Welcome to the first installment of "Fact or Fiction" on GreenMachine2050. This is an opportunity to test your knowledge about some of the arguments used by sceptics of the science of climate change. A quick disclaimer - I am not, nor ever have been, a scientist. I only play one on TV.
Alright, let's get to the big game. This is exciting, isn't it?
Fact or fiction, is the sun causing global warming?
And the answer is . . . fiction. In the last 35 years of global warming, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend. Sun and climate have been going in opposite directions.
For those of you who'd like to geek out a bit more you can spend the rest of your day cruising this website.
Thanks for playing and look forward to seeing you again next week.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Revkin's latest
Great article by Andrew Revkin - http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/. A must read for those wanting to have a "productive discourse" on climate change.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Where there's a Will, there's a way . . .
. . . to address climate change policy in a pragmatic and serious way. George Will's interesting op-ed piece in Sunday's Washington Post highlighted the challenges we face in doing so and reflects sentiments that need to be addressed in order to ensure the US adopts a comprehensive energy and climate policy.
Mr. Will pointed to a number of recent developments that suggest the science of climate change is not settled. But while he focused on stolen emails that independent reviews by the Associated Press and Guardian found only to reveal human transgressions, not scientific, and the recent gaffes by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Mr. Will does not mention that the Arctic ice sheets are melting at a much faster rate than anyone anticipated, as are ice shelves in the Antarctic, and glaciers in Greenland. All of which are due to rising global temperatures.
He also does not mention that the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) found that the first decade of the 21st Century was the hottest on record. The second hottest? The last decade of the 20th Century. Another critical development Mr. Will left out of his piece is the rapid acidification of the world's oceans. None of these are projected impacts in some far flung year, but rather observed changes happening in real time which can be directly attributable to rising temperatures and significant increases in global carbon emissions.
Mr. Will is right, the science is not settled. We're not 100% certain what the world will look like in 2050. But we are certain that human activity is having a negative impact on the world's environment. We are experiencing climate change now, and it's not necessarily in the form of snow storms or hurricanes. The real writing on the wall is in Alaska, Canada, Siberia, Greenland, the Arctic, the Antarctic, and our oceans. To only focus on one element of the conversation, without focusing on the others, is disingenuous. And this, if I'm interpreting his piece correctly, is exactly what he's accusing supporters of climate and energy legislation of being.
Having a conversation about climate change science is far from a bad thing. But let's not ignore what's happening in the world. We have to avoid getting bogged down in irrelevant debates - a snow storm for some is imported snow for others. At the same time, fear mongering has no place in this conversation and the science, when presented, needs to as sound and rigorous as humanly possible.
Mr. Will pointed to a number of recent developments that suggest the science of climate change is not settled. But while he focused on stolen emails that independent reviews by the Associated Press and Guardian found only to reveal human transgressions, not scientific, and the recent gaffes by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Mr. Will does not mention that the Arctic ice sheets are melting at a much faster rate than anyone anticipated, as are ice shelves in the Antarctic, and glaciers in Greenland. All of which are due to rising global temperatures.
He also does not mention that the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) found that the first decade of the 21st Century was the hottest on record. The second hottest? The last decade of the 20th Century. Another critical development Mr. Will left out of his piece is the rapid acidification of the world's oceans. None of these are projected impacts in some far flung year, but rather observed changes happening in real time which can be directly attributable to rising temperatures and significant increases in global carbon emissions.
Mr. Will is right, the science is not settled. We're not 100% certain what the world will look like in 2050. But we are certain that human activity is having a negative impact on the world's environment. We are experiencing climate change now, and it's not necessarily in the form of snow storms or hurricanes. The real writing on the wall is in Alaska, Canada, Siberia, Greenland, the Arctic, the Antarctic, and our oceans. To only focus on one element of the conversation, without focusing on the others, is disingenuous. And this, if I'm interpreting his piece correctly, is exactly what he's accusing supporters of climate and energy legislation of being.
Having a conversation about climate change science is far from a bad thing. But let's not ignore what's happening in the world. We have to avoid getting bogged down in irrelevant debates - a snow storm for some is imported snow for others. At the same time, fear mongering has no place in this conversation and the science, when presented, needs to as sound and rigorous as humanly possible.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Chicken and egg
Highly recommend this website - http://www.chinafaqs.org/. Lots of good information about what China is doing to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the challenges it faces.
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