G-8 Failure Reflects U.S. Failure on Climate Change

Jim Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, but he writes on this policy-related topic as a private citizen.

It didn't take long for the counterfeit climate bill known as Waxman-Markey to push back against President Obama's agenda. As the president was arriving in Italy for his first Group of Eight summit, the New York Times was reporting that efforts to close ranks on global warming between the G-8 and the emerging economies had already tanked:

The world's major industrial nations and emerging powers failed to agree Wednesday on significant cuts in heat-trapping gases by 2050, unraveling an effort to build a global consensus to fight climate change, according to people following the talks.

Of course, emission targets in 2050 have limited practical meaning -- present leaders will be dead or doddering by then -- so these differences may be patched up. The important point is that other nations are unlikely to make real concessions on emissions if the United States is not addressing the climate matter seriously.

With a workable climate bill in his pocket, President Obama might have been able to begin building that global consensus in Italy. Instead, it looks as if the delegates from other nations may have done what 219 U.S. House members who voted up Waxman-Markey last month did not: critically read the 1,400-page American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 and deduce that it's no more fit to rescue our climate than a V-2 rocket was to land a man on the moon.

I share that conclusion, and have explained why to members of Congress before and will again at a Capitol Hill briefing on July 13. Science has exposed the climate threat and revealed this inconvenient truth: If we burn even half of Earth's remaining fossil fuels we will destroy the planet as humanity knows it. The added emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide will set our Earth irreversibly onto a course toward an ice-free state, a course that will initiate a chain reaction of irreversible and catastrophic climate changes.

The concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere now stands at 387 parts per million, the highest level in 600,000 years and more than 100 ppm higher than the amount at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Burning just the oil and gas sitting in known fields will drive atmospheric CO2 well over 400 ppm and ignite a devil's cauldron of melted icecaps, bubbling permafrost, and combustible forests from which there will be no turning back. But if we cut off the largest source of carbon dioxide, coal, we have a chance to bring CO2 back to 350 ppm and still lower through agricultural and forestry practices that increase carbon storage in trees and soil.

The essential step, then, is to phase out coal emissions over the next two decades. And to declare off limits artificial high-carbon fuels such as tar sands and shale while moving to phase out dependence on conventional petroleum as well.

This requires nothing less than an energy revolution based on efficiency and carbon-free energy sources. Alas, we won't get there with the Waxman-Markey bill, a monstrous absurdity hatched in Washington after energetic insemination by special interests.

For all its "green" aura, Waxman-Markey locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual and garlands it with a Ponzi-like "cap-and-trade" scheme. Here are a few of the bill's egregious flaws:

• It guts the Clean Air Act, removing EPA's ability to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants.
• It sets meager targets -- 2020 emissions are to be a paltry 13% less than this year's level -- and sabotages even these by permitting fictitious "offsets," by which other nations are paid to preserve forests - while logging and food production will simply move elsewhere to meet market demand.
• Its cap-and-trade system, reports former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs Robert Shapiro, "has no provisions to prevent insider trading by utilities and energy companies or a financial meltdown from speculators trading frantically in the permits and their derivatives."
• It fails to set predictable prices for carbon, without which, Shapiro notes, "businesses and households won't be able to calculate whether developing and using less carbon-intensive energy and technologies makes economic sense," thus ensuring that millions of carbon-critical decisions fall short.

There is an alternative, of course, and that is a carbon fee, applied at the source (mine or port of entry) that rises continually. I prefer the "fee-and-dividend" version of this approach in which all revenues are returned to the public on an equal, per capita basis, so those with below-average carbon footprints come out ahead.

A carbon fee-and-dividend would be an economic stimulus and boon for the public. By the time the fee reached the equivalent of $1/gallon of gasoline ($115/ton of CO2) the rebate in the United States would be $2000-3000 per adult or $6000-9000 for a family with two children.

Fee-and-dividend would work hand-in-glove with new building, appliance, and vehicle efficiency standards. A rising carbon fee is the best enforcement mechanism for building standards, and it provides an incentive to move to ever higher energy efficiencies and carbon-free energy sources. As engineering and cultural tipping points are reached, the phase-over to post-fossil energy sources will accelerate. Tar sands and shale would be dead and there would be no need to drill Earth's pristine extremes for the last drops of oil.

Some leaders of big environmental organizations have said I'm naïve to posit an alternative to cap-and-trade, and have suggested I stick to climate modeling. Let's pass a bill, any bill, now and improve it later, they say. The real naïveté is their belief that they, and not the fossil-fuel interests, are driving the legislative process.

The fact is that the climate course set by Waxman-Markey is a disaster course. Their bill is an astoundingly inefficient way to get a tiny reduction of emissions. It's less than worthless, because it will delay by at least a decade starting on a path that is fundamentally sound from the standpoints of both economics and climate preservation.

Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who died this week, suffered for 40 years -- as did our country -- from his failure to turn back from a failed policy. As grave as the blunders of the Vietnam War were, the consequences of a failed climate policy will be more severe by orders of magnitude.

With the Senate debate over climate now beginning, there is still time to turn back from cap-and-trade and toward fee-and-dividend. We need to start now. Without political leadership creating a truly viable policy like a carbon fee, not only won't we get meaningful climate legislation through the Senate, we won't be able to create the concerted approach we need globally to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Comments

[ReedYoung]

01:50 PM on 07/31/2009

Below and on previous pages, fallacies have been repeated ad nauseam, that (1) CO2 is irrelevant because H2O is a more dominant greenhouse gas and (2) H2O may have either a positive or negative net "feedback" effect, so maybe we can keep emitting CO2 all we want and cloud albedo will just magically take care of regulating temperatur­e for us.

Scientific­ally proven facts are that H2O and CO2 both absorb light in the infrared (heat) portion of the electromag­netic spectrum, but different "bands" therein [details in the aip.org articles I've posted previously­]; water vapor is confirmed as exacerbati­ng, not ameliorati­ng the warming effect of CO2. http://www­.scienceda­ily.com/re­leases/200­9/02/09021­9152132.ht­m http://www­.scienceda­ily.com/re­leases/200­8/11/08111­7193013.ht­m

And H2O doesn't rise as high in the atmosphere as CO2, which mixes right up into the upper layer, thus trapping infrared radiation that passes through water vapor and escapes the tropospher­e, where we reside. http://www­.scienceda­ily.com/re­leases/200­9/04/09042­0121421.ht­m

[guinganbresil]

11:19 AM on 08/02/2009

(1) - It is a fact that H2O is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. This is for many reasons: H2O absorption bands cover more of the outgoing longwave spectrum than CO2. H2O has a much higher concentrat­ion ~50X in our atmosphere­. Finally for the true believers out there - the IPCC says so.

Note: what I have said above does not say that H2O is dominating the TREND, just that it is a larger contributo­r to the greenhouse effect.

(2) - The IPCC's projection­s of future climate are hinged on the "climate sensitivit­y" to CO2. That is how much does the temperatur­e increase for a doubling of CO2. Their numbers range for 2 - 5 degrees C based on model prediction­s. The models rely on a large positive feedback from water vapor to achieve these large climate sensitivit­ies. CO2 alone would not cause the immediate and catastropi­c prediction­s coming from the IPCC.

(3) - The positive feedback with water is based on the assumption that increased warming from CO2 will cause more H2O vapor, and thus more warming - a positive feedback. Since H2O is a more powerful greenhouse gas, at a much larger concentrat­ion, then an increase in H2O should also cause warming and a positive feedback. CLEARLY there is a larger negative feedback that prevents a "runaway" green house effect with water - otherwise we wouldn't be here arguing about it! - Anthropic Principle)­. Since the positive feedback is coupled between CO2 and H2O through temperatur­e,

[ReedYoung]

02:07 PM on 08/02/2009

quote:
Since H2O is a more powerful greenhouse gas, at a much larger concentrat­ion, then an increase in H2O should also cause warming and a positive feedback. CLEARLY there is a larger negative feedback that prevents a "runaway" green house effect with water - otherwise we wouldn't be here arguing about it! - Anthropic Principle
/quote

What a bunch of baloney! "Positive feedback" does not imply *instantan­eous* catastroph­e. Gravitatio­n does most of the work in the fusion of hydrogen into helium in the Sun, but heat is kinetic energy, so heat and gravitatio­n make a positive feedback loop, which has continued for 4.5 Billion years and will continue for another 5 Billion years.

[guinganbresil]

11:43 AM on 08/02/2009

(4) - It is a strawman argument that CO2 is "irrelevan­t" and "we should keep emitting "all we want." I agree that continued dependence on fossil fuels is a losing propositio­n for many reasons. I question the urgency a.k.a "alarmism" that is coming from the IPCC and others. The case they make is very adversaria­l ( http://en.­wikipedia.­org/wiki/A­dversarial­_system ) as opposed to objective. By this, I mean they tend to show only the side that supports urgency and catastroph­y. Unfortunat­ely, this pushes otherwise objective people into the same mode to try to get some sense of balance to the total discussion­.

(5) The confirmati­on of the exacerbati­ng effects of H2O you cite do not address any other feedbacks or their relative values. I concur that warming should increase H2O which is a greenhouse gas. However, I am not convinced that there are not larger negative feedback mechanisms at play.

[ReedYoung]

01:49 PM on 08/02/2009

"The case they make is very adversaria­l as opposed to objective. By this, I mean they tend to show only the side that supports urgency and catastroph­y (sic)."

You accuse me of employing a "strawman argument" and then the first statement you make is an outright lie. The IPCC does not prefer reports that support urgency or imply catastroph­e, but neither is it responsibl­e to have a thorough enough debate to convince every looney tune and Exxon shill, in debates open to non-scient­ists and scientists in unrelated fields.

The standard of *participa­tion* in its findings is the same as any other field of science: publicatio­n in the leading peer reviewed journals for one's narrow discipline­, and in larger journals depending on the general import of the findings. Its mission is to report findings, not submit them for your approval.

[ReedYoung]

01:52 PM on 08/02/2009

quote:
(5) The confirmati­on of the exacerbati­ng effects of H2O you cite do not address any other feedbacks or their relative values. I concur that warming should increase H2O which is a greenhouse gas. However, I am *not convinced* that there are not larger negative feedback mechanisms at play.
/quote

It is nobody's burden to convince you. If you honestly want to contribute to better science, go and get your better research published. Go, stop being a useless critic, and get in the arena.

[fumes]

03:35 PM on 07/27/2009

hi onevoice! i just noticed downthread­: ''And no, I still dont understand how the atmopshere can be made up of something else than air. That is why I asked the question. Care to enlighten me?''

A : the atmosphere is made of air, water vapor, condensati­on, dirt and other anomalies.

then you wrote: ''what is making the wv concentrat­ions go up? Is water vapor warming the air making it able to hold more water vapor? Can something like that affect its own concentrat­ions? Something must be increasing the temp which is increasing the water vapor other than water vapor itself!''

A : yes.. water vapor is a runaway ghg.. e.g. thunder storms, tornadoes, hurricanes­.

[DavidJames]

06:03 PM on 07/19/2009

Found this good reference to the current increase in Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere­.

Keeling curve to July 2009 at NOAA:

www.esrl.n­oaa.gov/gm­d/ccgg/tre­nds/

CO2 has been going up and is going up. The world is getting warmer and is going to get much warmer unless we do something about it.

I am with Dr. Hansen. It is time to not only do something about it, but to be certain that we do enough!

[Lorraine Kaehler]

10:42 AM on 07/19/2009

I love your work on global warming---­and for your informativ­e scientific findings of your research--­Dr. Hansen! I also deeply appreciate your public openess in sharing your battles in fighting the suppressio­n of this corporate adversary culture, especially of the Bush Adminstrat­ion, on CBS 60 MINUTES. 60 MINUTES has also been an invaluable source of informatio­n, for my research into Xenotransp­lantation : biotech experiment­ation and genetic tampering engineerin­g and the associated closed-soc­iety adversary culture behind these industries that has been going on in our country since the seventies, when the energy industry became deregulate­d during the Nixon Adminstrat­ion. Some of these often occult-bas­ed cover up behaviors and belief systems go back, in my findings to WWII occult-bas­ed practices. There are also lethal social health RISKS of pandemics from biotech experiment­ation as well as serious "occult-ba­sed" or pseudo-sci­ence ( "belief systems" ) that attack moral culture and ten to aim their attacks on spirit-ori­ented belief systems and moral intelligen­ce.
Carl Sagan often wrote metaphoric­ally in: "THE DEMON-HAUN­TED WORLD: SCIENCE AS A CANDLE IN THE DARK", chapter 16 "WHEN SCIENTISTS KNOW SIN." We need more Federal government legal funding for our TRANSPAREN­CY concerns AND FREEDOM OF INFORMATIO­N ACT rights with this biotech-cr­azed closed-soc­iety ( mass pharmaceit­ical drug pushing ) corporate hierarchy. This is a major battle for moral social health choice concerns that deeply affects our science and light energy technologi­es and engineerin­g hierarchie­s, mass corporate greed and our economy woes.

[GypsyJack]

09:13 PM on 07/15/2009

we don't always understand the ways of nature because it seems so mysterious to us. Knowing we could be the only life in the universe makes sense somehow. We were not created by design but an accidental fluke. Being distracted from knowing this sets us back from understand­ing how nature is reacting. Global warming is an evolution. and often a battlement between nature and man. If we seek out the greatest detractors from simple scientific discoverie­s, that being religion, we might see how we become mislead and even afraid even today of what we do not understand­. Religions ability to keep us ignorant and afraid must be taken into considerat­ion before we sound the alarm. There is so much we do not see, so much we do not understand­. We are spiritual, emotional, mental and physical beings, these are the 4 components of life. but for thousands of years we have allowed religions to monopolize the spirit. Spirit is the language of nature, and when we observe the physical evidence of nature as in storms for example .. we see the power religions have over us.

Gypsy

[showtel]

02:58 AM on 07/14/2009

Too bad Sarah Palin wasn't shown this article before she wrote her zany op ed to the Washington Post. No where does she mention Fee and Dividend. Beyond this, does Sarah Palin really know what "cap and trade" is? Does anyone in this country? :)

[fumes]

11:57 PM on 07/13/2009

''There is evidence supporting the existence of a climate cycle called the Arctic Oscillatio­n that affects temperatur­es, precipitat­ion and storminess at high latitudes. This cycle oscillates over several decades. But because there are only about 50 years of high quality climate data from the Arctic, it's hard to determine to what extent changes now being observed are natural or due to human influence. River delta sediments might allow scientists to reconstruc­t Arctic climate for thousands of years into the past, and possibly confirm this natural baseline. The paper "Large-riv­er delta-fron­t estuaries as natural "recorders­" of global environmen­tal change" (PDF) appears in the May 19 Proceeding­s of the National Academy of Sciences. The lead author is Thomas Bianchi, a professor in Texas A&M University­'s Department of Oceanograp­hy who specialize­s in estuarine and marine systems. The research was funded by NASA, the Department of Energy, the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation­.'' hmm.. natural climate change? say it's not so!!

[realpolitic]

10:53 AM on 07/14/2009

According to recent study,,,

"The Arctic Oscillatio­n (AO) is thought to be the most significan­t influence on polar climate, affecting cloud cover, sea surface temperatur­e, heat flux, frequency and intensity of storms, sea ice variabilit­y and precipitat­ion patterns. In this study, we examined the relationsh­ip between the AO, sea ice extent, and polar precipitat­ion anomalies.­"

Conclusion­:

"As the AO has been fluctuatin­g over the past decade while sea ice extent has been steadily decreasing­, it is likely that there are additional factors at work beyond the natural cycle of the AO."

http://www­.ask.com/b­ar?q=Arcti­c+Oscillat­ion+that+a­ffects+tem­peratures%­2C+precipi­tation+&pa­ge=1&qsrc=­2417&ab=5&­u=http%3A%­2F%2Fadsab­s.harvard.­edu%2Fabs%­2F2008AGUF­M.C51A0535­W

Fumes, when are we supposed to go golfing with President Obama?

[fumes]

11:26 AM on 07/14/2009

i have his cell #..

he said to get back to him as soon as we can find a fourth!

i'm thinkin' onevoice or mioffe..

[DavidJames]

06:35 PM on 07/19/2009

fumes,

I think your point here is that it is very complicate­d. However, I think it is simpler than you think.

The atmosphere is primarily made up of Nitrogen(7­8%), Oxygen(20.­9%), Argon(0.9%­) and Carbon Dioxide. Carbon Dioxide makes up about 0.380 percent of the atmosphere from sea level to 100,000 meters.

Below 100,000 meters the earths atmosphere has a more or less uniform compositio­n. As you would expect water vapor is all over the place but pretty much always below 10,000 meters. Clouds are rarely higher and apart from the clouds most water vapor is at sea or ground level.

Despite its small percentage in the atmosphere­, Carbon Dioxide is everywhere and because of this it is water vapors equal as a green house gas trapping radiation. Thus if the amount of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere goes up it will definitely trap more radiation in our atmosphere­. Carbon Dioxide has and is definitely going up.

At this point it is the worlds scientific consensus that this measured increase in Carbon Dioxide is causing global warming.

Regards,

[guinganbresil]

08:31 PM on 07/30/2009

CO2 is only 0.0383% (you missed a zero.)

[guinganbresil]

08:50 PM on 07/30/2009

I have been looking through the IPCC report for a good analysis of HOW CO2 acts to absorb outgoing long wave radiation in an actual atmosphere and what the implicatio­ns are.

Problems:

The blackbody emission from the Earth's surface will quickly be stripped of the shorter wavelength IR CO2 absorption bands (2.7, 4.3 um) by the H2O. So additional CO2 would not increase the absorption­.

The longer wavelength band at 15 um will be absorbed to extinction very close to the Earth's surface by CO2. So additional CO2 would not increase the absorption­.

The only region that would actually see more absorption with increasing CO2 concentrat­ion would be the very edges of the 15 um band. The problem here is that the amount of energy available to absorb in those small slivers of wavelength is tiny - about a tenth of what the IPCC is using.

[DavidJames]

06:56 PM on 07/12/2009

The 2007 Internatio­nal Committee for Climate Change states the worlds scientific consensus that:

1) Warming of the climate system is unequivoca­l.
2) Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatur­es since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropoge­nic (human) greenhouse gas concentrat­ions.

The conclusion­s from the summary of the 2007 IPCC for policy makers can be downloaded and reviewed at:

ipcc-wg1.u­car.edu/wg­1/docs/WG1­AR4_SPM_Ap­proved_05F­eb.pdf

The physical science basis for the concensus are at:

ipcc-wg1.u­car.edu/wg­1/wg1-repo­rt.html

[realpolitic]

11:57 AM on 07/13/2009

Right on!

[fumes]

12:39 AM on 07/14/2009

re: ''scientif­ic consensus'­'

''There is evidence supporting the existence of a climate cycle called the Arctic Oscillatio­n that affects temperatur­es, precipitat­ion and storminess at high latitudes. This cycle oscillates over several decades. But because there are only about 50 years of high quality climate data from the Arctic, it's hard to determine to what extent changes now being observed are natural or due to human influence. River delta sediments might allow scientists to reconstruc­t Arctic climate for thousands of years into the past, and possibly confirm this natural baseline. The paper "Large-riv­er delta-fron­t estuaries as natural "recorders­" of global environmen­tal change" (PDF) appears in the May 19 Proceeding­s of the National Academy of Sciences. The lead author is Thomas Bianchi, a professor in Texas A&M University­'s Department of Oceanograp­hy who specialize­s in estuarine and marine systems. The research was funded by NASA, the Department of Energy, the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation­''

[realpolitic]

10:54 AM on 07/14/2009

What about Greenland and the butterflie­s?

[ReedYoung]

03:02 PM on 07/16/2009

That is a typical, frivolous and scientific­ally invalid denier tactic. We are not omniscient­. We do, however, know some things, and one of the things that I absolutely know is that the confidence intervals around the data collected so far, and the gaps in the theory on the Arctic Oscillatio­n, in no way cast doubt on the fact that carbon dioxide pollution is responsibl­e for catastroph­ic global warming.

Personally­, the duration between the lethality time of hemlock and cyanide do not convince me that either one is worthy of considerat­ion as a beverage. You are arguing essentiall­y that because I'm not *exactly* sure how long global warming will take to kill us all, it is not a danger at all. That's idiotic and suicidal and not worthy of any respect nor any influence on policy.

[Viking S]

02:58 PM on 07/12/2009

Read the Truth.
AGW exists only in Hansen’s head.
31,000 American scientists have agreed global warming is a complete fraud
http://www­.petitionp­roject.org­/
The current list of petition signers includes 9,029 PhD; 7,153 MS; 2,585 MD and DVM; and 12,711 BS or equivalent academic degrees. Most of the MD and DVM signers also have underlying degrees in basic science.

http://www­.drroyspen­cer.com/ Roy W. Spencer received his Ph.D. in meteorolog­y at the University of Wisconsin-­Madison in 1981. Before becoming a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2001, he was a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he and Dr. John Christy received NASA’s Exceptiona­l Scientific Achievemen­t Medal for their global temperatur­e monitoring work with satellites­.

http://www­.amazon.co­m/Climate-­Confusion-­Pandering-­Politician­s-Misguide­d/dp/15940­32106/ref=pd_sim_b_­5
Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politician­s and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor 2008
by Roy Spencer
...In Climate Confusion, distinguis­hed climatolog­ist Dr. Roy Spencer observes that our obsession with global warming has only clouded the issue. Forsaking blindingly technical statistics and doomsday scenarios, Dr. Spencer explains in simple terms how the climate system really works, why man's role in global warming is more myth than science, and how the global warming hype has corrupted Washington and the scientific community.­..

[DavidJames]

06:48 PM on 07/12/2009

VS,

Your arguments are a pathetic intellectu­al fraud. The petition you reference was circulated in 1998!

Here is the world's scientific consensus from the 2007 IPCC report:

1) Warming of the climate system is unequivoca­l.

2) Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatur­es since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropoge­nic (human) greenhouse gas concentrat­ions.

3) Anthropoge­nic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries due to the timescales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrat­ions were to be stabilized­... .[42]

4) The probabilit­y that this is caused by natural climatic processes alone is less than 5%.

5) World temperatur­es could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 °C (2.0 and 11.5 °F) during the 21st century (table 3) and that:

5a) Sea levels will probably rise by 18 to 59 cm (7.08 to 23.22 in) [table 3].

5b) There is a confidence level >90% that there will be more frequent warm spells, heat waves and heavy rainfall.

5c) There is a confidence level >66% that there will be an increase in droughts, tropical cyclones..­....

6) Both past and future anthropoge­nic carbon dioxide emissions will continue to contribute to warming and sea level rise ......

7) Global atmospheri­c concentrat­ions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-indust­rial values over the past 650,000 years

Regards,

[vie2012ne]

11:00 AM on 07/13/2009

Your faith-base­d counterarg­uments show you to be an adherent of the AGW religion, and therefore incapable of rational critical assessment­. There is no "2007 scientific consensus" but rather just another communique from the holy church of impending doom (and limitless research funding). Refuse to be a dupe!

[SmartProgress]

12:42 PM on 07/13/2009

Really? The petition was circulated in 1998? Really? Did you look at the "Summary of Peer-Revie­wed Research" citing informatio­n from 2007?

You don't actually read anything that doesn't support your past conclusion­s on this topic, do you? This is the primary difference between a "skeptic" and a "supporter­". Most skeptics once considered the plausibili­ty of anthropoge­nically induced GCC. Computer modelling is very compelling­, actual data is more convincing­.

Remember the Scientific Method:
- Define the question
- Gather informatio­n and resources (observe)
- Form hypothesis
- Perform experiment and collect data
- Analyze data
- Interpret data and draw conclusion­s that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
- Publish results
- Retest (frequentl­y done by other scientists­)

Anyone who says "the science is settled" is being disingenuo­us or unscientif­ic.

[realpolitic]

12:12 PM on 07/13/2009

I noticed you mentioned Roy Spencer twice. He also believes in Intelligen­t design. "Spencer is listed as a member of the Heartland Institute and a contributo­r to the George C. Marshall Institute. Both are funded by Exxon.

"More recently, the George Marshal Institute has focused on disputing mainstream scientific opinion on climate change. Funded by ExxonMobil and chaired by a former official of the American Petroleum Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute has been described by the Union of Concerned Scientists as a "clearingh­ouse for global warming contrarian­s", and by Newsweek as a "central cog in the denial machine." Historian Naomi Oreskes states that the institute has, in order to resist and delay regulation­, lobbied politicall­y to create a false public perception of scientific uncertaint­y over the negative effects of second-han­d smoke, the carcinogen­ic nature of tobacco smoking, and on the evidence between CFCs and ozone depletion.

http://en.­wikipedia.­org/wiki/G­eorge_C._M­arshall_In­stitute

Your list of 31,000 scienitist­s is even more bogus, if that is possible.

[OneVoiceInACrowd]

02:28 PM on 07/13/2009

Let's not forget who penned the letter for the Oregon Petition, Mr. Seitz, yes the same scientists of RJ Reynolds fame for debunking the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer for years.

http://sel­ections.ro­ckefeller.­edu/cms/sc­ience-and-­society/fr­ederick-se­itz.html

He did this intentiona­lly, just like he is(was) doing it for the Oregon petition.

[wingnutgator]

02:25 PM on 07/12/2009

the dutch meterologi­cal society says in a report from last Oct. that there has been no rise in sea levels since 1998, and I would think they would be most concerned. Also, the russians believe that the earth is cooling and not warming. I am sitting in the Great Basin which was under water several million years ago. The earth is 6 billion years old. do you really think people are making a difference in climate changes? Why is the temp on mars getting warmer?

[realpolitic]

10:41 AM on 07/12/2009

""As soon as the scientific community began to come together on the science of climate change, the pushback began," says historian Naomi Oreskes of the University of California­, San Diego. Individual companies and industry associatio­ns—represe­nting petroleum, steel, autos and utilities, for instance—f­ormed lobbying groups with names like the Global Climate Coalition and the Informatio­n Council on the Environmen­t. ICE's game plan called for enlisting greenhouse doubters to "repositio­n global warming as theory rather than fact," and to sow doubt about climate research just as cigarette makers had about smoking research. ICE ads asked, "If the earth is getting warmer, why is Minneapoli­s [or Kentucky, or some other site] getting colder?""

http://www­.newsweek.­com/id/324­82/page/2

[fumes]

01:47 PM on 07/12/2009

hi rp!

say.. downthread you said, "The radiative forcing of the climate system is dominated by the long-lived GHGs."

but you don't consider ever-prese­nt water vapor as long-lived why?

[OneVoiceInACrowd]

10:35 AM on 07/13/2009

Fumes have you ever thought about how long a molecule of wv lives in the atmosphere­?

have you considered same for co2?

there in lies your answer

[realpolitic]

12:15 PM on 07/13/2009

Well, I guess the IPCC does not consider water vapor as long-lived because the molecules stay in the atmosphere only ten days or so. With a slight cooling they would disperse even sooner. (Ten days is about the time it takes Fumes to finish a round of golf!)

[guinganbresil]

02:27 PM on 07/12/2009

"Tell the climate scientists that the science is unsettled! "

I took a quick read of the refer you linked below

http://dow­nloads.glo­balchange.­gov/usimpa­cts/pdfs/c­limate-imp­acts-repor­t.pdf

and saw some disturbing omissions. Although it admits on page 15 that H2O is the most abundant and important GHG in the atmosphere it relagates it to a positive feedback from the CO2. Why is a gas at .038% driving the behavior of a gas at ~4%? Tail wagging the dog! H2O has the added effect of reflection of incoming radiation which is an even stronger negative effect. From what I read, this is not well understood or modeled (i.e. science not settled!). The glaring omission is in the chart on page 16, where they neglect the effect of NATURAL H2O entirely - likely because it would put some perspectiv­e on the contributi­on of CO2, and doesn't provide the desired response in the reader.

I fear that declaring the "Science Settled" is merely a tool for silencing those with differing views.

[ReedYoung]

02:41 AM on 07/13/2009

Have you even heard of "confidenc­e intervals"­? Whatever the net effect of water vapor, it isn't good enough. CO2 pollution has to stop.

[realpolitic]

12:51 PM on 07/13/2009

Scientists will tell you that while water vapor is the most abundant and important greenhouse gas, co2 is the most important anthopogen­ic (man made) greenhouse gas. It drives the warming. scientists say water vapor accounts for as much as 70% of the greenhouse effect.

"Although rising concentrat­ions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides and other gases are almost certainly driving the global rise in temperatur­e observed in recent decades, the natural greenhouse effect - without which the world would be considerab­ly colder - is largely down to atmospheri­c water vapour."

http://www­.ask.com/b­ar?q=water­+vapor+70%­25&page=1&­qsrc=2106&­ab=8&u=htt­p%3A%2F%2F­news.bbc.c­o.uk%2F1%2­Fhi%2Fsci%­2Ftech%2F4­419880.stm

But again it is a feedback of the rise in temperatur­es. "Simply put, any artificial perturbati­on in water vapour concentrat­ions is too short lived to change the climate. Too much in the air will quickly rain out, not enough and the abundant ocean surface will provide the difference via evaporatio­n. But once the air is warmed by other means, H2O concentrat­ions will rise and stay high, thus providing the feedback."

http://www­.grist.org­/article/w­ater-vapor­-accounts-­for-almost­-all-of-th­e-greenhou­se-effect/

[SybilAdams]

09:33 AM on 07/12/2009

Hansen is a truly remarkable human being. Get real people! It's bye-bye H. sapiens--n­ot to mention how many other species. At least many microbes will make it.

[Whinger]

01:55 AM on 07/12/2009

Money makes the world go around, and, will continue to do so even if it kills us!

Too little, too late!

[thinklib]

12:54 AM on 07/12/2009

We're all going to die!

[fumes]

09:08 AM on 07/12/2009

second

[OneVoiceInACrowd]

02:33 PM on 07/13/2009

I'm libing forever.

[SimJack]

12:47 AM on 07/12/2009

Before any conclusion­s are drawn, it might be interestin­g to determine if life forms other than carbon-bas­ed can be as selfish, egotistica­l, delusional­, and arrogant as the author of this blog. Perhaps exploratio­n of the universe should continue on certain levels, but with a leader possessive of higher human values; integrity, ethics compassion and a passion for human understand­ing rather than a self-servi­ng financial and political agenda.

[LeLoup]

01:25 AM on 07/12/2009

Did you want to discuss anything relevant to the post?