Red, Green & Blue: Is It Time to Just Live With Climate Change?
An article in this week’s Time magazine raises an interesting point about climate change. While there’s a growing consensus that global warming is real, the author writes, there’s also an emerging body of opinion that says it’s either too late to stop it or it’s not worth trying to stop. We’d be better off, these pundits say, investing in ways to make it easier to deal with the effects of climate change: build stronger dams, dikes and levees; do more to prevent the spread of diseases like malaria; provide more aid to help the poor live with increasingly hotter, or damper, or drier, or stormier conditions; etc.
While my initial reaction to people like Bjorn Lomborg, who has written, Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming
Tags: Bjorn Lomborg, carbon emissions, climate change, Cool It, global warming, greenhouse gases, Red, Green and Blue
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October 18th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Hi Maurice Hilarious,
Yep, and even those threatened Polar Bears have survived climate stuff in the past…like when the Norse Peoples, (Vikings) were able to settle in Greenland and far North Canada!
Regards Black Wallaby
October 20th, 2007 at 6:00 am
Hey Jimmy,
Wonderful stuff! It is excellent in that it suggests what could happen if the permafrost does melt. The trouble is that the science is actually very complicated, and although the film-makers may or may not be right on this, there is a certain amount of “we think” involved. In the same way, some of the scenarios painted by the IPCC et al, are based on “we think” assumptions. Pray, who can we believe?
I recommend all visitors to view the video to gain extra insight on the permafrost concern.
Regards, Black Wallaby
October 20th, 2007 at 6:18 am
Rolf Paloheimo,
You wrote that…we have to stop global warming…
The Mayans were famous for making human sacrifices to appease the gods, and it seems likely that prior to the severe droughts which coincided with their departure, that they had increased their rate of sacrifice.
The “Nazcans” in Peru were apparently more humane, but must have exhausted their supply of sandals, making those processional lines on the plains, for similar religious reasons, before they too disappeared at a time of severe drought.
These humans failed to stop climate change. Are modern-day humans any smarter?
Is there any evidence that the current warming is unprecedented? If so, could you please elaborate?
October 21st, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Oh Shirley,
With your lovely smile, wherefore art thou….it is some eleven days since you last wrote to us. Such a long time! I hope all is well with you.
Regards, Black Wallaby, (previously known as BobFJ)
October 21st, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Re charlesuchu October 16: Uh? Black Wallaby
October 24th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Black Wallaby, sorry it’s taken so long for me to respond, but here goes:
I don’t believe legitimate scientific opinion is saying that current regional climate variations are unprecedented: the Earth has certainly been as warm or warmer than today at points in the past. Climate is affected by many things that vary over geological time periods … carbon dioxide concentrations being one of those factors.
However, I find it’s reasonable to be concerned when research is showing our climate hasn’t been as warm as it’s now becoming in 650,000 years or more. In her book, "Field Notes from a Catastrophe," Elizabeth Kolbert quotes a NOAA scientist as saying, "It’s true that we’ve had higher CO2 levels before. But, then, of course, we also had dinosaurs."
I suggest checking out these sites that might further address your question:
"Research Finds That Earth’s Climate is Approaching ‘Dangerous’ Point."
RealClimate
Gristmill’s "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic" provides exhaustive information, including links to studies, addressing all sorts of climate change objections.
October 27th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Greetings Shirley, I’m rather disappointed that on Oct 24 you recommended one of James Hansen’s infinite wisdoms. Nevertheless, I did read it through, and it struck me as a bit odd, that although his missive is dated May 2007, he refers only vaguely to NASA data between 1992 and 2002, and actually only waffles (= rambles/ gobbledegooks, in Americano?) on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, as IF THE EAST ANTARCTIC DOES NOT EXIST! Did you know that there is a European Space Agency, and that they too have satellites up there? Here follows a brief extract from a commentary on THEIR more recent findings on Antarctica ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The team used data from the European Space Agency’s radar satellites ERS-1 and ERS-2, which measured changes in altitude over about 70% of Antarctica’s interior - more than 8.5 million square kilometres, roughly the same size as the United States. East Antarctica thickened at an average rate of about 1.8 centimetres per year over the time period studied, the researchers discovered. The region comprises about 75% of Antarctica’s total land area - but as its ice is thicker, it carries about 85% of the total ice volume. "It is the only large terrestrial ice body that is gaining mass rather than losing it," says Davis. In contrast, smaller West Antarctica showed an overall thinning of 0.9 centimetres per year. "It’s amazing that they can measure such small changes," says Vaughan. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~You can find more if you do a Google on a specific few words or sentence. Perhaps you could carefully compare the European analysis with that of the infamous mouthpiece of GISS!I guess you know about the posts of a fifteen-year-old school-girl that has identified Hansen as an exaggerator and….well, at best, fool .etc?I can give you other devastating references to Hansen’s scientific shallowness and political influence, if you are interested. But, I guess that would be BAD NEWS, right? Regards BobFJ OH BTW, you do realize that ice floating on water has no contribution to sea-level rise if it melts, re Pythagoras & eureka!October 29th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Hi Shirley,
An earlier version of this blog contained the following post from Black Wallaby, as a part 1 response to your Oct. 24 @7:50 am, but no more, and since I have regular past copies, I’m reinstating it:
Submitted by Black Wallaby (not verified) on October 24, 2007 - 10:19pm.
Hi Shirley, reur Oct 24:
That was a nice chat about other matters, but the original context was about the
infamous hockey-stick, and the dozen studies which you implied effectively
replaced it. The most important misinformation in the hockey-stick was that it
totally “cancelled” the Medieval Warm Period. (MWP) However, there is a great
deal of historical AND proxy evidence, that it was actually warmer in the MWP
than today. This evidence is commonly brushed aside, by Mann, Hansen, and their
ilk with a general waffle like; oh yes, sure there were local hotspots, but they
did not all occur at the same time. (We hope?)
Please note that the question is not about how much CO2 there is/was in the
atmosphere, (your diversion), but whether the current brief warming is greater
or not than during the 400 years or so of the MWP.
Your James Hansen quote is just another unrelated Armageddon story, and the two
websites you recommend are hardly helpful with respect to the question I raised.
Here it is again, rephrased:
Whilst there is plenty of chat around, like hey there are now a dozen
hockey-sticks, can YOU identify any scientific papers which actually show that
the MWP was not warmer than today?
Please, are you not interested in good news?
Regards, Black Wallaby.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not intending to introduce new topics, but in background to the above:
OH, BTW: 1) You do know that RealClimate was set-up by the inventors of the
hockey-stick? They have been totally discredited, with even Nature journal
ordering a retraction from Mann, after a long series of denials, obstructions,
and falsehoods from him.
Have you tried ClimateAudit by Steve McIntyre, which was set-up in response to
Mann’s attacks on him? Despite what Mann and his colleagues have said about
McIntyre and his rational supporters, McIntyre is also smart enough to have
recently “reverse engineered”, after resistance, GISS (Hansen) data and
compelled them to publish revised temperature data showing that the 1930’s were
warmer than the 1990’s in the USA. You see, he is very good at data analysis,
with great support by Ross McKitrick on advanced statistics etc. However, even
when they reveal GOOD NEWS, it is not treated as good news by people like
Hansen.
OH, BTW: 2) You do know that the oft cited tree-ring studies, even if they could
be reliably calibrated, cannot possibly represent full annual/diurnal
temperatures, or a respectable proportion of the many land
zones/types/topography, or where most people actually live, or the oceans and
above the snow-tree-lines?
OH…That will do for now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At this moment, Black Wallaby’s response part 2, of Oct 27 @ 8:07 pm, can still be found further down the page, although the references are confusing because, your original post has since changed date From Oct 24, to Oct 25 @2:50 pm
We eagerly await your response!
October 29th, 2007 at 7:37 am
Yeah, I get those problems when I eat too much Mexican food of a certain kind
November 1st, 2007 at 7:46 am
I am reinstating another post that has vanished for the second time: Submitted by Max (not verified) on October 29, 2007 - 12:25am. Message to Shirley (did not go through the first time)- also referred to by Black Wallaby Hi Shirley, If you REALLY want to know what happened to the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica over the 11-year period 1992-2003, 1. DO NOT believe what IPCC claims on page 7 of its SPM 2007 report and 2. DO NOT read Hansen’s ramblings backed by NASA gobbledygook. But check out the results of ACTUAL ESA measurements taken over this period. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-11/esa-eas110405.php http://bowfell.geol.ucl.ac.uk/~lidunka/EPSS-papers/djw3.pdf As you can see, they BOTH gained mass overall over this period. How ‘bout that? Regards, Max