The Global Warming Thread

[The Meal]

Well, I suppose that the line of thinking for the "it's natural" argument is that since it's natural, then human action can't do anything to change it. Since we can't change it, then it's silly to spend money and effort imposing regulations that try to stop it.

I suppose that would be the line of thinking for people not interested in spending money up front but it is naive to think that the money wouldn't be spent anyway. We will be spending money every single year to clean up the mess and damage caused by a warming planet and then eventually when the sea level rises we will be spending gobs of money to relocate cities away from the coast and low lying areas. So the amount of money spent for damage control post warming will probably be billions more than would be spent in the near term on CO2 mitigation.

Did raydude's employer just send out a corporate email saying how much they'd match for employee contributions to Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina too? That message pretty much parallels the thought pattern in my head as I was reading through our corporate note.

[Kraken]

Spending money already.

While little action is expected from Congress on climate change, many businesses in Boston and beyond are taking matters into their own hands, preparing for a warmer world in which severe weather, rising sea levels, and increased flooding threaten property, operations, and earnings.

Developers have moved electrical units from the basements to rooftops of buildings in the Seaport District along Boston Harbor. Utilities in New England have elevated substations several feet above the ground and replaced wooden electrical poles with steel ones that can withstand powerful winds.

Insurance companies, in response to clients, are testing products designed to protect against varied effects of climate change, and providing more coverage against natural disasters. The Hartford insurance company now offers small businesses policies against losses due to widespread power outages, a growing concern as major storms occur more frequently.

“We think the time for debating [climate change] is over,” said Ed White, vice president of customer strategy and environmental for National Grid, a British company with its US headquarters in Waltham. “We see it occurring. We’ve lived through the flooding, we’ve seen the damage that it had to our communities and our equipment.”

Deniers gonna deny, but businesses need to cope with the real world.

[LordMortis]

See!!! Business will regulate itself! when it's losing money

[Zaxxon]

From Vox: 7 reasons America will fail on climate change

Pessimism isn't popular in Washington — or anywhere else. I don't think I've ever met a politician who didn't say they were a "congenital optimist." And everyone knows that depression doesn't go viral on Facebook. Every time I've turned pessimistic copy into an editor I've been asked to add a section on what could be done.

I could add that section here, too. I could make up a more optimistic story. I just don't believe it (though — and I mean this seriously — I would be deeply grateful to anyone who could convince me of it). The world is failing to do nearly enough on climate change nearly fast enough. That isn't to take away from the incredible work of the activists trying to push politicians further and faster, or to deny the possibility that a once-in-a-generation storm will upend the politics or a tremendous technological breakthrough will render the problem moot. Pessimism shouldn't be considered fatalism. And impossible fights have been won before.

Perhaps more to the point, climate change isn't binary. There's not a single state of success and a single state of failure. Warming the world by 2.5 degrees Celsius is a whole lot better than warming it by three degrees Celsius. Warming the world by three degrees Celsius is vastly less catastrophic than warming it by four degrees Celsius. There are manageable failures and there are unmanageable failures. We're currently on track for an unmanageable failure. I think it's possible that we can slowly, painfully pull ourselves towards a manageable failure, but I'm not willing to call that optimism.

On climate change, the truth has gone from inconvenient to awful. Right now we're failing our future. And we will be judged harshly for it.

I have trouble disagreeing with his reasoning in the full post.

[Isgrimnur]

Politicians aren't rewarded for long term thinking, especially in today's arena. Doing something on climate is a long-term prospect that causes fear to businesses concerned more with their bottom line.

Meanwhile, those companies will hedge their bets by putting more hardened infrastructure to combat what they know is coming, but oppose any efforts to make them try and prevent them from making it worse.

[Kraken]

I have trouble disagreeing with his reasoning in the full post.

There is scant reason for optimism as long as the public is apathetic and one party is downright hostile. I don't foresee that changing soon enough to forestall disaster. Maybe I'm wrong. We've seen public opinion change rapidly on same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization, so it can happen. We just don't have another 5 or 10 years to come around.

Maybe Obama's new EPA rules will be a catalyst. Leaving specifics to the states is smart. The Northeast has had cap-and-trade for years and is well on the way to meeting the mandated goal already. We sure as hell can't wait for Congress.

[LordMortis]

1 reason why America will fail on climate change.

1) The world will fail on climate change and America is part of the world.

Beyond that I don't see the primary hope in harmonizing the reduction of CO2 output. I see the primary hope in finding CO2 scrubbers that can reverse CO2 output at a rate, what, about 7 times the rate of all of the worlds forests and oceans. It's a fool's hope but the only one we have really. How much of the world is releasing CO2 vs absorbing CO2 irrespective of fossil fuels being burnt? How much have we accelerated releasing CO2 from a feedback loop versus what is being reabsorbed by trees and ocean/ocean life?

At this point, globally, it seems like it should be a billions of dollars a year project by governments and philanthropists and that the research should be something we regularly spotlight almost with a sort of celebrity.

What amazes me is that trees breath CO2 and mix it with sunlight to make storable energy and we haven't tapped into that process efficiently and artificially yet for profit and glory... If I were a smarter man...

http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oc ... ncycle.htm

[Holman]

We need an Apollo program for climate. Where it fails is that NASA didn't have to contend with hugely powerful special interests entrenched in Moon denial.

[LordMortis]

We need an Apollo program for climate.

So much this, it's literally unbelievable to me that we haven't done it. I can't comprehend how we can take nearly 100 years worth of evidence at this point, watch polar region melt, and not say "by 2019 we are going to reverse climate change!"

I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment. [/John Kennedy]

[Zaxxon]

The end segment of this week's Cosmos described exactly that.

[Kraken]

We need an Apollo program for climate.

So much this, it's literally unbelievable to me that we haven't done it.

I often wonder if we'd even have this thread had the Supreme Court awarded the presidency to Al Gore instead of Bush.

[Alefroth]

We need an Apollo program for climate.

So much this, it's literally unbelievable to me that we haven't done it. I can't comprehend how we can take nearly 100 years worth of evidence at this point, watch polar region melt, and not say "by 2019 we are going to reverse climate change!"

I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment. [/John Kennedy]

If nothing else, it would create jobs and a scientific windfall like the Apollo program.

[Zaxxon]

We need an Apollo program for climate.

So much this, it's literally unbelievable to me that we haven't done it. I can't comprehend how we can take nearly 100 years worth of evidence at this point, watch polar region melt, and not say "by 2019 we are going to reverse climate change!"

I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment. [/John Kennedy]

If nothing else, it would create jobs and a scientific windfall like the Apollo program.

From Vox: 7 reasons America will fail on climate change

Pessimism isn't popular in Washington — or anywhere else. I don't think I've ever met a politician who didn't say they were a "congenital optimist." And everyone knows that depression doesn't go viral on Facebook. Every time I've turned pessimistic copy into an editor I've been asked to add a section on what could be done.

I could add that section here, too. I could make up a more optimistic story. I just don't believe it (though — and I mean this seriously — I would be deeply grateful to anyone who could convince me of it). The world is failing to do nearly enough on climate change nearly fast enough. That isn't to take away from the incredible work of the activists trying to push politicians further and faster, or to deny the possibility that a once-in-a-generation storm will upend the politics or a tremendous technological breakthrough will render the problem moot. Pessimism shouldn't be considered fatalism. And impossible fights have been won before.

Perhaps more to the point, climate change isn't binary. There's not a single state of success and a single state of failure. Warming the world by 2.5 degrees Celsius is a whole lot better than warming it by three degrees Celsius. Warming the world by three degrees Celsius is vastly less catastrophic than warming it by four degrees Celsius. There are manageable failures and there are unmanageable failures. We're currently on track for an unmanageable failure. I think it's possible that we can slowly, painfully pull ourselves towards a manageable failure, but I'm not willing to call that optimism.

On climate change, the truth has gone from inconvenient to awful. Right now we're failing our future. And we will be judged harshly for it.

I have trouble disagreeing with his reasoning in the full post.

A different perspective. I tend to think Klein has the right of things-the works at large wants to dig the hike a little deeper before getting its ducks in a row and acting rationally.

[Zaxxon]

From Vox: 7 reasons America will fail on climate change

Pessimism isn't popular in Washington — or anywhere else. I don't think I've ever met a politician who didn't say they were a "congenital optimist." And everyone knows that depression doesn't go viral on Facebook. Every time I've turned pessimistic copy into an editor I've been asked to add a section on what could be done.

I could add that section here, too. I could make up a more optimistic story. I just don't believe it (though — and I mean this seriously — I would be deeply grateful to anyone who could convince me of it). The world is failing to do nearly enough on climate change nearly fast enough. That isn't to take away from the incredible work of the activists trying to push politicians further and faster, or to deny the possibility that a once-in-a-generation storm will upend the politics or a tremendous technological breakthrough will render the problem moot. Pessimism shouldn't be considered fatalism. And impossible fights have been won before.

Perhaps more to the point, climate change isn't binary. There's not a single state of success and a single state of failure. Warming the world by 2.5 degrees Celsius is a whole lot better than warming it by three degrees Celsius. Warming the world by three degrees Celsius is vastly less catastrophic than warming it by four degrees Celsius. There are manageable failures and there are unmanageable failures. We're currently on track for an unmanageable failure. I think it's possible that we can slowly, painfully pull ourselves towards a manageable failure, but I'm not willing to call that optimism.

On climate change, the truth has gone from inconvenient to awful. Right now we're failing our future. And we will be judged harshly for it.

I have trouble disagreeing with his reasoning in the full post.

A different perspective. I tend to think Klein has the right of things-the world at large wants to dig the hole a little deeper before getting its ducks in a row and acting rationally.

[Kraken]

A different perspective. I tend to think Klein has the right of things-the world at large wants to dig the hole a little deeper before getting its ducks in a row and acting rationally.

This is the kind of debate we should be having as a nation. But the deniers aren't irrelevant yet, so we keep getting stuck on square one.

[pr0ner]

We need an Apollo program for climate.

So much this, it's literally unbelievable to me that we haven't done it.

I often wonder if we'd even have this thread had the Supreme Court awarded the presidency to Al Gore instead of Bush.

Probably; it's still a global issue, unless you think Gore would have gotten the rest of world to come around on emissions.

At least Bush recognized climate change and greenhouse emissions as something that needed to be curbed towards the end of his presidency.

[Kraken]

We need an Apollo program for climate.

So much this, it's literally unbelievable to me that we haven't done it.

I often wonder if we'd even have this thread had the Supreme Court awarded the presidency to Al Gore instead of Bush.

Probably; it's still a global issue, unless you think Gore would have gotten the rest of world to come around on emissions.

He certainly would have taken a prominent position on it at a time when action would have made a bigger difference. I think the world would have had a good shot at hitting the 2-degree target.

[jimbo]

the mouseover says something to the effect: that according to IPCC if we act fast we can limit the increase to 2 degrees or 1/2 IAU. So that should not be a problem

If the style is not obvious that is from http://www.xkcd.com

[Zaxxon]

Nice (and terrifying) comic.

As a follow-up to the piece I linked last week, Vox has more today on the USA failing to do its part, as well.

[Zaxxon]

Hey, look--another link from me today. This one is Krugman: Interests, Ideology, and Climate. In between the vitriol aimed at the right, he mentions just how small the worker count in the US coal industry has become. I had imagined that there was still a large contingent of coal miners, but were all those jobs to disappear overnight, it would be less than the average job loss in one week of the 2008 financial collapse.

[Kraken]

Hey, look--another link from me today. This one is Krugman: Interests, Ideology, and Climate. In between the vitriol aimed at the right, he mentions just how small the worker count in the US coal industry has become. I had imagined that there was still a large contingent of coal miners, but were all those jobs to disappear overnight, it would be less than the average job loss in one week of the 2008 financial collapse.

...and some, if not all, of those job losses will be offset by new jobs in green energy industries. 'Course, they won't necessarily be re-employing coal miners.

MA has been part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (the dread cap-and-trade) for 7 years now. In that time our economic growth outpaced the US average, >20,000 green energy jobs were created, and energy prices fell by 4% (helped massively, to be fair, by the natural gas boom; regionally, electric prices rose by 1%). Carbon emissions are down by 20% and we are the most energy-efficient state in the country.

I know that result won't be possible everywhere, but it does make it hard to take the economic doomsayers seriously.

(edit) ...and I should have read your link before replying, since some of what I said is documented there.

[Rip]

When future generations try to understand how the world got carried away around the end of the 20th century by the panic over global warming, few things will amaze them more than the part played in stoking up the scare by the fiddling of official temperature data. There was already much evidence of this seven years ago, when I was writing my history of the scare, The Real Global Warming Disaster. But now another damning example has been uncovered by Steven Goddard’s US blog Real Science, showing how shamelessly manipulated has been one of the world’s most influential climate records, the graph of US surface temperature records published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Goddard shows how, in recent years, NOAA’s US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) has been “adjusting” its record by replacing real temperatures with data “fabricated” by computer models. The effect of this has been to downgrade earlier temperatures and to exaggerate those from recent decades, to give the impression that the Earth has been warming up much more than is justified by the actual data. In several posts headed “Data tampering at USHCN/GISS”, Goddard compares the currently published temperature graphs with those based only on temperatures measured at the time. These show that the US has actually been cooling since the Thirties, the hottest decade on record; whereas the latest graph, nearly half of it based on “fabricated” data, shows it to have been warming at a rate equivalent to more than 3 degrees centigrade per century.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/enviro ... -data.html

If the data doesn't fit your theory, change the data.

[malchior]

I give this about a week before it is repudiated. There is data from all around the world corroborating the trend - not just one source.

[Zaxxon]

[malchior]

I didn't even notice it was "Stephen Goddard" - this guy has been proven wrong time and time again but that unsurprisingly has no bearing on whether his next iteration of probable garbage will get published.

Edit: I was wrong - already being debunked by those commies at Reason. That was quick.

[Kraken]

Meanwhile, back in the real world: This May was the hottest on record.

WASHINGTON — Driven by exceptionally warm ocean waters, Earth smashed a record for heat in May and is expected to keep on breaking high temperature marks, experts say.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Monday said May’s average temperature on Earth of 59.93 degrees beat the record set four years ago. In April, the globe tied the 2010 record for that month. Records go back to 1880.

May was especially hot in parts of Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Spain, South Korea, and Australia, while the United States was not close to a record, just 1 degree warmer than the 20th century average. However, California is having a record hot first five months of the year, a full 5 degrees above normal.

But you ain't seen nuthin yet:

Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb and other experts say there is a good chance global heat records will keep falling, especially next year because an El Nino weather event is brewing on top of man-made global warming. An El Nino is a warming of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean that alters climate worldwide and usually spikes global temperatures.

Ocean temperatures in May also set a record for the month. But an El Nino isn’t considered in effect until the warm water changes the air and that hasn’t happened yet, NOAA said.

With the El Nino on top of higher temperatures from heat-trapping greenhouse gases, ‘‘we will see temperature records fall all over the world,’’ wrote Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann in an e-mail.

We're having a pleasantly cool summer here in New England, though, so I'm sure this is all just bullshit.

[RunningMn9]

We are linking to the Telegraph now for science related news? Awesome.

[Pyperkub]

Surprise, Surprise:

The National Flood Insurance Program is in crisis. After years of historic storms and subsidized premiums the flood insurance program is $24 billion in the red, leaving those who own homes in high-risk flood zones with inadequate protection.

I foresee Flood Insurance rates going higher than Earthquake insurance... or at least in some areas becoming not worth it.

[Isgrimnur]

Because votes are more important than operating in a fiscally responsible manner.

Homeowners living in flood-prone areas are getting relief from big spikes in insurance costs under legislation President Barack Obama signed into law last Friday.

Lawmakers from both parties supported the measure in response to angry homeowners who faced sharp premium hikes after an overhaul of the government’s flood insurance program two years ago.

The 2012 rewrite was aimed at weaning those in flood-prone areas off of subsidized rates and required extensive updating of the flood maps used to set premiums. But its implementation left homeowners along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and in flood plains facing often unaffordable rate increases.

The new law caps flood insurance premium increases and allows below-market insurance rates to be passed on to people buying homes in flood zones with taxpayer-subsidized policies.

Critics say taxpayers will end up footing the bill when the next disaster strikes instead of homeowners who choose to live in areas susceptible to flooding.

[Pyperkub]

Oh dear lord, Dana Rohrbacher (member of the House Committee on Science) thinks that Acid Rain and the Ozone hole went away by themselves:

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), taking the stage after brief remarks from a meteorologist and several Heartland officials, kicked things off with a wild rant about how nearly every environmental scandal of the last three decades has turned out to be a hoax.

"The ozone hole is sort of like global warming, and was sort of an exaggerated position on some readings," Rohrabacher mused. "Remember acid rain?" asked the congressman. That too "became a non-issue" after a report claimed that human activity had little relation to the problem.

The Clean Air Act obviously had nothing to do with it:

Measurable improvements in air quality and visibility, human health, and water quality in many acid-sensitive lakes and streams, have been achieved through emissions reductions from electric generating power plants and resulting decreases in acid rain. These are some of the key findings in a report to Congress by the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program, a cooperative federal program.

The report shows that since the establishment of the Acid Rain Program, under Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, there have been substantial reductions in sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions from power plants that use fossil fuels like coal, gas and oil, which are known to be the primary causes of acid rain. As of 2009, emissions of SO2 and NOx declined by about two-thirds relative to levels in the 1990s. These emissions levels declined even further in 2010, according to recent data compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

What a clueless twit.

[Alefroth]

No coal mines on Mars...

[LordMortis]

I somehow missed this at the time:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/0 ... te-change/

Sea level rise impacting naval bases. Climate change altering natural disaster response. Drought influenced by climate change in the Middle East and Africa leading to conflicts over food and water — as in, for instance, Syria.

The military understands the realities of climate change and the negative impacts of heavy dependence on fossil fuels.

The U.S. House does not.

With a mostly party-line vote on Thursday, the House of Representatives passed an amendment sponsored by Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) that seeks to prevent the Department of Defense from using funding to address the national security impacts of climate change.

Brought to my attention by this:

http://www.businessinsider.com/climate- ... ary-2014-7

These aren't the Reagan years when it comes to military.

/wonders what it takes for the republicans to lose the blind support of the military and what the consequences will be if they do.

[Holman]

These aren't the Reagan years when it comes to military.

/wonders what it takes for the republicans to lose the blind support of the military and what the consequences will be if they do.

It's more like the McCarthy years, with a rabid minority convinced that the military is under the influence of highly-placed communist environmentalist sympathizers.

[Pyperkub]

Well, according to the Tea Partyit's all about the benjamins:

CNA Corp. itself is in the climate change business, a check of its client lists shows.

One of its major foundation customers is the Energy Foundation, the same group that financed the CNA military advisory board climate study. It is a global warming activist and is pushing a tax on carbon emissions.

CNA also lists as clients the liberal Rockefeller Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The fund states: “Human activity is causing global warming, rapid loss of biodiversity and accelerating degradation of Earth’s life-support systems. With the recognition that the impact of unchecked climate change threatens all other conservation efforts, the program focuses its grant-making on advancing solutions to climate change.”

CNA spokeswoman Constance Custer defended the way the study was conducted in response to questions from The Washington Times about board members’ climate change activism and business ties.

“Just as news organizations are confident in the abilities of their journalists to maintain objectivity and guard against personal bias, the MAB is confident in the objectivity and lack of bias of its members, whose careers have been based on honest, objective assessments of situations affecting military planning to ensure national security,” Ms. Custer said.

The CNA report is 100 percent climate change advocacy, stating as fact that global warming has caused flooding and wildfires. It uses phrases such as “more intense storms” and “more frequent and severe storms.”

Shoot the messenger and the message goes away. The problem doesn't, it just gets more expensive to address.

Edit: what's the money line?

Sure enough, the bookmaker Paddy Power has been offering two sets of climate change-related statistics the punters could have a wager on. The first is “2013 to be the warmest global year on record“.

Interestingly, the odds on that happening are relatively short at 7/2 – meaning the bookies feel there’s a a relatively fair chance of a record warm year, even at a time when much of the United Kingdom is experiencing a period of exceptionally cold weather. Put a two pound bet on and you only get seven pounds back, plus your two pound stake...

...Back in 2005 two Russian solar physicists, both with severe reservations about the whole concept of climate change, decided to let their money do the talking and wagered US$10,000 on the planet cooling, not warming, in the years to 2015.

According to the Goddard Institute, the ten warmest years on record since 1880 have all occurred since 1998, with 2005 and 2010 ranked as the warmest.

So unless there’s a catastrophic drop in global temperatures over the next two years, it looks as though the Russian physicists are going to be big losers. They should stick to betting on the horses.

[LordMortis]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/0 ... n-climate/

I'd like to say BOOYAH! But it falls on deaf (or corrupt. I'm not sure which is worse) ears.

"Even young republicans know better." LOL

[Kraken]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/0 ... n-climate/

I'd like to say BOOYAH! But it falls on deaf (or corrupt. I'm not sure which is worse) ears.

"Even young republicans know better." LOL

He speaks truth until the end, when he says that "time is on our side." I know he means politically, but civilization doesn't have the luxury of waiting for the obstructionists to die off. The time for drastic action is 10 years ago.

[gilraen]

16-foot waves observed for the first time in the Arctic Ocean

Sixteen-foot waves are buffeting an area of the Arctic Ocean that until recently was permanently covered in sea ice—another sign of a warming climate, scientists say.

Because wave action breaks up sea ice, allowing more sunlight to warm the ocean, it can trigger a cycle that leads to even less ice, more wind, and higher waves.

Scientists had never measured waves in the Beaufort Sea, an area north of Alaska, until recently. Permanent sea ice cover prevented their formation. But much of the region is now ice-free by September, and researchers were able to anchor a sensor to measure wave heights in the central Beaufort Sea in 2012.

[LordMortis]

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2014/07/post_14.html

With regard to EPA standards to reduce carbon emissions, and state's rights:

At their news conference today Cavanaugh and PSC commissioner-elect Chip Beeker invoked the name of God in stating their opposition to the EPA proposal. Beeker, a Republican who is running unopposed for a PSC seat, said coal was created in Alabama by God, and the federal government should not enact policy that runs counter to God's plan.

"Who has the right to take what God's given a state?" he said.

Cavanaugh called on the people of the state to ask for God's intervention.

"I hope all the citizens of Alabama will be in prayer that the right thing will be done," she said.

[Isgrimnur]

Technically, the miners are taking what God gave the state, and exporting it. Who are they to distribute God's bounty to those infidels around the world?

[Holman]

Oh, Alabama. Never change...