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US Climate Report Says Global Warming Impact Already Severe
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: "Darryl Fears reports in the Washington Post on the U.S. government's newest national assessment of climate change. It says Americans are already feeling the effects of global warming. The assessment carves the nation into sections and examines the impacts: More sea-level rise, flooding, storm surge, precipitation and heat waves in the Northeast; frequent water shortages and hurricanes in the Southeast and Caribbean; more drought and wildfires in the Southwest. 'Residents of some coastal cities see their streets flood more regularly during storms and high tides. Inland cities near large rivers also experience more flooding, especially in the Midwest and Northeast. Insurance rates are rising in some vulnerable locations, and insurance is no longer available in others. Hotter and drier weather and earlier snow melt mean that wildfires in the West start earlier in the spring, last later into the fall, and burn more acreage. In Arctic Alaska, the summer sea ice that once protected the coasts has receded, and autumn storms now cause more erosion, threatening many communities with relocation.' The report concludes that over recent decades, climate science has advanced significantly and that increased scrutiny has led to increased certainty that we are now seeing impacts associated with human-induced climate change. 'What is new over the last decade is that we know with increasing certainty that climate change is happening now. While scientists continue to refine projections of the future, observations unequivocally show that climate is changing and that the warming of the past 50 years is primarily due to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases.'"
It's Weather, not Climate.
"the warming of the past 50 years is primarily due to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases"
Oh... right.... nevemind!
It looks like they are having a hard time discerning predictions and actual events. The 2013 Atlantic season had ZERO major hurricanes, and only TWO total hurricanes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2...
This is form the same government that can't accurately report unemployment numbers, GDP, Cost of Bills, Budget, Assets, etc.
It's extremely difficult to accept at face value a report that says every possible outcome from climate change is bad.
Especially when it comes from an administration that campaigned on the theme of change.
Several of the items they cite are not even principally related to climate change, but to population and
population density increases, and to past fire suppression policies. People being people, not people changing the climate.
The flood and crop damage we are experiencing are covered by federal insurance programs, but the extra damage is caused by growing emissions. We should not be raising premiums in response to this, but rather we should impose climate damage tariffs on imports from countries that are increasing emissions to try to gain advantage in world markets. GATT Article XX provides for this. http://www.wto.org/english/tra... Using greenhouse gas emissions as a weapon to disadvantage our agricultural exports and damage our manufacturing infrastructure near flood plains must be stopped.
Yep, global warming impact is severe, alright. Coldest winter in recent memory, that warming sure is a bitch!
Seriously, if they don't quit tilting at the global warming gravy train. They are going to destroy our economy and simply view this as a way to gain power over the energy industry. Trust me, it always, always comes back that - money and power.
The climate hasn't changed; the weather does. All of the blips on the graphs the tenured professors in their ivory towers point to are motherfucking WEATHER. Stop trying to frighten people.
This report is also reviewed over at Slate by the Bad Astronomer.
La La La La La La! I'm not listening!
Interesting that just today, I also read this article:
http://www.theguardian.com/env...
It claims that a full 1/3rd. of the warming in the 1990's, on record, was actually due to water vapor in the air, vs. CO2 emissions and the like. Yes, it's not saying this is cause to deny the phenomenon, but it shows how we're still really in the early stages of understanding the details..... The statements of fact about exactly what's happening are largely premature.
My 2014 Mustang GT (Premium) has 425 horsepower and runs like an ape with his ass on fire. I'm grilling steaks this weekend and drinking beer on the deck in my back yard. Every night I sleep with my air conditioner set to 70 and I water my lawn daily. I'm having way too much fun to care about this subject. The climate will change and we'll adapt and even if we don't I'll be dead in a few decades and won't give a shit then either. I'm also not paying back any of that money my elected representatives borrowed from China. Sadly none of that was meant to be sarcastic. It's all true. That last part was sarcastic. There's nothing sad about it. Have a beer and pull up a chair on the deck. It's going to be a long drought and/or ice age. Might as well get comfortable.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
While I believe this report is overall truthful, I can't help but think of Clair Cameron Patterson. It took him 20 years of fighting corporations and their "bought and payed for" scientists to convince enough people in our government that the nation was dying due to lead poisoning to actually do something about it. This despite the fact that the reality of it was in-your-face blatant the whole time. We should all consider him a hero and be thankful that he solely lead the charge against the ridicule he faced. Although a largely unsung and unknown hero, he really did save the nation. The convincing that needs done now is a bit more diverse and politically complicated. Lets hope we come to our senses in time on the issue of climate change as we did with lead.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Latest episode of Cosmos broadcast on Fox TV:
"We just can't seem to stop burning up all those buried trees from way back in the carboniferous age, in the form of coal, and the remains of ancient plankton, in the form of oil and gas. If we could, we'd be home free climate wise. Instead, we're dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a rate the Earth hasn't seen since the great climate catastrophes of the past, the ones that led to mass extinctions. We just can't seem to break our addiction to the kinds of fuel that will bring back a climate last seen by the dinosaurs, a climate that will drown our coastal cities and wreak havoc on the environment and our ability to feed ourselves. All the while, the glorious sun pours immaculate free energy down upon us, more than we will ever need. Why can't we summon the ingenuity and courage of the generations that came before us? The dinosaurs never saw that asteroid coming. What's our excuse?"
The show:
http://www.cosmosontv.com/watc...
The news:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Why are we researching how to deal with it instead of pretending we can stop climate?
At least here in the west, the increased wildfire issues are also partially caused by lack of proper forest-management. Wildfires are a natural phenomenon that allow forests to rebuild themselves - but in our zeal to prevent them, and also to prevent forest thinning via logging over the last few decades, we are breeding wildfire territories.
As for water shortages in California - we have been court-ordered to drain reservoirs and dump extra water into our rivers in order to flood the delta so that "endangered" smelt can survive. As such, we have also depleted agriculture of the much-needed water to grow plants - water that floods the land and seeps into the ground to refill the water table that is used for wells.
We are messing with things every year in the name of "environment", and causing other unintended consequences - but yet when these problems crop up, we just label them all "climate change" and blame something else.
Give up technology and go back to the stone age,
or the ocean rises 1 ft and land in Canada goes up in value.
In my disc world the sun rises and sets following a path defined by god. All the bad weather are preludes of Armageddon. All the sinners will die!!!!! /sarkasm
Streets and rivers are flooding more so it MUST be global warming. It can't have anything to do with the millions of square miles (guesstimate) of asphalt and buildings we construct each year which prevent water from entering the ground and funnel them into concrete ditches instead.
I think the President should go on a few more golf outings, you know, fly in his big old 747 to somewhere far away and play a round or two, and then fly back to DC. Then, we need to have a UN Climate Summit somewhere tropical, and figure out how to solve the logistics problems inherent in having a meeting in a remote location, like how to make sure adequate supplies of caviar are flown in fresh daily and where to park all the jets ferrying individuals to their destination.
I'll believe it's a problem when the people who are telling me it's a problem start acting like it's a problem. When the logistics problems go from caviar to videoconferencing bandwidth. When the President decides that golfing locally is a better idea than flying somewhere.
"Oh, you just don't understand international diplomacy and the need for face-to-face communications to achieve consensus!"
You're asking me to change my life and not accepting any changes in the way you live yours. Hypocrisy at its finest.
Ow my brain..... I think I'm going to stop trying to correct you people. It just hurts too much.
I bought my house and went crazy upside down on it. I'm in the better part of nation for climate predictions. Looks like my property value is set to skyrocket once everyone else runs out of water/food.
The Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health came out in 1964. It clearly and undeniably showed the evidence that smoking was harmful. Now, 50 years later, only about 1/2 of the states have actually banned smoking in enclosed public spaces.
Why does anyone expect America to respond to AGW any quicker or more effectively?
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Let's pretend that a tiny tiny sampling of hurricane frequency matters a whit.
If so, then plainly climate change is REDUCING the frequency of hurricanes. So then why again should we panic about climate change if in fact it makes coastal life calmer?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's about all there is to it.
When the international communities remark with amazement at how recalcitrant american business, government, and even its own people are to even the suggestion of climate change I cant help but wonder if, as an american, people from other countries have a full understanding of just what it would mean for us to change...Everything we do, and all that we are, is prediacted upon cheap reliably supplied oil. this was a decision made after world war 2 and reinforced by the carter doctrine of foreign policy. it was a horrendous mistake.
We dont have local farms or slaughterhouses. everything is created in one place, and delivered by trucks that run on roads subsidized by american taxpayers from one of maybe a handful of factory farms dotted throughout the midwest. American markets have no season; if you want a jackfruit, it can and will be delivered more than two thousand miles to you and the ramifications of that is not even a cursory consideration. Drinks are kept cold, constantly. Ice is plentifully and liberally added to nearly any beverage you get. Beer hovers somewhere around the freezing mark. We can do this because the way we approach energy is just as we had in the 50's.
our rail system is no different than it was in the early 50's. slight modifications have been made to handle larger cargo, but the system runs at around 40 miles per hour and carries only the most cumbersome goods. Cars, Coal, shale oil and natural gas are the chief passengers. toxins too dangerous to transport by semi truck, things like hydrofluoric acid, are also frequently transported. Corridor rail systems used in boston and LA that do in fact transport people are powered exclusively by diesel, as are all our rail systems. We have minimal and fiercely debated electric light rail systems in some cities, and some have transitioned their busses to natural gas, however outside our largest four or five metropolitan areas every transportation request you have will be granted by the automobile.
Im not trying to justify what we do or why we do it. Its sad, and unsustainable in my opinion but whats important to understand is that acknowledging climate change and doing something productive about it in America means infrastructure overhaul not seen since Franklin Delano Rosevelt. It means the average 1 hour american car drive to work has to stop. Perpetually illuminated office buildings have to stop. Cities like phoenix will have to stop landscaping bluegrass lawns and water features into communities and we as a nation will have to swallow a nice big slice of 'we did it wrong' pie. The reasons we dont do anything about this problem are mostly political, but under the politics and the money, you have a system of society that is at its foundation based on conspicuous, questionless consumption and the planned obsolescence of nearly everything. anything to retard or stymy consumption is seen as a natural threat.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The whole thing will stop smelling like a religion when they stop CONSTANTLY trying to stretch some tissue-paper-thin suppositions into policy prescriptions.
I stopped reading at "...frequent water shortages and hurricanes in the Southeast and Caribbean..."
http://www.skepticalscience.co...
Essentially, the link between global warming and hurricanes is hotly (get it?) debated, the data inconclusive and contradictory. My understanding is that reasonable scientists disagree on this one. To use this as wall paper in some recent 'boilerplate of doom' just proves that they lack any sense of their own incredibility.
-Styopa
Figure out the problem like Max Planck did and stop worrying. There's nothing any of us can do about it, sadly.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I'll see your cold winter and raise you a hot summer.
Hottest Summer in history in Australia right now. 112 degrees in Adelaide. Tar melting on the roads. Giant forest fires. Power grid teetering on collapse.
So by your own standards climate has changed.
thanks for playing
I hear the Chicken Littles squacking again.
https://xkcd.com/1321/
Meanwhile, Canadian moose pasture keeps getting more expensive.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Science has no real solution so they only contribute to the problem.
Produce an all electric motor I can drop into my existing car for $500. 400 miles on a charge with 5 minute recharge time at a "refuel station" or 8 hour recharge time when plugged in at home.
Produce solar panels for my roof for $5,000 (all costs including install labor) with sufficient battery/capacitor to run my home all night.
Last winter in the eastern part of the US (the "coldest winter in recent memory") wasn't any worse than bad winters a few generations ago. The fact that you haven't had one like it in recent memory is evidence that your climate is getting warmer.
the drought and high temperatures the North American Heat Wave of 1936 of the time were not caused by human action, but sure the poor soil management techniques exacerbated the dustiness.
There was indeed a cyclical climatic phenomenon, 1936 N. American Heat Wave. The high temperatures and drought were not caused by human action. sad you instead ape the fact that poor soil management practices at the time made the dust worse but still ignore the reality of a recurring weather pattern
what was it? I forgot the current buzzword
Climate Rape.... because we can't expect bubba to cotton onto polysyllabics like "disruption."
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
20 years of extreme hot weather in Congress from all the BS hot air every day (at least every day they work which is not what you think).
Lets vote in more States & Personal Rights with a constitutional ammendment and limit the hot air guys by taking away their UNLIMITED power to spend your dollars, and even the future value of your dollars by "printing" excess dollars which devalues what you save.
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
No one can predict the future.
I predict that the sun will rise tomorrow, and also the next day.
I predict the average temperature where I live will be warmer in August, and it will be cooler in January.
I predict a full moon on May 14, and a partial solar eclipse on October 23.
I predict that next year's calendars will (in America) mostly bear the year "2015".
I predict that in 2015 the Earth's atmosphere will still contain about 78% nitrogen.
I predict that, this coming June, elephants will be unable to fly under their own power, but sparrows will.
Of course people can predict the future. We can't predict everything. That doesn't mean we can't predict anything.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The site where presumably bright people rant about how dumb people are most of the time but then some of them proceed to stick their heads in the sand whenever the politicized issue of climate change comes up... never ceases to amaze me.
dicobalt, right ON the money !
The entire list of scare scenarios that they claim are happening are just people with an agenda trying to scare less educated with weather.
First, note the shift from global warming to climate change to climate disruption. That way they can claim anything is caused by CO2.
But keep your eye on the pea, not the shell. The model is, CO2 causes the earth to warm by trapping radiation, and all kind of bad things are supposed to happen because of a few degrees of warming, perhaps enhanced by water feed back. But the earth has not warmed in the past 15-17 years depending on which temperature series you look at. (see this http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/04/2013-was-not-a-good-year-for-catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-climate-warming-change-disruption-wierding-ocean-acidification-extreme-weather-etc/) So, no warming, should be no effects that they are claiming.
Droughts in CA, Obama wants to say that is because of humans. Pure agenda driven BS California and the SW have had deeper and longer dry periods than this. See this http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/02/worst-drought-of-this-century-barely-makes-the-top-10/
Even the alarmist UN IPCC says there is NO trend assignable to humans for increased storms or severity of storms. Sea level rise is NOT accelerating as the warming hypothesis predicts. It has been remarkably constant for decades if not a century at 2-3mm/year (despite "adjustments to make it look worse). So for the next hundred years, what, a foot of sea level rise. Slow, and humans have been adapting to that for a long time (Netherlands?).
Sea ice? Give me a break, the antarctic is a record levels, above the ice area tor the average of the past 30+ years. The arctic had a good rebound this year, though it is still below the long term average, certainly if next year recovers more it will be a sign that these things are natural cycles, not man-made activity.
In the US tornado and hurricane activity is low, and not increasing, no matter how the news media tries to drum up a perception that things are getting worse. It is so easy to manipulate the masses with tales of extreme weather. Older folks remember the bad storms of the past, and statistics show no increase except for better detection these days with satellites and Doppler radar. See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/04/2013-was-not-a-good-year-for-catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-climate-warming-change-disruption-wierding-ocean-acidification-extreme-weather-etc/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/03/pielke-jr-agrees-extreme-weather-to-climate-connection-is-a-dead-issue/
There is so much data out there contradicting this latest desperate last gasp of the global warming crowd. They were caught lying and manipulating data and the peer review process to suppress their critics, and now people are wising up to the climategate e-mails ("hide the decline"). The climate might really be cooling now, and things are looking bad for the hockey-stick team, so they are trying one last push to control the US power grid and get some energy control treaty in 2015. It won't work, the story is getting too muddled as they try and cover up all the contradictions.
Don't slag me for the WUWT links, there are urls to the original sources of NOAA, IPCC, etc.
I don't understand why the people denying climate warming are so vehement in their views. While I (as well as 99.99% of the readers here) lack the information to judge the veracity of the scientists warning about reality of global warming and it's effects, the amount of concensus among those who would know leads me to accept what they say over a small number of their opponents. Apart from the paid shills at places like the Cato Institute, there seem to be very few (if any) true scientists who seem to think that there is global warming attributable to human activities, and those few seem to be professional grumps who don't believe in anything at all.
So why the vehemence among the skeptics? Are they all paid shills? Or are they afraid that they might have to give up their big gas-guzzling SUVs or be a bit more thoughtful about driving to the lake or river instead of going whenever the whim strikes them?
Worst winter? You must have a woefully short memory.
Until we find ways to produce products such as air conditioners, refrigerators, microwaves, washing machines, computers etc... that use less than 5 watts of power we wont be moving off of coal or gas anytime soon. Energy saving and less pollution for the nation and the world starts at home.
It is all part of a grand plan.
Repent sinners.
first they say evolution is real and now global warming! fuck that! god bless america!
A treason against humanity was committed by America's right wing monsters. Due to their idiotic political posture no action was taken to try to address global warming. We could have started taking measures over ten years ago but the nay sayers, the right wing of the Republican party no action could be taken. That delay in addressing the issue will cost human lives. Economic and political and martial actions that will flow as this issue blooms are serious and should have been taken as an emergency. Al Gore tried to make people aware. Gas bags like Rush Limbaugh and George Bush prevented action.
See my issue with the entire Climate Change debate is that we argue it as if its a moral obligation to our planet to fix this. At the end of the day, its only us that suffers. Let all the oceans dry up, and lets pump the air full of CO2, Earth honestly doesn't care. It will use all of that to make something else, and life will prevail. Its us humans that will die off, and I promise you the Earth doesn't give two shits about that. Yet anyone who I talk to gets all indigent about how heartless I am for not worrying about this. I don't deny climate change, and while I do question the amount that is caused by humans I just don't care about it. I see it a few ways: 1) I will be dead by the time this screws me over, and its likely that humans were to face extinction at some point no matter what. 2) we achieve a level of technology that makes this entirely moot. Like we fuse with computers meaning we don't need breathable air or drinkable water. So yeah, get over it. Solar and wind energies simply arent ready for the big stage, and when they are they will find their ways into our daily lives.
It's one thing to contribute to atmospheric pollutants when one is not aware of the science involved (say from 1800 to 1980).
Having knowledge at hand and still deliberately choose to deny self-evident truths like weather disruption by man -- that amounts to a dangerous irresponsibility, which is equivalent to crime against humanity IMHO.
Maybe we don't have laws against that, maybe we have... it's past due time to consider deniers and their part on the worsening of the world. I don't think we have problems to enforce other environmental laws; why must the air go unprotected?
No it's evidence that the WEATHER is getting BETTER
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/05/31/sorry-global-warming-alarmists-the-earth-is-cooling/
Not a bad article but again, for each alarmist there is someone else rebutting it. My take is right now anything that comes out of our government is going to be a stretch of the truth to twist any amount of data to be in their favor. This is for all parties, not just democrats, but both democrats and republicans. We also have a media that is not reporting fact but purely opinion pieces and should no longer called media it should be called entertainment. That is all it is.
literally, if you happen to live on a coast or in pollution-ravaged Chinese cities
you *sigh* because of this???
then it gets upmodded???
this is why we fail...too many arguments about people on the same side for no reason....we get tangled in trying to *convince* people with language of something they don't have an opinion on...GOP-tards and polluting corporations will *never* just admit they were wrong...it wont happen
*pollution hurts the environment*
therefore it must be regulated
end of story...the rest is just academics smelling their own farts or GOP and their corporate masters working their propaganda machine
Thank you Dave Raggett
You know, I hate to be the one to point this out, but nearly every one of those things can be attributed to governmental overreach as much as it can be attributed to the environment. Just look at the water shortage statistics. States that were hit the hardest all had laws against rain water collection. Wildfires, likewise, may also be related to the insane laws we have in place. Insurance companies are being regulated to death, and are playing it as safe as they legally can. It has more to do with this insatiable need to regulate the hell out of them than it does with actual conditions. Sea levels go up and down all year long, and no amount of climate change legislation is going to have any power to control that. Of course the government is going to tell you that climate change is a big problem, and that more of your tax money is needed to combat it. They have a profit motive to do so, duh. The people to listen to here are the ones who have no political or financial agenda.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
It has been widely acknowledged for some time that we are NOT experiencing abnormally extreme weather of any kind. Not from climate change or otherwise.
Examine these charts and point to where there is any real evidence of weather extremes due to climate change or anything else.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/ref...
http://www.ted.com/talks/gavin_schmidt_the_emergent_patterns_of_climate_change
Yep, global warming impact is severe, alright. Coldest winter in recent memory, that warming sure is a bitch!
Ok, that comment was just begging for the obligatory XKCD link.
This "national assessment" was released by the White House, presently in control of Barack Obama who desperately needs issues to blather about to shore up popular opinion. It's a report stringing together previously issued reports in a new presentation. Congress did not authorize it: it's propoganda for the mid-term elections.
Dear members of the press:
When this country was founded, it was fashioned with three branches of government. Those are the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary. Remember your history classes from your high school years? Unless issued through a legislative process, this report was not issued by "the government" of the United States.
With the condition of the press as it is today, why do I even bother with it?
While I question how much global warming is caused by humans, I do believe we should take action to cut pollution for it's own sake. However, I'm not for banning things (lightbulbs, high-flow toilets, etc.; rather have a hefty tax on them instead), but for something moderate.
I have mixed feelings about auto-emission standards. Seemingly good, but will they sacrifice safety in order to do it? Oh, and what about smaller auto-manufacturers who might not be able to compete? But maybe this is a good thing. Run all the smaller ones out of business, and maybe they can pass the profits on to consumers. The same goes for a $15 minimum wage. Run all the small businesses-who have razor thin margins-out of business, meaning more business for the larger businesses, who can then pass the savings onto consumers. Less competition means more profit which can be given back to the people.
What I'm saying is... CUT POLLUTION FOR IT'S OWN SAKE! Let's not cut in order to try to reverse a changing climate. If it does, bonus! But let's try to be environmental regardless of global warming.
Anyone consider if it'd make a dent in emissions by having better public transportation in small to large cities?
Let's hope we never reach a point where mandatory carpools are required in order to be allowed to drive on the freeway.
That's weather, tard. When it's cold it's climate.
Like the Syrian civil war? - Sure social media assisted in the Arab spring once the uprising began but what triggered the uprising? Why did that lone protester set himself on fire in the public square? - Did all these people all suddenly wake up one day and suddenly realise "OMG, I've been living under tyranny my entire life" or could the worst drought ever in the fertile crescent (the birth place of agriculture), and the food riots it caused in major cities such a Cairo have something to do with it?
Prior to the civil war, 10% of Syria's population (2M people) abandoned their farms due to lack of water and moved to the cities looking for work. Food prices across N. Africa and the ME skyrocketed. The leaked diplomatic cables talk about the internal migration and warn about civil unrest, one diplomat went so far as to correctly predict the city where trouble first broke. Yet if you ask a random Joe on the street what are they fighting about in Syria, the answer will almost certainly be "religion".
All wars are resource wars, religion simply provides a moral defence for morally indefensible acts. Water is a scarce recourse in many places around the world, while other places are getting so much water they are quite literally drowning. They say there's a 70% chance of a very strong El-Nino this season, similar in strength to '83 and '98, meaning the mid-west US will get massive floods and Australia will be dry as a tinder-box. Australia ran very low on drinking water during the last drought, the major city reservoirs were around 10-15% of capacity, the rural situation was worse. We spent billions on some of the largest de-sal plants in the world only to have the drought break as they came on line. I think the politicians and their fans who have been bitching about the costs of these "white elephants" will be eating their words in the next year of two..
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
One word could be applied to everything. Telecommuting
Thank the Sun/Son for global warming, remember the collary, if its not green in summer, food don't grow. Plants have a hard time in ice ages, sandy beaches don't look good next to an iceberg. I don't think a bikini would even show up then.
Climate change will be disastrous, but there is a great deal of capitalist profit to be made in the process. Does anyone think that the same bipartisan batch of politicians that spent trillions bailing out the banks (instead of prosecuting the bankers) is going to stand in the way of said profits?
Just picked up a copy of Scientific American and there was an interesting bit about climate change. It seems that a few key occurances have slowed the pace of global warming. The article said that certain plumes of sulfur dioxide rose into the stratosphere and blocked some sunlight, causing a measurable reduction in the pace of climate change. Most interesting was the causes the article named: small volcanoes, coal fired power plants in China, and "the mysterious workings of the oceans". The oceans part was the best because they talked like they didn't understand a thing about them, when they make up 3/4ths of the world's surface and constantly affect day-to-day climate in ways you can measure with a rain gauge. Gives me a lot of respect for their ability to forecast climate change. TL,DR: coal power plants in China and volcanoes = good, American coal power plants and SUVs = bad.
...no credibility to these people any more.
Even if they're 100% right (they're not).
Even if every scientist around the planet agrees with them (they don't).
Even if climate models were incredibly accurate (they haven't been).
There have been so many documented flat out lies coming out of this administration ("you can keep your doctor!"), and such hyperbolic politicization of the issue ("deniers should be thrown into jail for crimes against humanity!"), and nonstop flat-out hysterical proclamations from the AGW crowd continually ratchet up ("the Arctic will be ice free in 2013!")--that nobody not already drinking the kool-aid believes them any more.
Let's fix the economy and stop spying on everybody around the planet--then maybe we'll get around to worrying about global warming.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
the same thing goes for tornadoes. Until a weekend or two ago, meteorologists had commented about the US having the longest streak of tornado free weather. The problem with these predictions is that they've predicted shit like this for decades and have never been close to what was predicted. They ignore the cooling that has been going on for a decade, the fact that the continents are still rising from the melt from the last ice age, and a bunch of other shit.
Spreading of FUD like this in order to gin up more funding -- and now midterm election support -- is really pissing me off. These Chicken Littles and their sycophants in the press have done this so much that no one is ever going to believe them.
Why do [people] ignore that localized solutions won't solve anything. If the US converts everyone to inefficient super expensive technology, that still wouldn't solve the problem as the US only equates to approximate 17% of the CO2 emissions. Where are the real solutions? I guess engineering and science can't effectively solve this. Maybe everyone should be forced to wear carbon capture masks..lol
Also, I would like to know what causes these ppm spikes to drop just as quickly as they rise? Also, why are all graph scales so small? 400 ppm is about .04%. These numbers were significantly higher during the cambrian period, like 7k ppm and it was cooler/mild. As previously mentioned, maybe we don't have the whole picture, but are focusing on a small piece of the puzzle.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere
Fact: 100% of the so called model prediction have turned out to be completely WRONG.
Feel free to check, look around, Google or whatever. You are not going to find ONE SINGLE climate model prediction that has turned out to match real measurements (not even within a very conservative marine of error).
It's easy to make actual historical data support your view when you quote it so selectively.
* The very first link, for example, not only hides all the warming before his carefully-chosen 1998 cutoff year, but also fails to mention the continued warming in ocean temperatures (where most of the energy ends up).
* The next link doesn't even have a source for his data.
* We are then told about a single data point (2014) in a single metric (arctic sea ice area) as if it's supposed to be particularly significant
* And finally a single paragraph from a single local newspaper from 1974, apparently intended to represent the alleged global scientific viewpoint of the times, and a quote from a single meteorologist admitting he doesn't know how climatologists can predict climate.
I honestly have no idea why you think this is convincing. It's no wonder he's never produced any peer-reviewed papers; the reviewers would tear his methodology to shreds.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Based on many studies covering a wide range of regions and crops, negative impacts of climate change on crop yields have been more common than positive impacts (high confidence).
Climate-related hazards exacerbate other stressors, often with negative outcomes for livelihoods, especially for people living in poverty (high confidence)... Observed positive effects for poor and marginalized people, which are limited and often indirect, include examples such as diversification of social networks and of agricultural practices.
At present the world-wide burden of human ill-health from climate change is relatively small compared with effects of other stressors and is not well quantified. However, there has been increased heat-related mortality and decreased cold-related mortality in some regions as a result of warming (medium confidence)
IPCC AR5 WGII Summary for Policy Makers, emphasis mine. So yeah, there are recognised positive effects, they're just outweighed by the many negative effects. Sorry the news wasn't better, but there you go.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
From the mouth piece of der Führer !
Climate Change Killed Jesus !
As Obama prances around the boxing ring singing, "I Killed Jesus ... I Killed Jesus .." the world moans and yawns a big yawn.
One day the office of the president of the united states of america and the president there in will not be baboons ... today is not that day.
Wait, I know this one. It's that same narcissistic bastard, day after day.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Nothing unusual about sparrows flying under elephant power. I think they like the risk of being downed by elephant dung. African sparrows, of course. European sparrows typically fly under mixed power: nuclear, coal, solar, oil, etc.
Anything else I can help you with? I have more scotch...
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
A lot of this I would say has to do with media/press coverage of every little event, making that event seem larger then it really is. No one bothered with any of this Global Warming stuff, until the media/press covered anything and everything related to weather, hurricanes, tornado's, flooding, wildfires, before this stuff was only reported on rarely thru out a week, now its on 24/7.
That doesn't mean I do not believe in the Global 'warming up', I will be rolling in my grave when to planet has been destroyed not by a comet, asteroid, volcano, the sun imploding, but because the planet literal burned itself up. All these reports and research into what heavenly event could destroy the planet, or a major volcanic eruption ect., most overlooked the entire planet itself.
Even without man around this was going to be inevitable...
The problem with change is that both nature and us are adapted to CURRENT situation and all the land human has claimed acts as barrier for nature to adapt. And some things are slow to adapt. There is order of magnitude difference between negative and positive effects partially because all things previously mentioned. Humans have buildings and roads and all kinds of infrastructure in places which are optimal for current climate. Also too much heat is inherently bad. Too much cold is inherently bad, unless you had thousands of years adaptation for it. Alaska maybe better off once adaptation has happened in 300 years or so, while continental United States is inherently worser place, PEOPLE have adapted to current optimums and live and have build things based on that, 99% are worse and 1% are better, and that 1% is only better after they have survived immediate effects of change like permafrost melting caused problems.
Subject an open plains farmland in area to once a decade rains of rainforest and top soils moves away while having same thing in rainforest is not a problem. Now you got the real picture. Its all about mismatch between situation on the ground and whats in climate. On planetary scale it probably increases deserts and makes certain cold climates more habitable EVENTUALLY, while extincting things that depend on extreme cold. Maybe Greenland becomes agricultural paradise eventually once they have build soil there. But before that has happened you would of lost huge amounts of agricultural land elsewhere. And all that ice melting would mean New York would be below sea level long before Greenland would become agcricultural land. Of course if New York would be tens of miles inland then there would be no problem, but it is there right besides sea. The time difference between gaining and loosing is big problem. You cannot move food from future to present.
So yes, Canada, Alaska and Siberia might become more habitable. On the other hand most of the world would become either worse or LOT worse.
And in WORST case climate change we would get another habitable continent, while loosing bigger area to sea level rise AND deserts BEFORE it becomes habitable.
©God
1) you take America instead of global climate 2) you then trace a local trend (compared to global) and say since it is cooling then AGW is wrong, failing to realize AGW predict local cooling and warming (all that additional water evaporated has to precipitate somewhere).
it is a fail all over the line. Uneducated fail.
Foaming @ the mouth 3x http://news.slashdot.org/comme... , http://news.slashdot.org/comme... and why? He had to "eat his words" http://it.slashdot.org/comment...
You can't release all this pollution into the air and expect nothing to happen
I can predict everything!
Oh, you wanted predictions that come true. Carry on....
Well played, Sir Hotspur.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
You can't predict anything meaningful or useful. Telling me next year will have a spring and summer isn't useful, it's a given....
The statement I was responding to was "No one can predict the future." Not "predictions of the future aren't meaningful or useful."
However, I will state that my prediction that summer will follow spring and will be warmer than winter is useful, in that it tells me that I should plant my tomatoes in spring, rather than in autumn. Predictions of the future are, in fact, very useful, and we make them all the time.
The other commenter wasn't predicting anything of consequence. On the contrary, he was simply extrapolating from the past. Those are two very different things. Extrapolating from known cyclical behavior can indeed be useful, but as a "prediction" it's pretty much a joke.
Extrapolating from the past is one way to predict the future, yes; I'm not sure why you think it's a "joke".
Extrapolating from the past is a much better way to predict the future if you have a good statistical data set to base your prediction on, and understand the statistics and error margin.
Extrapolating from the past is a much much better way to predict the future if in addition you have a well-validated model that allows you to understand the behavior of the system, as well as a base of observed data. When I predict that the sun will rise tomorrow, for example, I am not merely extrapolating from the fact that the sun rose today, and yesterday, but I have knowledge of the law of conservation of angular momentum, and an understanding of the dynamics of the solar system. This is a pretty solid prediction. ...and, since I made that prediction yesterday, it was proven correct. I not only can predict the future, I did predict the future.
As I said: We can't predict everything. That doesn't mean we can't predict anything.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Instead of reason, we get Al Gore and carbon credits and other miserable psuedo solutions made to deeply enrich the already rich. What you are suggesting is really the solution, but no leader has the balls to suggest it and then DO something reasonable. People hate the climate alarmists not because of the message, but because the suggestions following it are always shallow and ludicrous. It is hard to tell a group of people their lifestyle is out of control and needs to change, but it is beyond absurd to tell people to save the planet by enriching the bourgeois. Until the true scientists can separate themselves from the wing nuts, they will be ignored. Science as a whole needs to hold itself to a higher standard clearly draw lines in the sand between itself and business/politics.
Today, the NY Times had a map of the U.S. And it compared 1910-1960 temperatures to 1991-2012. And exclaimed how much hotter the U.S. was.
A few things to note:
1. The traditional south around the gulf was actually cooler.
2. 1901-1960 is a mere 60years. 1991-2012 approx. 20 years. That is an extremely small section of climate, and I would argue far too small to have ANY statistical relevance.
3. Why were the years selected? Why not 1901-1955, and 1960-2010. How does 2001-2012 compare?
4. Most of the temperature increases are 1 degree. A few spots 2 degrees. Obersvations:
> the northeast is a bit warmer, but the southern gulf area is cooler. So it appears there has been some shift in circulation.
> many of the areas that have seen the most warming highly populated areas: Southern California (LA/SD), Northeast corridor (NJ/NYC/CT/RI/Boston/Portland). Alberquerque, NM....lit up in red. Granted NOT all that is lit up red corresponds to population centers but a lot sure does. Oh, and that Montana, Minnesota, etc corridor that is red at the top. Well look at a population map of Canada and you will see that nearly 90% of Canada's population lives just north of the U.S. border. So I wager that represents Canada's population growth. Yes, there are some weird anomalies in Nevada, Utah and Colorado that do not correspond well to populations. But they in fact do...if you understand that entire region is the river basin that feeds the southwest. And that California's immense consumption of water has significantly reduced the water present in those regions.
If anything, this map represents to me a clear demonstration of the heat island affect of urban areas. Something most global warming alarmists glaringly deny, but which many others have put forth evidence to substantiate. (Oh, I should point to the fact that they only deny it when it regards the U.S., they're more than willing to accept said postulation when it relates to cutting down South American rainforests. Which should be stopped. We should be using bamboo, hemp and other fast growing weeds and grasses for consumables.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05...
In fact, pretty much every one has been declared NOT to be caused by global warming. Nor in excess of prior events. Except by the media and propagandists.
Because history shows such great fluctuations. This is all very very normal. In fact, what history "mostly" points out, is that the 1900's were in fact an unusually calm and stable period. (ie: abnormal).
In fact, one might in fact argue that all of the pollution, CO2, etc. Had not enacted climate change, rather something far more dangerous. "Climate Stabilization".
You mean to say that climate change is going to happen 2 days before the day after tomorrow?!?!
WE DIDN'T LISTEN!!!
Seriously though- Eco-Fascism will save us all. We just need someone to get all coercive about it, and put the final few nails in the coffin of private property ownership.
The scientific method demands that predictions be made based on a theory so a feedback loop is established to check and see if it actually works.
So for all those who believe that CO2 controls the climate I have a serious question: How long with rising CO2 and flat or falling temperatures before you admit your theory is wrong? 20 years? 30? 50? Never?
Make a prediction. It is required and if the predictions based on your theory don't match reality then your theory is WRONG. You have 2 choices, abandon or modify your theory.
So far the most accurate and longest running climate forecasts do not rely on CO2 as the climate controller. Check out Dr Libby's prediction from the 1970s (3+ decades of accuracy), Dr Easterbrook's (12 years), Dr Abdussamatov (8 years). They all have correctly called for a cooling period of varying depths and lengths. So far they have been correct and the IPCC models wrong. It doesn't mean that they are correct it just means they aren't proven wrong yet. The IPCC models have been proven wrong.
So step up to the plate and make a prediction!
In a nutshell:
TFA: "The report released Tuesday cites wide and severe impacts: more sea-level rise, flooding, storm surges, precipitation and heat waves in the Northeast; frequent water shortages and hurricanes in the Southeast and the Caribbean; and more drought and wildfires in the Southwest. ... The federal climate assessment — the third since 2000 — brought together hundreds of experts in academia and government to guide U.S. policy based on the best available climate science. "
Responses:
"I don't believe it."
"Obama campaigned on this issue, so it's no surprise that his flunkies are still trying to promote his agenda."
"I own a 2014 Mustang and keep my air-conditioner at 70. I don't give a shit. They're probably wrong, and even if they're right, we'll all die." (No, you're not missing anything -- this guy really does not make any sense, but hasn't figured that out yet.)
"I don't think those guys are right."
"This is obviously a conspiracy. Only a complete idiot would NOT believe that every nation in the industrialized world, every national science foundation, nearly all peer-reviewed publications, and nearly all academic departments in three major branches of science have been foisting this enormous hoax on the world for 25 years!"
My advice is to not even reply to these dingbats. That's what they want, to engage normal people in their silly debates. Even if you join in only to post an ad hominem attack (which, OK, can be fun, to a point), all you're doing them is giving them the attention they crave.
I mean, other than the big money in the petrochemical industry, and their suckers on their teat, who pretends it's not real, nor human-caused?
And for you suckers who aren't getting money from them, let me ask you this: are you saying that we're *NOT* good enough to work out other sources of energy, and that we're too *dumb* to be able to reengineer the way we do things to cut carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions? Or maybe that you can't wrap your heads around the tech, and so won't be able to make the big bucks from investing in, and inventing, that tech?
So, sorry. Your kids will hate your guts for not doing something... oh, that's right, you don't have any.
Btw, I read that the last quarter, I think, Texas generated 35% of it's *total* electircal use by wind power.
mark
It seems they are peer-reviewed and properly published too
The trees in my area of the world aren't very good at moving 200m straight up nor 300km north. They've got this little thing at the bottom called "roots" that prevents them from flying or walking very fast.
I'm sure you're just thinking that the trees will reseed themselves farther north or south, as the case may be. But you've conveniently forgotten that you're not going to get a mature forest ecosystem in the span of fifty years on average. A forest of 300 year old trees? It just ain't going to happen in a hundred years.
Ah, so you have noticed that one year's worth of data on one continent disproves over a century of observations all over the world?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The trees in my area of the world aren't very good at moving 200m straight up nor 300km north.
I guess you must have unusually slow trees. The trees in my area are quite adept at it. They do things like drop pine cones which then are eaten by bears and porcupines, and defecated miles away.
I'm sure you're just thinking that the trees will reseed themselves farther north or south, as the case may be.
This.
co2 is not a pollutant - all fossil fuels come from, well, uh, err, fossils. the real pollutant is o2. a deadly, dangerous gas waste product put out by earlier life forms. maybe you should eschew using o2. And while you're at it, why not avoid di hydrogen monoxide? It too is a deadly pollutant.
maybe you think being dead is not a significant change to your lifestyle but some of us do not agree. Perhaps you should learn about what constitutes science and the scientific method. You might find that CAGW fits in between scientology and Christian science.in the pecking order. After all, it really is more of a cult than anything else.
As for the cost of trying to do something about it - you'll find it is already catastrophic and rising rapidly. You will be paying for it the rest of your life which will be shorter and bleaker. Before doing something about anything, it's important to understand it. A good starting point for you would be to go back over your post and identify why every phrase is in gross error.