Posts Tagged ‘global warming’

Arctic Ice Melting at Accelerating Pace

Tuesday, August 14th, 2012

By David L. Brown

As we all know by now there is no global warming or climate change, thanks to a concerted effort by deniers to insist that we all put our fingers in our ears and recite “La, la, la I can’t hear you”. Unfortunately, they forgot to tell Mother Nature because the planet continues to show signs of warming and as far as climate change, well just turn on the Weather Channel and draw your own conclusions.

One of the most significant “canaries in the mine” that I’ve been following for some time is the extent of Arctic sea ice. The Arctic ice cap has been melting fairly steadily, and I predicted about seven or eight years ago that we would see an essentially ice free Arctic Ocean by 2015. At that time the experts were saying it wouldn’t take place until the end of the 21st century, and while I was probably setting too early a target, the trends certainly indicate that it will almost certainly happen far sooner than was thought just a few years ago.

Why is the Arctic ice important? For one thing, it provides a heat shield for the Arctic Ocean itself, preventing it from absorbing solar rays during the long period of 24-hour Midnight Sun during the months of summer. Ice and snow reflect heat back into space, while open water is dark and absorbs the rays. The more open water is exposed, the more heat is absorbed.

This matters not only because it represents de facto global warming, but also because the Arctic is an important “climate regulator” and if it’s disrupted it can create havoc, particularly in the North Atlantic. That can cause climate effects in major population centers of North America and Europe, including the possible disturbance of the Gulf Stream, the warm waters of which prevent northern Europe from being like Siberia which is at a similar latitude but has quite different climate conditions.

Right now the Arctic ice cover is at its lowest point ever for this date, as shown in the graph at left. The blue line represents this year’s ice coverage as of yesterday, August 13, 2012. The dotted line is the record low point set in 2007. Above that is the average for the previous 20-year 1979-2000 period (represented by the solid black line) and the effect of two standard deviations to that average shown by the gray band. As you can see, not only has the 2012 ice coverage extent exceeded the record low, right now it’s taking a decidedly downward turn. All in all, we’re way out of what was normal during the last two decades of the 20th century. (I’ve cropped all but the most recent data points from the graph. You can see the whole thing here.)

One of the factors that’s often overlooked in evaluating the extent of sea ice is that it is a two-dimensional view of the situation. In other words, it only shows the ice covered areas versus open water. But like most things the ice is three dimensional. In other words, in addition to its surface area the ice has the third dimension of thickness, and that dimension has been steadily decreasing. Thus, the total mass of ice is far less than it was in past years, and thus the rate of melting is able to increase because there’s less total ice to melt. To understand this, you merely need to put a block of ice out on the driveway in front of your house in July (assuming you live in the Northern Hemisphere) and watch. At first the ice will seem to melt very slowly, almost like watching grass grow. But as thawing proceeds the rate appears to speed up until toward the end it virtually disappears before your eyes.

Something like that could be taking place in the Arctic Ocean. I haven’t looked up recent figures, but a few years ago to the best of my recollection I reported that the ice had averaged about ten feet in thickness back in the 1950s, and by the early 2000′s it had been reduced to only about three feet. It’s probably even thinner today, making the ice cover even more prone to disappearing. At right is a map of the present coverage, again as of August 13. Both these graphics are from the website of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (see link above). The white area, of course, shows the extent of the ice coverage and the purple lines indicate the previous “normal” boundaries, again the average during the 1979-2000 decades.. There’s obviously a lot of open water right now that was ice-covered at this date in past year, and that water is happily absorbing those solar rays. The annual minimum coverage, by the way, usually occurs in mid-September so we have about another month of melting ahead.

You might note the little X in the right center of the ice area. That represents the North Pole. A friend of mine recently visited that remote spot on a nuclear-powered Russian ice breaking ship. I remember a few years ago reading about how a similar vessel arrived at the pole to discover an area of open water…the pole itself was ice free. Quite a disappointment for the tourists I’m sure, because one of the great thrills of taking such an expensive trip is to get out and walk around on the ice at the top of the world.

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Realism and Inevitability

Friday, November 18th, 2011

By David L. Brown

Those who have followed this website over the past five-plus years know that a major theme of my ranting and posturing has been in relation to the very real dangers of economic, environmental, social and technological breakdowns that are looming over our civilization. A major theme has been climate change, which along with resource depletion lies at the heart of the threat.

As reported in earlier posts, I have made the transition from pessimist to realist and now accept that there is almost certainly nothing that can be done to effectively turn the tide of change that is dooming the planet to an uncertain future. As a realist I must view things as they really are, not as we might hope they could be. It is one thing to say that global warming can be reversed and the damage prevented. Yes, it is absolutely possible, as are many other things. But will it happen? Sadly, there isn’t a snowflake’s chance in Hades that it will.

Why, you may be thinking, there he goes back into pessimist mode. Not so. Any rational examination of the facts —human nature, history, the desire of people to avoid change, and the stark economic truth that human civilization is verging on insolvency — will reveal a multitude of reasons why those difficult steps that would be required to reverse global warming will not be taken.

Simply put, we don’t want to do it, we can’t afford to do it, and the harsh truth is that it is far too late to take effective steps without creating economic and social chaos. The coming change is inevitable and unstoppable.

So, what is the alternative? Obviously, to put our collective heads in the sand like the proverbial ostriches and pretend there is nothing wrong.

It is to me a rather extraordinary fact that during the past year a few minor blunders by climate change scientists have been blown into an enormous mountain of denial. Climate change has been declared as a scam and the deniers have won the day. It’s not real, never was, all a bunch of hokum cooked up by scientists in search of research grants, fame and fortune. Let’s all put our fingers in our ears and chant “La, La, La, I Can’t Hear You!” whenever anyone mentions the true facts of global change that face us.

Now in my realist view, this is a necessary condition. If we cannot reverse climate change, why should we make the sacrifices and accept the consequences of a failed attempt? Better to let things run their course. There is another “solution,” one that is far easier for humankind to accept because it requires no effort whatsoever. Left to her own initiative, Gaia (a.k.a. Mother Nature) will take care of this problem as she always has. She has kept the planet on course for several billion years, and there is no doubt she will continue to do so for many more. When she is done, the “problem” will not exist. Like the dinosaurs, the human race will likely be extinct and our civilizations mere ruins beneath the drifting sands.

Oh how  cynical we realists can be, when the facts create the near certainty of our coming troubles. And those facts are written large in the everyday news (although ignored or twisted by the deniers as they perform their necessary function of guiding our heads into the sand). Just the other day I read that England is experiencing the warmest November in 300 years. Nowhere did I see anyone suggest that is in any way related to the possibility of global warming. I live in the Southwest, where the past decade has seen almost unrelenting drought. Climate change? Nah, just, you know, natural variations and probably caused by the Sun.

It is interesting that in addition to denying the fact of climate change, deniers go out of their way to explain there is no connection between climate change and human activity. Hmm, want it both ways, not only doesn’t it exist, but we had nothing to do with it. It reminds me of a favorite quote from Bart Simpson, who famously said “I wasn’t there, I didn’t do it, and you can’t prove anything.” Indeed, that could be the motto of the climate change deniers.

For my own part, I plan to live out my life the best way I can. Like all creatures of nature, I face my own personal extinction. What the human race does for itself as a species is up to the future to tell, and is wholly in the hands of Gaia. She will not shirk her duties and as recounted in reports of her Old Testament persona, Her will shall be done.

 

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Posted in Climate Change, Essays and Opinion, Melting Planet | Comments Off

The Tragedy of Climate Change Denial

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

By David L. Brown

Well, we all know that it has been really cold in many places this winter, and that that is proof positive that global warming is a hoax. Oh, didn’t you know that? It’s true, and all you need to do to convince yourself of that is to listen to raving ignorant pols and pundits who heed the malicious maunderings of climate change deniers.

Seriously, there is something strange about people who claim that because it’s cold in the winter that the planet is not warming. Did anyone ever predict that warm winters would result? Only the most ignorant and mentally challenged idiot would make such a claim … or so it would seem. In fact, we hear that kind of clueless statement rather frequently. Does that mean there are a lot of ignorant folks around, many of them in places of authority? Well, perhaps. It’s not enough to merely observe that they are ill-informed, because they have bought into a thesis that is  supported not by science, but by disinformation and lies.

The professional deniers, many of them driven by monetary support from special interests, have been spinning and twisting the facts of climate change like a cat’s cradle. They make up facts, distort others, make ridiculous claims, take minor point out of context and blow them up as big as Mount Everest and, well, they use every trick in the propaganda handbook. And tthey get away with it because a large percentage of human beings were never taught the art of analytic reasoning, the ability to sort out the truth from the deluge of lies and misinformation. Those who have been labeled as sheep and whose understanding of logic is minuscule or nonexistent.

There’s another factor at work here, I suspect, and that is the desire not to know that the world may be in trouble due to human activities. After all, what a far more comfortable thing it is to believe that things are just hunky and also dory and that everything will always be just wonderful? It’s human nature to suppress thoughts about bad things. An example that comes to mind is the way Americans almost unanimously denied the coming of World War Two, right up until December 7, 1941. That day something happened, and the world changed.

global-warming-250x326Here we see a hint of the principle of tipping points, in that instance the Pearl Harbor attack. The denial of climate change is likely to follow a similar pattern. Until there are obvious signs of the effect of global warming, little is likely to be done about it. Nevermind that there already are significant signs of exactly those effects, such as disappearing Arctic ice, warming oceans, melting tundra. Those actual pieces of evidence are ignored and countered with anecdotes about cold winter days, snow storms, and conspiracy theories alleging that thousands of scientists are engaged in an enormous hoax led by the evil Al Gore.

What is the reality? Well, here’s one: the year 2010, despite whatever you may have heard, was probably the warmest on record. Here’s another factoid: the ten warmest years since records began being kept occurred since 1998. Those are facts, as confirmed by three separate scientific organizations. Here’s the report as seen on the BBC website (yes, you have to go beyond the borders of America to get much news about such things as “facts.”)

2010 was the warmest year since global temperature records began in 1850 – although margins of uncertainty make it a statistical tie with 1998 and 2005.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) concludes 2010 was 0.53C warmer than the average for the period 1961-90 – a period commonly used as a baseline.

The 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1998, it notes.

The WMO analysis combines data from three leading research agencies, and is regarded as the most authoritative.

The three records are maintained by the US-based National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) and National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), and jointly in the UK by the Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU).

They use broadly the same data from weather stations, ocean buoys and satellites across the world; but each analyses that data in different ways, leading to slight differences in their conclusions.

But those are only scientific facts, and thus much less persuasive then anecdotes about cold days in winter (it’s winter, for crying out loud, what do they expect?) and unusual snowfalls. People see what they want to see, and if on some future day they see the results of catastrophic climate tipping points it will probably be far too late to do anything about it. That’s the tragedy of denial.

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Good News for Polar Bears (Or Maybe Not)

Thursday, December 16th, 2010

By David L. Brown

Hooray! According to Reuters, polar bear researchers have determined that the iconic bears may not be doomed after all. Here’s the lead from the article, which you can read here:

(Reuters) – All is not lost for the polar bear, despite the rapid melt of Arctic sea ice that they need to survive, researchers reported on Wednesday.

The study was reported by a leading polar bear expert associated with the U.S. Geological Survey and published in the prestigious journal Nature, so it’s gotta be good solid science, right? Well, of course. This is great news, because last we heard the bears were headed toward extinction. So let’s see what’s changed in  their favor. Um, the article goes on to state:

[the] new study concludes that significant curbs in carbon emissions would effectively cool the planet, rebuild ice and save the Arctic habitat and the bears in it.

Polar bear facepalm
Polar bear facepalm

Well, there you have it. Simple, really. Why didn’t I think of that. It’s a real Homer Simpson Doh! moment that somebody didn’t figure this out before. All we need to do is reverse global warming, by dramatically reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere, thus allowing the Arctic ice to rebuild, and voila! No problemo for those white bears. Heck, we can probably do that by tomorrow, or at least by Wednesday.

And while the article doesn’t mention it, I expect that fairies will  appear to make sure there are plenty of seals for the bears to eat, and unicorns will be seen prancing among the ice floes spreading multi-colored confetti to brighten the picture even more. For the polar bears, everything will be fine, just fine, so we don’t have to worry about that anymore, do we? Whew!

Seriously, sometimes you have to wonder don’t you? Personally, I’m still standing by the prediction I made about five years ago that the Arctic Ocean would become essentially ice free in the summer of 2015. You know,  due to reality and all? Yeah, that, the inconvenient thingy.

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California Stays the Course on Green Energy

Friday, November 12th, 2010

By David L. Brown

Another example of the way in which energy moguls work to block development of sustainable, clean energy was the recent introduction of Prop. 23 in California. This proposition, which came to a vote on November 2, quite simply was aimed at dismantling the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act, passed in 2006. Also known as AB 32,  the GWSA calls for the state’s producers of greenhouse gas to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020. Many initiatives are well under way to replace fossil fuels, create greater efficiency in existing technologies, and move the state toward a cleaner “green” future. Beginning to take effect in 2012, the act will require about a 15 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from present levels by the target date ten years from now.

This seems a moderate goal, perhaps even less than might be hoped. But nonetheless, it had drawn fire from the usual suspects, who organized Prop. 23 to demand that AB32 be suspended until the state’s employment rate dropped below 5.5 percent for a full 12 months. Because this is an unlikely event (that level has been reached only three times in the past 40 years), the proposition in reality was a move to permanently gut the GWSA.

And who was behind this end run to set California up to continue down the dead end path toward oblivion as resource depletion continues to undermine the old economic infrastructure while forward-looking nations such as China and Germany stake their futures on rapid development of alternative energy? Why, the usual suspects, of course. Although the California Republican and Libertarian Parties signed on to support the proposition, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger strongly opposed the proposition and was joined by GOP candidates Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman among others, proving that the party structure is increasingly at odds with its own candidates.

But politicians weren’s the real conspirators behind the proposition. The individuals and corporate entities that acted in support of the proposition wrapped themselves in a cloak of deception, claiming to be concerned with jobs. In fact, they called their effort the California Jobs Initiative. And yet, a look at the list of major donors to the movement tells a different story. Top contributor was a company called Valero Energy ($4.05 million), followed by (among others) Tesoro ($1.525 million), Flint Hills Resources, LP ($1 million; this is a subsidiary of Koch Industries, a major supporter of anti-global warming initiatives); Occidental Petroleum ($300K), National Petrochemical and Refiners Assn. ($100K), Tower Energy Group ($200K); World Oil Corp. ($100K); Southern Counties Oil ($50K); Frontier Oil ($50K);  Murray Energy ($30K); and Berry Petrochemical ($30K).

Hmm, do we see a pattern here? Are these leading supporters of a move to block California from improving its greenhouse gas footprint acting out of concern for the jobs of Californians—or from their own self-interested desire to continue to profit from fossil fuels and the destruction of the environment? It’s rather clear that the answer is the latter, the profit one, the evil one, rather than the charitable desire to protect jobs. for ordinary Californians. In fact, suspending the act would have put paid to at least 50,000 new jobs relating to clean energy initiatives.

To put this in further perspective, let’s take a closer look at some of those supporters of the proposal to block the green act. No. 1 contributor Valero operates two oil refineries in California. No. 2 donor Tesoro is the 24th largest producer of air pollution in the United States. And Koch Industries, the third largest contributor, is one of the top 10 corporate polluters in the nation.

What more can we say, except to applaud the wisdom of California voters who soundly defeated Prop. 23 by a 22 percent margin, approximately 61 percent to 39 percent. The Golden State may face deep and serious problems but at least its people have the courage to stand up against polluters and those that Ayn Rand called “looters,” the corporate highway robbers who want to continue their nasty ways at all costs.

California, and the world at large, needs to vastly expand support of alternative energy programs. It’s not the time to listen to those who advise us to inserting our heads into the sand in ostrich-like denial.

In an editorial written prior to the election, Science magazine editor Bruce Alberts had this to say:

The public and private investment in energy innovation now totals only about 0.3% of U.S. energy expenditures. California’s Proposition 23 needs to be soundly defeated, sending a clear signal to Washington that the people of the United States are ready and willing to mobilize its considerable resources in the vital drive to a sustainable energy future.

To which I add, bravo! And thanks to California voters the message has been sent.

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Posted in Age of Oil, Climate Change, Conservation Issues, Economics, Energy Technology, Fossil Fuels, Melting Planet, Politics, Pollution | Comments Off

Those Strange Climate Change Deniers

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

By David L. Brown

Global warming/climate change deniers are strange fellows indeed. Despite the overwhelming evidence that human-caused global warming is real and may seriously harm our planet, they continue to raise doubts. One of their arguments is that most scientists refuse to admit that global warming has been absolutely, positively proven once and for all. Well, if that’s the case, then obviously there’s a lot of room for doubt, right?

Well, not really, because you see nothing in science is absolute. A scientist can absolutely believe that any theory is correct, but the very nature of science is to question. That’s why centuries after Galileo and Newton the theory of gravity is still being examined, studied, tested and refined. It doesn’t mean that scientists deny the force of gravity, but that they constantly seek to advance knowledge about it.

Science, unlike so many other things, is not based on assumptions and “faith,” but only upon that which can be demonstrated over and over again. Just as Einstein moved our understanding beyond that of Newton, the enormous Large Hadron Collider now being ramped up at CERN has as one of its most important challenges to find something called the Higgs Boson, a proposed exotic particle that may hold the secret of gravity. Gravity is not absolutely, positively proven and as a scientific theory it never will be because that is the very nature of science.

So no responsible scientist will state that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is absolutely, positively, 100 percent proven. It’s just not the way science works. Asking a scientist to state otherwise is like asking a husband if he has stopped beating his wife yet. There is no proper answer, because it is an inappropriate question that’s being asked.

So we can conclude that all responsible scientists believe there is a small chance that AGW is wrong. A very small minority of serious scientists think there are real problems with the theory, of greenhouse warming and that’s fine because they are acting in the true tradition of science. However, the vast majority are virtually certain it is a valid theory, and that’s where the deniers get their chance to confuse the issue. “Virtually certain” and “absolutely certain” are not the same thing. If the uncertainty is extremely small, chances are that it will be assumed to be true, and that’s where we stand with most climate scientists today. But if you pinned down an astronomer to state with absolute certainty that the Sun will rise in the East tomorrow, he or she must of necessity hedge the answer., no matter how slightly. We don’t know how, why, or whether it’s possible that event might not occur, but the uncertainty exists, even if it’s one chance in a centillion (that’s 10 to the 303rd power, or 1 with 303 zeros after it).

This reminds me of the paradoxes of the ancient Greek Zeno of Elea who jerked his fellow philosophers around by arguing that Achilles, no matter how fast he ran, could never catch a tortoise in a race. He explained that each time Achilles reached the point where the tortoise was, the tortoise would have already advanced further, leaving Achilles behind.

This kind of reasoning fits the logic often used by climate change deniers. They say that since the theory has not yet been proven, then it must be false. Their tortoise moves ahead of every argument, and since the experts are held to the rigor of the scientific process it appears to the uninitiated that the deniers have a point.

They love to remind the general public that AGW is “only a theory,” without explaining that the definitions of “theory” in science and in everyday life are quite different. A scientific theory is a model that has been rigidly tested and challenged and continues to be refined, like the theory of gravity. An everyday theory such as you might hear in a corner bar or from the mouth of a denier is just about anything you can imagine, no matter how unlikely or counter intuitive. There are those who believe the Earth is flat, and they stand by their opinion to the bitter end.

Finally, here’s some eye candy to add to the argument that deniers come from a strange place, an editorial cartoon from USA Today:

photo-thumb-500x376-57911

What indeed if we create a better world, and all for nothing. What a tragedy that would be.

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Drought Likely to Spread, Perhaps Soon

Wednesday, November 10th, 2010

By David L. Brown

Note: This item is cross-posted from Ag Dead End (www.agdeadend.com).

Drought is already rearing its head in many parts of the world, most recently in north China, Australia, and Russia and the Ukraine. Experts say we can expect more in the coming years. Here’s a snippet from an article from Reuters posted on the Scientific American website:

Increasing drought has long been forecast as a consequence of climate change, but a new study from the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research projects serious impact by the 2030s. Impacts by century’s end could go beyond anything in the historical record, the study suggests.

The study warns that by 2100 unprecedented drought can be expected in some of the world’s most populous areas, including southern Europe, northern Africa, the western U.S. and much of Latin America. Some areas, including much of Canada and Russia may see increased rainfall — which isn’t necessarily a good thing since rain in excess can be as damaging to farm production as drought. Just this year heavy rains significantly reduced crop yields in Canada, and last year’s harvest in the eastern Corn Belt was plagued with wet conditions.

How serious can things get in those regions threatened with serious drought in the coming years? The article explains:

To get an idea of how severe the drought might get, scientists use a measure called the Palmer Drought Severity Index, or PDSI. A positive score is wet, a negative score is dry and a score of zero is neither overly wet nor dry.

As an example, the most severe drought in recent history, in the Sahel region of western Africa in the 1970s, had a PDSI of -3 or -4.

By contrast, the new study indicates some areas with high populations could see drought in the -15 or -20 range by the end of the century.

We don’t have any concept of how serious drought of that severity would be, since it is beyond our experience. The only thing we can conclude is that it will not be good.

Climate change is a serious threat because our civilization has been built (and in fact has over-built) upon conditions as they have been in recent centuries. Significant change in climate patterns, something that is probably already taking place, has the potential to gravely impact human society. The most important message is that those changes might be taking place faster than expected, and with the possibility of tipping points the picture could change even more quickly. Drought, excess rainfall, more serious storms, hotter temperatures—all these will undermine the ability of farmers to produce enough food to feed an increasingly hungry world.

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A New ‘Champion’ for Anti-Climate Change

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

By David L. Brown

We’ve railed for several years about the support of anti-global warming activists by self-interested corporations. Now, according to an article on Scientific American’s web site, here, there’s a new champion handing out money to shills for the energy companies that want to keep the Earth on the greenhouse gas merry-go-round.

The new villain in this tragedy is Koch Industries of Wichita, KS, which has surpassed even the mighty ExxonMobil as a source of funding for climate change deniers. The source of the news story is a report produced by the environmental organization Greenpeace. According to SciAm:

Koch subsidiaries own refineries, oil pipelines, fertilizer facilities, coal and cement transportation systems, and other industrial operations. The company also has several foundations through which it gave $24.9 million to conservative groups between 2005 and 2008, the report says.

“The combination of foundation-funded front-groups, big lobbying budgets, [political action committee] donations, and direct campaign contributions makes Koch Industries and the Koch brothers among the most formidable obstacles to advancing clean energy and climate policy in the U.S.,” Greenpeace says.

The energy conglomerate, which is 84 percent owned by brothers Charles and David Koch, helps support activities by individual purveyors of “junk science” and such conservative think tanks as the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute.

Anti-climate change is an insidious endeavor that attempts to spread misinformation by picking at small details, many of them of no consequence or even non-existent, as illustrated here:

gwcriticsClimate scientists are ill-prepared to defend their work against this kind of attack. They work through a system of peer review, which means their ideas and data are evaluated by experts in their field, rather than by public opinion. Unfortunately, the press and the general public are pretty much unaware of how science works, and it seems perfectly natural to the average Joe Sixpack that any talking head on TV or even just some guy in a bar can have a say in the evaluation of scientific work. In fact, as I pointed out in my  essay “Science, Propaganda and Climate Change,” here, the anti-climate change activities are classic examples of the kind of deliberate misleading of the public that was practiced by the regimes of Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong.

The parallel with anti-evolutionary activity such as so-called “intelligent design” is apparent, but in that case the efforts to discredit science are based on the mistaken religious belief that evolution somehow invalidates their perception of a supernatural power. (Doesn’t it ever occur to them that if there were an all-powerful deity, evolution would logically be the method through which that deity works?)

No, the program of anti-climate change agitation is clearly based not on faith but on personal or corporate greed. In the case of those who work and spend millions to confuse the issue of greenhouse gas warming, the only apparent motivation is to allow themselves to continue to profit from the “development” and use of fossil fuels. Take away the profit, and there would be no incentive to make up stories and spread lies to muddle the issue.

The Koch Brothers obviously have every profit incentive to prevent the world from reducing emissions of greenhouse gas, and they are putting their money where their interests lie. According to the SciAm report, Koch Industries has supported misinformation campaigns purporting to prove that polar bears are not threatened; encouraged suspicions that climate scientists cherry-pick data and suppress findings that don’t suggest global warming is taking place; and financed studies that “misinform the public on renewable energy benefits.”

I find it ironic that the deniers, whose motivation is to make money from continued fossil fuel use, criticize those who push for alternative sources such as wind and solar power as greedy profiteers. This is a classic tactic well-known to Nicolai Machiavelli, Joseph Goebbels, and Saul Alinsky. There is an old saying about pots and kettles, but in this case perhaps the kettle isn’t even black, only the pot.

Will the confusion about global warming ever come to an end? Yes, it will, for nothing can go on forever. Unfortunately, this mess will probably come to a conclusion either when there is no more money to be made from exploiting fossil fuels, or when the Earth can no longer  support industrial civilization. These two conditions are not mutually exclusive, and the final scenario could include both factors.

As to the odds in favor of dramatic action by governments around the world to turn the tide against global warming, I can only suggest that the power of greed is mighty and the love of money and power is a sickness more terrible than any mere disease.

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How the Earth Was Lost

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

By David L. Brown

I have been silent in recent weeks on the subject of climate change. My reason: I am gobsmacked by the success of the anti-global warming activities that have taken place. Science and reason are in full retreat in the face of the most astounding set of charges, accusations, and declarations I have ever seen.

vesuvius_in_eruptionWhat can you say when faced with the unimaginable? Think of it as like standing in the middle of a Roman village named Pompeii in 79 A.D., gaping at the sight of Mount Vesuvius blowing itself to pieces. “Oh my goodness!” just would not quite suffice, and more expressive reactions would only be pointless profanity. You would be  facing the unimaginable. You would be staring at the end of the world as you know it.

What has happened on the issues of global warming and climate change in the past few months is truly bizarre and frankly unexpected. First thousands of e-mails were hacked and several statements cherry picked out of context, twisted, and made to look like scientists were in disagreement and fighting among themselves on questions pertaining to global warming.

Well, duh, that’s what scientists do! It’s their job to pick at the edges, to squabble among themselves, to try to knock down ideas, to, well, disagree. If they did not do these things, there would be no science, no progress, no real knowledge, just superstition and the recognition of the obvious.

The most amazing thing about that phase of the operation was that among all those thousands of e-mails over a dozen years that the deniers couldn’t find anything any more damning than the extremely thin gruel they did.

Do not scientists have a right to be ironic, as in making a comment during a blizzard that questions global warming? Did that scientist in Colorado who did so believe there is no global warming because it was cold in Colorado in the winter? No, certainly not, and yet that ironic, human, personal statement was seized upon with an Aha! that could be heard all the way to Antarctica, where just today a chunk of ice described as the size of a small country fell into the ocean.

Fact check: An ironic personal comment is not scientific data. It is nothing, in fact. And there is a big part of the problem with this attack: Most of the “flaws” that have been found are on the nature of minor typographic errors, statements of opinion, guesses about the future, and other things that are not scientific data at all.

Such it was with the supposedly egregious “error” concerning the rate of melting of “the Himalayan glaciers.” This appeared on page four hundred and some of the second volume of the latest IPCC report, a work comprising nearly 3000 pages. It was one sentence, and it contained a typo apparently. It was not presented as data, not used as the basis for even a general observation much less the entire bulwark of global warming evidence. It was merely part of a huge compendium of evidence provided by several thousand scientists and cooperatively vetted by representatives of more than a hundred nations of the world. It was nothing.

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