The Untied States Global Change Research Program just issued it's latest report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. According to their website, "the [USGCRP] coordinates and integrates federal research on changes in the global environment and their implications for society."
1. Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.
Global temperature has increased over the past 50 years. This observed increase is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases. (p. 13)
2. Climate changes are underway in the United States and are projected to grow. Climate-related changes are already observed in the United States and its coastal waters. These include increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the ocean and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows. These changes are projected to grow. (p. 27)
3. Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase. Climate changes are already affecting water, energy, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems, and health. These impacts are different from region to region and will grow under projected climate change. (p. 41-106, 107-152)
4. Climate change will stress water resources. Water is an issue in every region, but the nature of the potential impacts varies. Drought, related to reduced precipitation, increased evaporation, and increased water loss from plants, is an important issue in many regions, especially in the West. Floods and water quality problems are likely to be amplified by climate change in most regions. Declines in mountain snowpack are important in the West and Alaska where snowpack provides vital natural water storage. (p. 41, 129, 135, 139)
5. Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged.
Agriculture is considered one of the sectors most adaptable to changes in climate. However, increased heat, pests, water stress, diseases, and weather extremes will pose adaptation challenges for crop and livestock production. (p. 71)
6. Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge.
Sea-level rise and storm surge place many U.S. coastal areas at increasing risk of erosion and flooding, especially along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, Pacific Islands, and parts of Alaska. Energy and transportation infrastructure and other property in coastal areas are very likely to be adversely affected. (p. 111, 139, 145, 149)
7. Threats to human health will increase. Health impacts of climate change are related to heat stress, waterborne diseases, poor air quality, extreme weather events, and diseases transmitted by insects and rodents. Robust public health infrastructure can reduce the potential for negative impacts. (p. 89)
8. Climate change will interact with many social and environmental stresses.
Climate change will combine with pollution, population growth, overuse of resources, urbanization, and other social, economic, and environmental stresses to create larger impacts than from any of these factors alone. (p. 99)
9. Thresholds will be crossed, leading to large changes in climate and ecosystems. There are a variety of thresholds in the climate system and ecosystems. These thresholds determine, for example, the presence of sea ice and permafrost, and the survival of species, from fish to insect pests, with implications for society. With further climate change, the crossing of additional thresholds is expected. (p. 76, 82, 115, 137, 142)
10. Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today.
The amount and rate of future climate change depend primarily on current and future human-caused emissions of heat-trapping gases and airborne particles. Responses involve reducing emissions to limit future warming, and adapting to the changes that are unavoidable. (p. 25, 29)
Ah, so science is only stuff that already happened?
So when the wind gusts to 50 mph, and we know a hurricane is on the way, predicting that the winds will hit 100 is just pure folly?
You can't tell people to read the science and then say the facts, predictions and conclusions of thousands of the leading scholars is bunk. It certainly is not!
As you said yourself, it is politics and PR and religion only with those on the outside - meaning you (and me - to some degree).
However, since my career is in energy, I do have at least a basic interest in keeping up with these things.
As I said, the deniers are...IMHO....just as religious or MORE as the folks who say the sky is falling. Actually, the science does show that the sky is falling, but as always most of the people on the planet will not be living to reap the whirlwind. So who cares, right?
The GW debate reminds me a lot of the nuclear radiation one. It is proven beyond a doubt that radiation causes cancer - LOTS of it. It can be easily measured over time. BUT, you can never actually point to one particular exposure of low level radiation and say "that one caused that cancer"....and you never will. So the folks who don't care about a couple more million cancers just say "but you can't prove it". And, like GW, the cancers often occur 20-30 years after the radiation.
Science tells us "just because YOU can't see something does not mean it is not happening".
__________________
"I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner as the authority of the state governments extends over the individual states"
-George Washington
Today’s release of the study, titled Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, was overseen by a San Francisco-based media consulting company…
The nearly 200-page study was scrubbed of the usual scientific jargon, and was given a high-profile release by Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, and the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Jane Lubchenco.
Wow, that’s sure how I learned to handle a scientific report back when I was studying physics - scrub it of the science and give it to an activist PR firm!Do you need any more evidence that climate science has become substantially dominated by post-modernist scientists, where ideological purity and staying on message is more important than actually having the science right?
I saw a draft of this report last year, but I am still trying to download this new version. I expect to be sickened. Here is a taste of where they are coming down:
If today’s generation fails to act to reduce the carbon emissions that cause global warming, climate models suggest temperatures could rise as much as 11F by the end of the century.
11F is about 6.1C. I don’t know if they get this by increasing the CO2 forecast or by increasing the sensitivity or both, but it is vastly higher than the forecasts even of the over-apocalyptic IPCC. I think one can fairly expect two things, though — 1) More than 2/3 of this warming will be due to positive feedback effects rather than Co2 acting alone and 2) There will be little or no discussion of the evidence that such positive feedback effects actually dominate the climate.
Apparently the report will make up for having all the science stripped out by spending a lot of time on gaudy worst case scenarios:
That translates into catastrophic consequences for human health and the economy such as more ferocious hurricanes in coastal regions - in the Pacific as well as the Atlantic, punishing droughts to the south-west, and increasingly severe winter storms in the north-east and around the Great Lakes.
The majority of North Carolina’s beaches would be swallowed up by the sea. New England’s long and snowy winters might be cut short to as little as two weeks. Summers in Chicago could be a time of repeated deadly heat waves. Los Angelenos and residents of other big cities will be choking because of deteriorating air quality.
Future generations could face potential food shortages because of declining wheat and corn yields in the breadbasket of the mid-west, increased outbreaks of food poisoning and the spread of epidemic diseases.
This strikes me as roughly equivilent to turning in a copy of Lucifer’s Hammer in response to a request for a scientific study of the physics of comets.
__________________ 1978 Tayana 37
Mother Nature, in whose lap we sit and who sustains us, sometimes eats her young
Craig...why don't you post some facts instead of opinions?
For example...I read the above referenced reports first 15 pages today and while there is much to comment on...one scary story was how the ocean is acidifying and is projected REALLY get much worse causing all sorts of problems with coral and shellfish etc.
So I went to the footnote for that conclusion which turns out to be an 80 page study (heavily biased towards a presumption of global warming and relying on global warming theory) by the British Royal Society. What did they ACTUALLY measure????
Turns out that according to them the oceans PH since the start of the industrial revlolution (as opposed to since the start of atmospheric carbon rise...about a 100 year addition!!!) has been a change from 8.3PH to 8.2PH !!!! They present ZERO evidence that the trend to acidification has increased since 1950 or so when CO2 started to rise. They also admit that the PH of the ocean VARIES as much as +- .3 PH when measured around different parts of the earth!!
So...with this overwhelming evidence and computer models projecting global warming CO2 sequestration in the oceans...they claim the oceans will decline to 7.8 PH (more acidic) by 2100. Let's remember, those computer models have not predicted the last 10 years with anything approaching accuracy...let alone the next 90!!
And they call that science...and then they turn it into alarmist propaganda in plain language and foist it on an unsuspecting public.
I'm sure there will be hundreds more similar refutable points in the report, but it is gonna take some digging and some time.
Two other avenues, one is to explore the motavations of Jerry Melillo, Melillo got $2.6 million from the NSF for studies being conducted in Duke Forest. http://face.env.duke.edu/pubpage.cfm?type=Grants&id=208 , He’s also a director of NEON, Inc. which looks like a front group for collecting even more NSF and other grant money.
Melillo’s current reason to exist is establishing that humans are wrecking the planet; in virtually every biography entry located on google, Dr. Melillo notes that his interest lies in the human effect on the planet
Quote:
Originally Posted by Melillo
“I am interested in how human activities are altering the biogeochemistry of terrestrial ecosystems. My research includes studies of carbon and nitrogen cycling in a range of ecosystems across the globe including arctic shrublands in northern Sweden, temperate forests in North America, and tropical forests and pastures in the Amazon Basin of Brazil. I have become increasingly committed to studying the large-scale effects of global change on terrestrial ecosystems, including effects on the chemistry of the atmosphere and on the climate system.
I use a combination of field experiments and simulation modeling. Together with a number of collaborators, I am presently conducting soil warming experiments at the Harvard Forest in western Massachusetts and at the Abisko Research Station in Sweden to study the effects of warming on soil carbon and nitrogen dynamics, plant growth, and potential feedbacks to the climate system.”)
he has moved on from “save the rainforests” to “humans are wrecking the planet.” not because that's where the science lead, but because that's where the grant money is
The other avenue is Jane Lubchenco herself, also said to have a hand in the report; She is a climate change activist who believes scientists are supposed to be political hacks.
Here is a devastating critique on a small section of the report by scientist/professor Roger Pielke Junior. It seems like the sections on hurricanes & other weather related disasters actually CITE his work and turn it around 180 degrees to say something he didn't say at all!! Here is his critique which I think is devastating to the integrity of the entire report even as a non-scientific document. Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: Obama's Phil Cooney and the New CCSP Report
Even more interesting is Pielke Jr.'s take on WHY his work was misrepresented: " One answer might lie in the fact that Evan Mills was a co-author of the report (p. 159). Do you think that had anything to do with it? His list of consulting clients is positively Phil Cooney-esque. Here are a few businesses and organizations that he lists under Consulting & Advising in his resume:
* Armstrong/Energyn (US)
* Barakat, Howard & Chamberlin, Inc. (US)
* Better Energy Systems (UK)
* Ceres (US)
* CMC Energy Services (US)
* Integrated Process Technologies (US)
* Investment Research, Inc. (US)
* Teton Energy Partners (US)
So a person responsible for misrepresenting science in a government report has ties and presumably financial interests with companies that have an interest in climate policy outcomes? No, couldn't be. Could it?
For those wanting a more rounded picture of extremes in the United States, here is what an earlier CCSP report concluded about extreme events in the United States, but which was uncited by this new CCSP report in this paragraph:
1. Over the long-term U.S. hurricane landfalls have been declining.
2. Nationwide there have been no long-term increases in drought.
3. Despite increases in some measures of precipitation (pp. 46-50, pp. 130-131), there have not been corresponding increases in peak streamflows (high flows above 90th percentile).
4. There have been no observed changes in the occurrence of tornadoes or thunderstorms
5. There have been no long-term increases in strong East Coast winter storms (ECWS), called Nor’easters.
6. There are no long-term trends in either heat waves or cold spells, though there are trends within shorter time periods in the overall record.
Hmm, I didn't know we had astronomers and climate scientists on staff....
Somehow, those thousands of experts must have missed that simple point.
Actually, you do have one thing right. The Oil boys did help destroy our nations economy by making certain that we did not develop the technologies of the future. So now we are buying Solar Cells from China and Solar thermal plants from Israel, etc.......
Everyone who has studied it (except end of world types) has found that our current oil-based economy is NOT sustainable. That means it cannot go on....
Global warming or not, that does not change.
__________________
"I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner as the authority of the state governments extends over the individual states"
-George Washington
