Facts Are Stubborn Things: George Will and Climate Change-
To paraphrase the conservative columnist's favorite president, "There you go again, George."
George Will has been one of my favorite intellectual sparring partners for a long time, a favorite more recently because he had the guts to publicly recognize the disaster that was George W. Bush's presidency.
But in his latest Washington Post column, George and I have a pretty big loud disagreement.
Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to see Will embracing the idea of recycling, but I'm very troubled that he is recycling errors of fact to challenge the science on global warming.
I'm even more troubled that Will used his February 15th column not only to cast doubt on sound science, but also to denigrate the work of two fine scientists.
Let's be very clear: Stephen Chu does not make predictions to further an agenda. He does so to inform the public. He is no Cassandra. If his predictions about the effects of our climate crisis are scary, it's because our climate is scary.
Likewise, John Holdren is a friend of mine and one of the best scientific minds we have in our country. Pulling out one minor prediction that he had some unknown role in formulating nearly three decades ago, as Will did in his February 15th column, and then using that to try to undo his credibility as a scientist may be a fancy debating trick, but it's just plain wrong when it comes to a debate we can't afford to see dissolve into reductio ad absurdum hijinx. (A side note: The incident in question occurred in 1980, which, as I recall, was just about the time Ronald Reagan made the claim that approximately 80 percent of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation and that, consequently, we should "not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emissions standards from man-made sources.")
Dragging up long-discredited myths about some non-existent scientific consensus about global cooling from the 1970s does no one any good. Except perhaps a bankrupt flat earth crowd. I hate to review the record and see that someone as smart as George Will has been doing exactly that as far back as 1992. And it's especially troubling when the very sources that Will cites in his February 15th column draw the exact opposite conclusions and paint very different pictures than Will provides, as the good folks at ThinkProgress and Media Matters for America have demonstrated so thoroughly.
This has to stop. A highly organized, well-funded movement to deny the reality of global climate change has been up and running for a long time, but it doesn't change the verdict: the problem is real, it's accelerating, and we have to act. Now. Not years from now.
No matter how the evidence has mounted over two decades -- the melting of the arctic ice cap, rising sea levels, extreme weather -- the flat earth caucus can't even see what is on the horizon. In the old Republican Congress they even trotted out the author of Jurassic Park as an expert witness to argue that climate change is fiction. This is Stone Age science, and now that we have the White House and the Congress real science must prevail. It is time to stop debating fiction writers, oil executives and flat-earth politicians, and actually find the way forward on climate change.
This is a fight we can win, a problem we can overcome, but time is not on our side. We can't waste another second arguing about whether the problem exists when we need to be debating everything from how to deal with the dirtiest forms of coal as the major provider of power in China to how to vastly increase green energy right here at home.
"Facts are stupid things," Ronald Reagan once said. He was, of course, paraphrasing John Adams, who could have been talking about the science on global change when he said, "Facts are stubborn things."
Stubborn or stupid -- lets have a real debate and lets have it now.
I know George Will well, I respect his intellect and his powers of persuasion -- but I'd happily debate him any day on this question so critical to our survival.
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A "debate" Senator? These are not matters of valid dispute!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/05/al-gore-turns-down-debate_n_172371.html
The public "global warming debates" that we have been having have all been matters of flagrant, industry-sponsored, industrial-scale lying flung cynically against centuries of painstaking research by thousands of scientists, who are each higher-rate minds, more deserving of your recognition, than Mr. Will's.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/15/climate-change-models-pre_n_167045.html The fact that some atmospheric substances retain more heat than others was PROVEN almost 200 years ago by Joseph Fourier, and the implications were further explored by John Tyndall and Svante Arrhenius; the phenomenon's existence and its cause are not subject to debate.
What the honest people of the United States need are global warming trials and Congressional hearings, not debates. As a Senator, that is your responsibility to me and the rest of the electorate, not this toothless op-ed writing, which is the extent of my power but not of yours. As the underlying problem is allowed to fester longer, the stakes of such hearings and trials increase from fraud to mass murder.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/21/lord-nicholas-stern-paint_n_168865.html
Like the global warming theory itself, the only doubt is in the timing and exact locations of the consequences, not in their general quality. We need you to be as stubborn as the facts.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
quote:
Tyndall set out to find whether there was in fact any gas in the atmosphere that could trap heat rays. In 1859, his careful laboratory work identified several gases that did just that. The most important was simple water vapor (H2O). Also effective was carbon dioxide (CO2), although in the atmosphere the gas is only a few parts in ten thousand..
Arrhenius made a calculation for doubling the CO2 in the atmosphere, and estimated it would raise the Earth's temperature some 5-6°C.(3) .
Arrhenius brought up the possibility of future warming in an impressive scientific article and a widely read book. By the time the book was published, 1908, the rate of coal burning was already much higher than in 1896, and Arrhenius suggested warming might appear within a few centuries rather than millennia.
/quote
In the ensuing century, the rate of CO2 emission has continued to increase, far beyond what the oceans can absorb. What Arrhenius would have thought inconceivable is now common knowledge. Treating it as a matter of legitimate difference of opinion concede FACTS which scientists have proven; frankly, sir, these are not your concede, even in the interest of being "conciliatory" or "bipartisan" to voters you don't need anyway. Trust me, you don't need the illiterate 15% that still support Cheney, Tillerson, et al. The rest of us know the truth, and we vote.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1176967,00.html
Thank you Senator! we need more elected representatives speaking out on this matter.
P.S We would all just love to see that debate!
www.transplantedamerican.com
To be honest, we don't need scientists to tell us whether or not global warming exists. We are simply experiencing it now- the change of temperature and weather patterns.
Make that: www.nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews
This is an excellent short video about the feedback loops in climate
change that very few people understand or are talking about, but may
well do us in if we don't do something NOW. Please take a moment (eleven minutes) to
watch it, and zing this link around to all your friends & especially any teachers who want to liven up a class debate.
http://vimeo.com/1709110?pg=embed&sec=1709110
Right now we are at 385 parts per million of co2 in the atmosphere... if we let it get to 550 we will have a hard time surviving. Bottom line 90% of the Earth's population are at risk. Sea level rise will wipe major cities off the map, and climate problems will destroy our crops. The future is not hopeless, however we can all survive in the more northern latitudes if we need to. As long as politicians don't ignore the problem we will all be ok.
FACTS ARE STUBBORN THINGS
Persons interested in the current raw Arctic Sea Ice data, to judge for themselves, can go to: www.nsioc.org/arcticicenews/
The 2009 sea ice appears to exceed that of 2007.
And how does that compare to 1997? 1987? 1777?
The trend is clear, liar. Comparisons to two years ago, absent the past two centuries for context, are worse than meaningless or disingenuous, they are lies posted for the exact purpose of leading people to false conclusions.
It's good to see our Congress members paying attention to these people all over our media. They have put us in some very damaging situations lately and it's good we are not alone in this never ending battle.
For all the global warming skeptics, temperatures were being measured around the globe when 9/11 occurred. The subsequent grounding of air travel in the U.S. dropped temperatures everywhere just by us not flying. Google it.
I see what is on the horizon very well, Senator. Every living thing on the face of the earth will die from acid raid caused by air pollution and NASA poking holes in the ozone layer with their space shots. I predict we have less than a hundred years.
Thank you for this blog, Senator. It's good to hear from you.
no-brainer there!
looky here: http://gizmodo.com/5055160/24-hour-air-traffic-around-the-world-blows-minds-eyeballs?autoplay=true
Wow, thank you! PBS did a special and that was very impressive but a picture is worth a thousand words.
Not easily googled, except for references to "reading it somewhere"
so... who has a link?
I saw nothing on snopes.com either, so maybe it isn't even a widely spread claim
Oops. It's a real event, but in the reverse.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_trans.shtml
When the planes were grounded, there was a one-day global JUMP of 1 deg C. Because planes and their contrails cause a phenomenon known as "dimming" which, like clouds, reduces temperatures on the ground.,
Some are using this fact to speculate that but for dimming from aircraft, global warming at ground level would be even greater than we see now. Of course in that case, we woudn't have the emissions from airplanes, which are MASSIVE - so I don't know which effect would be stronger.
There are some anecdotes on the web ("In Huntsville, temps dropped 22 deg on Sep 12!") trying to make the case that lack of plane exhaust immediately cooled the atmosphere - but these are just anecdotes.
Yeah thats the ticket. Please define the quantitative parameters for climate change so we will have a base line and can measure how horrible it is getting before we burn to death or drown. Thanking for in advance for your time and consideration in providing the quantitative benchmarks.
Please provide yours.
If you do receive an answer, it wont' be based on climate science so why do you want it? If you want to know the answer to a science question, I could probably help - ask. If you want benchmarks, I'm a scientist and use them only in computer hardware evaluations so I can't help. If you want science benchmarks, there is no such thing.
I'm willing to help you understand science and climate but I can only do it if you are willing to put some effort into it.
Regardless of what's true or not true, you'd think everyone would hedge on the side of caution (to be perfectly clear, the side of caution is trying to keep the conditions on earth hospitable to humans) for the same reason people hedge on the side of God; "What if I'm wrong and there really is a God? A shout out every now and again can't hurt, right?"
There are just two things I'd like to point out:
1. This planet we all ride on doesn't have a vested interest in keeping us around. If we disappear tomorrow, I'm pretty sure the sun will still rise in the East.
2. Who really cares if climate change is making the earth warmer, colder or alternating every other Wednesday? Green Tech is a new-ish sector and will create new jobs in the construction industry. Considering how hard construction was hit, I'd think people would be happy there is a way to put (at least some) of these people back to work. Last I heard, every economist agreed that jobs were a good thing for an economy.
Dead right. This is where the rubber hits the road; you err on the side of human survival. Not hard; not, I think, controversial. When the stakes are that high, I really don't see the point of the argument.
Let's look at it another way: What are we looking at giving up? Are we really that attached to coal-fired power plants? Anybody gonna miss smokestacks? I don't need to be threatened with my existence to embrace green power; I just prefer it.
How about a more stable supply of energy? Hmm? How about not being forced to climb in bed with dictators to keep the petrol flowing?
As you rightly argue, energy diversity also means jobs. What's bad about that?
Even if global warming does Not turn out to be the huge and immediate threat most scientists claim, even if there really IS nothing we can do to stop it, why wouldn't you want to improve our energy situation? Solve a few problems?
Why would you argue for the status quo when it is clear the status is Not Quo?
Couldn't resist.
"A highly organized, well-funded movement to deny the reality of global climate change"
Is there such a thing? Isn't the debate over human produced C02 levels and "it's" effect on Global Warming? Or, that C02 drives global warming? I thought that was what the debate was.
Maybe it's time for people to stop paying attention to this debate. We have the means to end pollution. It is available today. I'm certain that no sane person would argue in favor of pollution. We will have to end the monetary system. That is what is creating pollution, war and suffering. Look at the Venus project and worldshiftnetwork.org. There are many more good ideas...
"Is there such a thing?"
Yes there is. Exxon Mobil alone spent over $11M on seeking and publishing anti-warming literature
There is no debate over human-poduced CO2 levels. The are quite well measured - both at the source, and in the atmosphere.
There is no debate that co2 warms the atmoshpere - there is "debate" over "how much."
Money does not create pollution, though monetization of societies does help to create pockets of intustry and agrigulture, which are more polluting than a subsistence economy.
Good luck with that Venus Project thing. Unless it alters human nature, it will not reach its goals.
Hi Bruce, Please define the quantitative parameters of climate change so we can start with a baseline. In terms of CO2, there may be no debate in your mind but CO2 levels have been increasing which is a fact and global temperatures over the past several years have been decreasing. Fact. Too bad time ran out. that is why you all now call it climate change, which no one can define. It is easier to try to force something down people's throat if you can just run along without any checks and balances.
Sen. Kerry argues rhetoric with this article. There are no facts, no science, nothing new. How is it that Democrats have become the party that bows to a bunch of know-it-alls and their cockamanie theories. We are attempting to predict climate change with a few dozen years of data. Climate is a long term condition of an environment that necessarily changes in time. The sun has its cycles and the earth is cooling internally over 4 billion years. Of course there are going to be differences over time. That doesn't mean it is man-made. In fact, since there has been cooling over the last ten years, it shows CO2 is probably not acting as a greenhouse gas as was predicted. If a theory predicts an outcome and that outcome doesn't come to pass, it is predicated on a misinterpretation of the facts. That's all. CO2 is not the bugaboo it has been argued so ferociously.
Well, you claim no science is presented, but your post shows you are a scientific illiterate. You would not know any science, if it were a four ton truck about to run you over.
And your facts are....
johnjam01, you are wedded to disingenuous, intellectual dishonesty.
The facts regarding the signs of global warming are not being disputed. What those facts mean is what is being debated.
There are only two reasons to deny factual evidence: you are not participating in shared reality because of mental illness, or you are promoting an agenda that the facts interfere with.
Your partisan bias is obvious and you resort to the argumentative equivalent of "I know you are, but what am I." Juvenile and petty. Grow up.
Pure sophistry.
"know-it-alls" = research sicentists.
"cockamamie theories" = the best conclusions sicentists can draw.
"a few dozen years of data" = now more than fifteen thousand years through ice coring and measurement of stable water isotopes and dust analysis.
2008 (a low spot in an upward trend) was cooler than 1998 (a high spot in the same upward trend) To say "there's been cooling over the last ten years" is utterly inaccurate. Picking nearby peaks and valleys to falsify a trend is to an upward tick at the end of a trading session means we are not in a recession.
"that outcome doesn't come to pass" - except that it so far has, if not quite as dramatically as some models predicted.
"misinterpretation of the facts" = your comment above
Since you don't understand the science, how are you personally going to make a decision? I would be interested in your approach. Maybe if I knew what you needed I could actually help instead of having the constant stream of argument we see here.
The case for man-made CO2 driven global warming is quickly falling apart. And yet the alarmists want to cripple the economy even further, and put the financial burden on the poorest among us by taxing everything that involves energy, which is pretty much everything. If you are measured and taxed by your carbon footprint, then you are being taxed for simply ‘being alive’. It`s all about money, political power and control. Why should we devote our scarce resources to what is a non-problem, and ignore the real problems like poverty, hunger, disease, real pollution, not to mention the threats of terrorism and nuclear wars. And are we really prepared to deal with natural disasters and pandemics. Millions of people on Earth living without electricity, now that is a problem. Yet politicians and the elitists would prefer to squander our limited resources on fashionable theories and agendas, rather than concentrate on the real problems. Just consider the ridiculous predictions emanating from supposedly world figures, the chief scientist of Great Britain tells us that unless we insulate our houses and use more efficient light bulbs, the Antarctic will be the only habitable continent by 2100, with a few surviving breeding couples propagating the human race. Seriously, how can anyone believe this ridiculous nonsense. How did we ever get to this point where junk science and extremists are driving big governments to punish it`s citizens for simply living life, that fossil fuels provide for us.
If large parts of the planet warm up just a few degrees, there will be devastating poverty, famine and war: drought and insects will destroy crops and loss of coral beds in the ocean will reduce fish as well. People will have to move or starve, and there will be soldiers at borders ready to slaughter starving refugees.
Are you assuming you will be Raptured away by then?
The poorest, which you claim to care about but of course do not, will be the first affected by climate change. Climate change is already affecting many in Africa through desertification and millions of poor in Bangladesh through flooding. Of course, it takes just a little effort to be aware of these facts.
Taxing energy to deal with energy and other problems is part of the solution. If gas at $4.00 a gallon got a lot of people to use /waste less then it seems obvious that higher energy prices can have a benefit. If some of the higher energy price is used for the common good plus reducing waste it seems like a win win situation to me. Our family cut it's gas usage by 15 - 20 %.
"The case for man-made CO2 driven global warming is quickly falling apart. "
Really? Where? What scientific research guides you to this conclusion....Limbaugh, Hannity, or Joe the Plumber?
Your opinion flies in the face of the world scientific community.
How can this be taken seriously?
People who suggest that the planet is not really warming are clearly delusional. But I'm fascinated by those who argue either that, A) sure, the planet is warming, but it's happened before so what's the big deal?, or B) sure, the planet is warming, but it has nothing to do with human activity.
To these folks, I would suggest that you spend less time listening to the oil industry's talking points, and more doing a bit of independent research on the increase in burning of carbon-based fuels and the RATE of temperature increase since 1900. Has the planet warmed before? Yes. Has the planet ever warmed at the accelerated rate that it has in the last 100 years? No. It's unprecedented. And the big deal is, what are we going to do when all of our coastal cities are submerged?
Maybe our best efforts will not reduce global warming. But look at what those efforts will entail: a move to sustainable fuels, sustainable farming practices that reduce carbon emissions and produce safer more nutritious food, preservation of wilderness/wildlife, cleaner air for all to breathe, cheaper energy, fewer pollution-related illnesses, economic independence from countries that produce fossil fuels... I'm sorry, but what is WRONG with these kinds of outcomes? Take global warming off the table entirely, and then explain to me why we would NOT want to pursue these sorts of results for the future wellbeing of our nation, our planet and the human race.
Exactly.......nice job, Bass.
There's only one I can think of, and I can't prove it because I don't know enough - and that is the "law of unintended consequences."
Man has a nearly perfect record of falling in love with some technological advancement, only to later find it is killing him, or the planet, or other species.
In this category we find the "get your feet x-rayed" fad that swept shoe stores, PCBs to insulate transformers, DDT, asbestos as fireproofing and insulation, etc., etc.
In the instant case, I worry about the known and possible unknown pollutive effects of the manufacturing processes and materials that go into alternative energy. Already, problems with high tech tevices in landfills are being found, which we did foresee.
One can HOPE that the developers and manufacturers of these technologies will think just one step farther - "OK, this device has exceeded its useful life. What substances does it contain, and how will the retirement of it from active use impact the environment?
Making decisions and allocating resources in a reasoned manner will produce the best outcome. As alternate technologies compete in the market place the best ones will win. The government has a poor record in selecting winners. The manufactured hysteria about man induced Global Warming precludes a rational transition to the future. In addition, it precludes technologies such as Oil Shale, Tar Sands, Off Shore drilling or other CO2 producing alternatives as interim steps to energy independence.
end
I WANT to pursue these efforts. However the reason is important.
-First-
Decisions made in haste, under the duress of fear ("The sky is falling, The sky is falling;" "Do something! Anything! Quick!") do not usually produce sound results. Often the results will be a squandering of the resources applied to the problem. The TARP debacle last fall is just the latest example of folly.
-Second-
Government is seldom the best arbitrator when choosing technology. Here are two energy examples:
1. Clean Coal. - Since 1984, Six Billion dollars has been spent on Clean Coal Technology; 3.6 Billion dollars were DOE funds. This was a sure thing targeted by the government in the wake of the Second Oil Embargo. It has been 24 years and we are nowhere near a commercially viable solution. In fact, the DOE quietly withdrew funding, last year for operational scale, pilot plants.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/subsidy2/pdf/chap3.pdf
2. Ethanol - Ethanol has proved to be a minimally viable solution in spite of government funded research and subsidies. The main problem is that while it is an exothermic endeaver, it is barely so. Energy, equivalent to about 96 percent of the output is required to produce (grow, fertilize, transport, ferment, etc. the corn) the ethanol. This is an energy gain of just 4 %. This does not address the increased food cost that has resulted from less edible corn products.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050329132436.htm
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"Take global warming off the table entirely, and then explain to me why we would NOT want to pursue these sorts of results for the future wellbeing of our nation, our planet and the human race."
I fully support the use of alternatives to foreign oil. I feel that energy independence is a national security issue. Ultimately, I have little problem and actively embrace the use renewable energy as the technology matures - technically, and most importantly, economically. I do not believe that man made green house gasses are the primary cause of Global Climate Change. Just because an answer appears on the surface to make sense does not mean it is correct. I ask those of you who believe in this did you come to this position as a result of independant study or because the discussions you have heard about seems right. If you are truly interested in my reasonong you can review my posts here an on other threads. But to directly answer the question you pose I offer the following. I will speak for myself, however, I think many other opponents of the GW/GCC hysteria may feel the same.
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I would seriously recommend everyone read "Walking Naked in the Mind Field" by Kary Mullis, a "real" scientist and a Nobel Prize winner, who takes on this mythology of "global warming" and other modern fables.
Kary Mullis has also publicly said that there is no link between HIV and AIDS. This sort of thing is sad, but not unheard of. Shockley, the inventor of the transistor, was deeply into racial theory. Just goes to show that the fact that one can do brilliant work in one field (biochemistry, in Dr Mullis' case) does not endow one with faultless judgment in others. There will always be a few contrarians on almost any topic, but the overwhelming preponderance of evidence is against the good doctor
You really have to be careful when you listen to Nobel Prize winners who are speaking outside their area of expertise.
Mullis is not a climate scientist and has never done any original work in the field.
In 1992, Mullis founded a business with the intent to sell pieces of jewelry containing the amplified DNA of deceased famous people like Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe.
So I'm not a real scientist because ...? Science is not judged on the basis of the reputation of the people involved. Certainly, being human, affects how science works, who is fairly treated, how long certain result take to achieve, but the personality/reputation part is not an appropriate discussion point. when discussing results. Certainly when William Happer testified before Congress I knew who he was, I was familiar with his work. I did use that information to save me time. I knew he understood the physics. That's an appropriate use of reputation. The separation of the cult of personality (internal scientist to scientist human interactions if you prefer) from the results of science is one of the major successes of the discipline.
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