Conservative Matt Drudge leads his readers by the nose to the Right. However, one can infer by popping over to the Drudge Report periodically that he holds a view of Global Warming that isn’t party line.
Drudge highlights extreme weather regularly. One headline today is the story linked here. Much of the country has had rampaging weather conditions of late. 3,215 daily high temperature records were set in the month of June. A new vocabulary word for us to learn has emerged this week as well: Derecho.
All this ought to be of concern. But as I posted last night: Everything has become a racket. Global Warming deniers are committed to preserving things as they are. There’s still plenty of money to be made pouring carbon into the sky after all. Meanwhile, combining Chicago pols with global warming policy results in Solyndra. Which is to say, your money gets thrown down a rat hole to be collected by political donors and never seen again.
Where I sit the weather has been sublime all week. But I’ve got no delusions. Something is changing. Something big. I’d like to say I hold out hope we’ll face Global Warming head on and adjust our behavior. But I fear it may already be too late.
Just had this twitter conv on the subject w/ vastleft:
On the other hand:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2167731/Britains-Atlantis-North-sea–huge-undersea-kingdom-swamped-tsunami-5-500-years-ago.html
I know I’m a minority here, but I’ll say it anyway: climate change is as old as the planet and takes place regardless of the puny acts or omissions of humans. Yes, humans certainly contribute to some GW, but I don’t believe it should be addressed by major policy shifts and investments. It preceded our infestation of the planet, and it’ll outlast us. AGW/climate-change is, in my opinion, largely political and financial (follow the money). It’s also the faddish, cool ‘religion’ of approximately last 20 yrs., and I dislike fads.
“climate change is as old as the planet ”
We know about billions of years of climate change because of the work of scientists. You accept their findings when it comes to that, but reject those same scientists’ findings that we are drastically altering the climate through burning off fossil fuels.
You don’t get to cherry-pick science.
John, I was told in COLLEGE—40 years ago this was going to happen,-Northeast will be like Florida and vise versa——–I see that more tragedies are happennig, but the weather seems to maintain the stats quo—it;s been 10 years since the north east (around me) has seen 100+ temps——-we had no snowfall this winter (very little compared to normal)-BUT Rain———yup-IT WAS THERE
1) You either were given bad information, or you don’t correctly recall what you were told;
2) Your observation that the weather “seems to maintain the status quo” is nonsensical — what does “status quo” mean when you also point out unprecedented perturbations?
3) Weather is variable and short term. Climate trends are long-term and steady. Changes in climate cause greater variability in weather – variations you yourself are noticing;
4) The trend in climate is undeniable — steady increases in global temp, linked precisely to increases in man-made carbon over the past 150 years. It’s a foolish, old trope you repeat, that ’40 years ago they predicted yada this yada that’. The predictions have in fact been stunningly and alarmingly accurate, something you’d know if you’d actually done any research on the subject, instead of just blathering nonsense.
the last drought I remembr I was in 2nd grade-50 years ago-I agree 100% W/NES
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/american_studies/how_puny_are_the_works_of.php#018657
I have read that the above is the result of no longer thinning the forests, due to Green issues.
I know there are many intelligent people of both parties who do not “believe” that humans are causing climate change. I mean no disrespect to those who disagree with me on this issue.
Of course the climate of the earth has changed many times over millions of years. (By the way, climate change has caused massive extinctions in the past.) The question is are humans contributing significantly to the rapid (geologically speaking) changes we are experiencing now. The answer among the vast majority of scientists who have studied the issue is yes.
If they are right, the change will happen exponentially. It will change a little, a little more, and we’ll keep arguing about it. Then the heating of the Earth will feed on itself and the average temperature of the Earth will rise rapidly. (I said average as local conditions may vary. The temperature could also become more extreme with wide swings in temperature according to some models.) There will be no way to stop it or even limit it to a tolerable level at that point.
Of course, in another million years, perhaps a cat-like animal with opposable thumbs will take over the Earth and wonder what happened when they run across our ruins.
djmm
“Of course, in another million years, perhaps a cat-like animal with opposable thumbs will take over the Earth and wonder what happened when they run across our ruins.”
My theory is that there will be no trace of us since everything, including our persons, will be digital by the time we’re wiped out. So no electricity, no trace of us.
Rofl, Jay!
It used to known as a “runaway” greenhouse effect. If left unchecked, the Earth ends up like Venus, with 780* temps and sulfuric acid rains.
Does it really matter is climate change is man-made or not?
If it is really a threat to the human species, why aren’t we addressing it as such, instead of using it as a political vote-getter?
Where are the Pop-Sci/Eureka/super-NASA type solutions – the massive satellite mirrors to reflect back some of sun’s energy, for example?
Why is the it being used to justify control of minute human behavior and extort money instead (paying for emissions, frex)?
“Does it really matter is climate change is man-made or not?”
It matters because we can stop it if we stop using fossil fuels.
“If it is really a threat to the human species, why aren’t we addressing it”
If deforestation was such a threat on Easter Island, why didn’t their leaders address it?
This one is tough since I no longer trust anyone… but the heat records being broken so often feels like an indicator. Does anyone know why these records (yearly ones too) would be falling so often? Is there a problem with record keeping or the amount of time the records have been kept? If not, then things are getting hotter. If this cyclical? Or because of us?
There are no problems with the record-keeping.
Yes, there is a cyclical nature to the Earth’s climate. Actually, we are technically in an Ice Age. But the sharp increase in overall global temperature over the past 150 years is unlike anything, in rapidity or intensity, in the past. We have disrupted the cycle, and sent it careening off in one direction.
The spike in temp is precisely correlated to increased carbon emissions. With the failure of the past two international climate summits to agree on anything, the world will exceed the carbon output the system can cope with, ensuring devastating climate changes.
The evidence is overwhelming and irrefutable. The consequences are dire — massive upheavals, millions of deaths, likely widespread anarchy, mass extinctions, and ultimately the death of every living thing on the planet.
Only in the United States is there a sizable bloc of doubters & deniers. That’s because we live in a fact-free society, where everyone gets to “feel” or “believe” whatever they want. Climate change scares people, depresses them. So they adopt a Candide approach, and try to wish it away.
Well, the climate comes and goes … we are in the warming phase of an Ice Age! The last Glacial Max was only 18,000 years ago … the sites of London and New York may then have been buried under hundreds or thousands of feet of ice! The last 18,000 years of global warming have already revolutionized the lives of humanity … but so slowly that warming has had little effect on the lives of individual people.
What *will* matter to us very soon is that our whole way of life is entirely based on burning fossil fuels. Yes, burning fossil fuels creates greenhouse gases that add to climate warming. But unfortunately there’s a far more obvious and immediate fact: burning fossil fuels makes us have to go and get more fossil fuels … and they are just ever more expensive to acquire.
If you’re like me, 100% of the food we eat arrives from somewhere by truck. When gassing up those trucks becomes a financial ruin to the people in that business, they will stop running the trucks and we will have no food. I’m not sure how far we are from that point, but I would estimate not far. My guess is that the massive upheavals, millions of deaths, and widespread anarchy will arrive within a decade or two with the breakdown of food delivery. So, there’s no need to worry about global warming, hurrah!
At the start of the last Ice Age, the human population on Earth was no more than a few hundred thousand.
It’s desperate that perhaps the only way to avert the death of the planet is to hope for the malthusian scenario outlined by Joe.
The ratio or fraction of man’s airborne CO2 in the atmosphere has not increased but has remained steady. Sounds like a business as usual statement. However, man made CO2 continues to increase along with the natural increase, so the ratio stays the same. This means the claimed 100ppm increase in CO2 since whenever can’t possibly be all man made. Also, the last 30 years has witnessed a continual drying of the Southern Hemisphere. This ties in to the loss of glaciers too.