I like the LAT. They do some of the best reporting on environmental issues. So I'm reading a pretty good piece on how EPA Administrator overruled his science advisers on the recent ozone ruling (more on that in a later post) -- and come to this remarkable paragraph that shows how the president himself actually intervened to weaken the EPA regulations:
President Bush intervened at the 11th hour and turned down a second proposal by the EPA staff that would have established tougher seasonal limits on ozone based on its harm to forests, crops and other plants, according to documents obtained by The Times. Federal scientists had recommended those growing-season limits as a way to keep vegetation healthy and capable of trapping carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to global warming.
No, no, a thousand times, no!
Can't the LAT do better than "linked to global warming"? The media use the word "linked" to deal with as yet uncorroborated or unproven allegations, as in the NY Times recent blockbuster: "Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring" [and you thought I'd never find a way to get that story into a climate post, ye of little faith].
Carbon dioxide has been proven conclusively to help warm the globe -- there is no serious scientific dispute of that. Why do you think scientists and everyone else calls it a "greenhouse gas"? Why do you think your own story calls it a "greenhouse gas"?
Time for the Times to stop soft-pedaling climate science.
[Note to L.A. Times: I really really hope assume you know greenhouse gases cause global warming. So were you afraid to say, "... carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that causes global warming" because that means you are acknowledging that global warming is a real phenomenon and caused by humans? If so, that is perhaps even lamer.]
http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/03/global-warming-global-cooling-consensus.html
Sooner rather than later would be good.
I love how global warming has turned into a religion for left wing nut jobs in this country. They say there is no debate on the issue because scientists say so . . . well when was science not out there to be proven wrong? How amny times have we proved the old science was false? For all those that want the Government to help make the changes is laughable as well, that's how we got ethanol and it hasn't done anything but increase our food prices while gas prices still rise.
Maybe we should consider forceably relocat you and yours to the regions devastated by global warming induced drought.
Then you compound your stupidity with: "...They say there is no debate on the issue because scientists say so..." No, the point is that there are no other climatic models demonstrating an alternative but logical explanation. You don't like the G/W model, become a climatologist and put a model together that takes data and generates falsifiable predictions. The only thing you generate is a bad smell.
The LAT is not the same paper it was when it was the only national newspaper formally opposing the Iraq war. Steps have been taken since then to destroy that paper, and those steps have succeeded. It's a shame. The LAT used to do some courageous work. Now it only mouths the same pablum as every other corporate news outlet.
The problem arises when we scale up the amount of carbon dioxide/monoxide being released into the air without also scaling up the plant life to keep things in an equilibrium. As a matter of fact we have actually been on average decreasing plant life around the world, thus causing a two pronged issue. Carbon gases go up, things that absorb them go down. Thus leading to more warming.
Not only that, but the warmer the earth gets due to this effect, the less likely it is for rain to fall, meaning that your water vapor starts to have an effect to warm the earth more, but that only happens because of the root cause(see above).
Lastly, greenhouse gases are the reason that the planet exists the way it does, we NEED greenhouse gases, they keep the planet warm. The problem comes in when we start to tip the scales at how much there is in the atmosphere and it starts to get a little too warm. So unless you can start creating mass quantities of new water over there, water vapor...not really the issue.
A major part of the problem is the cascading effects of global warming. For example, higher temperatures promotes the release of carbon dioxide from parts of the ecosystem, such as sub-arctic tundras, in which lower temperatures had locked enormous amounts of the gas, further exacerbating the process. Ocean warming also promises to promote further enormous releases from the seabed.
IPCC has therefore encouraged efforts aimed not at prevention but at remediation; programs aimed at those who are affected now and will be affected in the future by the effects of global warming. So far, the efforts of the United States and other powers have been more of the same, "See no evil, speak no evil" approach that has led to the current situation.
Nature has a way of ignoring human desires and arguments and proceeding by its own rules. One can assume this will not change. Will this be catastrophic for the human race? Probably. Will we learn from our mistakes? Doubtful. We will, however, and of course, live in interesting times. At least, those of us who survive.