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Home Front: Politix
The debate's over: Globe is warming
2005-06-13
Don't look now, but the ground has shifted on global warming. After decades of debate over whether the planet is heating and, if so, whose fault it is, divergent groups are joining hands with little fanfare to deal with a problem they say people can no longer avoid. General Electric is the latest big corporate convert; politicians at the state and national level are looking for solutions; and religious groups are taking philosophical and financial stands to slow the progression of climate change. They agree that the problem is real. A recent study led by James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies confirms that, because of carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases, Earth is trapping more energy from the sun than it is releasing back into space.

The U.N. International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that global temperatures will rise 2 to 10 degrees by 2100. A "middle of the road" projection is for an average 5-degree increase by the end of the century, says Caspar Amman of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. What the various factions don't necessarily agree on is what to do about it. The heart of the discussion is "really about how to deal with climate change, not whether it's happening," says energy technology expert James Dooley of the Battelle Joint Global Change Research Institute in College Park, Md. "What are my company's options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions? Are there new business opportunities associated with addressing climate change? Those are the questions many businesses are asking today."
Headline says: Debate's over, text says nothing about a debate...
Posted by:Spot

#24  The weather now (in Arizona) is much warmer than when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s (in Michigan). I guess that proves global warming.

Seriously, what should the global temperature be? The Global Optimum of the 11th century? That was warmer than what we have now? The Little Ice Age of the 18-19th centuries?

Why don't we ask the people in Edmonton or Stockholm if they want it to be colder?
Posted by: Jackal   2005-06-13 22:30  

#23  The terms Global Warming and Climate Change are used interchangeably, but they are most definitely not the same thing. Climate has a well defined meaning that is unrelated to (average) temperature. Climate refers to a place's location in relation to weather systems. So a mediteranean climate means in the path of low pressure systems in the winter but not in the summer. If the climate were warming then weather system should be further away from the equator.

Weather in the southern hemisphere is much less variable than in the northern H, becuase we don't have the large land masses. Especially here in Western Australia where our weather systems track over 4,000 to 6,000 miles of open ocean. If the climate were getting warmer we should get more tropical storms (cyclones) and fewer southern ocean low pressure systems. In fact we have seen the reverse and it seems the climate is most definitely cooling in the sense weather systems are moving closer to the equator.
Posted by: phil_b   2005-06-13 22:06  

#22  Frozen Al - Blame Haliburton!
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats   2005-06-13 21:16  

#21  Sue Sol?
Posted by: .com   2005-06-13 18:53  

#20  The 2 NASA landers on Mars found evidence of global warming there too. Which brings up the question:
Are we witnessing a periodic change in the output of the sun? And if it is a natural phenomena, what should we do about it?

Al
Posted by: Frozen Al   2005-06-13 18:42  

#19  How about all of us open our windows and run our A/C on max until the earth cools back down to where it should be?

I bet we could get Barbra Streisand to back that.
Posted by: Dar   2005-06-13 17:19  

#18  First, the reduction of these dangerous methane fields that could catastrophically explode with horrific amounts of greenhouse gases;

You know, that happened to me just this morning.

I even had to open a window...

Posted by: CrazyFool   2005-06-13 16:47  

#17  Let's rape Mars!
Posted by: Shipman   2005-06-13 16:24  

#16   As noted in earlier article on global warming,Mars is showing unmistakeable signs of global warming. Just how much pollution did our few landers release to create the man-made warming on Mars? Enquiring minds want to know. I propose a global tax on all red colored products to pay for ending the warming on Mars. I volunteer myself to oversee the dispursement of the funds collected.
Posted by: Stephen   2005-06-13 15:44  

#15  I heard an interesting suggestion of how to solve several problems at the same time. The first part involves mining ocean methane in the sea bed. As it is mined out, it is replaced with frozen carbon dioxide (CO2) (dry ice), that is far colder than the methane and keeps it stable during mining, then is slowly replaced in turn by water ice to maintain sea floor integrity. The mined methane is burned to release CO2 and water, which is returned to the mine. The energy from the methane is sent by cable to the northern extreme of the ocean streams, where it is used in giant cooling coils to lower the extremely deep water of the stream just a degree or two, which makes the stream work. The heat generated from the refrigeration process is used for conventional energy production. This should accomplish the following: First, the reduction of these dangerous methane fields that could catastrophically explode with horrific amounts of greenhouse gases; Second, by getting the streams cooled, it would help forestall any potential Ice Age in Europe and North American; and Third, it would provide a vast amount of relatively clean energy.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2005-06-13 14:43  

#14  I don't buy the animal "gases" effect. Humans wipe out animals all the time (at least that's what ELF says). There were millions and millions of buffaloes roaming North American 150 years ago. That's millions and million of stinky gas factories to drive up global warming and we blasted them all to hell.

If anything, humans help STOP fart greenhouse gases. *g*
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats   2005-06-13 14:22  

#13  Has anyone studied the effects of all these enviromentalists? I mean, all the ones I know seem to smoke 3 packs a day and drive cars from the 70's that belch black smoke. Let's blame them for it.
Posted by: Silentbrick   2005-06-13 14:15  

#12  Apparently debate ends before the real scientific modeling can be perfected. DB - I know about the shift in Gulf Stream argument. Prove it? Can't be proven, nor can any of the rest of the henny-penny cries. Never confuse an academic mob for reasoned discourse
Posted by: Frank G   2005-06-13 13:40  

#11  Another USAToday hand-job.
Posted by: mojo   2005-06-13 12:41  

#10  Actually, a recent article in a magazine with nice pictures, Scientific American, noted the "baseline" does show a cyle. We should be in the middle of an ice age, right now. But global warming started 8,000 years ago, with the start of the agricultural society and yes, agricultural animals producing, ummmm, greenhouse gasses.

Any other theories out there, before the "debate" ends?
Posted by: Bobby   2005-06-13 12:29  

#9  Actually FrankG global warming can cause cooling in the Birtish Islae. The Gulf Stream is what keeps Britian warmer than would be normal for that lattitude. If the polar ice melts significantly then the gulf stream cools thereby making things cooler in Britain. Not ice age cool but it could become significantly cooler.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2005-06-13 12:12  

#8  When someone will step up to the bar and declare what base temperature the earth is suppose to be, I'll listen. Last time I say reliable information it indicated that after the mini-iceage that occurred near the end of the Roman Empire, the earth has been re-warming. Regardless, the earth is not a static environment by all indications [multiple iceages, continental drifts, etc]. So what the heck is the 'baseline'? If you don't have a baseline, how can you rationally argue 'warming'?
Posted by: Ebbereck Uneregum5631   2005-06-13 12:05  

#7  it gets warmer - it's due to global warming. It gets cooler, it's due to global warming. Puhleeeze. When you get a model that really waorks, let me know. Oh, by the way, when China and India are under Kyoto then we can talk, until then FOAD, cuz all you're asking is to cut our lifestyles so China can pollute. Read Michael Chrichton's takedown of the global warming "travelling circus"
Posted by: Frank G   2005-06-13 10:57  

#6  Something interesting is happening. The world's climate has definitely got warmer although only over the last 25 years and by an hardly noticeable .5C. But if you were to ask me what would happen if the worlds climate was getting warmer then I would answer the climatic bands and especially the low pressure systems that circle the globe in the temperate lattitudes would move further away from the equator. In fact the reverse seems to be happening. Last northern winter the low pressure systems tracked closer to the equator and southern California got drenched. We are now seeing the same thing in the southern winter. Low pressure system are tracking several hundred kilometers closer to the equator and here in Western Australia the systems that normally pass well to the south are actually hitting land. We have had 2 so far and a third is due later this week.

I have pointed out before that the runaway global warming predicted by the models requires that we explain why this has never happened in the past when volcanic eruptions have injected vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. There must be at least one mechanism acting to reverse the effects of greenhouse gas increases and maintain climate stability (more or less). We may have an answer in the low pressure systems.
Posted by: phil_b   2005-06-13 10:21  

#5  All this means is that somebody discovered a way to make money off the global warming fad. That was obvious when BP started using it in their commercials.
Posted by: BH   2005-06-13 10:16  

#4  C'mon folks. It's over.
Dan Verrano has spoken!
Posted by: tu3031   2005-06-13 09:57  

#3  The Earth is warming. It has been gradually warming for the past 250 years (before the industrial revolution). The sun has been putting out slightly more energy since that time too. The Earth has warmed up in the past before humans and lost its icecaps as well. Most of the reputible scientific arguments I have seen are debating whether humans are accelerating this process.

Now the rub of the whole thing is, now that more fresh water from the melting ice is entering the atlantic, the gulf stream is starting to falter. This MAY trigger an ice age. At the very least, Great Britain, Norway and Sweden will not have to worry about islamic forces taking over their countries since the ice will do that for them.
Posted by: mmurray821   2005-06-13 09:56  

#2  I'm still waiting to find out what we did to cause the last Ice Age. Was it flatulent wooly mammoths, or caveman barbecue fires? It couldn't just be the natural cycle of things, could it? We have to blame someone or something so Ralph Nader's existence is justified!
Posted by: Dar   2005-06-13 09:45  

#1  I think that we should tax all the rich nations of their wealth and piss it away on feel-good programs, while giving all the primitive polluters a pass.

Oops, already proposed. My bad.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2005-06-13 09:32  

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