Scientific opinion on climate change

Here is an excellent Wikipedia article on global warming:

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007

Main article: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

In February 2007, the IPCC released a summary of the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report. According to this summary, the Fourth Assessment Report finds that human actions are "very likely" the cause of global warming, meaning a 90% or greater probability. Global warming in this case is indicated by an increase of 0.75 degrees in average global temperatures over the last 100 years.[5]

The New York Times reported that “the leading international network of climate scientists has concluded for the first time that global warming is 'unequivocal' and that human activity is the main driver, very likely' causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950”.[6]

The New York Times retired journalist William K. Stevens wrote: “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the likelihood was 90 percent to 99 percent that emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, spewed from tailpipes and smokestacks, were the dominant cause of the observed warming of the last 50 years. In the panel’s parlance, this level of certainty is labeled 'very likely'. Only rarely does scientific odds-making provide a more definite answer than that, at least in this branch of science, and it describes the endpoint, so far, of a progression.”.[7]

The Associated Press summarized the position on sea level rise:

On sea levels, the report projects rises of 7-23 inches by the end of the century. That could be augmented by an additional 4-8 inches if recent polar ice sheet melt continues.[8]

The scary part is that each time the scientist have the chance to measure something it surprises them that it's far more advanced than they thought it was. No one is saying what they all know, it's already too late - and it's the American's fault.

A Better World

Just found the perfect cartoon that sums up global warming deniers perfectly, found it here:

New Rules

Great New Rules on Bill Maher last Friday. About evolution and idiot evolution deniers:

"You can’t crap all over Darwin and stem cell research and global warming, then come crawling back to science when you want Tamiflu."

Climate Change

Just found a new blog on global warming, very informative:

So the NYT’s Andy Revkin blogs on the new Gallup survey, “Gallup: Rising View That Climate Risk Exaggerated?” and asks “What’s your take on what’s going on?” What’s your take on why Gallup finds “a record-high 41%” of Americans now say the

Image via Wikipedia

“seriousness of global warming” is exaggerated.

[Yes, let’s put aside the irony of that question coming from the reporter who famously wrote an article, “In Debate on Climate Change, Exaggeration Is a Common Pitfall” that charged Nobelist Al Gore — the man most associated in the public mind with the climate warning — with exaggeration (a false charge, as I proved here).]

Here’s my take. Objectively, in the last two years, the science makes painfully clear that climate risk has grown sharply, far beyond what 99% of people I talk to realize, even highly informed people.

He has lots of charts and things but the main point is clear - we are screwed. Nobody is doing anything in this country because most of us don't think it's all that bad. I've been worried sick about this, we really are going to be royally screwed by climate change that has gone too far to stop now. Best we can do is try to limit the damage. Here's more from the site:

* Hadley Center: Catastrophic 5-7°C warming by 2100 on current emissions path
* M.I.T. joins climate realists, doubles its projection of global warming by 2100 to 5.1°C
* AAAS: Climate change is coming much harder, much faster than predicted
* Nobel laureate Rowland agrees we are headed to 1000 ppm
* NOAA stunner: Climate change “largely irreversible for 1000 years,” with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe
* Startling new sea level rise research: “Most likely” 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100
* US Geological Survey stunner: Sea-level rise in 2100 will likely “substantially exceed” IPCC projections

All this is very bad news. Now I don't think things will get so bad that human life or civilization will end, but millions, maybe even billions, are going to suffer and many will die over the next century.

He is saying that the oceans will rise 5 feet by 2100, 91 years from now. To think about how bad this is go to the beach (those of you not landlocked) and stand on the sand right at the water's edge. Figure out where 5 feet is by using your own height, doesn't have to be perfect, this is just a quick estimate to give perspective.

Now turn around and face away from the ocean and project an imaginary line at 5' high and see where it goes. Down here in So Cal it means all our beaches will be gone and all houses close to the beach will be gone, at a total lose to the owners.

The blog is called Climate Progress and it's written by Joseph Romm.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sea level could rise more than a metre by 2100 (guardian.co.uk)
• Poll: Number Of Americans Who Think Global Warming Is 'Exaggerated' Is Increasing (thinkprogress.org)

Baby Boomers

I wrote this a while back but thought it was too good for just a single posting. It was one of those moments where I just got angry and started typing and captured some raw emotion. So I'm presenting it again:

How Did This Happen?

I'm sitting here listening to Cat Stevens songs and thinking about my youth, we had such ideals back then, we wanted so much and dreamed so far. World peace, love, brothers and sisters to all. It's with tears in my eyes that I look at what we've become as America totters on the brink of fascism and we are responsible for the death of close to 1,000,000 people in Iraq. We railed and protested against our parents and their generation for being hypocrites, but looking back now they were practically saints compared to what this generation has become. The worst our parents did was fail to live up to the ideals of what America should be, what the boomer generation has done is throw those ideals to the ground and stomp on them as if they were evil.

I'm now old and tired, as old as my mom was when Cat recorded these songs, 3 years older than my dad ever made it to. Oddly enough there is still fire in my belly, rage against the machine. Too bad it's accompanied by nausea. My whole body hurts and I'm tired down to my bones and my beloved Darcy is about to die soon. And Cat Stevens is now a devote Muslim who did not condemn the Ayatolah's death sentence of Salman Rushdie, so much for peace and love.

And on top of that we stand at the brink of world disaster with global warming. It won't lead to the end of mankind but it will lead to world-wide problems like nothing we've ever seen, millions of refugees across the globe, hunger, misery and death for multiple millions of humanity. I fear the future will look at the baby boomer generation and see us as either monsters or insane, maybe both. We all claim Hitler and the Nazis as the worst evil that men can sink to but future generations will put that label on us.

How did this happen? Christians and rich people, the fundamentalists who have tried to ram theocracy down our throats and the neocons who have gladly used them as the means to power. If any good can come from all this it will be if both such groups are reviled and hated for as long as humanity lasts.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

I finally saw the movie and it was far better than I thought it would be. Thought I knew a lot about global warming but he had lots of stuff in there I didn't know. The catch phrase on the movie poster is "The most terrifying movie you will ever see" and it certainly was. I was getting a stomach ache watching it, it's all much worse than I thought it was and I'd already been thinking it was too late to do anything, which seems even more true now.

Here I thought all we could blame Republicans for was enormous debt, a horrible war, corruption, the end of our civil rights, the world's worst health and school systems and a vanishing middle class, but the truth is they've actually destroyed the planet. They are just plain evil and the rest of us, and our kids and grandkids, will have to pay the price for it.

Gore was great, if only this was the Al Gore we had seen during the election he might be president right now. He might have gotten so many votes the Pubs wouldn't have been able to steal the election, but no help for it now. I'm still hoping he will step in and take the election away from everyone but I really have no sense of what he is going to do, I suspect he does know himself. He's probably watching everything to see if he can jump in or if it's better if he stays out. Frankly, I think he's too smart to run, and maybe it would be better to have him traveling the world and sounding the clarion call for everyone to act now, than it would for him to be president, where global warming is only one of many, many problems Bush has left for the next guy.

In the movie he quoted Winston Churchill: “Humanity is entering into a time of consequences.” I thought A Time of Consequences would have been a better name for the movie.

Global Warming

The Iraq war seems to take every one's attention but the fact is that the one single thing we should all be working on at top speed and total effort is global warming.

I'm not too worried about it because I figure it's already too late and humanity is screwed, and I'll be dead before the worst happens, anyway. Now I don't mean the end of humanity but a natural disaster that will look like the last 20 years of all natural disasters combined. Climate will change and people will starve, the coasts will flood and there will be refugees even in the first world. Millions will die and the entire globe will take a tremendous economic hit.

We have George Bush to thank for much of this, a guy on the oil companies payroll who has even had wording of scientific documents changed and made sure most of America didn't take the whole thing too seriously. And all this has been due to Exxon, the worst culprit. I always wonder about guys like that, do they simply fail to consider that their children and grandchildren are going to have to live (and maybe die) in the world they are creating? Or does that just not mean anything to them next to their one true god - Profit?

But for those who still want to try and do something here's an article that talks about that:

The Most Important Thing You Can Do To Stop Global Warming

For those who just want to get angry at Exxon:

ExxonMobil's War on Science

By Robert Kennedy Jr.

With an elaborate network of phony think tanks and slick public relations firms, ExxonMobil has become today's Big Tobacco, defrauding the public and waging a war on science.

What we need is a REAL president, someone like Jack Kennedy. Jack turned the whole country to the task of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 60's and we did it. A real leader, which could be Obama, can do the same with energy, make sure we have viable alternatives to oil and gas within ten years, that is probably the only thing that will save us. And by "save" I mean 2 million dying instead of 40 million. I just hope Obama doesn't get assassinated.