Unlike schoolchildren around the world who take crayon to paper and draw horrible pictures of a world in which climate change has ruined our cities, I don't spend too much time thinking about the issue of global warming. Not because I don't believe in science mind you, but precisely because I do believe in science, and its dynamic nature which often means that the things we worry about today either aren't true at all or turn out to be not as bad as we thought, as new science is introduced.
Take kids and sugar for instance. I thought it was settled long ago in a laboratory somewhere that sugar made kids act crazy. Turns out, according to the L.A. Times, that it has no such effect, that the hyperactivity parents like me associate with the sugar that kids ingest is really associated with the excitement of events that sugar is often associated with.
All that to say that people like me are the perfect target for works like Cool It, which releases this weekend, because I wouldn't fit neatly into either camp on the issue of global warming.
Bjorn Lomborg, the author of several books, fancies himself a "skeptical environmentalist" and that sounds about right to me. His film is witty, fast-paced and above all else full of common sense.
Why don't we paint all of our roofs and roads white? Why don't we derive energy from waves that hit our shores? Why don't we work to make nuclear energy, so obviously effective, safer? And why didn't I know that a number of multi-national corporations supported the Kyoto Treaty because they stood to make billions of dollars were it to take effect?
These are the kinds of questions that an agnostic on the issue of climate change like me, leaves the theater with after watching Cool It. If Lomborg's goal was to make people like me even more skeptical about what's been going on over the last decade by those forces of fear who inspire our children to take crayon to paper, than he has succeeded.
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We can do nothing until we are commited to act. And there are severla reasons Americans especially should be committed to act. First. we can eliminate our adiction to oil and any possibility of being held hostage to a foreign entity that supplies it. Second, we don't have to invoke stability militarily in thos oill-bearing states that supply us. Third, energy independence will increase national security. Fourth, creating energy infrastructure will create jobs. Fifth, the plethora of green energy resources we have at our disposal will revitalize our manufacturing capability and create even more jobs. Not I didn't even mention CO2 and environmental issues.
(cont'd)
Likewise with global warming, there is overwhelming evidence that CO2 raises global temperatures for a host of reasons. The Alps, the Andes, Canadian Rockies, and other ranges all show a retreat in the permanent snowpack. With my own eyes, I've seen the evidence of shrinking glaciers in the few glaciers left in the Sierra Nevada in California.
These are just some of the important changes because snow cover reflects incoming heat energy from the sun, and keeps the earth's temperature regulated. Without the snow cover in the alpine and high latitudes, the earth absorbs this energy instead, amplifying the warming trend.
I don't expect everyone to wake up thinking about it, and we all have a life to live, but that doesn't justify denial, except for those who might be trying to justify their own SUV purchase, probably under water, figuratively speaking of course.
Incorrect.
The following are scientific facts:
* The Earth has warmed significantly over recent decades, to what may be the highest level in 2,000 years or more.
* Anthropogenic greenhouse gases including CO2 -- which is generated mostly by fossil fuel burning -- warm the Earth. Without greenhouse gases including CO2 the average temperature of the Earth would be below freezing.
* The atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased by more than a third since the dawn of the fossil fuel era, to the highest level in at least 800,000 years.
* Satellite measurements demonstrate that increasing atmospheric CO2 has increased retention of heat energy in the atmosphere.
* The scientific evidence strongly indicates that said increased atmospheric CO2 is due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions, and there is no other viable scientific explanation for said atmospheric CO2 increase.
* There is a strong correlation between said atmospheric CO2 increase and said recent warming.
* Known natural forcing agents of past global warming - including changes in orbital cycles and increases in solar radiative output - cannot explain the bulk of said recent warming. Neither has any scientific theory to explain the bulk of said recent warming other than anthropogenic global warming survived scientific scrutiny.
Again these are all scientific facts. Which is to say:
The scientific evidence supporting anthropogenic global warming is overwhelming.
Tell you what, next election I will collect all the electoral votes, delete the outliers such as CA or NY, then hand over what's been collected. You can use the released data to do both the actual research and to verify the results. I'm sure you agree that's the best way to obtain fair, accurate, and honest results
You however already acknowledged downthread that: "No doubt the planet is warning."
...You do still believe there is "no doubt" that the "planet is warming"...
Right Scott?
That is not a rhetorical question - please answer, thanks.
Also don't be shy Scott: tell us exactly what data you are referring to that was purportedly "omitted, deleted, or just tossed as outliers", as opposed to your usual vague, undocumented and substance-free recreational slander; thanks.
Evidently.
MarkJoseph: "Not because I don't believe in science mind you, but precisely because I do believe in science, and its dynamic nature which often means that the things we worry about today either aren't true at all or turn out to be not as bad as we thought, as new science is introduced."
In short, current science isn't reliable enough to base policy decisions on, right?
Are you sure you really "believe" in science, Mark? Because your "logic" there is classic science denialism.
MarkJoseph: "an agnostic on the issue of climate change like me"
Mark are you an "agnostic" on the issue of, say, evolution too? After all, the "dynamic nature" of science "often means that the things" science tells us today "aren't true at all" -- right? How about Relativity - are you "agnostic" there as well? Plate Tectonics? That the Earth revolves around the Sun?
Gotta love science denier "logic". Or not.
Now that's what I call flawed logic.
So when Big Oil made 120 billion dollars profit last year and spent 500 million (together with coal and utilities) of that for lobbying against any law trying to reduce CO2 output, that is good, but when companies profit from Kyoto protocols, this is bad?
Whatever will happen, some corporations will profit. Unless it's socialism.
Suppose you cry "how can the government pick R&D winners and losers correctly?!" Ok, another, well supported approach is to give the fossil fee directly back to the people, and let the wisdom of the broadest possible market, with trillions of self-interested decisions, direct money with the ample wisdom of the invisible hand to the most cost-effective non-fossil energy sources.
You see, Lomborg and others are not pro market, they are pro-fossil, pro-old money! They are, as goes the cliche, fooling themselves. The very same individuals involved in tobacco denial PR are now at the source of climate denial.
Lovely political theory as long as someone else of consequence IS worrying.
You show yourself as unwilling or unable to confront the masses of peer reviewed science that supports human causation of Global Warming. You are confortable with your decision, and that is certainly your right, and I concur with you in posting in the Entertainment section of HuffPo rather than the Green section where you might have encountered a bit more response.
With regard to your implication of an about face by Science on sugar and hyperactivity, please link to any science that showed a sugar causation of hyperactivity. Otherwise, you blame Science for a myth that was popularly created by people as grounded in science as yourself,
http://www.ehow.com/about_5300089_sugar-make-children-hyperactive.html
There's enough anecdotal evidence for anyone to see that there will be adverse effects of Global warming; a good place to look is in the American West where there is rapid reduction in glaciers that are feeders for streams and rivers. Water is the lifeblood of the Western U.S., and mitigation strategies are expensive (desalination/water import).
I appreciate someone who is intellectually agnostic on the causes of global warming [there is no doubt that the planet is warming]. I suggest the following video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ&feature=player_embedded
The man's logic is flawless.
Let me see if I understand you correctly: if we get a fire, it's better for us to have done nothing to prepare at all - not even buy a fire extinguisher - because 1) the fire might be too big for an extinguisher to handle and 2) because it's unfair for those who live in countries (or US townships) too poor to afford to fund emergency services?
The Force is not strong with your argument.
Doing nothing increases the costs because the hill to climb becomes steeper and steeper. Furthermore, "doing nothing" isn't really "doing nothing", but "further increasing CO2 output from already dangerous (and costly) levels to even more dangerous (and costly) levels".
What you don't realize is that the Earth can both cool and warm. It's the EXTREME change in the weather that is so hazardous to the environment. The Earth can be neither too hot nor too cold, it has to be just right. What he is proposing isn't actually a solution but only works as a camouflage to the actual problem - that is we are affecting the environment in a negative way. He just doesn't get it. His "solution" seems to suggest that even with our current primitive technology and understanding of the world, we can just do whatever we want with the environment and there'd be no consequences and everything will be all magically fine in the end. He's wrong, because there WILL be consequences. It's just so typically airheaded and naive and magical thinking. He's offering a magical solution which isn't really a solution at all.
Placing a 1¢/kWh surcharge on all electricity used in this country will generate $37 billion/year ramping to > $100 billion/year after 20 years. That would amount to $10/month to the average homeowner. Very quickly, we could pay for complete coversion of the energy we use for transporation which amounts 100% of our oill imports and over 40% of our entire national energy use! 40% decrease in CO2 in 20 years is a trivial, easily met goal .... IF ... the people who make big bucks from oil will allow it!
PS - Don't give me grief about the wind only blowing part of the time or the sun doesn't shine 24 hours/day. The cars store their own energy. And the grid can handle the load, provided we get rid of the artificial political boundaries between regional utlilites.