Thoughts from the co-recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize

[BonzoHansen]

I was telling our fearless admins about this article, so I thought I'd post it.

This guy is my hero because he makes logical sense to me.

My Nobel Moment By JOHN R. CHRISTY
WSJ November 1, 2007; Page A19

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.

Both halves of the award honor promoting the message that Earth's temperature is rising due to human-based emissions of greenhouse gases. The Nobel committee praises Mr. Gore and the IPCC for alerting us to a potential catastrophe and for spurring us to a carbonless economy.

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.

One of the challenges in studying global climate is keeping a global perspective, especially when much of the research focuses on data gathered from spots around the globe. Often observations from one region get more attention than equally valid data from another.

The recent CNN report "Planet in Peril," for instance, spent considerable time discussing shrinking Arctic sea ice cover. CNN did not note that winter sea ice around Antarctica last month set a record maximum (yes, maximum) for coverage since aerial measurements started.

Then there is the challenge of translating global trends to local climate. For instance, hasn't global warming led to the five-year drought and fires in the U.S. Southwest?

Not necessarily.

There has been a drought, but it would be a stretch to link this drought to carbon dioxide. If you look at the 1,000-year climate record for the western U.S. you will see not five-year but 50-year-long droughts. The 12th and 13th centuries were particularly dry. The inconvenient truth is that the last century has been fairly benign in the American West. A return to the region's long-term "normal" climate would present huge challenges for urban planners.

Without a doubt, atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing due primarily to carbon-based energy production (with its undisputed benefits to humanity) and many people ardently believe we must "do something" about its alleged consequence, global warming. This might seem like a legitimate concern given the potential disasters that are announced almost daily, so I've looked at a couple of ways in which humans might reduce CO2 emissions and their impact on temperatures.

California and some Northeastern states have decided to force their residents to buy cars that average 43 miles-per-gallon within the next decade. Even if you applied this law to the entire world, the net effect would reduce projected warming by about 0.05 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, an amount so minuscule as to be undetectable. Global temperatures vary more than that from day to day.

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 0.2 ?176 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.

Mr. 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.

[Blacdout96]

OMG that was a great article!!! very well discussed and with reason and proof behind it. good thread bro, make you wonder, personally I believe they use global warming as a look over here while the real stuff that needs to be fixed is being pushed aside. Why do politicians, and people who say this and that needs action done wiht, but they always pick the stuff that doesnt make an impact or is so stupid it makes sense to worry about it. The only reason why they want us to slow down consumption of gas for our cars and extend the mileage is so the worlds oil supply can last longer, and continue to make money for both oil companies, and politicians. If politicians were so concerned on global warming, then they need to shut down oil companies and look into using hybrid cars, but whay are they still manufacturing oil, or not pushing hybrid and hydrogen based cars? cause they pay the politicians to just walk away. Practice what you preach people, dont be hypocrites. How bout we focus our time and laws, and money on things that matter, like how to cure diseases and people who are paraylized because we have a cure already, but we cant use it cause its against moral values, and may offend people. Or we COULD use that money and help buy proper armor for our troops in Iraq and Afghan cause we shipped them out so quickly we dont have enough for everyone, since it looks like everyones sitting on their hands and doing nothign to get them back home safely. America is great, but god damn we need to revamp our whole govewrnment and how things are handled...but thats just my opinion

[The Fixer]

Man, that was a good article! Thanks for sharing!

[JL8Jeff]

Good article. Global warming isn't the problem, the human population boom will be the real problem. Ever wonder how many BTU's the average human puts out?

[Anti_Rice_Guy]

Wow, awesome article! I have to send this around! Looks good for us car people, maybe we can bring this to inspection so we don't have to pass emissions!

[BonzoHansen]

Originally Posted by JL8Jeff

Good article. Global warming isn't the problem, the human population boom will be the real problem. Ever wonder how many BTU's the average human puts out?

Depends on what I eat....

[89CamaroRS]

excellent article. i've heard that theory before but never the facts behind it. i'm sold.

[JL8Jeff]

Here's another good article from the founder of The Weather Channel.

Global Warming Scam

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[Untamed]

The History Channel had a 2 hour program on this very topic. The conclusion I drew from it is: human's aren't helping matters with the practices we have, but we aren't totally responsible for global warming. It's a cycle that the Earth has gone through since it formed.

Some several hundred million years ago, the arctic was a tropical paradise for plants and animals. Scientists recently drew a core sample from the sea floor and found fossilized ferns a thousand feet down into the sea bed.

We may be speeding up the warming process, but we aren't the cause.

[PolarBear]

Originally Posted by JL8Jeff

Good article. Global warming isn't the problem, the human population boom will be the real problem. Ever wonder how many BTU's the average human puts out?

I think that as it saw said in the "Matrix" movie that humans ARE a virus, Eventually one day we will destroy this world but I do not think that global warming is going to be how we do it. If you look at how quickly the popultaion is growing I think we are going to start screwing up the eco system in a major way before "global warming" is a real issue.

Carbon emmissions dont really matter anyway, eventually we are going to completely run out of fossil fuels, then what will we do?

[Knipps]

Not to bring up a week old thread but i read something recently where if you were to drive a mile to the grocery store it uses less energy than that required to produce the food with enough calories to walk the distance

[Anti_Rice_Guy]

Incidentally I got assigned a paper on this so I can keep you updated...

[Frosty]

Global Warming is real, anyone that thinks it's all a hoax is a fool. However, I seriously question the REASONS behind it. Al Gore is a scammer, he needs something to do to be in the limelight. He has the sheepole in this world hook, line and sinker.

I GUARANTEE you if Bush or a Republican made this claim they'd be laughed it.

[BonzoHansen]

Earth's cycles are real....

[Kojak]

Al Gore is a tool shed that contains many tool bags that are advocating their fears of MAJOR climate shift to other tools. But just like him there are other tools on the other side preaching global warming is a puppet named Algore and that it will never happen in out lifetime.

From what I’ve been studying global warming happens and climate shift is a possibility but like the article says we can not always properly predict the weather five days from now. There are so many different meteorological and terrestrial factors to consider when forecasting weather which is why weather is not always accurate so how is it possible that someone can be so sure that the climate will change within a century, but on the other hand how can we be sure it will not.

I have to admit that if humans do not believe that they are impacting their environment then they are ignorant. Our air is not free, we pay for it with the particulate, emissions and effluent that we produce. An emission like CO2 which we all know and is a big name in global warming plays a major role in the atmosphere and temperature of the Earth so why shouldn’t we regulate it? The same goes with other pollutants.
I think im a little off topic, so all in all we should be worrying about what pollutants we are producing locally before we even try to predict climate shift.
/rant