Global Warming Is Real |
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We Are In Denial Wilfred Candler Lets face it: The vast majority of Americans (and Europeans, and Chinese) are in denial about global warming. Where we differ is in the depth of our denial. In rough order (deepest denial first) our levels of denial can be summarized as:
Honestly now, do you not fit fairly easily into one or other of the above bullet definitions? If you fit in any but the last bullet, aren’t you probably in some element of denial? (James Hansen is widely recognized as the leading American Climatologist.) So far as I can tell, Al Gore would fit into the second or third last bullet, that is to say Al Gore is in relatively mild denial. Sorry about that!
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Another dimension of our denial is, for those who recognize a problem, the seriousness of the problem. Listed from the most optimistic view we have:
Personally, I am an optimist and believe that we will be able to stabilize at about a billion, sorry about that! For those with more optimistic projections I would urge you to read Jared Diamond’s books “The Third Chimpanzee” and “Collapse”. The Trouble With Denial The trouble with denial, is that it is not the facts that the persons knows, that is most important. Rather it is how those facts are interpreted. Getting rid of denial, or even shifting to a lower level of denial involves a “paradigm shift”, a change in our way of looking at the world. For many people Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth jolted them frombeing “environmentally unaware” to “environmentally concerned”. For any given individual it is impossible to predict which fact or experience will prove so incompatible with his/her existing paradigm, as to demand a shift. For those still unconvinced that global warming is insufficiently dangerous to warrant action now, there follow a number of facts/reports in the hope that one of more of them will be sufficient to carry conviction that global warming is no longer something that we can continue to ignore. |
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Moana Loa: The Moana Loa data on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration provides the fundamental evidence that we (humanity) are changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere:
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This graph shows how each year the world “breaths in” carbon dioxide as plants grow in the northern hemispheres spring and summer (withdrawing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere) only to “breath out” in the northern fall and winter, thus increasing the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. It also shows that year after year the concentration of carbon dioxide increases from one low (high) point to the next. There is definite and persistent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. This “definite and persistent increase” is due to the contribution of fossil fuels. In fact the oceans currently do a yeoman’s job of absorbing about a third of the fossil carbon dioxide released by man, thereby becoming slowly more acid. To be sure that we are not doing further damage, we would need to have this curve continue to oscillate, but around a horizontal trend: A horizontal trend that requires us not to reduce fossil fuel emissions, but to cease fossil fuel emissions. For current data from Mauna Loa click here. Skeptics are entitled to say “but that is not important”: It really is no longer plausible to insist that “nothing is happening”. As is well known the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has produced many climate modeling exercises that generally agree that the existing and predicted increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide are likely to lead to global warming and associated increasingly violent weather, both drought and flood, increased prevalence of pests, forest fires, melting tundra, and the like. Here I bypass these “theoretical models”, in favor of recently reported, undesirable, weather phenomena. Certainly any one event can be dismissed as a chance event, (“it takes more than one swallow to make a summer”). However, at some point the evidence of rapidly increasing numbers of “rare” events, must carry the implication that change is indeed taking place. |
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Melting Glaciers: Warmer weather is resulting in glaciers melting . Almost all glaciers are affected (there is some dispute about some ant-arctic glaciers), however many people do not realize that melt from tropical glaciers (Himalayas, and South American glaciers ) feeds most of the world’s great river systems (Amazon, Congo and Nile excepted). Initially this melt is increasing the flow in the Indus, Mekong, Ganges and Peruvian rivers, however as the glaciers disappear, these great rivers will become seasonal and more flood prone. Rather than precipitation being stored as snow, and slowly released over the summer, it will flow directly to the river system causing both flooding, and subsequent seasonal drying up of the rivers. This will be life threatening to billions of people. Sorry about that! Methane: Methane (CH4) is a gas created by the anaerobic decay of vegetable matter. It is 23 times as effective as a greenhouse gas, as is carbon dioxide, and remains in the atmosphere for about seven years before decaying into carbon dioxide and water. Methane is a normal part of the carbon cycle, being emitted when animals belch, or animal manure or plants decay in anaerobic conditions. However there are also vast deposits of fossil-methane stored below the artic sea (and elsewhere) as a solid methane hydrate . If climate warms enough to release these stores of methane, all bets are off. This is the most potent positive feed-back mechanism so far identified. The U.S. Department of Energy is subsidizing the development of technology to burn methane hydrate thereby threatening to introduce a whole new fossil fuel methane hydrate, that would add still further to global warming: A totally counter-productive and senseless project. Sorry about that! The Japanese are also interested in this new source of fossil energy . Dangerous amounts of methane are also being released from Siberian perma-frost . Perma-frost is created in artic conditions when the surface of the earth warms up enough in summer to allow a little vegetative growth, the rapid onset to winter causes the season’s growth to freeze before it can decay. The next summer’s growth then takes place on top of the previous years growth, with the slow accumulation of plant material. Higher temperatures allow decay to take place, leading to the release of methane, and accelerated warming. Beetles: Several varieties of beetle are spreading rapidly northwards in Canada and Alaska as warmer winters are failing to kill them off over winter . Not only are the beetles spreading, but they are killing wide swaths of forest, leaving it vulnerable to forest fire. Such fires release the carbon temporarily sequestered in the trees’ wood as atmospheric carbon dioxide, thus providing a positive feed-back loop tending to accelerate global warming. Artic Ice: In addition to the melting of temperate and tropical glaciers mentioned above, there have been dramatic changes artic & and antartic sea ice. The following graphic illustrates the loss/thinning of artic sea ice. Note in the bottom left, how the white area has expanded, indicating that even in February formerly frozen sea, was now open water. The thinner (younger) the ice, the more quickly it melts in the arctic summer. The quicker it melts, the more incoming energy is absorbed and heats the ocean, leading to a slower formation of (or failure to form) ice the following winter. As noted the area failing to form ice, is expanding. |
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Thinner and Newer |
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Melting of (floating) sea ice affects temperature (as sunlight formerly reflected by the ice, is absorbed by the ocean), but it does not affect sea level. However, this melting of the sea ice, and consequent higher temperatures, speeds up the melting of terrestrial ice in Greenland, and the Antarctic continent. The melting of this ice will lead to sea level rise. Conclusion: Acceptance that global warming is occurring is a highly personal decision. One cannot “prove” that it is occurring in the same way that a geometric theorem can be proved on the basis of some initial definitions and axioms. However, it is worth emphasizing that the above illustrations are mostly taken from news reports over the last six months. They do not rely on high technology “science” but rather are “look out the window, at real-world events”, or in the case of the loss of artic ice, “look out of the plane window”. We are no longer dependent on scientists telling us what they expect to happen, a cursory reading of the newspapers is sufficient to tell us what is happening. If you have read this far, hopefully you now believe that global warming is happening. For an excellent, one hour historical review of how long the science has been known, press here. |
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Disinformation There is an incredible amount of money to be lost by the energy companies if we cease to use fossil carbon, literally trillions of dollars (with a “T”). Each year of delay warms up the planet, and yields another year of billion dollar profits for the energy companies. Predictably, they have done everything they can to slow down policy action. As for the tobacco companies, their first line of defense has been to argue that “the science is not settled”, and to subsidize anyone who would question the science, or propose that the world is cooling. In 1989, the United Nations created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Global Climate Coalition was created in 1989, shortly after the IPCC's first meeting to lobby against any sort of international agreement on global warming. Members included Amoco, the American Forest & Paper Association, American Petroleum Institute, Chevron, Chrysler, Cyprus AMAX Minerals, Exxon, Ford, General Motors, Shell Oil, Texaco, and the United States Chamber of Commerce. The Global Climate Coalition attended the international negotiations on the exact wording of the IPCC final reports (one every five years or so) working hand-in-glove with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to emasculate the final wording of the reports. The Coalition was thus responsible for delaying any general recognition of the emerging problem. In 1997, the Coalition responded to international global warming treaty negotiations in Kyoto, Japan by launching an advertising campaign in the US against any agreement aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions internationally. However, the growing scientific and public consensus regarding global warming forced a number of GCC supporters to reconsider the negative PR implications of their involvement in a group that was increasingly recognized as a self-serving anti-environmental front group. BP/Amoco withdrew from GCC after BP's chairman admitted that "the time to consider the policy dimensions of climate change is not when the link between greenhouse gases and climate change is conclusively proven, but when the possibility cannot be discounted and is taken seriously by the society of which we are part. We in BP have reached that point." Other prominent companies that have publicly abandoned GCC include American Electric Power, Dow, Dupont, Royal Dutch Shell, Ford, Daimler Chrysler, Southern Company, Texaco and General Motors. The GCC disbanded in early 2002, explaining that it "has served its purpose by contributing to a new national approach to global warming. The Bush administration will soon announce a climate policy that is expected to rely on the development of new technologies to reduce greenhouse emissions, a concept strongly supported by the GCC." We all know that the Bush policy was a non-policy of investing a meager amount of money into doomed technologies, such as the hydrogen economy and sequestering carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. It involved the appearance of doing something, while doing nothing. In 2003, Frank Luntz, a political consultant, advising Republicans on the tactics best used to support Bush’s rejection of the Kyoto treaty famously said: The scientific debate is closing [against us] but is not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science. Challenge the science and confuse the debate, these have been the hallmark tactics of the energy companies opposition to recognition of the existence of global warming, and the need to do something about it. Subsequently Luntz has said that he regards the debate as over, and that we have to accept that global warming is occurring. |
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