Global Warming Is Serious Business

Friday, August 6, 2010

This may surprise some folks, but I believe it is possible to be both politically and economically conservative, and concerned, deeply concerned, about global warming - even passing up the more delicate nomenclature of "climate change."

Just consider the ways humans are messing up the planet: destroying rain forests, burning fossil fuels, developing coastal wetlands, polluting waters, farming with chemicals. Those are just some of the biggies.

Apart from all the measurable evidence piling up - increasing CO2 levels, melting glaciers, rising temperatures - common sense and simple observation will tell you that this is all bad and ultimately unsustainable. Pollution and global warming are two sides of the same coin.

It is true that we Americans are among the worst offenders and show little political will to do much about it. But even worse is yet to come, and not from us. Rural Chinese are moving to cities by the tens of millions. These cities typically expand by building one outer ring after another, connected by new roads for new drivers of new cars, and supplied by utilities quickly installed at the lowest possible cost.

A total of 80 percent of China's power comes from coal, with new plants opening at a breakneck pace. It is true that China is making new rules and edging toward nuclear power and renewable sources, but it is slow, enforcement is lax at best, and employment will trump environment for a long time to come.

Then there are India, Brazil, Argentina - all large countries where the political imperative is to industrialize quickly and worry about the environment later. Africa is overpopulated and destitute, with constant wars and desecration of the landscape. The world is full of people who want the benefits of our lifestyle and governments that promise to deliver it without considering the consequences.

There is a recent study in "Nature" contending that oceanic plankton levels are down 40 percent since the 1950s. Plankton has never been very high on my list of interests, but perhaps it should have been. Plankton is the bottom link in the oceans' food chain, in addition to which it produces oxygen and consumes carbon dioxide. Its decline is attributed to warming of the water's surface temperature, which inhibits the circulation of nutrients from below.

Given that degrading the environment is a problem, solutions are not simple, economically or politically. Although the issue has become one of liberals versus conservatives, it should not be. The facts are these: We can only go on in our present mode for a relatively short, finite time, because there are, somewhere, limits to the fossil fuels available.

We really can't even go that far, because it would be too destructive, and we need a backup plan in place before fossil fuels run out.

If we were charged the real cost of fossil fuels, in terms of irreplaceability and environmental damage, they would be much more expensive. In order to encourage alternate energy sources, that is the price we should pay.

We will have to live smaller lives - smaller homes, smaller cars, shorter trips, fewer gadgets. There was a recent New York Times story about a couple in Salina, Kan., who have not used air conditioning for 50 years. It was over 100 degrees when they were interviewed. They stay inside, even in the basement, or in the shade when they do go out. They use fans and don't do much when it's hot. It could happen to all of us.

Even with new energy sources and changing lifestyles, it will take a long time to calm our host planet. No one reading this will live to see it. Still, it is clear that we must become serious about the process, and soon.

There is a race going on between the development of affordable and distributable renewable energy, the consumption of all remaining fossil fuels, and the habitability of the planet. The renewable energy team simply has to win.

Fred Wolferman lives in Southern Pines. Contact him by e-mail at fwolferman@sbcglobal.net.

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MikeNC 2 years, 9 months ago

Dear Mr. Wolfman, Like you I do not want see pollution and eco system disappear from marsh lands, wet lands, rain forest, etc. BUT Sir, you need to take a very close look at the Climate warming issue. I like you, am a Conservative and would costantly disagree with Conservatives who claimed there is no climate change. When the leaks came from England that data on climate change had been manipulated for upwards to 20+years, I began to take a closer look at this topic. I have concluded that Global warming is yet, another Liberal Myth. Diane McLellan

Ross 2 years, 9 months ago

MikeNC - Your comments are typical of conservatives. I wonder how many studies and reports you have sifted through to arrive at this optimistic view?

Here's a tibit for you:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100625185428.htm

An excerpt:

"ScienceDaily (June 27, 2010) — The small number of scientists who are unconvinced that human beings have contributed significantly to climate change have far less expertise and prominence in climate research compared with scientists who are convinced, according to a study led by Stanford researchers."

The statement "manipulated for upwards to 20+years" is simply 'head in the sand mentality' that seems attached to most conservatives.

The sad aspect of this is that people like you will delay any real effort to correct the problem that may already be too late to solve.

I am certain - that if Al Gore had been a republican you would be on the other side of this debate!

Woody 2 years, 9 months ago

Ross - How many studies and reports have you sifted through to arrive at your pessimistic view?

Here is a tidbit for you: Antarctic sea ice up 43% since 1980, see for yourself

http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/bist/bist.pl?annot=1&legend=1&scale=100&tab_cols=2&tab_rows=2&config=seaice_index&submit=Refresh&mo0=03&hemis0=S&img0=extn&mo1=03&hemis1=S&img1=conc&year0=2009&year1=1980&.cgifields=no_panel

How inconvenient

Ross 2 years, 9 months ago

Actually - quite a few Woody- i can list them for you if you would like - just let me know.

The vast majority of scientists believe global warming is to a large extent man made.

Another tidbit just for you:

"ScienceDaily (Sep. 18, 2009) — The Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the third-lowest recorded since satellites began measuring sea ice extent in 1979, according to the University of Colorado at Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center.

While this year's September minimum extent was greater than each of the past two record-setting and near-record-setting low years, it is still significantly below the long-term average and well outside the range of natural climate variability, said NSIDC Research Scientist Walt Meier. Most scientists believe the shrinking Arctic sea ice is tied to warming temperatures caused by an increase in human-produced greenhouse gases being pumped into Earth's atmosphere."

well - your turn now!

JER 2 years, 9 months ago

Woody: Impressive until you tell the other half of the story. When the sea ice lost in the arctic is factored into the equation, your 43% number drops to almost nothing. Very inconvenient.

DaveyNC 2 years, 9 months ago

JER, you just made Woody's point for him. There is no net loss of sea ice, it just shifted.

Where is it written that the Arctic must always be covered in ice? Don't you think that the people of Greenland may be looking forward to having more farmland and longer growing seasons? Aren't they entitled, once every thousand years or so, to enjoy those benefits?

To believe that global warming is harmful is to believe that the climate we have right now or had 20 years ago is somehow the perfect climate and that nothing should ever change from that.

Climate patterns shift and change all the time. One area gets hotter, the other area gets colder. One dries out, one gets wet.

Ross 2 years, 9 months ago

DaveyNC - Read my posts - sea ice IS declining - at a startling rate.

The problem with this rapid warm-up is that it is not simply about warmer summers and longer growing seasons. The repercussions are predicted to be much much worse then the above!

Do yourself a favor - read about global warming from "many" sources - not just the far right favorites.

Climates do change - but never never as fast as the last few decades.

DaveyNC 2 years, 9 months ago

@Ross--I've read the IPCC reports, though I confess, not in a while. You miss my point. I don't dispute that the earth is warming, overall. In fact, I am fairly certain that it is warming. I am less certain that it is entirely manmade; after all, the sun has quite an effect. No coincidence that after an extended period of low solar activity and cooler weather, solar activity has now picked up, dramatically, and we are getting baked.

Beyond that, though, I am quite uncertain that it is anything to get all that worked up about and that it makes little sense to undergo a planet-wide economic upheaval in order to accommodate the beliefs of the global warming alarmists.

Climate changes, and we are living in an area that up until about 200 million years ago was underwater. You tell me; are the current coastlines ideal or are the ones we had 200 million years ago ideal?

Sea levels are forecast to rise 50 cm in the next century. Hardly apocalyptic. I predict that people living on the coast will respond to this emergency by......moving inland about 20 feet. There, good for another 100 years!

Ross 2 years, 9 months ago

DaveyNC - As the earth is ~ 4 billion years, no one "really" knows for certain if this global change is man made. However - if you had a serious disease and the leading specialists were nearly unanimous of the cause I am certain you would listen.

The vast majority (http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0122-climate.html) of climatologists believe this present warming is man-made.

Now - if that is true - wouldn't it be prudent to take action and err on the side of caution. Besides - clean air, water, and environment are great byproducts!

btw - it all depends on what your source is as to how high sea levels will rise. Most predict a much larger rise in sea levels - http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/rising-seas.html

I wish I could simply let things happen and hope for the best - but that approach really is wrong!

DaveyNC 2 years, 9 months ago

Pretty funny, Ross. You tell me this: "Do yourself a favor - read about global warming from "many" sources - not just the far right favorites." a couple of posts ago and then you link two partisan global warming sites just above.

Man-made or not, there is very little that we can do to stop or reverse the trend. We are better served by doing what we have always done--adapting. It's what humans do best.

Give me some specifics; what exactly are the terrible things that are going to happen?

Ross 2 years, 9 months ago

DaveyNC - I wonder why on earth you would regard "Science Daily" and other sights I have referenced as partisan. It is easy to query any subject you want and I do just that - and try and read most of them. I look for facts and attempt to put aside partisan garbage.

If you want a taste of what might be on the horizon that you will need to 'adapt' to - simply query "the impact of global warming". Look at several sites and see just how partisan the articles are.

In my opinion - to be honest - it is too bad you feel this way. I feel there is quite a bit we can and should do.

DaveyNC 2 years, 9 months ago

No, Ross, you linked to http://www.mongabay.com/ and to http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/

So I went to Wikipedia to find out about the effects of global warming, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_...

Here is a sample from the entry:

"Food supply

Main article: Climate change and agriculture See also: Food security, Food vs fuel, and 2007–2008 world food price crisis Climate change will impact agriculture and food production around the world due to: the effects of elevated CO2 in the atmosphere, higher temperatures, altered precipitation and transpiration regimes, increased frequency of extreme events, and modified weed, pest, and pathogen pressure (Easterling et al.., 2007:282).[23] In general, low-latitude areas are at most risk of having decreased crop yields (Schneider et al.., 2007:790).[10] With low to medium confidence, Schneider et al.. (2007:787) concluded that for about a 1 to 3°C global mean temperature increase (by 2100, relative to the 1990-2000 average level) there would be productivity decreases for some cereals in low latitudes, and productivity increases in high latitudes. With medium confidence, global production potential was predicted to: increase up to around 3°C, very likely decrease above about 3 to 4°C. Most of the studies on global agriculture assessed by Schneider et al.. (2007:790) had not incorporated a number of critical factors, including changes in extreme events, or the spread of pests and diseases. Studies had also not considered the development of specific practices or technologies to aid adaptation."

Lots of vagaries there. I especially love those last 2 sentences. The so-called "experts" didn't even consider adaptations that we will make.

It's not like we're going to stand pat and die.

Again I ask: what apocalypse is heading our way?

Ross 2 years, 9 months ago

Davey - I wonder what is wrong with the above sites? Did they contribute to Al Gores presidential bid? Am I missing something or is "Wikipedia" the only valid non partisan site that fits your requirements?

whew - here we go:

"Global Warming effects

Green house gases stay can stay in the atmosphere for an amount of years ranging from decades to hundreds and thousands of years. Here are the 5 deadliest effects of global warming.

Spread of disease As northern countries warm, disease carrying insects migrate north, bringing plague and disease with them.

Warmer waters and more hurricanes As the temperature of oceans rises, so will the probability of more frequent and stronger hurricanes. We saw in this in 2004 and 2005.

Increased probability and intensity of droughts and heat waves Although some areas of Earth will become wetter due to global warming, other areas will suffer serious droughts and heat waves. Africa will receive the worst of it, with more severe droughts also expected in Europe. Water is already a dangerously rare commodity in Africa, and according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global warming will exacerbate the conditions and could lead to conflicts and war.

Economic consequences Most of the effects of anthropogenic global warming won’t be good. And these effects spell one thing for the countries of the world: economic consequences. Hurricanes cause do billions of dollars in damage, diseases cost money to treat and control and conflicts exacerbate all of these. Polar ice caps melting The ice caps melting is a four-pronged danger.

First, it will raise sea levels. There are 5,773,000 cubic miles of water in ice caps, glaciers, and permanent snow. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, if all glaciers melted today the seas would rise about 230 feet.

Second, melting ice caps will throw the global ecosystem out of balance. The ice caps are fresh water, and when they melt they will desalinate the ocean, or in plain English - make it less salty. The desalinization of the gulf current will "screw up" ocean currents, which regulate temperatures.

Third, temperature rises and changing landscapes in the arctic circle will endanger several species of animals. Only the most adaptable will survive.

Fourth, global warming could snowball with the ice caps gone. Ice caps are white, and reflect sunlight, much of which is reflected back into space, further cooling Earth. If the ice caps melt, the only reflector is the ocean. Darker colors absorb sunlight, further warming the Earth.

Again - I queried a dozen sites - all of whom are respected scientifically and essentially all said the same thing.

The saddest part of this exchange is that you appear to be intelligent and yet because this is an uncomfortable topic you trivialize it.

Ross 2 years, 9 months ago

Now - I think I am going out and get some exercise in this 96 degree weather - the hottest summer on record - worldwide :)

theonewithsense 2 years, 9 months ago

theonewithsense understands that we were at the exact perfect temperature world wide 100 years ago. It is alarming that we are now averaging over 1 degree higher than the exact perfect temperature. This number may even increase.

I would propose a tax, we could call it limit and barter, where we let the government decide which business are allowed to use energy. We should let the government decide how much energy each business should be allowed to use, and then tax them appropriately by capping the amount of energy they are allowed to use and then make them pay additional if they use additional energy in the form of trading energy credits with better companies that keep under their government imposed limit.

They could buy energy credits from other companies that the government has decided could use more energy, but those companies actually use less energy than the government has allowed. They could sell their extra energy to the evil companies that are using more energy than the government has decided was appropriate.

Certainly this concept is awesome, I'm sure corruption would not be an issue........

Ross 2 years, 9 months ago

OR - we could just keep our heads in the sand - and die of heat stroke :)

TheDirtyDizz 2 years, 9 months ago

I think it's funny how people worry about this. Do you people HONESTLY think something super drastic is going to happen in our lifetime? Or our childrens life time? Or our grandkids or great grand kids? No of course not. You know when I'll be concerned about global warming? When its 80 degrees in the winter consistently and 120 in the summer consistently. I moved to NC 10 years ago, and visited often from Connecticut before that, and every time I came it was like 100 degrees in NORTH WILKSBORO which is close to the mountains.

So really, talk to me when winter coats are no longer made because it's never cold. Then I'll be worried. You can't control things that happen.

theonewithsense 2 years, 9 months ago

Ross, I'm sorry that your head is in the sand, there is nothing keeping you from taking it out of the sand like the rest of us......

Woody 2 years, 9 months ago

Jeez, the earth is 4.5 Billion years old. You are using 1979 as a reference point??

Since 1979, the Arctic’s maximum winter sea-ice cover, measured before the summer melt, has dropped by about 6 percent

Hardly catastrophic

All this talk of "hottest summer EVER" is laughable. There are areas that are experiencing an unusually cold summer this year., Why isn't that being considered? Because it doesn't make for sensational headlines.

Ross 2 years, 9 months ago

Woody - It figures you would use a 4.5 billion year earth estimate as a point of attack. and too funny...... - it IS ~4.5 billion years old or maybe only 4,351,453,229 years old.

Also - and this is FACT -

"Global land and ocean surface temperatures in the first half of 2010 were the warmest January-June on record, the federal climate service reported Thursday. "

Note the word "GLOBAL" woody - it means the entire earth. They average all temperatures even the cold ones :). BTW - it has been increasing since about 1950 but at a much faster rate since 2000.

I am sure you have read (or someone read it for you) my previous posts about the ice disappearing. But of course - you know something NASA and satellite pictures don't.

So - you go bury your head again - until maybe you run out of beer!

DaveyNC 2 years, 9 months ago

Been out for a while Ross and saw your megapost above. Thought I would jump back in on it, and try to be brief while doing so. Refer to your original points above:

Point 1, spread of disease due to migration of insect vectors northward. OK, what happens to the areas they leave behind? Are they left insect/disease free? Net change~0.

Point 2, increased drought and heat waves in some areas. You make my point when you go on to say that some areas will be wetter. Net change~0.

Point 2a, increased risk of conflict in Africa. How could you tell? War and strife is a constant state in Africa. Net change ~ 0.

Point 3, economic consequences. One man's consequences are another man's opportunity. You know, hurricanes are an important part of our ecosystem here in the coastal plains. They replenish the aquifers. Keep us from suffering droughts.

Point 4, polar ice caps melting, multiple sub-questions:

a. "... if all glaciers melted today the seas would rise about 230 feet." Well, that won't happen. Nobody is predicting that at all. The estimates I have seen say 50 cm over the next 100 years. That's 19.68 inches. Better break out the life preservers.

b. "...desalinization of the gulf current will "screw up" ocean currents, which regulate temperatures." Will it screw them up or merely cause them to reconfigure? They've done that before, you know; changed directions. Actually, I confess that this one bothers me. I concede that this would be a problem were it to happen. Convince me either that we can stop it or that we even should.

c. "...temperature rises and changing landscapes in the arctic circle will endanger several species of animals. Only the most adaptable will survive." How is this any different than what has always happened in nature? Only the most adaptable ALWAYS survive, by definition.

d. "Ice caps are white, and reflect sunlight, much of which is reflected back into space, further cooling Earth." Er, "further cooling the Earth"? Sounds good to me right about now. If you are concerned about warming, a little cooling effect should help nicely.

I think it odd that you think I have trivialized it. As you may have guessed by now, I have spent considerable time reading about it and thinking about it. I am not a warming denier, at all. I simply do not believe that it makes sense to spend upwards of $2,000,000,000,000.00 to correct it. The societal upheaval that that would entail would be more catastrophic than sweating a bit more in the summer. Shoot, if it were a more tropical climate here, Sandhills residents could play golf in shorts year-round. Would it be so bad if Florida's climate migrated north to here and say, Costa Rica's moved up to Florida? I guess we'd have more gators around. In the meantime, I am all for not being wasteful and finding better, more efficient ways to do things.

Whew! I gotta get a life.

MikeNC 2 years, 9 months ago

The hypocrisy some advocates of Global Warming expell, is amazing. The CEO of Global Warming, Al Gore, lives a home that costs more to heat and cool, than 15 average American homes. He travels to all of his Global Warming conventions by Jet. And has managed to build yet, another 10,000 sq foot home in California. Our President travels by Marine One for a two minute journey. When the UN held a Global Warming Conventions, Jets lined the runways in any given direction.

If the Hoax of Global Warming were to ever become our way of life, there would be absolutely NO END in Sight, for our lives to be permanently altered. The UN would make the United States continually give third world countries money because we use more energy than they do. We'll be told what to drive, how far to drive, how much energy we can use at home before given a penalty, what to eat, how much gas a cow can expell before the farmer has to pay a tax on the cow. The possibilites will be endless for our Global Warming Community and their Coffers would be without bottom.

There are two facts out there: 1. Climate Data collected some 30 years ago, was for the most part DESTROYED. 2. So there is hardly any previous data to match up to the now MANIPULATED and ALTERED DATA, that we now exists, thanks to brave hackers. Diane McLellan

Woody 2 years, 9 months ago

Ross said:

"I am sure you have read (or someone read it for you) my previous posts about the ice disappearing. But of course - you know something NASA and satellite pictures don't"

How predictable! When the facts are no longer in your favor you resort to ad hominem attacks!

I showed you that the ice has in fact increased, can you comment on that?

Maybe if you had taken a few science classes in college (if you went to college) you could make an informed decision based on FACTS.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/16/a-spot-check-on-noaas-hottest-so-far-presser/