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Climate Engineering As US Policy?
EricTheGreen writes "The Associated Press has an article featuring Obama administration science advisor John Holdren discussing potential climate engineering responses to global warming. Among the possible approaches? His own version of Operation Dark Storm — shooting micro-particulate pollution high into the atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays. I'm sure the rest of the world would have no issue with that at all, of course. Yikes ..."
Yeah, well, in the new green religion, when the facts don't fit the theory, you fire the scientists. Welcome to politicized science.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Ever heard of the holocene maximum? Far from being an overn, the last two hundred years have been the coldest in the last TEN THOUSAND. A scant 30-40 years ago, climatologists were awake at night wondering if a glacial period was imminent and inevitable. Even if the last 20ish years have seen a warming trend, that's pissing into the sea considering that's still part of climbing out of one of the deepest low temperature holes (the mid-late 19th century) since the end of the last glacial roughly 11000 years ago. We're nowhere near the high temperatures of the holocene optimum of 4000 to 7000 years ago. One might well note that those higher temperatures didn't kill all the polar bears like global warming apologists rant about happening today.
Contrary to all the 'sky-is-falling' BS that people who produce bad computer models to scare the public enough to make government give them more money to find scarier and scarier models, the global average temperature is in a pretty good place. Not as warm as the PAX Romana or the holocene optimum, but far better than the 'little ice age' of the 19th century and certainly better than a real glacial period.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Ever heard of the holocene maximum? Far from being an overn, the last two hundred years have been the coldest in the last TEN THOUSAND. A scant 30-40 years ago, climatologists were awake at night wondering if a glacial period was imminent and inevitable. Even if the last 20ish years have seen a warming trend, that's pissing into the sea considering that's still part of climbing out of one of the deepest low temperature holes (the mid-late 19th century) since the end of the last glacial roughly 11000 years ago. We're nowhere near the high temperatures of the holocene optimum of 4000 to 7000 years ago. One might well note that those higher temperatures didn't kill all the polar bears like global warming apologists rant about happening today. Contrary to all the 'sky-is-falling' BS that people who produce bad computer models to scare the public enough to make government give them more money to find scarier and scarier models, the global average temperature is in a pretty good place. Not as warm as the PAX Romana or the holocene optimum, but far better than the 'little ice age' of the 19th century and certainly better than a real glacial period.
The problem isn't the temperature. That's a blip on the radar. The problem is that the rate of energy being trapped in the troposphere is increasing at an alarming rate. The rate of change is the issue. When temperatures change too quickly, species can't adapt to the change and they go away. We're seeing the collapse of entire branches of the animal and plant kingdom. Have you read about the imminent disappearance of amphibians on a global scale. Creatures that predate dinosaurs are being wiped out by a fungus, and its clearly environmental, but we don't understand what's going on yet.
The little ice age was a result of aerosols released into the atmosphere by volcanoes. With the dramatic rise of CO2 and the now growing amount of methane in the atmosphere, you may see the holocene optimum temperature again very soon, but you should make a point to enjoy it while you can, because by that point the graph line will be moving very quickly, and the temperatures that follow won't be anything like anybodies idea of an optimum anything. Stop looking at the thermometer (only), and look at the world. The changes are striking, accelerating, and clearly heading in a direction that is contrary to human success and survival. Worse, we're wiping out most of the higher lifeforms in the process. We depend on a lot of those animals for our well being.
Try this, rather the selectively hunting for facts to justify your opinion. Give up you opinion, and just look at as many facts as you can. Pick them from every possible source. Let the facts paint a picture. A slow temperature increase over 3000 years give plants and animals of all type plenty of time to adapt, migrate, react. Human beings have obliterated paths of migration for animals, and we've made the world considerably warmer in decades not millenia.
Mass extinctions are already upon us. Stop trying to justify a myopic view of the world. Humanity has demonstrated a profound capacity to be irresponsible particularly in the wanton desire to "Get Mine". Its time for us to stop being a civilization of selfish whining babies, and begin planning a future that sustains a quality of life worth living for. To that end, its a good time to begin looking at what quality of life really means and how we plan on addressing it as a species.
Here's what NOAA has to say about the holocene maximum:
In summary, the mid-Holocene, roughly 6,000 years ago, was generally warmer than today, but only in summer and only in the northern hemisphere. More over, we clearly know the cause of this natural warming, and know without doubt that this proven "astronomical" climate forcing mechanism cannot be responsible for the warming over the last 100 years.
Climatologists did not worry about an imminent ice age in the 70s. It's a myth.