Pentagon Climate Change Author Interviewed

cynical writes "Just in time for the opening of The Day After Tomorrow, the futurism/technology/environment blog WorldChanging has an interview with futurist Doug Randall, co-author of the "Abrupt Climate Change" scenario [PDF] commissioned by the Pentagon earlier this year. The report generated a storm of controversy a couple of months ago, and drew attention to the possibility that global warming could disrupt things enough to trigger a rapid-onset ice age. Now that the furor has died down, Randall can talk about climate change, how the report came to be, and just what he thinks about the new disaster movie."

Comments

ice age

[Anonymous Coward]

will this increase the ratings for hockey on ESPN?

Re:ice age

[gowen]

Tampa, huh. Theres an NHL team in bloody Phoenix now. Whats the next NHL expansion: the Death Valley Penguins?

Re:ice age

[Dr Caleb]

going to be 90 degrees in Tampa today and they're playing ice hockey there tonight!!!!

They play Hockey in Tampa? That isn't what I heard. :) (I'm an Oilers fan BTW).

Total Bunkum

[youngerpants]

I was listening to BBC Radio 4 (Today program) and they sent a group of climateologists/ meteoroligists/ etc to a preview of the film.

the great quote was "the film makers left the laws of science on the cutting room floor"

However, it just goes to show; make a movie about a meteor hitting earth and we spend billions on searching for NEO's (near earth objects), make a movie about climate change and all of a sudden we are at risk from "Abrupt Climate Change". The planets lasted this long already, I personally am not too concerned.

However, I do think they should make a movie about how all geeks get laid daily!

Re:Total Bunkum

[JosKarith]

"However, I do think they should make a movie about how all geeks get laid daily!"
They left the laws of science on the cutting room floor, not the laws of probability.

Re:Total Bunkum

[Xaleth Nuada]

Obligatory George Carlin Rant:

We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the fucking planet? I'm getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. I'm tired of fucking Earth Day, I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me.

Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!

We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.

You wanna know how the planet's doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position from volcanic ash, how the planet's doing. You wanna know if the planet's all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. Or how about those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how t

Re:Total Bunkum

[Paulrothrock]

we spend billions on searching for NEO's

No, make that millions. We spend more on create rainforests in Iowa than searching for things that could end civilization. Screwed up priorities? Yup.

Its a hoax

[Timesprout]

I can confirm that the much of the data behind this pentagon report is false and has been provided by a penguin double agent acting for the Pentagon but mainly for a secret penguin organisation, The Brotherhood of Guin. Apprently it is a suble plan to induce the pentagon to eliminate polar bears, arch enemy and a major threat to the Brotherhood of Guin by tricking the pentagon into believing that polar bears were behind global warming.

The Aliens will save us

[SirLanse]

The aliens will come and fix all our climate problems. Thier arrival is more plausable than the global storms in this movie.

Preemptive strike

[Mr.Dippy]

Mother nature has bossed us around for too long. It is our rihgt, no, it is our destiny as Americans to destory this scourge called Mother Nature and bring peace and stability to the world. Without acting we only invite the onslaught of a new ice age and an armada of penguins with laser guns and jet packs. Strike now before it is too late! Vote for me in 2004 and I will end this threat once and for all.

Re:Preemptive strike

[santos_douglas]

Reminded me of this obligatory Simpsons Quote:

Mr. Burns: "Oh, so Mother Nature needs a favor? Well, maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys. Nature started the fight for survival and she wants to quit because she's losing? Well, I say Hard cheese!"

~Episode 4F17 "The Old Man and the Lisa"

Re:Science vs. Slashdot

[Timesprout]

What never fails to amaze me is how many Slashdotters-- ostensibly a group of relatively intelligent people

Dachshund you need to stop browsing at +5.

hehe

[SinaSa]

In other news, Satan has declared if this global ice-age spills over, into hell, he will sue those responsible for loss of what he calls

"When Hell freezes over bonds".

Hell stocks were down two points on the news.

In the immortal words of C. Montgomery Burns

[TimeZone]

Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor?! Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she's losing. Well I say, hard cheese

Re:Worst case scenario? ...

[heck]

> "The Pentagon asked us to think about abrupt climate change and what its geopolitical
> implications might be. We weren't saying this is what will happen, only that it plausibly could happen." >
> Pentagon scenario hmmm?...

No, it makes sense now!

Pentagon think tanks begin to realize the implications of global warming - an ice age. So they begin to look for areas which would be favorable to live in during an Ice Age - and they realize that the area around the Euphrates and the Tigris has been documented as being very fertile before the climate changed. So if the climate changed *back*, that would be the place to go. The area is sparsely populated now, but there is that pesky goverment in place headed by that Saddam guy (who we don't really like anyway) So as a contigency plan in the event of an Ice Age, America takes Saddam out, and then<NO CARRIER>

Was this for the local high school paper?

[mcmonkey]

So we asked Doug about the implications of that report (now that the dust has settled), the movie The Day After Tomorrow, and how to think about the future of climate change.

It's like sitting down with an expert on nuclear energy to discuss the latest advances in reactor designs and the movie The Hulk.

Pentagon contingency plan

[BigFire]

Pentagon has contingency plan for every possible scenerio, upto and including alien invasion and divine intervention. It is their job to be ready for everything.