(The conversation about) global warming goes away

Global warming seems to be a dead issue in the United States, which isolates us from the rest of the world. You have to wonder what’s going on in people’s minds when the number of people who believe global warming is real drops from 79 percent in 2006 to 59 percent currently. That’s comparable to 20 percent of the people changing their minds about the sum of two plus two.

Global warming isn’t something to believe in, like God. It’s logical, and it was a logical hypothesis even before the evidence began to mount. It’s supported by more facts than you can shake a stick at. But this seems to be a problem with Americans: when the rest of the world is looking ahead dozens and hundreds of years, we have trouble seeing beyond next week. Shockingly, when renewable, non-carbon energy sources should be our priority, we’re making a big push for a 2,000-mile oil pipeline from Canada and fracking natural gas from deep underground. Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry would kill off the EPA and dig up all the coal in the US.

It’s insane and dangerous to think global warming isn’t a settled issue, as Perry and other Republicans claim. While most of us won’t live to see the ultimate penalties for ignoring the climate change crisis, many are already suffering from its consequences. Scientists, always unwilling to make sweeping claims without an abundance of supporting evidence, now seem ready to blame the dramatic increase in violent weather events on global warming.

A colder than usual American winter in 2010 helped to dampen people’s interest in global warming as an issue. It was hardly warmer, right? What people miss is that global warming is bringing about changes in climate patterns. Even as the US experienced more cold and snow last winter, the planet still warmed, and the snowstorms themselves are right in line with what scientists predict — more violent weather, more precipitation. Look at the tornado season that followed. Look at the flooding. Look at the relentless heat in the summer, and the drought that set Texas on fire.

Other countries are looking at global warming as an opportunity to develop and invest in the technologies and industries of tomorrow. Not us. When we finally decide to update our energy infrastructure, we’ll be looking abroad for the parts we need.

After making bold promises about how he would combat global warming during the last presidential campaign, President Obama has gone quiet.  In 2008, discussing the rash of January tornadoes, The Weather Channel’s Severe Weather Expert, Dr. Greg Forbes, wrote that they were once rare — and over the last few years they’re becoming increasingly common. Let’s see what kind of weather January, 2012, brings, then let’s see what Obama has to say about it in his State of the Union speech next January. If he doesn’t bring up global warming in that address, then he’s taken his eye off the future.

Something to think about

There was probably a time when the Earth was ice-free. It was a long time ago, and back then there were probably no ice caps at the poles. Our climate engine was a lot different than it is today. A lot has changed since humans first started roaming the earth, and in that time we’ve adapted to the climate cycles as we know them now, give or take a relatively minor variation or two.

Back when there were no ice caps, there was probably also no coal and oil buried deep below the surface. Coal and oil were not naturally occurring materials in our planets original composition. They formed as the vegetation that was abundant back in those ice-free days died and were buried and compressed under thousands of feet, and even miles, of the changing surface of the earth. There’s millions and millions of years’ worth of compressed vegetation down below — and as we all know, vegetation is stored carbon dioxide.

So here we are, releasing all this stored carbon back into the atmosphere, far more rapidly than it took to store it up. Compare the 200-odd years we’ve been burning first coal and then oil to those millions and millions it took to put it there, and you’ll get the picture.

I would like to say something in person to all those senators and congress persons who think global warming is a hoax, or think it’s just part of a natural cycle, or say whatever pops into their heads to make their campaign donors happy. They’re full of shit, and they’re killing us. Their pea brains just cannot grasp the problem. They just don’t get it. Human activity IS affecting the global climate. Human activity IS changing the biosphere as we know it. Human activity IS rendering the planet inhospitable, and human activity WILL render it inhabitable.

For humans anyway.

Scientists are Necessarily Cautious

A sobering story in yesterday’s Washington Post says that there is growing consensus among scientists that this year’s extended heat wave is another sign of global warming. But, according to Daniel C. Esty, a professor of environmental law and policy at Yale University, “The trend lines showing so much hot weather in recent years suggests some concern, even if we can’t say definitively this is a signal of climate change.”

Esty’s remark reflects not confusion but caution, which is good science, not bad. Scientists know all too well that whenever they make observations on the record, their credibility is at stake — and if they are to be taken seriously they must leave room for error.

This is what distinguishes good scientists from bad ones. And there are plenty of bad ones. There are bad scientists who refute out of hand the probability that global warming is a reality. There are bad scientists who blur the issue by raising doubt in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are wrong.

The debate over global warming is in some ways comparable to the debate over evolution. Evolutionary scientists are just as cautious as their peers in climate study. Not so the proponents of creationism and intelligent design. These scientists stubbornly craft scientific theories to fit the bible while ignoring scientific evidence and observation. Their research takes them not into the field but into the pages of Genesis.

It’s long been clear to me that something is amiss. I began to notice changes a few years after moving to central North Carolina from New York in the mid-1970s. At first I enjoyed the short, mild winters that were followed by long, balmy springs. But during the 1980s, springs seemed to be getting shorter, with summers arriving earlier and tending to be more brutal. And during those summers, I noticed that the nights didn’t cool down as much as they did in the few years following my arrival.

And this may be a key to the heat-wave phenomenon. According to the Post story, “…researchers at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., reported this week that nighttime summer temperatures across the country have been unusually high for the past eight years, a record streak.” And you don’t have to be a scientist to understand that when it doesn’t cool down as much at night, the day starts out hotter.

When the idea of global warming was first advanced in the late 1980s, scientists were careful not to predict the ramifications. One thing they offered was the likelihood of changes in weather patterns. We see this happening now.

I’m glad scientists are cautious, and I appreciate informed debate. Gradually, as more and more evidence is uncovered, the nature of the consensus will change. But nothing — NOTHING — in their caution suggests we ignore the trends and delay action. There is no agreement on when we might reach a point of no return, but what’s becoming increasingly clear is that we may be approaching it. No one at this point is saying it’s already too late — and I hope it isn’t. Some may say we won’t see the worst of it in our lifetimes, but what we’re now seeing is bad enough.

And Now, Drought?

Global-warming deniers say that what’s happening is part of a natural cycle of climate variations, but scientists maintain that human activity has altered the natural cycle. It seems logical, considering the amounts of carbon we’ve dumped into the atmosphere in a little over 200 years. To dismiss the possible connection is to gamble with human life. In addition to the gradual warming over the past several decades, consider the weather anomalies of the last two years.

Last year’s hurricanes, for instance, greater in number and in intensity than is typical. And what tropical storms lie ahead for the remainder of the season? The unusually frequent and heavy storms that have caused flooding in many parts of the Northeast this year — with summer less than half over. The prolonged heat wave that has already claimed many lives and is affecting virtually the entire country. The strain on the grid has caused numerous power outages, on top of the ones caused by storms.

And now, from the Dakotas, is this article about the ongoing drought, reminiscent of the dustbowl during the 1930s. How devastating a widespread drought would be to the United States, now far more heavily populated than in the thirties and with local agriculture almost a thing of the past. Drought in the Midwest and California alone could result in food shortages across the country.

Lives are at stake, and as I wrote in my previous post, we can’t fix it overnight. Even if we began today (which won’t happen, thanks to the current administration) it could take decades to reverse the warming trend.

One can predict the earliest signs of drought-related problems: rising prices. Already prices of food have risen thanks to increased transportation and production costs. But if the drought continues and spreads, prices will go up even further, until eventually stocks begin to decline.

There are irresponsible people in Washington that have our fate in their hands — and we put them there. It’s time for us to replace them with folks who care more about the world and its people than they do about the corporations who contribute heavily to their campaigns.

No Instant Fix for Global Warming

When voters go to the polls this November, they’ll want to remember the past summer’s heat and remember who the primary global warming deniers have been since the last 1980s. They’ll want to remember who opposed tough fuel efficiency standards for motor vehicles. They’ll want to remember who consistently stood in the way of environmental measures that might have curtailed emissions. They’ll need to be angry, and translate their anger into smart votes.

What voters must bear in mind, though, is that even if every measure conceivable to reverse global warming is passed, there won’t be overnight results. Global warming has been centuries in the making, with the most dramatic changes in world climate occurring over the last several decades. And it will probably take as many decades before we see any evidence that things have turned around. Let’s face it — the carbon is in the atmosphere now. And not only do we have to stop adding to it, we actually have to begin to reduce it.

I have little doubt that global warming will remain a campaign issue for the foreseeable future — and voters find themselves confused by opposing candidates who say they have a better way to address global warming. Worse yet might be candidates who assert that tough measures aren’t working and we’ve been made to endure a few hardships for nothing.

What’s essential though is to arrive at the most sensible course and resist diverting from that course. Things will get worse before they get better, but if we don’t do something soon, we’d better get used to worse.

Dangerous Denial

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) is well-known for his belief that global warming is a hoax (read here). Recently, he compared the global warming message to the Third Reich’s “Big Lie” — in the tradition of Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Inhofe is among the most prominent and visible global warming deniers, and he presents a clear danger to the future of humanity.

At the very least it creates confusion when there should no longer be debate. At worst, it sways public opinion in the wrong direction. There is no longer any difference of opinion among credible scientists that global warming is real and it’s a threat.

It’s worth asking: what would such scientists have to gain by advancing what Inhofe regards as a hoax? For the life of me, I can’t think of anything. James Hansen, of NASA’s Goddard Institute, who was among a handful to sound an early alarm in the late 1980s, has even put his job at risk by publicly spreading what has been an unwelcome message by the current administration.

Inhofe, on the other hand, stands to gain greatly by maintaining a position of public opposition to global warming. He is one of the major recipients of campaign contributions from energy companies, and as such he behaves as if he is in their employ. Large amounts of campaign money usually means campaign success — and Inhofe is betraying the public trust simply to hang on to his seat in the Senate.

Oklahomans are suffering the effects of a record-breaking heat wave along with almost the entire nation. Is it a symptom of global warming? Hopefully, Inhofe’s constituents will decide they cannot afford to think otherwise. Hopefully, they are smarter than Inhofe thinks they are. Hopefully, they will reject his denial and get rid of him at the next opportunity — and replace him with someone who cares about their survival.

The Heat Wave Paradox

We’ve had heat waves before, but the current one, affecting almost the entire country, is unusual. It’s providing a lesson that will probably be ignored, as lessons often are. The lesson is in the paradox: that during heat waves energy companies are stressed, and that the hotter it gets the more stressed they are because of increased demands created by people trying to stay cool. In St. Louis, hot in any summer, the problem was compounded when a powerful storm knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers. Is this heat wave and the accompanying severe weather another symptom of global warming? We’d be foolish to think it isn’t.

Where it’s hot, the sunshine is merciless. And this is part two of the paradox — for in all that blazing sunshine is boundless energy that could be captured and used to power all those air conditioners that are draining every power grid in the country. Solar panels on a rooftop could meet the needs of an individual home. Large arrays of them in the deserts out west could help Arizonans stay cool.

The irony is, if we’d been using solar technology since the late 1970s, when President Carter first installed a solar water heater on the White House roof (and mandated more fuel-efficient cars while we were at it), we might not be having this severe heat wave now.