No Kyoto In Smallish State
On problem with trying to stop global warming is that a lot of people are unabashedly in favor of it. I mean, no one will drive around with an “I HEART GLOBAL WARMING” bumper sticker, but the average Smallish Stater was just thrilled by our warmest-ever December.
On Christmas day (balmy) I took a walk on the beach. I passed a couple out with their dogs. “Fantastic weather, huh?!”, said the man, without a hint of irony. “I wish every Christmas was like this!”, said his wife. Today I looked out the window from the staff room, eying the last scraps of snow melting in the sun. “They say it’s going up to 50 degrees again this week,” I said to our ward clerk, in a sad voice. She replied, “Oh, my! Well that’s just wonderful news. I wish it would just stay like that.”
I have the sinking feeling those Smallish Staters who believe in global warming at all may be secretly burning extra fossil fuels in an attempt to bring it on faster.
On Christmas day (balmy) I took a walk on the beach. I passed a couple out with their dogs. “Fantastic weather, huh?!”, said the man, without a hint of irony. “I wish every Christmas was like this!”, said his wife. Today I looked out the window from the staff room, eying the last scraps of snow melting in the sun. “They say it’s going up to 50 degrees again this week,” I said to our ward clerk, in a sad voice. She replied, “Oh, my! Well that’s just wonderful news. I wish it would just stay like that.”
I have the sinking feeling those Smallish Staters who believe in global warming at all may be secretly burning extra fossil fuels in an attempt to bring it on faster.
posted by Turbo at 11:00 AM
9 Comments:
sation-purgatorium: neither warm enough to do anything to enjoy warm weather activities, nor cold enough to enjoy cold weather activities.
i remember growing up in smallish state when there was always (always!) snow on the ground by the end of november. sigh. it was never a matter of "whether" it would snow, but "when." it makes me so sad. i find the so-called winter months in the northeast intolerable without snow.
Yeah, like with Kyoto in place it would be really cold here in smallish state this winter.
It never ceases to amaze me that otherwise intelligent people (which I assume you are) believe that man has much of anything to do with fluctuations in the global climate. How do you explain that smallish state was covered in a mile of ice less than 10,000 years ago, which ice disappeared because of "global warming" long before the SUV became a popular mode of transportation?
Oh, and I am in favor of global warming regardless of what is causing it. If it gets warm enough, fast enough, I might have waterfront property in smallish state instead of being landlocked a mile inland.
The fact that the climate can change without human intervention does not mean that current climate change is unrelated to human intervention.
Indeed, if Anonymous is arguing that the global climate is currently warming due to causes beyond our control, wouldn't it absolutely behoove us to avoid exacerbating the problem with CO2 emissions?
Or I suppose we could wait till the last minute and counteract the whole thing with a nuclear winter.
Your middle paragraph is a gem of illogic. If science determines that warming is due to causes beyond our control, then by definition, we cannot exacerbate the situation by continuing to emit CO2 or cure it by stopping.
In any event, I'm not arguing that global warming is due to causes beyond our control. I don’t know and, at this point, neither does science. There is a consensus that there is more CO2 in the air than there was; that humankind may be to blame; and that some warming may result. That is all. There is no consensus on how fast the world will warm, or when or even whether any “disastrous” consequences will ensue.
I am arguing that society should make a rational choice about the costs and benefits of any social investment intended to address climate change and further that an investment aimed at addressing climate change must be prioritized against other uses of social capital such as curing disease, alleviating poverty, etc. Given the state of the science, no such rational choice is possible at this point.
Science aside, it seems pretty clear that the world has judged the costs attendant to Kyoto solution not to be worth the benefits. The U.S. Senate failed even to ratify the treaty and the Europeans, who did adopt it, have utterly failed to meet its benchmarks. I'd argue that these failures are not due to a lack of political will, but to a perfectly rational judgment, given the current state of the science and in spite of the apocalyptic rhetoric of the climate change Chicken Littles (e.g. Al Gore).
Read this article: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=3711460e-bd5a-475d-a6be-4db87559d605.
It is a letter to the Canadian Prime Minister from sixty leading Canadian climate scientists.
Key excerpt: ""Climate change is real" is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural "noise." "
Read THIS article: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2007-01-25-ipcc-report-details_x.htm
It is about a report to the U.N. by TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED scientists.
Key excerpts:
" 'Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, melting of snow and ice, and rising sea levels.' "
"The report says it is 'very likely' — or more than a 90% chance — that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, are to blame for warming since 1950."
You're not citing what the 2,500 scientists said, you're citing what USA Today said about what the bureaucrats that summarized the scientists work said. In other words, you have read an alarmist interpretation of an alarmist interpretation and you are alarmed!
But less alarmed than you were in 2001 because now the sea is only going to rise 11.9 inches max instead of 34.6 inches max. I'm not willing to bet the economy on that level of certainty. Are you?
Take a deep breath, read these and get back to me:
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20061212_monckton.pdf
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20061121_gore.pdf
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=56dd129d-e40a-4bad-abd9-68c808e8809e
"The report says it is 'very likely' — or more than a 90% chance — that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, are to blame for warming since 1950."
Human activities are responsible for:
a) all of the warming since 1950
b) some small portion of the warming since 1950?
c) some unknown portion of the warming since 1950?
If "a", then you assert that all recent global climate change is man's fault, but all global climate change for the previous 3 billion years was due to something else.
If "b", then it hardly seems worth turning ourselves inside out trying to prevent something that is going to happen anyway.
If "c", then what is it exactly that you are "90%" sure of?
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