My West | Column by Todd Wilkinson
Where Are Bush, Cheney On Science Of Climate Change?
By Todd Wilkinson, 6-22-06
With two years remaining in their administration, we have arrived at an inquisitive juncture that could ultimately define President George W. Bush's and Vice President Dick Cheney's place in history:
Will they exhibit the same level of intellectual curiosity--and, by extension, tax dollar investment--in examining climate change as they do in aggressively probing for new possible sources of oil and natural gas?
For your summer reading pleasure, go to New West's overview of the coming impacts of global warming on the western half of America by clicking here: Climate Change Hits The American West.
There are many positive things happening politically and socially on the climate change front that I will mention later, but for the moment, ponder this paradox which Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney find themselves in:
As the evidence in the scientific community continues to mount, do they have the moral courage to admit that their early position of denying that climate change exists, was wrong?
Or, as Skillet Glacier disappears from the face of Mt. Moran in the Tetons of Wyoming, will the Vice President, who loves to fish the Snake River while at home in Jackson Hole, turn toward the melting ice field and chalk it up blithely to a natural warming cycle?
Either way, as the U.S. government justifies spending billions of dollars by assisting energy companies in searching for the next big fossil fuel bonanza—based on the rationale that American society needs to know what's out there--our elected leaders must turn to science.
In the past most presidents, including the current president's father and former President George Herbert Walker Bush, relied on the prestigious National Academy of Sciences —the most esteemed scientific body in the country charged with reporting to Congress—for answers.
In the early 1990s--15 years ago--Mr. Bush, the elder, was told that human-caused climate change was real. Bush Sr's scientific advisors pointed to climate change as one of the most important environmental issues society would have to grapple with.
In fact, every major equivalent to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in other countries, has come to the same conclusion. Now,a report from The National Academy of Sciences reveals that Earth is hotter on average than it's been in 400 years. Scientists also said that half of the warm water energy wrapped up in summer storms was likely a cause of severe hurricanes. Moreover, scientists attributed the rise in temperature and warmer oceans, at least in part, to human causes, namely the pouring of more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Other discoveries are highlighted at the Pew Center On Global Climate Change that is worth visiting.
These are timely revelations considering that the Montana Public Interest Research Groupsaid that federal data shows the Rocky Mountain region notched a 292 percent increase in carbon doxide emissions between 1960 and 2001—the largest percentage increase of any regionin the country. And in these boom-boom times of inward population migration, it is certain the Rockies' output has increased the last five years.
So here's the rub facing Bush and Cheney. Are they willing to spend the bucks to show definitively they were wrong or right?
As Elizabeth Kolbert, a staff writer for The New Yorker Magazine and author of the best-selling book on climate change, "Fields Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change", wrote recently in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times: "Meanwhile, it's crucial to understand --although the Bush administration would apparently prefer not to -- that uncertainty cuts both ways.
"As the administration likes to point out," Kolbert notes, "the U.S. spends about $2 billion a year on climate-change research. It's possible that as scientists learn more about how the climate works, they will discover that the threshold of dangerous change lies further away than is estimated, and Washington's do-nothing policy will come to seem justified. But the reverse is just as likely. In fact, nearly everything that has been discovered about the climate system recently has tended to suggest that the threshold is closer than suspected."
Many scientific experts say the threshold for taking action to curb the worst effects of climate change is a decade. That's the message from experts also contained in Al Gore's new movie An Inconvenient Truth.
As this administration and the current Congress continue to abandon their fiscal conservatism, spending $20 billion or more on climate research—that's chump change compared to waging the war in Iraq, rebuilding New Orleans and helping industry find more barrels of oil--shouldn't be an issue. But for some reason, it is.
Behind the curve, this administration needs to play catch up with reality. As I mentioned, there are lots of positive actions already taking place in spite of resistance from the White House:
- The Western Governors Conference, including Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, recently agreed that more needs to be done by the states to curb greenhouse gases;
- Hundreds of mayors, representing nearly 50 million Americans in U.S. cities, are trying to get carbon emissions reduced in their jurisdictions and have signed the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement;
- More than 400,000 Americans, including Republican Sen. John McCain and a growing number of citizens in the Rockies, have joined the Virtual March On Washington to demand political action.
- Last week, Congressional leaders in both the House and Senate got behind an initiative called 25 X 25 to deliver 25 percent of America's energy needs through alternative, sustainable energy by 2025.
- In Jackson Hole, which could serve as a model for the West several business leaders stepped forward and committed to tithing a tiny percentage of their $20 million in profits to an environmental effort called One Percent for the Tetons--an offshoot of One Percent for the Planet.
Where are the President and Vice President? Tourists in the Tetons may want to ask Mr. Cheney that question when he arrives in Jackson Hole soon for his summer vacation.
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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200776,00.html
Also, we do have reason to believe already that Cheney is at stage two of the four stages of climate change denial:
http://achangeinthewind.typepad.com/achangeinthewind/2006/06/wellconnected_c.html
I ask this everytime I see articles on global warming by believers. Please tell us how you are changing your life to counter it. Change can come one person at a time, laws do not necessarily do it.
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/pressreleases/pressrelease24jul2003.htm
As of 2003, 4.5 billion might seem like chunk change to some or chump change to others but it real is money to people like me. 3 years since brings the total to over 10 billion. From the URL: '"The Bush Administration has brought a total government spending on climate-change related programs to $4.5 billion. This critical investment announced today will accelerate select high priority research projects and climate observations that will help us fill critical knowledge gaps."'
President Bush's Strategic Plan for the Climate Change Science Program: http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/stratplan2003/default.htm
There is also a very real debate over how much the Bush Administration is actually authorizing for spending on climate— and it is set against an atmosphere that has been antagonistic/repressive toward government scientists who have said things, based on their findings, that didn't jibe with the Administration's "official" position on climate change.
As the Administration and Congress glibly shirk the notion of fiscal conservatism for a grab bag of special interest projects, such as opening the door for spending potentially billions of dollars on Bridges to Nowhere in Alaska, the argument that it's time to cut corners and starting with climate change research—which has been a pittance of what it should be—doesn't wash.
I agree with you completely that the government and citizens need to scrutinize how tax dollars are spent. In the press release above there is a statement that reads: "This critical investment announced today will accelerate slect high priority research projects and climate observations that will help us fill critical knowledge gaps."
If this Administration's premise was first, that climate change doesn't exist, and second, that scientists speaking out in saying it does, represent a threat to the political agenda of those in power, how much accelerated scientific learning, condoned by the White House, can there actually be? To date, most of what this Administration has done has amounted to a stall tactic.
Frankly it seems to me that "global warming" has been a means of slamming the president and vice president of the United States for not curing it. Might I remind you that congress appropriates money, not the president nor vp. Have you talked to your congressmen?
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/6/22/173043.shtml?s=et
In 2002, http://www.conwebwatch.com made these additional points about Newsmax:
-It distorts reality by running only negative news about its political enemies and avoiding bad news about its political friends.
-it spent a lot of time misrepresenting Judicial Watch press releases as NewsMax stories.
-NewsMax CEO Christopher Ruddy presented tabloid rumors as fact in stating the Clintons were selling their house in New York. Today, long after the story can be calling nothing but false, it remains on NewsMax, and it has never published a correction or apology. (Even the New York Times issued a clarification of its Kissinger article. When was the last time you saw NewsMax correct anything?)
-NewsMax tried to distort reality even more than usual immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks by ham-handedly denouncing anything that could be remotely construed as criticism of President Bush with terms starting with "anti-Americanism" and going all the way to "treason."
We have deserts where there were once forests.
The Amazon jungle was supposed to have been gone by now according to all the alarmists in the 70's.
I have heard (read) scientists say that the earth is beyond help and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. Why then waste money on it?
I have heard that China produces more green house gases in a month than the U.S.A. does in an entire year. I have heard similar comparisons with India.
They say the earth is as warm as it has been in 400 years. What caused the global warming 400 years ago?
Anybody...? Anybody...?
Your wee diatribe is filled with inaccuracies.
First, No one is saying there hasn't been warming in the past.
Second, very, very few scientists have said there's nothing we can do about global warming.
Third, The United States of America is the biggest greenhouse gas producer in the world. China is second, and India is in the top ten. When you compare per capita emissions, the US is far, far ahead of countries like China and India, which have far larger populations.
<a href="http://www.scidev.net/news/index.cfm?fuseacti>China is second in greenhouse emissions</a>
Fourth, if you want to know what caused past warmings, do some research. There are different ways that global climate can change. However, the speed of the current warming, coupled with the exponentially increasing emissions of greenhouse gases by humans, puts the blame on ourselves.
Your "challenging" questions are easily answered with a simple google search.
>>On energy, Tester said Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer has “good ideas” about coal-to-gas conversion technology for the vast coal deposits in eastern Montana.<<
Meanwhile the Billings Gazette reports on Governor Schweitzer and coal. http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/06/24/news/state/72-plant.txt
>>Gov. Brian Schweitzer says he supports the Highwood Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant proposed for east of Great Falls.
"I'm supporting the Highwood project," Schweitzer told the Great Falls Tribune's editorial board Friday. "It'll be one of the cleanest coal plants in the country."
The plant does not use a technology known as Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle or IGCC, a process some environmentalists prefer for its low emissions and because it captures carbon dioxide.
The Highwood plant will "not have the ability of capturing carbon dioxide," Schweitzer conceded... Schweitzer said over the last half-century, coal production has increased under Democratic administrations, but flattened out when Republicans held the governor's seat.<<
If the leftists of the West support Democrats in power and those wishing to take over power like Tester, will those leftists accept responsibility for the "inconvenient truth?" ;)
The entire scientific community thinks you are wrong.
As for Montana's politics, please stick to the topic at hand.
You say the entire scientific community???? Untrue. But that's one of those "inconvenient truths." Do a search on Richard Lindzen, William Gray, and Neil Frank to name just a few of the noted and accomplished scientists that are skeptics. By the way there are scientists OTUS (outside the US) that are skeptical as well. Check out Russia and Canada for starters.
You overstate your case when you insist that "entire scientific community" believes the way you do. Perhaps most of the loudest. Certainly NOT the entire scientific community. To begin wiht you are taking in a lot of territory when you claim something like that, there are a lot of folks involved in science in a variety of ways that do not comment at all.
This whole issue is a money raising issue for the environmental groups. Their record on predicting weather, much less climate is not all that great.
The nations permier science policy body group says there is no debate.
Folks who say otherwise are doggy-paddling in a sailboat world.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13474997/
None of your scientists actually address the fact that 150 years ago the "Little Ice Age" was ending, and 30 years ago, scientists were just as alarmed as these guys, but their alarm was over global freezing.
It seems this hockey stick thing was done by 3 scientists? Even if it were an established fact jsut appropriating billions of dollars when no one knows anything concrete to do is silly.
>>What will happen when the volcano on La Palma collapses? Scientists predict that it will generate a wave that will be almost inconceivably destructive, far bigger than anything ever witnessed in modern times. It will surge across the entire Atlantic in a matter of hours, engulfing the whole US east coast, sweeping away everything in its path up to 20km inland. Boston would be hit first, followed by New York, then all the way down the coast to Miami and the Caribbean.<<
I have never seen a study that shows exactly which scientists believe in man caused global warming and which do not. Meanwhile just because you SAY that so many believe doesn't make it so.
See: http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm
http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/INGLES/Warm.html
and the work of the Ocean and Climate Change Institute
Counting noses isn't about science. It's about politics and agendas. Remember Galileo? His finger points the way.
http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/viewArticle.do?id=9986
http://www.epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=257909
just wondering...
Once again, science is based on probabilities. When the majority of scientists say that there is a "high degree of likelihood", it is probably a good idea to listen. Also, there is a huge difference between predicting weather and predicting climate. Weather, if you remember, means the day to day conditions. Climate is the overall general patterns and trends. Looking at larger trends and predicting where they will go is much more reliable than figuring out if it's going to rain in three days.
As far as money goes, there are plenty of things we could take away billions of dollars from. Say, the war in Iraq for example, or maybe from subsidizing new coal plants... I see no reason, regardless of whether or not (since obviously a few of us don't want to believe it) coal and oil contribute to climate change, to continue using and putting so much money, time, and power into finding new sources of a resource that will ultimately run out. Why can't we put some effort into becoming sustainable? Does anyone have a good reason besides the White House ties to big oil?
Also, the 'hockey stick graph' is just a graph. It's a picture that has an impact. Just because it isn't 100% accurate (the pictures that I've seen had error bars that seemed to show what the NAS report said) doesn't mean that climate change doesn't exist. Changes in climate that occur this quickly are extremely rare. Every day there are more reports, more evidence that it's caused by the activities of man. Why are some of you so stubborn in accepting this?
For the difference between predicting weather and climate, think of flipping a coin. The overall trend (let's say it's analogous to climate) is that roughly half the flips will be heads and half tails. You can predict fairly accurately that, with enough flips (enough time), this trend will emerge. However, there's only a 50% chance each time that you'll be right about the individual flip (day-to-day weather). I think that is a pretty good analogy for the difference between weather and climate prediction. Hope it helps.
Tell that to this area!
Just tell me exactly what you want the money spent on. And before you try to shut down the coal plants you might decide if you really and truly want to do without electricity, because they are making a lot of it.
I think your coin flipping is about as close to an accurate picture of global warming as we are going to get. When they flipped it 30 years ago, it came up cold, so we shuold have spent billions on research on how to make it warmer....or maybe they did.
As for the war in Iraq, maybe terrorists blowing up a building here or there is fine with you, it isn't with me. Terrorism has been allowed to get completely out of hand for way too many years.
Finally, for the war in Iraq, we created terrorists in Iraq. The terrorists responsible for 9/11 were either out of Iran or Saudi Arabia (recruited by Iranians). We made the wrong war. And a war on terrorism, an ideology, is unwinnable.
Today in science, the precautionary principle should come up in topics like disease control, endangered species, medical studies, and environmental science because the cost of failing to detect (or failing to act) usually exceeds the cost of reparative measures. Science must balance traditional statistical probabilities with the costs of failing to detect. This is also different from predicting the weather (as mentioned above), because there is no cost to being incorrect—by the way, the weather man is NEVER incorrect; 50% chance of rain is correct regardless of actual outcome of the prediction. Yet a 75% chance of rain might cause you to cancel a picnic because it is likely be a wasted effort.
There is also a trend in politics to misunderstand scientific probabilities. For example I recently co-published an article in UC-Berkley’s a prestigious environmental law journal [McGarvey and Marshall. 2005. Making sense of scientists and “sound science:” Truth and consequences beyond the endangered species act. Ecology Law Quarterly V.32(1):73-111]. In this paper, we reported on some grossly misunderstood statistics that emulate the coin toss example discussed above. A study was conducted that reported a significance level of 32% (for the results indicate statistical significance of the treatments, we expect a significance level less than 5%). This was misunderstood as indicating that there was a 68% chance of no-effect—bad! Traditional hypothesis testing uses two kinds of probabilities: Type-1 error and Type-2 error (If someone asks I will discuss them). So, yes, it was true that the study showed no evidence of an effect of different lake levels, but an analysis of type-2 error indicated that if there actually was an effect of the level expected that the study would only be 2% likely to detect it.
Thus the study did not prove anything, yet it was miss interpreted as evidence of “no-effect” when in fact there was an absence of evidence—that is, the study proved nothing.
I have followed the global warming story from a distance for a very long time. In the early 1980’s there was much controversy. Some very reputable scientists chastised those that leapt to conclusions. By 1997, or 1998, I started noticing papers, in big journals like Science, where the authors publishing about climate change were the original nay-sayers in the 1980’s. The original scientists resisting the phenomenon were now supporting it. Most studies since the late 1990’s that refuted global warming have suffered from the same kind of error I discussed above. That is, they provide no evidence of anything, and are misinterpreted as evidence refuting the phenomenon. The motives behind these misinterpretations can be innocent mistakes, or political deceptions. From my view, there seems to be both.
To say there is no consensus in science is to state the obvious. Science is propelled forward by debate about alternative views; this is how we eventually get it right. For example, there was a phenomenon some climatic scientists were working on called global dimming. Since so many scientists were publishing research on global warming that there became a heated debate between the two groups. Now we “know” that both were happening. I understand that not everyone has the time to read science journals (its my career as a scientist and I cannot keep up on my own journals) however, PBS series NOVA has a special encapsulating the entire phenomenon into a 1 hour DVD. You can download the transcript for free!
The take home message: since both were happening, all of our pre-2000 global warming models have underestimated the effects of global warming and the temperature rises; it is much worse that we expected.
Scientists usually believe it cheapens their work or makes it appear biased if they rush out to the public with alarmist announcements. The public makes its decisions based on science that has been filtered through the media. Science has told us that something is going wrong and that it could be very bad for society. The debate is now about values. Some people want to do something others would rather not. Those that do not want to do anything support scientific studies that prove nothing as evidence contrary to global warming. Science does not make value decisions--people and politicians are the agents of policy change.
As an environmental consultant I work for many industries. I hate it when they get a bad rap when they don’t deserve it, and I work like heck to show what they are doing right. I notice that the gas industry people are very precise about the statements they make, being sure to deny there is global warming. Yet in the next sentence they will talk about reducing greenhouse gasses—acknowledging both the greenhouse effect, the gasses that cause it and, in turn, global warming. It is a policy issue to deny global warming, not an intellectual one.
So, a writer here (Tim) has been defending global warming from a bunch of misguided thugs. They tell him to come up with a solution, tell him to decide how to spend the money to save the world… all to generate a red herring argument that attempts to change the subject. If Tim lays out alternative, there are bound to be problems with them—by attacking those problems it appears that tom is wrong and so is everything he says—oldest trick in the book. It is not science’s job to fix the problem or implement policy. Nor is it Tim’s. It is the job of our politicians to implant policies to solve our problems, their views reflect what is popular among their constituents, or else they need to find a new job… vicious cycle...
Marion, your arguments over simplify the problem; then suggest that you have evidence against climate change. If were building a house, I would not call my scientist buddies and pay them to build it—even though the result might be “interesting.” Rather I would hire someone who has the experience and training to do it for me. There are lots of scientists with lots of experience and training—all of them publishing reports and fighting with each other to get it right. You do not have the background to be making antidotal climate predictions from your armchair. If you are truly interested in the subject, then learn about it. Start critically reading some articles from Science. Buy or rent the Nova special on global dimming—or read the transcript. If you are really excited about it change careers, and work on a better way. If these are too much comment to something you would rather not deal with, then let the scientists that have dedicated their life to the work figure out the problem, and do not detract from it—if the public is going to act on the problem, the public needs the facts from science--Not rhetoric.
By the way, the EPA’s own science on the matter has been censored by the Bush administration. I heard some talks about this at science meeting a few years ago. If anyone reading has more information on this censorship, the “sound science” policies etc. please pass it along. I’ve been out of the loop.
Everything has it's drawbacks to an environmentalist if ordinary folks can use it, that goes for windfarms, nuclear energy, and so on. Spend a winter here in Wyoming with no fossil fuel and I suspect you won't be near as certain of global warming from it's use.
I am all in favor of new technology, I am not in favor of flapping about spending billions of dollars trying to think up something, even if it is jsut a way to blow the money.
And you don't even want me to get started on endnagered species and what that costs, individuals primarliy, but our economy too.
I understand you were not aware of making predictions, but you have presented the results of your “study,” buy implying that the weather in Wyoming is indicative the rest of the world.
Are scientists smarter? No. probably not. Do they have more evidence? Probably?
Are more scientists examining the data? Sure! Does your use of the term “warmies,” attempt to devalue the science into a fanatical opinion? Yes. Does it suggest you have your own vested interest at heart? Absolutely! Is this the nature of the problem? You bet!
Were the global dimming scientists wrong, or were the global warming guys? Umm… you have made this a falsely binary choice. It appears that both were going on. You see, the global dimming was due to particulate emissions that changed the nature of cloud forming so that more light was reflected away from earth. We have made progress reducing particulate pollution so the effects of global dimming are waning. If global dimming reduces global warming, why not increase particulate pollution, their by slowing global warming? Because particulate air pollution causes respiratory diseases, such as cancer and emphysema.
I am not a bleeding heart. As a consultant, I work for industry. Industry will ultimately be responsible for (and reap the benefits from) fixing environmental problems. The difference between an environmentalist and an ecologist is science—but the two are not mutually exclusive: many environmentalists are not scientists and are driven by emotion (sometimes at the cost of industry). Many ecologists are environmentalists as well because they have invested their lives studding the environment. I think confusion between these terms has caused doubt in the science of ecology—and environmental science (like climatology)--to the benefit some of society’s elements that would rather not “believe” in the science. That is, the science is wrong because it is not popular.
As you suggest, it is a very old earth we live on. And there is evidence that there have been many periodic climate changes through the history of the world. For last several thousand years, we have enjoyed and benefited from a period of stability. The carbon of the greenhouse gasses of history was buried deep underground for a very long time—long enough to form coal, oil and gas. When we burn these fuels, we load the atmosphere with the very gases that caused the world to be a harsh place before. By burning wood or corn based fuels we still produce the same gases, but we are not loading the environment with them—just increasing the gas-solid cycle of the carbon. But I am sure you know that there would be as much resistance to cutting the worlds forests as a fuel source as well.
It seems a waste really… so many neat molecules can be made from petrochemicals (plastics and pharmaceuticals) it seems a shame to burn them. Yet as a child growing up in VERY cold northern Minnesota (pretty sure we had Wyoming beat in-terms of cold) I was very grateful when my single mother could afford heating oil, when we didn’t have to hangout next to the oven, or wood stove.
The global climate change problem is very complicated. So are the potential solutions to the problem. They require cross-discipline collaboration among scientists, economists, sociologists, and politicians. Perhaps that is why it is still a problem. I do not have the solutions. But that does not reduce the risk.
You are against spending billions of dollars on “ideas” I am not sure what you mean by that. If the new models are correct, we could be in serious trouble in a few years. We are spending billions of dollars on a war for oil, and I think you are for that. Frankly, I feel that I do not compromise my patriotism by calling that spade a spade; I did my time: 1st Cavalry Division! HuuRah!
thanks for comments.
any climatologist want to chime in?
Tim?
Todd?
Craig? etc.?
Didn't you use the term "misguided thugs" to describe the skeptics that post here? Now replace "warmies" with "thugs" and I ask you the same set of rhetorical questions.
Regarding claimate predictions 10 - 20 years out read Luboš Motl. http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/09/quantifying-climate-uncertainty.html
I am only asking how did we go from global freezing to global warming in less than 30 years? Were they wrong, what changed, was it something we did in answer to the scientists then?
I learned many years ago not to take someone elses word for something without hard proof or at least some evidence. I will say at least this year you folks are pushing it in the summer, not at your winter meeting. Actually I believe it was in Japan? that so many humans froze to death last winter wasn't it? That had nothing to do with WYoming, I only used Wyoming as an example of why we cant' walk away from fossil fuels, and go spending money looking for something else.
Aeshna, here's a link to a video about the Bush administration's "science". I think it would be good for everyone to watch.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ifs_news/hi/newsid_5040000/newsid_5048300/nb_rm_5048330.stm
Considering your web link, Craig. You have a young, assistant professor crying, “bias! Bias!” Moreover he is a Czech theoretical physicist specializing in theoretical gravity problems. Sorry but gravitational theory is not environmental science. In my experience, when a scientist from another field, jumps into another scientific arena, they have assumptions about what the “other-guys” are doing wrong. I’ve personally done this and felt foolish when I realized there were very good reasons to look at things they way they were.
What is the nature of the bias to which Luboš Motl, attributes the scientists studying global warming. Why? What benefit is there for American scientists to work their lives away in global warming if it is, in fact, a false phenomenon? Fame? Fortune? No. At this point you would be come much more famous (maybe even rich) if you could “disprove” global warming. As for job security, I have 12+ years of higher education, I make less than carpenters and auto mechanics. Most environmental scientists are in the field because they are obsessed about understanding the world around us. Much like Lubos Motl’s desire to understand the subtle nuances of physics. There is no motivation for bias, among the researchers that publish on global climate change. There is however, tremendous potential for bias from people that do not want
I quickly did a literature review of Dr. Motl’s works. It is all high tech physics. He has never published a peer reviewed paper on global climate change (Web of science, reference service database search). He has never published a popular article on the subject either (lexisNexis literature search). All of his works are basic research into the very stuff that bridges the gap between energy and matter… the so called theory of everything—very exciting stuff, but total unrelated to global warming or any form of climate change. I imagine to a chalkboard physicist, the mundane drudgery climate research seems like junk, but it will be years after Motl’s death before society is able to benefits from his work; meanwhile society indulges him to play with numbers.
Since you sent us to Harvard, you might be interested in the recent keystone meeting at Harvard, where members of several Environmental Non-governmental organizations got together with industry to come up with estimates how much greenhouse gases need to be curtailed, and possibly how. Most notable was that General Motors was among one of the big players at the meeting—this is the cooperative spirit to get things done. We need to see more of this, rather than living in denial.
http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=477
He looked me up as if to discredit me in this discussion. Useful to know “who’s talking down to who,” (whom) he said. Apparently, sharing facts with him is talking down to him. Wow. He must be important. Who is Craig more? Is he a non-biased common man--Someone that wants to know the facts?
No. here’s his bio:
Craig Moore received his professional degree in geophysical engineering from the Colorado School of Mines in 1969. He started his career as a geophysicist with Texaco in Houston. In the summer of 1970, Craig was called into the Army Corps of Engineers, and he worked as an Engineer Staff Officer for the next two years at the Army's Topographic Command Headquarters in Washington, D.C. In 1972, upon release from the Army, Craig joined Gulf Oil Co. in Pittsburgh. His primary task at Gulf was to prepare integrated geophysical/geological regional studies for the company's Asian Operations. He later worked on domestic regional studies in Offshore MAFLA and the onshore Woodbine-Tuscaloosa trend. In 1978, Craig accepted a position as chief geophysicist with Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America. During this time, Craig coordinated geological and geophysical exploration activities in Natural's district offices in Houston, New Orleans, Midland, Oklahoma City, and Denver. He was instrumental in the discovery of several fields, most notably the field in Main Pass 151, offshore Louisiana. In 1980, Craig joined a newly formed exploration company, Trinity Resources, which had just acquired an interest in 33,000 acres in Burleson and Lee Counties in Texas. Craig's success in picking over 175 commercially successful Austin Chalk locations continued into the Edwards and Glen Rose formations, where he made the first commercial Glen Rose discovery south of the Fort Trinidad field. He also participated in the discovery of the Giddings Edwards field. During this period, Craig also generated and sold prospects along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast, East Texas, and the Rocky Mountains. Trinity's exploration budget terminated in the fall of 1984, and Craig set up shop as an independent exploration consultant. Since that time, he has continued to consult, generating and evaluating exploration prospects, based in Houston.
Gemcom Australia is pleased to welcome Craig Moore, Business Analyst, to the company. Craig holds a Master of Science degree in Geology (First Class Honours) and a Diploma in Information Technology. In addition, Craig is nearing completion of a Graduate Diploma in Management. Prior to joining Gemcom, Craig spent 25 years as a geologist in a wide variety of geological environments and locations. During this time, he undertook exploration, mine production, ore-body evaluation and feasibility work, principally for gold and copper, in areas including Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.
At Gemcom, Craig is responsible for supporting Gemcom,s ProdTrak customer-base, and for assisting in the smooth upgrade processes of ProdTrak Version 10 and subsequent releases.
His comments in these posts should not be considered non-biased—or even informed. He is clearly a greedy, selfish, person that can not afford to believe that there is any thing going wrong and he will do anything in his power to derail open dialogue of global warming.
Oh marrion... by the way. i did explain global warming and global dimming... above. I'm not holding your hand to help you learn--you don't want to know. i wonder what your interests are...
The "denial" that you speak of I believe is more about altering the 1500-year climate cycle in any significant fashion. It's one thing about waving the rhetorical magic wand, and quite another to make things, like CO2, go poof! Europe is not meeting its emission goals. They can't and sustain economic vitality. No other growing country can either in any meaningful way. This denial leads us to the trillion-dollar teacup that I wrote about before. Perhaps this type of money is better spent making societies more adaptable to earth cycles rather than trying to change those cycles.
You asked, "What is the nature of the bias to which Luboš Motl, attributes the scientists studying global warming. Why? What benefit is there for American scientists to work their lives away in global warming if it is, in fact, a false phenomenon? Fame? Fortune?" I believe the answer is in funding. Dr. Gray is experiencing that very effect of having his grants taken away since he remains a skeptic. He is now putting his own money in continuing climate research.
I am perplexed over your assertion that gravity and the environment are mutually exclusive. I thought all living things tend to grow perpendicular to the center point of gravity. Wouldn't our atmosphere just float off into space without gravity? In my opinion, math, physics, probability, and chaos theory are all rooted in understanding the numbers and finding the right equations of explanation given the twists and turns of quarky variables. To challenge Dr. Motl's explanation for the probability of Earth's environment many years out deserves more than just saying he is not a published environmentalist.
is that a "yes" or a "no?"
Today is our first harvest from the spaghetti trees. We have hybirds from the Swiss and Italian varieties. They really like the warm weather. Must be the global warming effect. The BBC reported on the harvest many years ago. It can be seen here: //news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/70000/video/_70980_aprilfool_vi.ram
Time to break into my study design tirade (the treatise i am writing for thugs (heh!)). Studies designed to evaluate global climate theories have an inherent problem of no replication. This makes traditional hypothesis testing very difficult. We only have one Earth. Ideally, we would take 100 earths, divide them in to 5 Carbon-loading Treatments and monitor several end points; temperature… but heck, why not human survival, economic growth, species diversity etc. Ultimately we would know after a few generations what the effects would be, how to moderate them, and if they really must be avoided. Since we are not able to do this, we must rely upon alternative methods… and there are going to be confounding effects—natural variation, for example, that make it difficult to resolve effects. Science will progress by arguing about the limitations of the evidence and will ultimately arrive at the truth.
Here is the reason for the God question. You avoided this, so I respect the privacy of your spiritual life. Many of the global warming skeptics have presented themselves as critical thinkers, yet many believe in something for which there is much less evidence—god, the divine, or (in the case of zen) nothingness or oneness. Even though there is no evidence for the existience of divine spirits (except for ghost busters) people believe based on faith. So why is it that so many cannot believe in something for which they have been presented mountains of evidence? Stubbornness and narrow-mindedness most likely. Also, the human capacity for reasoning is generally short-term.
Do greenhouse gasses trap heat? Yes. That’s why the name greenhouse gas was assigned to them. When we dig up carbon (oil, gas etc) that has been buried for millions of years and release it to the atmosphere (burn it), do we increase the concentration of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere? Obviously. Is there a 1500 year climate cycle? Possibly. What would be the effects of accelerating that cycle into 50 years and increasing its magnitude? Catastrophic. Should we try to prevent it if possible? Absolutely.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/
you can read the transcript for free or order the DVD for $20.00.
http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Testimony&Hearing_ID=1544&Witness_ID=3664
The PDF's of Dr. Lindzen's presentations are quite provocative. He addresses your point about greenhouse gases.
You asked, Should we try to prevent it if possible? Absolutely." This is where you and I agree. I simply take note that greenhouse gas emissions, including CO2, will continue going up. I also take note that reducing CO2 to 1990 levels will not help alter the warming cycle underway. What will change this warming trend will be Earth's natural mechanisms which include changing ocean salinity, ocean current conveyor belts, volcanoes, and the occasional asteroid in conjunction with the Sun's solar cycles, in my opinion. Also in my opinion, I think humankind would be better served by scientists and public dollars for studying how to build resiliency and adaptibility for civilization to align in harmony with the warming-cooling cycles. Just so you know, I do have "skin in the game" 50-100 years out. I want my children, grandchildren, and great grandkids to have a liveable, rewarding world.
Just what is "habitat loss"? Home for humans instead of wide open hiking spaces for environmentalists and whatever animals they like? That word drives me crazy, we have over a thuosand hungry wolves running around the three state area and wolf proponents are insisting that the elk are disappearing due to habitat loss, not wolves.
We know the world isn't like it was a thousand years ago, look at all of the petrified trees and fish, etc that are found in my state of Wyoming. Nothing like that would gorow here now. Frankly most problems seem to happen from trying to control nature if you will. Look at New Orleans, what possess anyone to build beneath the sea?
Instead of plowing the wheat and grain fields under, let's let farmers produce and as Craig said, store food, water, and other necessities.
I am all in favor of alternate fuels, but I want to see heating fuel and vehicle fuel available in the meantime. Besides think of all of the folks coming to Wyoming to work in the mines and oil fields, they are at least dispersing into the wide open spaces here.
the global dimming / global warming research was on going thirty years ago. i explained that and gave you a link to follow up with. if you really do not want to know the answer, to your questions, stop asking. if you do, go to the NOVA link i provided.
Wow. You are proud to be closed minded. Sad.
I explained this to you extensively on 6-29-06, maybe you should read it.
Or at the least take the time to read the literature--and no newspapers do not count.
Pick up a copy of Science at your library. If they say something that does not make sense to you, then look up the citation, read it and see it makes sense. If not, why not? Search the sources. This “I refuse to think” mentality of yours is not as noble as you seem to think it is. Read the literature critically, and form your own INFORMED point of view. So far your opinions are not supported by any thing other than stubbornness. You know what those opinions are like right? Well, I’ll give you hint everyone’s got one, and you’ve been behaving like one.
I value your tenacity and your prolific comments at New West. You bring a perspective that challenges the values, morals and beliefs of many New West readers.
Having said that, your assertion that because some scientists in the 1970s believed the Earth was entering a cooling cycle has absolutely no relevance to the debate at hand. The pre-eminent question is WHAT, if anything, can humankind do to address human-caused release of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere and the implications that those emissions have for dramatically altering climate and some of the very systems (natural, economic, cultural) upon which modern society is based.
I know that in weeks' past Greg Pederson of the USGS has offered you links to explore the many questions you have about climate change. I encourage you to do so. Tim Flannery's book, The Weather Makers, also makes reference to and addresses in comprehensive detail the science of climate change. He confronts, head on, the arguments made by skeptics, of whom you seem to have a strong affinity.
Last week, Tim Flannery dropped me a note from Australia and said it is not worth engaging those who insist upon not subjecting their own beliefs about climate change to scrutiny.
I do not place you, Marion, in that category. However, you need to do your homework before sounding off with simplistic statements—or simply posting links— that do not comform to the complicated nature of the conversation over climate change.
I would also strongly recommend that you read Flannery's book because he offers a fine narrative, which has earned him praise, describing the delicate chemical balance that exists in our atmosphere and distinguishes our planet from others in the solar system where human life is not possible.
When you can show me a single benefit to the environment that makes Gore's movie worth the tens of thousands of gallons of fuel that are going into making and seeing it, I'll listen.
When environmentalits can tell me what they themselves are doing to help, I'll listen.
As long as they are only interested in lawsuits, and forcing other folks to do what they do not want to, and are only interested im making this a control issue, I won't listen.
Global warming or cooling for that matter has absolutely nothing to do with our Presidnet and VP, it has every thing to do with how our lives are lived. Each of us are responsible for what we consume, and our impact on the earth, no one else.
This is part of the problem. Bull headed people like marion are holding the human race back from taking action. It is not that the evidence is not there... it is the fact that people don't want to see it.
Marion, your failure to see is no one's fault but your own.
Todd sent you to a book, i send you to peer reviewed literature, and even a DVD. but you would rather cite fraudulent news websites.
you know what they say: a mind is a terrible thing to waste. fortunately this has never held marion back.
When I look at how Governor Schweitzer is salivating over coal production with his hardy approval of the Highwood project that uses 20 year tech to doesn't bank the carbon release, his advocacy of coal to diesel, the Canadians and their coal north of Montana along the North Fork of the Flathead, news of possible North Dakota oil discoveries greater than Alaska, oil shale development in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado, and the accelerated hydrocarbon drilling program for the Rocky Mountain Front I don't see where CO2 emmission are ever going down in the next 100 years in our country.
While Marion certainly brings a different point of view, there is a difference of having an informed point of view and stubbornly resisting and ignoring evidence and research contrary to what you think. Like you said Craig, we need everyone to participate - that word means more than just ignoring a plethora of studies and saying, "Scientists were wrong 30 years ago. They can't be right this time."
Regarding anyone being stubborn and contrary I could point to a few of your posts....and some of mine as well. I suggest none of us throw rocks from glass houses and try to get along.
This is my last contribution here as I have nothing more to add to what I have previously written. Carry on.