Global Warming Has Arrived: The Ultimate Unwanted Houseguest

"...my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.

...for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change."

- James Hansen

Dr. James E. Hansen -- head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and adjunct professor in Columbia University's Department of Earth -- wrote a August 3 Washington Post op-ed that is a real eye-opener. The title of the piece gives the reader a pretty good idea of what he is trying to say: Climate change is here -- and worse than we thought.

So why should we listen to Hansen as opposed to, say, Sen. James Inhofe or radio personality Rush Limbaugh? For starters, Inhofe and Limbaugh have absolutely no background in climate science. Their (inaccurate) assessments of global warming are based almost entirely on opinion, rather than fact.

Let's compare this to Hansen:

• B.A., & Ph.D. in Physics
• M.S. in Astronomy
• Published for decades in peer-reviewed journals
• Heads a premier institution for climate research

Second, while global warming deniers typically base their arguments on misinformation ("Hey! These are the same scientists who warned us there would be an ice age!"), Hansen's work from thirty years ago is now quantifiably proving to be very accurate, as What on Earth has previously discussed.

Third, Hansen has the support of world-class experts, such as fellow climate guru Michael E. Mann, who says of Hansen:

Hansen, it turns out, was right, and the critics were wrong. Rather than being reckless, as some of his critics charged, his announcement to the world proved to be prescient -- and his critics were proven overly cautious. Given the prescience of Hansen's science, we would be unwise to ignore his latest, more dire warning.

With that kind of gravitas, why would one doubt the man's assessment of our warming climate? Is he some kind of left-wing extremist with a "very partisan agenda?" Not entirely likely since Hansen is a registered Independent with a solid Republican background.

To wrap up, let's assess the credibility of Mr. Dr. James E. Hansen:

• Time and data-proven accuracy of his work
• Support of world-class experts
• Grandfather (C'mon, what's more trustworthy than a grampa?)
• Strong link to one of television's classic comedies. GISS is located above Tom's Restaurant , which is known to Seinfeld fans as the restaurant where Jerry and the gang hang out. (The diner featured in today's comic strip is based on the Seinfeld set.)

I'm sold! Who wouldn't give this guy a good listen?

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Comments

[niumarmion]

04:30 PM on 08/19/2012

A recent Chicago Tribune editoral stated that climate change is happening and that it is man-made.

[Neil Wagner]

01:04 AM on 08/20/2012

Yikes! You just outed a 165-year old standard-bearer of conservative journalistic integrity as acknowledging climate change! Deniers can now see the Trib for what it is — part of the liberal media's lefty conspiracy to perpetrate the global warming hoax.

[Moose Luck 99]

05:21 PM on 08/18/2012

http://aircrap.org/black-beam-lab-results/335129/

Black Beam and Lab Results – Extreme Results Above EPA Limits

Sample ID: DUST

Level Detection

Analysis Found Units Limit Method

Aluminum (total) 7,848 ppm 5.0 ICAP

Barium (total) 140 ppm 0.50 ICAP

Strontium (total) 70 ppm 0.50 ICAP

Lab number: 2022391

Level Detection Analyst- Verified-

Analysis Found Units Limit Method Date Date

Sample ID: SURFACE

Aluminum (total) 7,301 mg/kg 5.0 EPA 6010 rrd-08/08 kkh-08/10

Sample ID: SUB-SURFACE

Aluminum (total) 6,845 mg/kg 5.0 EPA 6010 rrd-08/08 kkh-08/10

[Carl Simpson]

02:21 PM on 08/18/2012

Global Warming and anthropogenic contributions producing greenhouse gases is undeniable. The rudiments of public discourse appear to be either political, rational or emotional in both content and personal orientation. There can be no doubt that mitigating the human contribution to greenhouse gases will have to be enforced by powerful policies. The United States "abuse" of petroleum fuel is almost unbelievable. We need to be aware of Methane and Nitrous Oxide as co-contributors of the green house effect as well as Carbon Dioxide. The science employed to study global warming is largely factual and rational in its motivation and we, the people, are most reliant upon the latter for the best information. From an emotional viewpoint, IMO, we've reached the point of no return -- mitigation could help assure tolerable climatic conditions by 2050 IF every country, especially the US, poured what is left of our resources, into renewable energy sources, especially Nuclear Energy.

[Spiral Architect]

12:57 PM on 08/18/2012

Why plastic bag bans and other bans by tree-hugging libs are usually bad ideas

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/17/memo-to-greens-maybe-grocery-bags-should-be-disposable-for-a-reason/

[ubrew12]

05:18 PM on 08/18/2012

He makes a good argument for people having to wear disposable gloves when they go grocery shopping.

I assume that was the 'big brother' argument you were making...

[Moose Luck 99]

05:24 PM on 08/18/2012

http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm

Bottle caps and other plastic objects are visible inside the decomposed carcass of this Laysan albatross on Kure Atoll, which lies in a remote and virtually uninhabited region of the North Pacific. The bird probably mistook the plastics for food and ingested them while foraging for prey.

[Spiral Architect]

07:58 AM on 08/19/2012

As tragic as it is that a bird died by eating plastic, it is more tragic that we are spreading e coli around by reusing plastic bags or "green" bags. These bans on plastic bags are silly. Plenty of beer cans and soda bottles end up in the ocean too..should we ban them? Cigarettes start fires often enough...should they be banned? Cars kill people in accidents...should they be banned?

[demotom]

05:36 PM on 08/17/2012

Is it not interesting to note that the effects of global climate change are most damaging with extremely hot temperatures, severe drought, and wildfires in those areas of the country that are heavily into radical conservative denial of global warming. It would seem that God is sending these ignorant ones a message that even they cannot deny. Perhaps these people may now begin to believe that what is happening presently has been forecast to happen for the last 10-15 years.

[cyclonebuster]

12:23 PM on 08/17/2012

Sure doesn't look like an Ice Age coming the Northern Arctic any time soon does it?

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.area.arctic.png

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/ssmis/extent_n_running_mean_previous.png

[eaarth2]

11:59 AM on 08/17/2012

global warming is BACK- and soon to haunt you-

[Zurichilux]

06:56 AM on 08/17/2012

No one is denying that climate change is happening. People just know it is out of their control.

What makes you think recycling a few plastic bags and shutting down a few coal power stations will stop the earth's climate from changing?

[chrisd3]

09:07 AM on 08/17/2012

No one thinks we can stop Earth's climate from changing.

We can, however, stop doing the things we do that are CAUSING it to change.

Not the same thing at all.

[plantiful]

10:42 AM on 08/17/2012

It is only out of control if everyone fails to start taking control (apathy). It only takes a little effort to start seeing the benefits (monetary included) with just the use of something as simple as a clothesline.

I helped to get a farmers market going in town, and now we have fresh and healthier food choices, and food money now stays in the area instead of going to super corporate farms.

Next goals: pay as you throw trash to reward recycling and save the town money, and
getting our municipal electric to start using net metering system or smart-grid technology. There is a lot of technology out there-- people just have to start using it.

[Zurichilux]

11:52 AM on 08/17/2012

Im not against recycling, moving on to renewable resources and making educated decisions about where to buy produce from, but I still highly doubt the earth will change its course because of this. If something as large as the earth is going to change, it will change, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. You can just simply evade it.

[eskinature]

12:37 PM on 08/17/2012

A genuine "Bravo!!" to your hometown.

On The Weather Chanel, they showed the green re-building of a town in the southwest that had been hit by an EF5 twister. The green initiative there was launched by the town government, with much citizen resistance to the idea at first. Slowly, though, the people were won over, and in many ways, by the reticent citizenry's admissions, they started reaping the rewards.

[mamacat]

06:19 AM on 08/17/2012

Part of the difficulty in dealing with man made global warming is that it tends to happen slowly, in comparison to the span of one person's life. Thus, a 30 foot rise in sea levels, expected to accompany a 2 degree celsius rise in global temperatures, will not happen in just one year, or even one decade. It will take at least a few decades, and we will find it easy to come up with excuses to ignore.

Anyway, I found this link that helps one visualize the consequences of various rises in sea level, due to the melting ice sheets.

http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/san-francisco.shtml

Even a 1 meter rise in sea level will cause large parts of California's bread basket, the Central Valley, to become oceanic. A 30 foot rise in sea level will pretty much end the Central Valley's ability to feed the nation. Currently California produces 1/4 of the food that the nation eats.

http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/nov/central_valley/

[Dallas Dunlap]

05:19 PM on 08/17/2012

mamacat - A 30 foot sea level increase is probably a couple of centuries away. However, if it happens because of the West Antarctic Ice Shelf breaking up, sea levels could rise by seven meters within a week or two. So far, 1-2 meters is likely by the end of the century.

[Eileenla]

05:46 AM on 08/17/2012

There exists a fairly large block of humans who have been conditioned to hold their beliefs in higher esteem than reality. Religious training supports this approach (faith over logic) as does nationally encouraged patriotism (country above all else.) unfortunately, the "beliefs over reality" approach only serves to alienate humanity from reality...a dangerous coping strategy when what we are being asked by life to cope with IS reality. Either we're going to outgrow our obsessive attachment to the rightness of our own beliefs, or we're going to suffer potential extinction to force us to change. Reality doesn't give a hang one way or the other, but we might want to.

[Neil Wagner]

06:58 AM on 08/17/2012

I've talked to some very smart people who say outright that the reason they don't believe in AGW... is that they just don't believe in it and they know that nothing will convince them otherwise. Religion is not incompatible with an acceptance of the phenomenon - there are evangelical Christian groups that cite the Bible as the foundation of their concern about where this is all heading - but since religion is based on faith, belief, and interpretation it can also give people deep conviction that we are not altering our climate.

[Eileenla]

10:25 AM on 08/17/2012

What I challenge about religions in general is that they train their followers to accept their proposals about reality as unquestioned truth, never to be examined for fear of being condemned to eternal damnation. When we instruct our children that there are whole aspects of reality "off limits" to their curiosity and desire to know truth, we are conditioning them to be afraid of their own thought processes. A mind that has been trained to fear itself becomes one easily led, easily conditioned by others. Once we've surrendered our will to think and know truth to the programming of one group, it becomes ever easier to surrender it to every authority that arises and attempts to instill fear of our own free thinking into us.

[Dallas Dunlap]

05:23 PM on 08/17/2012

Neil Wagner - It isn't necessarily religion, although that attitude is most common among religious people. Some people simply view an attack on their belief or opinion as an attack upon themselves. They view standing up for their belief as virtuous, and the more evidence there is against their belief, the more virtuous it is to stand up for it.
Usually these folks have integrated religion and politics into a single authoritarian world view. They tend to dismiss "experts" as frauds out of hand.

[artleads]

01:08 PM on 08/17/2012

I tried to respond to your comment on the Sikh murders but it was not yet in an answerable format. You mentioned the process of labeling and its associated behaviors. Someone on HP gave me this link, which I find greatly enlightening about the subject. People in pre-conquest enclaves untouched by foreign conquest don't label.

http://rewild.info/anthropik/vault/sorenson-preconquest/index.html

[Blow In]

08:06 AM on 08/20/2012

Thanks Art Leads for seriously considering this information. I have tried passing it on before, but it sank like a stone, but that did not stop me from thinking it is relevant.

Most all of us domesticated humans have the feeling that some part of us is missing or suppressed., and try to fill it with diversions. [The list of diversions is too long to put into a readable comment.]

I have experienced short periods of sociosensual camaraderie while totally sober. They are the high points of my life.

[sawadee2000]

02:16 AM on 08/17/2012

Unfortunately the climate change deniers hold sway. Some are religious fanatics who think the "end times"are here and that soon they are all going to be swept up into heaven. Others are like the Koch brothers who simply don't care what happens to 99.99% of humanity, as long as they have a comfortable (and well-armed) enclave to live out the rest of their lives in. Unfortunately all too many get their "news and information exclusively from Fox News and am talk radio, and although they probably believe in astrology and the Loch Ness monster, are incapable of any critical thinking whatsoever. Then of course there are the Republicans who will simply reject anything out of hand that Al Gore and thousands of respected scientists think. The end result is that it it is highly unlikely that we will take any meaningful action to reverse what is sure to be an unmitigated disaster as it continues to unfold before our eyes.

[eskinature]

12:53 PM on 08/17/2012

In this case, no offense is meant to Obama, and those who voted for him, but if the blame falls squarely on Republican shoulders, why didn't a marked improvement happen during his first two years in office in national policy, when Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, Senate, AND White House?

[Dallas Dunlap]

11:19 PM on 08/17/2012

eskinature - To be fair, there was an early atempt to pass a cap and trade bill, but that was beaten back by the FF lobby.

[Conspiracy2Riot]

01:48 AM on 08/17/2012

As dire his claims are, I'm betting Hansen is still toning it down.

[Ozonator]

12:07 AM on 08/17/2012

It has to be global cooling otherwise extremist Republicans and Christians wouldn't be barkers for the current snow-job apparel of Mittens (Romney).

[Michael P Jones]

11:15 PM on 08/16/2012

I appreciate the fact you detailed Dr. James Hansen's stellar record. I rtecommend reading his book, "Storms of My Grandchildren; The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity". In insightful account on how this crisis has morphed into one of political and public gridlock. Not a pretty tale. Of course, explains the science of Global Warming.

[Neil Wagner]

07:00 AM on 08/17/2012

I also recommend Mann's "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars." Sounds like "Storms of My Grandchildren" and "Climate Wars" are good companion pieces.

[niumarmion]

08:09 PM on 08/16/2012

The good news is that we don't have a future to worry about.