A
Alohacyberian
Guest
I've had a lot of fun recently with my tiny (and unofficial) slice of the
2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC). But, though I was one of thousands of IPCC participants, I
don't think I will add "0.0001 Nobel Laureate" to my resume.
The other half of the prize was awarded to former Vice President Al Gore,
whose carbon footprint would stomp my neighborhood flat. But that's another
story.
[...]
I'm sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say
this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun
proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see.
Rather, I see a reliance on climate models (useful but never "proof") and
the coincidence that changes in carbon dioxide and global temperatures have
loose similarity over time.
There are some of us who remain so humbled by the task of measuring and
understanding the extraordinarily complex climate system that we are
skeptical of our ability to know what it is doing and why. As we build
climate data sets from scratch and look into the guts of the climate system,
however, we don't find the alarmist theory matching observations. (The
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite data we analyze at
the University of Alabama in Huntsville does show modest warming -- around
2.5 degrees Fahrenheit per century, if current warming trends of 0.25
degrees per decade continue.)
It is my turn to cringe when I hear overstated-confidence from those who
describe the projected evolution of global weather patterns over the next
100 years, especially when I consider how difficult it is to accurately
predict that system's behavior over the next five days.
Mother Nature simply operates at a level of complexity that is, at this
point, beyond the mastery of mere mortals (such as scientists) and the tools
available to us. As my high-school physics teacher admonished us in those
we-shall-conquer-the-world-with-a-slide-rule days, "Begin all of your
scientific pronouncements with 'At our present level of ignorance, we think
we know . . .'"
I haven't seen that type of climate humility lately. Rather I see
jump-to-conclusions advocates and, unfortunately, some scientists who see in
every weather anomaly the specter of a global-warming apocalypse.
Explaining each successive phenomenon as a result of human action gives them
comfort and an easy answer.
Others of us scratch our heads and try to understand the real causes behind
what we see. We discount the possibility that everything is caused by human
actions, because everything we've seen the climate do has happened before.
Sea levels rise and fall continually. The Arctic ice cap has shrunk before.
One millennium there are hippos swimming in the Thames, and a geological
blink later there is an ice bridge linking Asia and North America.
[...]
Suppose you are very serious about making a dent in carbon emissions and
could replace about 10% of the world's energy sources with non-CO2-emitting
nuclear power by 2020 -- roughly equivalent to halving U.S. emissions. Based
on IPCC-like projections, the required 1,000 new nuclear power plants would
slow the warming by about 0.2176 degrees Fahrenheit per century. It's a
dent.
But what is the economic and human price, and what is it worth given the
scientific uncertainty?
My experience as a missionary teacher in Africa opened my eyes to this
simple fact: Without access to energy, life is brutal and short. The
uncertain impacts of global warming far in the future must be weighed
against disasters at our doorsteps today. Bjorn Lomborg's Copenhagen
Consensus 2004, a cost-benefit analysis of health issues by leading
economists (including three Nobelists), calculated that spending on health
issues such as micronutrients for children, HIV/AIDS and water purification
has benefits 50 to 200 times those of attempting to marginally limit "global
warming."
Given the scientific uncertainty and our relative impotence regarding
climate change, the moral imperative here seems clear to me.
~ JOHN R. CHRISTY, My Nobel Moment, _Wall Street Journal_, Page A19,
November 1, 2007
John Christy is director of the Earth System Science Center at the
University of Alabama in Huntsville and a participant in the U.N.'s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, co-recipient of this year's Nobel
Peace Prize.
~
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119387567378878423.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
--
(-:alohacyberian
At my website view over 3,600 live cameras or
visit NASA, the Vatican, the Smithsonian, the Louvre, CIA, FBI, and
NBA, the White House, Academy Awards, 150 language translators!
Visit Hawaii, Israel and more at: http://keith.martin.home.att.net/
2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC). But, though I was one of thousands of IPCC participants, I
don't think I will add "0.0001 Nobel Laureate" to my resume.
The other half of the prize was awarded to former Vice President Al Gore,
whose carbon footprint would stomp my neighborhood flat. But that's another
story.
[...]
I'm sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say
this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun
proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see.
Rather, I see a reliance on climate models (useful but never "proof") and
the coincidence that changes in carbon dioxide and global temperatures have
loose similarity over time.
There are some of us who remain so humbled by the task of measuring and
understanding the extraordinarily complex climate system that we are
skeptical of our ability to know what it is doing and why. As we build
climate data sets from scratch and look into the guts of the climate system,
however, we don't find the alarmist theory matching observations. (The
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite data we analyze at
the University of Alabama in Huntsville does show modest warming -- around
2.5 degrees Fahrenheit per century, if current warming trends of 0.25
degrees per decade continue.)
It is my turn to cringe when I hear overstated-confidence from those who
describe the projected evolution of global weather patterns over the next
100 years, especially when I consider how difficult it is to accurately
predict that system's behavior over the next five days.
Mother Nature simply operates at a level of complexity that is, at this
point, beyond the mastery of mere mortals (such as scientists) and the tools
available to us. As my high-school physics teacher admonished us in those
we-shall-conquer-the-world-with-a-slide-rule days, "Begin all of your
scientific pronouncements with 'At our present level of ignorance, we think
we know . . .'"
I haven't seen that type of climate humility lately. Rather I see
jump-to-conclusions advocates and, unfortunately, some scientists who see in
every weather anomaly the specter of a global-warming apocalypse.
Explaining each successive phenomenon as a result of human action gives them
comfort and an easy answer.
Others of us scratch our heads and try to understand the real causes behind
what we see. We discount the possibility that everything is caused by human
actions, because everything we've seen the climate do has happened before.
Sea levels rise and fall continually. The Arctic ice cap has shrunk before.
One millennium there are hippos swimming in the Thames, and a geological
blink later there is an ice bridge linking Asia and North America.
[...]
Suppose you are very serious about making a dent in carbon emissions and
could replace about 10% of the world's energy sources with non-CO2-emitting
nuclear power by 2020 -- roughly equivalent to halving U.S. emissions. Based
on IPCC-like projections, the required 1,000 new nuclear power plants would
slow the warming by about 0.2176 degrees Fahrenheit per century. It's a
dent.
But what is the economic and human price, and what is it worth given the
scientific uncertainty?
My experience as a missionary teacher in Africa opened my eyes to this
simple fact: Without access to energy, life is brutal and short. The
uncertain impacts of global warming far in the future must be weighed
against disasters at our doorsteps today. Bjorn Lomborg's Copenhagen
Consensus 2004, a cost-benefit analysis of health issues by leading
economists (including three Nobelists), calculated that spending on health
issues such as micronutrients for children, HIV/AIDS and water purification
has benefits 50 to 200 times those of attempting to marginally limit "global
warming."
Given the scientific uncertainty and our relative impotence regarding
climate change, the moral imperative here seems clear to me.
~ JOHN R. CHRISTY, My Nobel Moment, _Wall Street Journal_, Page A19,
November 1, 2007
John Christy is director of the Earth System Science Center at the
University of Alabama in Huntsville and a participant in the U.N.'s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, co-recipient of this year's Nobel
Peace Prize.
~
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119387567378878423.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
--
(-:alohacyberian
At my website view over 3,600 live cameras orvisit NASA, the Vatican, the Smithsonian, the Louvre, CIA, FBI, and
NBA, the White House, Academy Awards, 150 language translators!
Visit Hawaii, Israel and more at: http://keith.martin.home.att.net/