Seattle Times: "The truth about global warming"

You're absolutely right, Randonee, media coverage has indeed been unbalanced. I've read multiple articles noting how careful the media has been to present "both" points of view to ensure that it is doing the proper "media balance" thing, and as a result has given the image that there is far more doubt and uncertainty than what you call the "GW enthusiasts" assert (funny label - huh?), when in fact it's a small minority of scientists expressing the large doubts and their funding tends to suggest serious bias.<br><br>You do a good job of homing in on the section on uncertainty in the IPCC content - even more so than the "fair and balanced" media. You can also find quotes expressing concern that since we are only looking at models, the rate of warming may end up being much quicker than anticipated - so much for comfort in uncertainty.<br><br>Yes, let's be prudent and measured in our approach. By all means. I guess the big difference is whether you think "wait and see" is truly prudent when the only definitive evidence will be salt water lapping at the base of Mt Si. <br><br>Per Randy's comment, I recall hearing hand-wringers in New Orleans freaking about the levees years ago as many in the city kept the constant party going, expressing disdain for these worry-warts who just didn't understand how things worked down there - it's all good! No worries!

I also watch the 60 minutes segment last night. They didn't give much time for any alternative views. Some observations:<br><br>- Why do we act like humans are so foreign to the nature of the earth, like we dropped in from outer space? We are subject to the balance of nature like everything else. If we bring disaster upon ourselves, so be it. I am suspect of anything that generates self hatred. I am not ready to raise up the high priests of GW to tell me how to live my life.<br><br>I appreciate the Gaia Theory and I am not so sure we control the Gaia.<br><br>From: www.oceansonline.com/gaiaho.htm

"....Where this process becomes interesting for Gaia is the possibility that phytoplankton can control the temperature of the Earth by regulating the amount of cloud cover over the oceans. Imagine that! Phytoplankton, tiny single-celled plants in the sea, have their fingers on the Earth's thermostat! When the sun is shining brightly, phytoplankton grow rapidly (they're plants, remember?) and produce DMS, which leads to clouds. After a while, the increase in clouds lowers the temperature of the Earth, but it also blocks the sunlight to the phytoplankton. As a result, the phytoplankton grow more slowly, less clouds are formed, and the temperature of the Earth rises. The cycle continues to repeat in a self-regulating and balanced manner....."

<br><br>- Are GW advocates insisting that we can control our climate? Can we manage the cycle of ice ages, dial in the weather? Wow, that is news to me.<br><br>- Do GW's understand volcanic activity and it's effect on the climate?<br><br>- I think we do a nice job of controlling pollution and preserving species, but it would seem pretty self centered to think the evolution is over and there will be no more changes, no more oceans and mountains rising and falling, no more climate changes, unless it is through our own fault.<br><br>- Any scientist has to be pretty narrowly focused to excel in their field. To take a narrowly focused work and generalize the conclusions is suspect to me.<br><br>- India, China and Russia and other countries have huge pollution problems compared to the U.S. that they should attend to before beating up on us. India dumps every pollutant imaginable into our oceans with unregulated ship demolition and everyone in India cooks with kerosene or charcoal and create their own special red sunset effects. China mis-manages their land so badly, that they have created dust storms that not only choke themselves, but probably contribute to GW. Russia piles radioactive and chemical warfare waste out in open dumps and has almost no concept of pollution control. I could go on and on. <br><br>My point is that America has led the field in environmental science and pollution control. So we should be proud of ourselves and keep up the good works.

I'm indeed proud that we're a country that has steadily improved itself over the years on so many fronts, and as a result has provided world leadership. It's not inconsistent to also believe that we can lead the world in risk management around global warming. Nor to understand that we consume far more per capita than the countries listed just above, and that therefore our environmental impact is also huge despite doing much better on things such as pollution controls.<br><br>Can humans impact the climate? It's unambiguous on a small scale - say comparing temperature and air cleanliness in a paved urban area to a nearby large forest in the summertime. It's really not that big a stretch to see the impact extending on a global scale, is it?<br><br>Saying "humans are part of nature too" misses the point that we are the only animal capable of industrialization, and also of consciously mitigating the impacts thereof. If the phytoplankton will help us, that's awesome. But the pride I mention in my first paragraph extends to our ability to take responsibility for our own actions.

I enjoyed reading this today:<br><br>George Will<br><br>Let cooler heads prevail: The media heat up over global warming.<br><br> www.NewsAndOpinion.com

quotes:

The National Academy of Sciences says the rise in the Earth's surface temperature has been about one degree Fahrenheit in the past century. Did 85 percent of Americans notice? Of course not. They got their anxiety from journalism calculated to produce it. Never mind that one degree might be the margin of error when measuring the planet's temperature...

That is one reason why the Clinton administration never submitted the Kyoto accord on global warming for Senate ratification. In 1997 the Senate voted 95 to 0 that the accord would disproportionately burden America while being too permissive toward major polluters that are America's trade competitors...

Science magazine (Dec. 10, 1976) warned of "extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation." Science Digest (February 1973) reported that "the world's climatologists are agreed" that we must "prepare for the next ice age." The Christian Science Monitor ("Warning: Earth's Climate is Changing Faster Than Even Experts Expect," Aug. 27, 1974) reported that glaciers "have begun to advance," "growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter" and "the North Atlantic is cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool." Newsweek agreed ("The Cooling World," April 28, 1975) that meteorologists "are almost unanimous" that catastrophic famines might result from the global cooling that the New York Times (Sept. 14, 1975) said "may mark the return to another ice age." The Times (May 21, 1975) also said "a major cooling of the climate is widely considered inevitable" now that it is "well established" that the Northern Hemisphere's climate "has been getting cooler since about 1950..."

In fact, the Earth is always experiencing either warming or cooling. But suppose the scientists and their journalistic conduits, who today say they were so spectacularly wrong so recently, are now correct...


Are we sure the consequences of climate change - remember, a thick sheet of ice once covered the Midwest - must be bad? Or has the science-journalism complex decided that debate about these questions, too, is "over"?

(end of quote)

George Will: "In fact, the Earth is always experiencing either warming or cooling. But suppose the scientists and their journalistic conduits, who today say they were so spectacularly wrong so recently, are now correct..."

<br><br>I wonder whether the 1970s are considered "recent" by those who work in the field of climate science. I work in computers, and in my field the 1970s were just out of the stone age (ref: Moore's Law ). Hasn't computer analysis been an important tool for understanding anthropogenic forcing and climate change? Just wondering...

That is a great point, Lowell. It would be interesting to read some discussion in regard to the validity of the 1970's climate modeling compared and contrasted to contemporary climate modeling.