News-Record.com

Ah, the usual cherry-picking of science. Ten studies come out with dire possible consequence and you overlook them; one study comes out with an agreeable result and you feature it.

Even better, you state that "I'm not convinced that anyone can say what's likely to happen to our climate in the decades and centuries to come." As "anyone" includes the scientists that produced this study, you are indicating that you don't believe the study that you've cited any more than any other study about future outcomes.

As we saw yesterday with the GCS weather problem, actual decision-makers have to act with uncertain information (editorial writers and academics can just pile on afterwards). You've pointed out one type of uncertainty, but there is also uncertainty regarding whether environmental outcomes could be substantially worse. Big losses are possible with either type of incorrect decision: unnecessary social costs if we take precautions that end up not being needed but also huge social costs if it turns out that the IPCC is correct. Introducing uncertainty doesn't make the potential problem go away and doesn't make the tough decisions go away.

You're reinforcing my point.

There are no "tough decisions" if only one side of a debate is considered. Until very recently, very little information contrary to the Al Gore perspective was heard. Now there are more questions. What appears to be one out of 10 to you today may be five out of 10 someday.

I'm not accepting one more than another. I'm acknowledging uncertainty.

Maybe none of this will affect policy anyway. Despite the "consensus" that we face rising sea levels and more frequent and intense storms, nobody opposed rebuilding New Orleans.

Maybe none of this will affect policy anyway. Despite the "consensus" that we face rising sea levels and more frequent and intense storms, nobody opposed rebuilding New Orleans.* Doug

That is true! But half of it's former citizens are nowhere to be found, so who cares whether the Saints rebuild after this year.

Doug:

Maybe I missed it, but where is the consensus that implementing something along the lines of the Kyoto protocols wouldn't be tough? People make the argument that change may be more costly later, but few are arguing that it would be costless.

Also, to judge by your post, you're not accepting two-sided uncertainty, only uncertainty about the outcomes that you oppose. Nothing in your post accepts that any of the negative predictions associated with global warming are possibilities.

"Despite the 'consensus' that we face rising sea levels and more frequent and intense storms, NOBODY opposed rebuilding New Orleans."
Your reading of the rebuilding of New Orleans is as selective and incomplete as your reading of the science. Consider this article in the liberal on-line magazine Slate ( http://www.slate.com/id/2125810/ ) and this one in the liberal Washington Post ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501034.html ). You must also be forgetting then Speaker Hastert's famous comments that rebuilding "doesn't make sense to me."

You've written "By no means am I suggesting that we shouldn't improve energy efficiency and reduce pollution. We owe succeeding generations a cleaner, healthier planet." Please elaborate on what policies will lead to such an outcome.

Of course implementation would be tough -- especially if efforts were misdirected. I said decisions aren't tough if only one side of a question is considered.

Sorry about using hyperbole again, Dave. I forgot you're a literalist.

Doug:

So, on top of cherry-picking the evidence, you're now cherry-picking the statements that you will defend.

Henceforth, I'll stick to "illiteralist" and absurdist interpretations of your posts.

Henceforth, I'll stick to "illiteralist" and absurdist interpretations of your posts.* Dave

Good for you Dave! So Global warming cause the waterfalls on a flat earth?

Ah, the usual salmon-picking of science.*Dave

Global Warming Suspect and Volcano person of interest has been found under Antarctica's rapidly melting western ice sheet.

Although it has not erupted for more than 2000 years, heat from the geologically active Hudson Mountains Subglacial Volcano helps explain why nearby Pine Island Glacier shrinks by more than a kilometre every year, British scientists claim.

The discovery follows reports last week that Antarctica's ice cap is melting faster than previously believed.

According to those findings, the greatest loss was from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Antarctic Peninsula. Together, they lost nearly 200billion tonnes of ice in 2006 alone.

Glaciologists Hugh Corr and David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge claim the discovery of the first known subglacial volcanic eruption promises to improve predictions of future sea-level rise caused by the melting of the WAIS.

"We believe this was the biggest eruption in Antarctica during the last 10,000 years," Dr Corr said. "It blew a substantial hole in the ice sheet and generated a plume of ash and gas that rose around 12km."

The team identified a large layer of volcanic ash in the ice.

Additional evidence for the eruption came from ice cores collected across the continent.

Writing in Nature Geoscience, Dr Corr and Dr Vaughan suggested the increased heat from the eruption, which they dated to 325BC, led to melting of the surrounding and overlying ice which, in turn, increased the flow rate of nearby glaciers.

The Big Al Institution of Global Warming Affairs said today "that this discovery proves nothing since power gas engines were not found at the volcano site, and no witness were at the site, except a few midget black and white birds dress in Tux's sunbathing and fishing on the site"

Doug, you're not exactly discovering America when you point out that there's uncertainty in scientific predictions of the effects of global warming. I'm not going to put you in the same camp as the wackier global-warming opponents, but your comments do sort of make you sound like them. Yes, of course there's uncertainty, and no one ever said otherwise. And by the way, I'm not counting Al Gore and other non-scientists in that "no one."

As Dave sensibly points out, we make plenty of decisions when things are uncertain. We buy insurance, we put locks on our doors, etc. The only way to interpret the views of the wackier global-warming opponents is that such actions are insane. If you believe that it's crazy to do anything about human contributions to global warming until there's absolute certainty about global warming and its effects, then logically, it's hard to argue for putting a lock on your doors when you don't know with absolute certainty that someone's going to break in.

As for your other point, yes of course there will be some benefits from global warming. This also is something that no one denies (again, I'm not talking about or defending Al Gore). If you're a wheat farmer in Manitoba, you might love global warming. In fact, the studies of which I'm aware predict relatively small economic effects on developed countries in "the North," i.e. Europe, the U.S., etc. In part this is because warming might be good in places, and in part it's because these countries have the resources to remediate the damage from global warming.

However, the effects on less developed countries in "the South" might be huge, partly because they're already pretty warm and further warming will harm crops and the ecosystems on which those societies depend, and in part because they tend to lack the resources to address those damages.

If all we care about is ourselves here in the U.S., the costs of unremediated global warming might be moderate and might not warrant massive policy changes. But if we care even a little about people in other countries, it's a different story.

Hmmm, I think I could have come up with a better term than "global-warming opponents." That makes them sound like people who oppose global warming, but that's not right. They're the people often referred to as "global-warming skeptics." But that doesn't make sense either. Skepticism is an intellectually defensible stance on any issue, but what the "skeptics" do is hardly intellectually defensible or intellectually honest. As Dave notes, they cherry-pick the science and they miss the point altogether regarding sensible policy-making. So I'll work on a better term for those people and get back to you. I'm sure you'll be holding your breath.

Yes, Doug, the world's temperature was perfect in 1904 and again in 1957. Anything warmer will be awful, although if it were getting cooler, that would be awful, too. It has been scientifically proven that bad things (such as more hurricanes) will be caused by this, while good things (such as fewer hurricanes) will be caused by something else.

Thanks, brian444. The question I posed a while back when Al Gore stated the planet has a fever was, what's earth's 98.6? Does anyone know?

Andy, I'll look forward to your new tag for people like me.

If I'd said a couple of years ago that I don't believe global warming will increase hurricane activity, I would have been a wacko. Now that some scientists say that, I'm just cherry-picking.

Good point about poorer, southern hemisphere countries that lack the resources to adapt to climate change. To increase their resources, they need energy and transportation. Will this development contribute to climate change? If so, should it be discouraged? Or is the benefit of development greater than the cost?

Doug, this isn't the first time that scientists have said that global warming (GW) might not increase the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic. My sense is that the science has been somewhat nuanced about this. About the time of Katrina, a study came out that said that GW was likely to increase the average intensity, but not the average annual number, of named storms in the Atlantic. (Though I think it said GW would indeed increase the number of Pacific storms.) Hence the most one could say about Katrina is that while GW is unlikely to have brought it into existence, GW might have made it stronger. But even that would be a stretch because the prediction was about averages, not specific storms.

On the larger issue of uncertainty, I think you just don't get it. Uncertainty is not always a mitigating factor in the debate over what to do about GW. In many respects, it's THE issue. One of the biggest concerns about GW is the uncertainty regarding regional weather patterns. One possibility that's been discussed by scientists is that GW will make our lovely humid and rainy Southeast U.S. much more arid. Does that mean the series of droughts we've endured are the result of GW? We don't know, but it's possible. Does that mean that other areas might get more rainfall and hence balance things out in a global sense? Maybe, but that'd be cold comfort for us in North Carolina.

We don't know for sure how, or if, GW will alter rain patterns, the flow or direction of the Gulf Stream, or the El Nino effects in the Pacific. But there's growing evidence that GW will indeed do these things in varying ways and degrees. This very unpredictability is why a rational global society might consider some small first steps to begin addressing the matter. The economists who study GW aren't advocating vast society-changing policies, precisely because we don't know everything about GW and its effects. But perhaps we should do SOMETHING.

Doug:

One thing that we know for sure (but often forget) is that humans are incredibly adaptive. This makes predicting consequences from climate change really problematic.

Change in the environment has occurred throughout human history, and change will occur regardless of what we do. The problem with our output of greenhouse gases is that it COULD lead to very rapid changes in climate systems that go beyond our ability to rapidly or comfortably adapt. Other things beyond our control could also lead to rapid climate change (e.g., increase in volcanic activity, a shut-down of the Atlantic currents, changes in solar activity, etc.).

Given the risks associated with our current behavior, we should be more cautious and begin taking reasonable steps to rein in our production of greenhouse gases.

A story in the News-Record from last week gives a good example of how out-of-whack some of our current policies are. The report indicated that Texas contributes more greenhouse gases in a year than the next two largest producers (California and Pennsylvania) do combined. The combined population of California and Pennsylvania is more than twice that of Texas. Similarly, the combined economic output of those two states is more than twice that of Texas. The statistics strongly suggest that there is considerable room for improvement at a reasonable cost.

Henceforth, I'll stick to "illiteralist" and absurdist interpretations of your posts.*Doug

I think the Ayatollah has out illteralist you Doug on this GW issue?

Can you imagine such a thing? Well, Iran's president, Ahmadinejad, considered to be another Hitler by some deluded evangelicals, was recently rebuked by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for not making sure that all Iranians received natural gas for the harsh winter (I'll bet they don't believe in global warming in Iran).