... what could come from that is...basically unknown.

To Act ? or Not Act ?

IMO, as long as we moan about the need for energy (money) there is not much we can do except to let it unfold.  We could drastically reduce our footprint on the planet now by abandoning all fossil reserves.

Soylent green?, yes that is a solution for all displaced people!!! fat cats love tit bits.  

We can make lots of moneeeeyyyy...

I seriously think that this is one of the only ways (well that, methane and nitrous oxide sequestration) that can reduce or alltogether do away with global warming.

Anyway, I think I will go look it up and try to see if I can get in on some sort of a scheme. Heh heh...

Andy, I saw that you included this, or something close to it, in your comment at RealClimate as well, and it struck me funny. I guess I'm an extremist, working locally to get my public utility, which owns its own coal-fired plants and made national news recently (NPR -- well, it's something) for a compromise with the Sierra Club mandating that it meet Kyoto goals for our city's carbon emissions (from electricity).

We've been pushing global warming as something that we need to take action on now, not because we can do it all now, but because it's easier to do a big job if you start earlier than if you wait. To that end, I think existing technologies and willpower are what we have. Everything else we have to grow into, as a result of those two. This seems entirely responsible and commonsensical to me. We're not calling for an immediate drop in CO2 levels. We're not calling for people to give up anything. We're saying: Let's get started.

And I don't see us as outside of the range of normal activist sentiment. So, I'd be interested in hearing a little more about why something that seems like so much commonsense to me seems so obviously flawed to you and the scientists you're talking to.

Here are some of the other important questions:

-Regardless of climate change cause, does the Earth have self-correcting mechanisms at work that are discernable in the historical record?

-Does knowing Man's percentage of climate change have any effect on the dynamism of continuous climate cycles?

-If Man could arrest its contribution to rising C02 and other greenhouse gases (I find this highly unlikely with ever rising world populations and the emphasis on prosperity and longevity) what would that achieve in the whole dynamic cycle of climate change?

-Should Man be better served by directing more attention and discussion to adapting and surviving climate change rather than the daily drumbeat of incremental measures that do little or nothing to changing the direction of what we face such as receding coastlines?  

It does not matter how much I dispute these misconceptions, more and more people believe this nonsense.  Further, the scientists tasked with climate research are often asked by the media about the alternatives to fossil fuels.  They do not know much about the efficacy and policies of energy.

Even if humanity left the planet today, the Earth would continue to heat up for many decades.  Global warming is unavoidable.

Popular renewable technologies, such as flat plate pv and ethanol, do nothing to reduce CO2, a total waste of time and money.  Energy efficiency is huge and cost effective, but that is being ignored by the public.

Finally, renewable energy subsidies and expensive energy alternatives are not sustainable, we can not buy our way into solutions.  They must be cheaper than coal.  That is possible and will require well funded long-term research and development.

A local (U.S.) permanent carbon tax will stimulate developments in the U.S. private sector.  In the long term, those developments must be able to displace coal around the world without carbon taxes.

I need more coffee.

The future of human civilization does not need fossil fuels.

A carbon tax is very important for efficiency improvements (cars, homes, industries), conservation (carpools, clotheslines, window shutters, etc.), investments developing carbon-neutral energy sources (solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, biomass).

I have much hope for clean future.

http://www.otherpower.com/

Any ideas on funding?  Maybe setup the factory in Costa Rica?  With antiquated tools for sale cheap here in the outsourced jobland that is bushwacked america.

Good old fashioned 20th century mass production, without robots.  With real Costa Ricans. With final assembley and installation crews right here in the USA.

That's my objection to Andy's article. Mega-corporate media is based on total fantasy.  Mega-corporate monopoly/bribed government propaganda fantasy.  

Fellers like this actually do it.  I bet they would really like your solar concentrator designs.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

http://www.bigskyco2.org/

Common sense is an oxymoron...

Slow growth from seed ideas seemed viable twenty years ago when we thought we had time on global warming mitigation.  Now we need the professionals in research and engineering for the introduction of new and fast-growing industries.  Making electricity is a small part of the solution at the far end of the least-cost path on energy.  If I had $100 billion I would invest all of it into graduate research on low-carbon low-cost energy.

As per my interests, I have moved on from solar concentrators and now only care about global warming mitigation.

(Despite appearances and geodesic domes, I have never been a hippy.  Cassandra says I'm the most conservative person she has ever met.)

Collector energy return on energy invested testing is done under ideal, clean, desert conditions.  Roof systems are another matter.  The energy consumed making new pv grade silicon ingots is enormous and, under ideal testing conditions, requires many years to amortize.  Under real-world-consumer conditions, pv energy struggles to amortize energy of manufacture (at 5% interest).

There is an embedded link on silicon energy ROI in  -
http://gristmill.grist.org/comments/2006/10/24/17380/517/...

I guess what you are saying is that we need to do a lot better than this.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

A better use of California resources would be solar enhanced oil recovery in Kern County (Bakersfield), and window shutters on air-conditioned houses.  The best ROI would be university research on the best buys for carbon displacement.

Politicians, like Senator Barbara Boxer, are most easily influenced by what is reported by the mass media, The New York Times, and regional papers.  

The global warming crisis is currently on the desks of reporters and editors.

This is probably a bad day for me to be calling you out as a stupid fool :-) but I think your argument that Revkin is confusing science and values misses the point.

What Revkin is doing, I think, is explaining things in terms, not of the science, but of the frames by which the science is explained, understood, and discusssed by those in the media/political/policy arena.

You are correct that decisions about climate change action are determined by values, not science. But Revkin's article recognizes a reality that scientists have a difficult time with: that people's values govern the way they view the science. Thus the contrast he sets up in his second and third paragraphs - between "environmental campaigners, former Vice President Al Gore and some scientists" on one hand and "Conservative politicians and a few scientists, many with ties to energy companies" on the other. These two groups' views have dominated the public debate, and neither is in concert with the IPCC.

Revkin is essentially explaining that, in the public discourse, there is a new and more vocal crew essentially trying to frame the science in way uncolored by either extremist value position: in essence, an embrace of the IPCC.

Tis a shame that people's eyes glaze over whenever deep science concepts are introduced.  All discussion stops, LOL.

But the slow spiral to understanding is then started, and after all that is all a scientist can ask for.

SLOW !, damn, but we are in a race for survival... oh well

Sorry guys, y'all must about face, forget all that old technology that was, and recalculate the future direction.  It is possible, but it seem highly improbable.

If I had $100 million, I would be leaving this planet.  It is way too hard enlightening people.

However, I disagree with your argument that Revkin should combine scientific with value questions because that's a mistake the general public makes.  Wouldn't it be better for the article to have attempted to correct that misunderstanding?

I think we're all trying to do the same thing --- explain to people the "lay of the land" of the climate change debate --- but I'm not sure perpetuating errors is the right way to go about it.  Of course, you guys are professionals, while I'm not ...

Thanks!

In his discussion of both sea level rise and hurricanes - central pillars of his impacts argument - Gore went well beyond the scientific consensus, relying on scientific outliers. But I never said he was an extremist. In fact, I don't think he is. I just quoted Revkin's characterization of him as being on one pole of the debate. Which I think is accurate. Those on the poles of the debate quote outlier science. The folks Revkin was featuring are in the big fat IPCC-ish middle, which features much smaller sea level rise and no clear GW-hurricane link.

Andy -

There is no "correct(ing) that misunderstanding." That people's values infect how they choose to interpret the science, which science they choose to accept and which they reject, is a fact of life. That's Nisbett's point with his "cognitive miser" line. I spent many years of my journalistic career laboring under the misapprehension that my most useful contribution was to simply correct that misunderstanding - explaining the science in absence of the values, so that people could then make the best decisions. It simply doesn't work that way. That's the reality that Revkin's story addresses, and it is a reality that scientists' criticism of journalism - the endless blog comment debates about news coverage in places like RealClimate and Prometheus - fails to grasp.

People ask, should we focus on adapting? Should we focus on preventing? Like it's an either/or issue. We have to do both because it's already happening and adaptation will be essential. Unfortunately the non-human world doesn't have the ability to figure out how to adapt. For polar bears to adapt to a world without ice would take generations and generations and that's not going to happen. That's what sucks. And the longer we debate over how much we're going to risk, the more we lose. For me personally on a physical level, I know the kinds of changes necessary will be difficult, but emotionally and spiritually I'd feel a great deal of relief, and maybe not as much doom hanging over my head, knowing at last that we're on our way. Anyway, if it's hard for me, it will be hard for everyone esle too. So we'll be in it together, which is more than is happening right now as we move about in so much isolation in so many ways.

Sorry for the rant. I try to avoid going on and on. But the words came pouring out.

But the scientific fact is that the IPCC does NOT say that warming is "likely" to "lie between 1.4 and 5.8 deg C."

The IPCC makes NO estimate--either qualitatively or quantitatively--about the probability that warming will be between 1.4 and 5.8 deg C.

In fact, the IPCC very explicitly says, "1) The IPCC provides this caveat: "Scenarios are images of the future or alternative futures. They are neither predictions nor forecasts."

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/emission/025.htm

But even if the IPCC TAR DID say it was "likely" that the warming would be between 1.4 and 5.8 deg C, it would be completely irrelevant from a policy standpoint.

It makes a huge difference whether or not it is likely that the warming will close to 1.4 deg C, or close to 5.8 deg C.

The simple fact is that there is approximately a 50/50 chance that the warming will be less than 1.4 deg C...and there is virtually no chance (far less than 1 percent) that that the warming will be over 5 deg C.

Mark Bahner

Use Google.

1.4C rise to most people is insignificant.  If the air is dry, such a rise will feel like a cooler temperature.  High humidity alone can make any daytime temperature feel like it is 10C higher.

Personal perceptions are what drives people, so you see most people are not concerned with a temperature rise.

In fact there is a higher probability of a temperature fall as worldwide climate change progresses.  Under desert conditions, you die of cold at night and not from the heat of the day.

Now drought is another thing.  See the climatic state in Australia, everyone there is talking climate change... it is in your face serious when you can not wash your car!!!!!
(even though the authorities there are in massive denial, the population is screaming)

The Northern hemisphere has not too long to wait before drought will bring the chickens home to roost, and the squawks will be just as loud as if it is their head to be chopped off next.

A talk-fest now, decisions tomorrow, but tomorrow will come too late, IMO.

That said, I don't know that we are anywhere near some point of no return- we might be, but none of us know that, even given that we are sure that GW is on, and that people cause some of it. And if the only option is to trade in the SUV and the house in the burbs for a yurt and hair shirt, it is not unlikely that people will steeply discount the future (highly uncertain) to avoid certain unpleasantness now, without some real certainty, regardless of risk.

Because of this, I think that it is possible that you are not going to get people to look into the future and weight it properly. We have to look for things to do now, that have benefits now, or we will never engage more than a progressive avant-garde in climate change mitigation, and that just isn't going to get it done, if indeed it needs doing. It's lovely to talk about how important it is to do something NOW, but I sure as hell don't know what that something is that amounts to more than self-righteous posturing. Traipsing down a stupid path will cost a pile of money, do little and could actually decrease our ability to do what makes sense, should we figure that out. Talking might not help, but it does nothing to make matters worse than they would be otherwise. The alternatives to discussion are what, exactly?

And as long as we live in a representative democracy, we can't expect politicians to do much, either. With a time horizon in the US that is maxed out at 6 years, politicians (in the aggregate, one or two with clear heads notwithstanding) aren't likely to do something for the uncertain future that they know will lead to their removal from office.

Its called science.

How long will it take, hypothetically, to remove oil from the market if the survival of the world depended upon its removal ?

Oil will not be removed from the market, so I suppose I would set the time to do so equal to infinity. If there were a convincing way to prove that it needed to be, completely, and the cost of defection from the ban was immediate, obvious catastrophe, there would still be an enormous economic and political inertia to overcome. I suspect wars might break out over who got to use the last bits. Rising cost would eventually lead to substitutes, but expedient substitutes, not ecologically friendly substitutes. The pressure would be relieved by the most readily available means.

Taking IPCC estimates at the far end, we could see nearly 6 C increase in global average temperature over the 21st century. What I said about discounting the future will hold; slow, unfolding catastrophes are likely to befuddle humankind, scientific understanding notwithstanding. The effects are not going to be evenly distributed, and those who see temporary benefits are going to be loathe to give them up by throttling back their economic growth.

The science is probably the simplest problem to solve regarding climate change, and it is hideously complex. I hope something will emerge that will stave off disaster, but I suspect humankind's best hope is our ability to cope with them once they get here. Pessimistic, yes,  but I don't see compelling evidence to the contrary.

I agree with your characterization of the problem.  We do indeed need to find better, more immediate benefits to mitigation than heading off uncertain impacts far in the future.  One promising candidate is "energy security," a term that the President uses often.  Getting off foreign oil is certainly good for us from a geopolitical standpoint.  The question becomes how do you stop a transition to coal.

Regards

First, scientific knowing... I do not believe that this goal has been met so far

Second, the knowing focuses the action so remedies are effective.

IMO the problem is an oil film on the seas.  Once this is realised, all hell will break lose, the science is there, the prognosis is there, and with hard concerted work a solution may be there, but it seems the oil barons are dead against cutting oil use.... even though I suspect they know what their product is doing to the world.

Oil must be declared a noxious substance, and strict controls on its use must be implemented.

Oil cleaners on exhausts etc... it really is not so hard to make a start, the problem today is that the debate as to the cause of global climate change has many false arguments, and the truth is being actively smothered

see
http://www.physorg.com/news87058248.html

>> (AP) -- ExxonMobil Corp. gave $16 million to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 in a coordinated effort to mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming.......Dr. James McCarthy, a professor at Harvard University, said the company has sought to "create the illusion of a vigorous debate" about global warming. >>

and they have muddied the waters so much that it is now very hard to see a co-ordinated solution arising.

Getting rid of our major power source by fiat will not happen. Politically, it woud be suicide to do something that would inflict that kind of pain, whether or not it appears necessary. We have to look for other ways. It won't help to lament the stupidity or greed of anyone- it's fun, but not effective.

Zarkov- I have not heard of an oil film on the sea- do you have a ref for that?

'Scientific Knowing' is hard, and slow. Impending disasters may not be, so I am not saying nothing should be done, only that what is to be done is unclear. The fact that I don't know what we should do should not be interpreted as I think we should do nothing. I think figuring out what to do has to come first, and quickly, and needs to be unfettered by eco-puritanism or Luddism.

I am a chemist, working in industry, though far from oil. Still even farther from climatology, so my opinion about climate science is purely amateur. It appears to be a big deal. How big, I don't have the expertise to evaluate.

 But I do know that it takes a long time, and lots of effort, to understand systems over which one has direct control. And to get something to work well enough to become commercially viable takes more time still. Seemingly excellent ideas die just short of fruition, after massive effort and resources have been committed. Yet we keep doing this, because the eventual payoff is enough to cover all the missteps. We don't stop and just decide that we are ready, though. Everything- science, engineering, economics, and even politics, will occasionally line up correctly.

I have worked on photovoltaic projects, and believe that these will bear fruit, in spite of the hurdles still to clear. I can see low cost, ubiquitous solar cells just on the horizon. But make no mistake- even free photovoltaics would not solve many of our energy problems by themselves. We need to learn a lot more about storing and moving DC, for instance, just to get the tiny fraction of energy that PVs could provide to work properly. I do some work on energy conservation/thermal management. both of these are just little, tiny pieces, of a much bigger puzzle, and they are still fantastically complicated. The science is challenging, the politics always uncertain, and the economics vexing in dozens of ways.

It's going to take a lot of money, time and effort. It will take this to do things right, but we can also stupidly consume all three doing stuff that is ineffective.

random quote
Dr. Hardy says, "In the more than 200 microlayer samples we have collected from rivers, estuaries, bays and oceans, there is a sadly consistent picture: the surface microlayer is becoming a soup of toxic metals, organic pollutants, bacteria, pesticide residues, and the by-products of combustion-derived hydrocarbons from cars, trucks, aeroplanes, refuse incinerators, and power plants".>>

Marine micro-layer biologists first identified the ubiquitous oil layer back in the 1930s and this oil has been identified as of human origin.  

Wars, oil tankers, industry, runoff etc keeps the layer, however its thickness waxes and wanes.

I have contacted various academic sources, and searched the net.  Very little information is available.

At my web site I have collected many references.  The facts are isolated but if you collate the isolated pieces of information you may draw a similar conclusion.

The signs and symptoms of the changing climate are completely consistent with the expected effects a resident petroleum oil layer on the sea surface.

jjwfmme replies, "Use Google."

I have.  Unlike members of the lay public, I've actually read the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) very closely.  

The IPCC TAR does NOT say it is "likely" that the warming will be between 1.4 and 5.8 deg C.  They do NOT include a qualitative or quantitative assessment for the likelihood that the temperature increase will be in the range of their "projection."

Mark Bahner

Science (or at least an incredibly large group of scientists) has yet to tell the truth about global warming.

The most important question about global warming is, "What will happen if governments don't get involved?"

The IPCC to date has NOT made an honest attempt to answer that question.  The IPCC Third Assessment Report's "projection" of 1.4 to 5.8 deg C temperature rise was nothing more than a blatantly dishonest attempt to scare the public.  It is exactly analogous the 30-year-long "Limits to Growth" scam...except far more scientists are involved in the IPCC "projections" scam.

Everyone who is both informed and honest knows this.  

Mark Bahner

Oh, here it is.  [Imagine me spraying Mark Bahner's comments]  That should do it.

Yes, I know that the IPCC defined "likely" as a 66-90% chance of occurrence.

What the IPCC did NOT write was, "Warming over the next 100 years is LIKELY (emphasis added) to lie between 1.4 and 5.8 deg C."

Andrew Dessler wrote that the IPCC wrote that.  But  Andrew Dessler writes many, many things that are clearly false.  (And then he makes personal attacks rather than admitting what he wrote was untrue.)

Mark Bahner

(more links in my other comment)

I believe "Warming over the next 100 years is likely to lie between 1.4 and 5.8 deg C." was something William Connolley wrote in an FAQ on RealClimate.  It's not anything the IPPC directly said, at least in the TAR or before.

It would be nice if we were arguing about what to do, instead of not even discussing the same subject.

As far as the entire "debate" I think it's clear what the IPCC SPM said:

"The globally averaged surface temperature is projected to increase by 1.4 to 5.8°C (Figure 5d) over the period 1990 to 2100. These results are for the full range of 35 SRES scenarios, based on a number of climate models10,11."

A fairly static statement of fact, making no comment on how much it's projected, nor much about the models.  The footnotes are fairly vague as to specifics.  Then, guess what?  You go see what the scenarios are.

Other quotes from various IPCC sources Google hits are pretty much:  

Models project this range of a rise, with no direct in-context comment by us on the projection's probabilities in any manner.

"Global mean surface temperatures are projected to increase between 1990 and 2100 by about 1.4 to 5.8oC (figure 10d and 11)."

"...Projected by models to warm 1.4 to 5.8°C by 2100 relative to 1990, and globally averaged sea level is projected by models...

"...based on a range of climate models point to an increase in globally averaged surface temperature of 1.4 to 5.8° C over the period 1990 to 2100..."

"...developed in the IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES), the globally averaged surface air temperature is projected by models to warm 1.4 to 5.8 ..."