Despite the fact that 2010 tied for the warmest year on record, President Obama made no mention of Global Climate Change in his January 25th State of the Union remarks. That wasn't a surprise; last summer an attempt to fashion a bipartisan Climate Change bill floundered in the Senate and since then prospects for Congressional action have dwindled. Global Climate Change hasn't gone away, but the political will to take action has disappeared. Why? What can you and I do about this tragic situation?
Early in January the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration announced that 2010 had tied 2005 as the warmest year. The world saw many indications of this: global snow cover was the lowest on record; there were horrendous forest fires in Russia; and much of Pakistan flooded. Nonetheless, the peril of Global Climate Change does not command public attention. In the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll respondents overwhelmingly (43 percent) saw Congress' top priority as Job Creation, followed by Healthcare (18 percent), the Federal budget deficit (14 percent), Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (12 percent), and Illegal Immigration (7 percent), Something else (3 percent), and Unsure (3 percent). There was no mention of Global Climate Change in this and similar polls.
Given the seriousness of the problem it's curious that the American voting public has lost interest in Global Climate Change. One possible explanation is the economic crisis; perhaps Americans are so concerned about their jobs, homes, and savings they don't have the energy to worry about mammoth snowstorms and hurricanes. Another explanation may be the contrast between a bad economy that touches folks in every community and Global Climate Change whose impact, at present, seems restricted to particular geographical areas.
Sadly, the likely explanation is that many Americans have changed their minds about the seriousness of the problem. In October of 2010, the Pew Research Center presented their latest poll regarding Opinions About Global Warming. Over the past five years public concern about the problem has lessened; whereas, in 2006, 79 percent of respondents said there was "solid evidence the earth is warming", in 2010 only 59 percent shared this opinion and 32 percent denied there was any evidence. In 2010, asked whether global warming was a problem requiring immediate governmental action, 46 percent of respondents said yes but 29 answered no and another 21 percent that they either didn't believe it was a problem or didn't know. Finally, the Pew study asked: "Do Scientists agree that the earth is getting warmer because of human activity?" and the respondents split: 44 percent said yes and another 44 percent answered no.
Given that 97 percent of scientists believe the earth is getting warmer because of human activity, it's startling that so many Americans don't believe that Global Climate Change is a serious problem. What explains this troubling finding?
2006 saw the debut of An Inconvenient Truth the Al Gore movie that educated Americans about the perils of Global Climate Change. At the end of that year, 79 percent of Americans felt there was "solid evidence the earth is warming" and 61 percent wanted "immediate government action."
Then an unholy conservative triumvirate got busy. Huge multinational corporations, such as Exxon Mobil teamed with conservative investors such as Charles and David Koch to fund a vast disinformation strategy about Global Climate Change. Conservative media barons, such as Rupert Murdoch saw this as a money-making opportunity. Soon the Fox News Network and hate radio jocks, such as Rush Limbaugh, trumpeted a four-part message: Global Climate Change is an exaggerated peril; climate problems are not man made; Al Gore manufactured the issue to spur his investments in green energy; and there is no scientific consensus on the problem. Then the Republican Party, led by John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, made a strategic decision to get on board the gravy train. Today, only 38 percent of Republican voters believe in Global Climate Change and only 24 percent believe government action is needed. Recently, Speaker of the House Boehner remarked, "The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen, that it is harmful to our environment, is almost comical."
Faced with so many reversals, the anti-Global-Climate-Change movement is "rebooting." Nonetheless, you and I can mobilize on two levels. First, we can attack the conditions that produced this tragedy: the undue political influence of wealthy individuals and corporations; the over-the-top partisan rhetoric of the Fox News Network and conservative hate jocks; and the prostitution of the Republican Party.
Second, we must refuse to be discouraged. Global Climate Change is a long-term peril that affects our children and grandchildren. As we search for opportunities to work at the state and local level, we should take heart in the knowledge that each of the historic US human rights campaigns began with a moment when the Federal government was missing in action.
Rev. Chuck Currie: The Gospel of Protecting the Environment
Quote: "Dr. Keeling’s mentor, Dr. Revelle, moved to Harvard, where he lectured about the problem. Among the students in the 1960s who first saw the Keeling Curve displayed in Dr. Revelle’s classroom was a senator’s son from Tennessee named Albert Arnold Gore Jr., who marveled at what it could mean for the future of the planet."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/science/earth/22carbon.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
"Al Gore doesn't have a 'science background,' yet he's the spokesman for your side."
Al Gore is but one a many spokespeople for the "side" that supports the scientific consensus on AGW theory. Other notable spokespeople include for example Ralph J. Cicerone, who is the current (since 2005) President of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Cicerone not only has a "science background" but he is moreover a climate scientist.
Jim Lakely: "How about we address the science as it is."
Ok let's do that, Jim. Let's start here:
Do you agree that the mean global temperature has statistically-significantly warmed over recent decades?
And if not, why not?
I thank you in advance Jim for your direct and timely response.
Think of all the tradesmen who would be put to work if auxiliary solar energy capture. thermal or electric, were encouraged for all homes and buildings in the developed and developing world.
That seems to me like it would be a win win all around.... except for maybe the Koch brothers, and those of that ilk. They want us to adapt to their sullied environment, to evolve new bodies to withstand the new world ecology that they want to create.
I wonder what their father taught Stalin besides chemical engineering......and what he learned from Stalin.
Chilling...
Have a nice day.
Doesn't the precautionary principle demand that we expend all of our social, economic and technological efforts on preventing/mitigating this inevitable catastrophe ahead of all others?
so even though you think you are being clever, you are really just embarrassing yourself with your snarky ignorance while the smart folks do all the heavy lifting.
The tropical tropospheric hot spot is a signature of a warming globe, man-made or otherwise. You aren't seriously trying to imply that the globe hasn''t been warming over recent decades - are you?
Chemistry and physics, which work according to laws not subject to our opinion, inform us that burning fossil fuels is greatly increasing the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide, which warms the planet and acidifies the seas.
What to do about it is, unfortunately, subject to too much opinion, including the opinion that we should deny it and do nothing. And whose opinion is that? It all goes back to the political influence of Big Oil and Big Coal.
How to break the deadlock? Markets alone won’t get us the solution because business conglomerates block the development of competing technologies.
Perhaps the best way to appeal to real conservatives who hate government waste is to stop focusing the discussion on climate change (“It’s warming.” “Is not.” “Is too…”) and eliminate subsidies to Big Fossil Fuel. This would level the playing field, and allow entrepreneurs and innovators to seek their fortunes. The question, of course, is whether those in government want to become uncorrupted.
U.S. leadership on climate change and energy innovation is also very much about national security, rebuilding the U.S. economy, and patriotism. The nation that owns the energy future will own the future. I’d rather it not be China; I’d rather it be the United States. But the United States has to decide it wants to lead.
Cheap green energy is being born. Perhaps the first example was demonstrated in Italy last month.
Inaccurately called "Cold Fusion", it may prove to be a Black Swan energy breakthrough.
Black Swan events are unforeseen, unexpected and improbable. They bring about a surprising paradigm shift.
See:that site to learn more about this and other potential Black Swan energy events.
They can be expected to dramatically change the climate change ballgame.
We can supersede oil and all fossil fuels, as well as uranium, much faster than conventional wisdom would suggest is possible.
And create millions of jobs and a much healthier economy at the same time.
A little known threat from solar flare emissions can act as a lever to achieve the widespread political support that is urgently needed and presently lacking.
Leadership is missing at present, but there are a host of capable individuals who may yet rise to the challenge.
After all, survival of our children is a powerful motivation.
And a few Black Swans can emerge in the arenas of energy, employment and education.
They are presently in embryo. Bringing them into practical programs is now the task.
With sufficient support, future cars will become power plants when parked, perhaps paying for themselves by selling power, without wires, to the local utility.
And they will power homes and businesses in weather emergencies. Take heart!
Worldwide, food prices are rising steeply. The US Pentagon is planning for future conflicts related to/ caused by/ exacerbated by climate change. The US Navy has declared that the annual average Arctic sea ice volume is at the lowest level measured. A heat wave and drought in Russia this past year devestated the wheat crop. This past year tied with 2005 for the highest average global temperature in the past 130 years or so. Glaciers are melting at a records clip. Antarctic ice looks like it is diminishing. Australian has been hit hard by extreme flooding twice this year.
Modern agriculture is highly dependent upon petroleum products for it's survival. Petroleum is the most economical feedstock for most of the world's plastics.
The world population is steadily rising. So are sea levels.
Many scientists strongly believe that human burning of fossil fuels contributes to rapid climate change.
The fossil fuel/petroleum industry is a multi-trillion dollar industry, and it has spent hundreds of millions of dollars money to fund people, think tanks, and websites that attack the concept of human caused global warming.
In the US, FOX News is strongly funded by Saudi Arabian interests, and that network tends to attack the concept of human caused global warming.
Societies that do not advance technologically tend to get run over by their neighbors who do.
Cheers!
Could someone describe what the best climate is, in terms of precipitation, temperature, atmospheric pressure, etc and equally importantly, what facts you have to support your claim.
TIA
My parents--both conservatives--valued privacy, quality, and the environment. When the FBI and even CIA began snooping through peoples' lives, cars were made with aluminum and plastic, and the environmental horrors of the 70's came out, they were horrified. Just horrified. This had to be fixed, and fixed NOW!
Today, things are so bad that my parents must be rolling in their graves--yet the younger generation seems not to even care. If you're not doing anything wrong, you shouldn't care about being spied on, they say. About quality, they say, are you kidding? Look at all the great games and toys we have! About the environment they are utterly cold: what "environment"? I like cities and sidewalks, they say.
They say if you put a frog in a pot turn the heat up really, really slow, he will not save himself.
- Gore's movie went overboard with the sky is falling predictions. Current climate models show much less temp. increase and less sea rise than he claimed.
- The Copenhaven treaty was more about $billions to third world countries and global UN taxation than CO2 reduction, making it a political, not environmental, issue.
- The claim that it is "proven science" when it is primarily "theory" based on human models that were developed with the primary goal of proving CO2 was the main reason for global warming.
- The amount of predicted warming varies considerable from one model to the next.
- The demonizing and name calling of anyone who questions any aspect of global warming theory makes them wonder why the name calling and not more sharing of scientific facts.
If you don't like models, read James Hansen' Storms of My Grandchildren. He distrusts the models, and so uses historical data, gleaned mostly from ice cores. He notes that past eras of CO2 concentration comparable to what we have now or are heading towards were eras of higher sea levels and increased droughts, like what we are beginning to see now.
Lastly, you accuse the overwhelming majority of the world's climate scientists of developing models "with the primary goal of proving CO2 was the main reason for global warming."--without a shred of evidence; but then you whine that you are being demonized just because you like to pretend that facts that you don't like don't exist. Unfortunately, though you are entitled to your own opinions, you are not entitled to your own facts.
The Green movement could influence global warming if they partnered with other causes where reducing oil use helped achieve their goals. Imagine the impact of 20% less oil use by, say 30% of the USA drivers. It would register on USA economic metrics, political parties would listen.
Green action would have to move from the convenient to true lifestyle change. There is power to move as a group. In the USA, the affluent top 30% have a broader lattitude to change lifestyle.
Unlike recycling and buying green, we would live greener, consuming less. A few of us are doing this.
Can we really buy our way to green?
Maybe the government should be studying the jet stream instead of worrying about "life style" changes.
And you know this, how? Citation? or BS?
The preponderance of reputable scientific institutions says that it is warming, and warming at a more rapid rate than would be expected without a driver like carbon dioxide. If someone cannot accept that as a fact, they need to explain why the preponderance of the world’s reputable scientific institutions are so wrong. I think what it typically comes down to is “ I read something on a blog somewhere”, a blog supported by who knows who, vs. smart, educated scientists with the best scientific instrument and computers available. A lot of people denying global warming fall off the reality turnip truck right there. And Who-Knows-who turns out, in the case of FOX News, to be a major Saudi Arabian investor….. interesting.
Then we get to the question of why it is warming. People like Fourier, Arrhenius, and Tyndall, among the greatest scientists that human race has yet produced, understood the concept of global warming over a hundred years ago. Unfortunately, the average American doesn’t even know who these guys were or what they did. They do, however, resonate with emotional childlike mounds of American media flesh with no apparent evidence of understanding of even the most basic science or arithmetic. Much of the US is experiencing extreme winter weather now, for instance. But that is less than 2% of the world's surface. How about the other 98+%, how about the rest of the year? What about the last decade???
Duhhh
I appreciate greatly your research and interest in the scientific study of atmospheric chemistry. If the general public showed half as much willingness to learn as you, we would be much better off!
What about that last decade .... Here is a graph of the average global temperature from satellite data. There has been no statistically significant increase in temperature over that time period. Picture speak louder than words. See for yourself.
http://www.populartechnology.net/2010/12/1000-references-of-global-cooling.html
Duhhh yourself
They won't accept it.
You don't need any urban heat islands, statistics, or computer models.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8394168.stm
This is not a theory. It is a basic physical property of CO2 that has been well known for 200 years. The CO2 doesn't care if you are liberal, conservative, rich or poor, or whether you love or hate Al Gore. It is going to behave exactly the same way every time.
This is what the deniers call a "hoax".
The experiment you describe was first conducted in 1824. It's a well-known fact of science. Anyone who denies global warming is swallowing Fox propaganda without thinking or researching anything. I never know whether to resent or pity them.
The globe has seen a 25ppm increase in CO2 over the last 15 years. That's practically one quarter of the total increase from historical levels in little over a decade and we haven't seen a statistically significant rise in global average temperature over that period. The world should be cooking and it is not. 2011 projections look like the global average will come in even lower due to La Nina, despite another couple ppm increase in CO2.
Such a shame.
You should really be studiously ignored for your trolling and parroting activities.
Go get a new stage name and come back again y'all.
Good day.
http://judithcurry.com/
She is more open to the skeptic view than I am, but she is also a real scientist. Joanne Nova/Codling, on the other hand, is not a climatologist, she is a biologist. And she is not a realiable source of information unless you want only the petroleum industry's viewpoint on climate.
If you want only the given word from Exxon Mobil then stick with Joanne Nova/Codling. But remember, Exxon Mobil has, shall we say, a multi-billion vested interest in climatology.
Have a nice day.