Fighting Global Warming - Part I
There’s been lots in the news about Global Warming over the last few days. The UN Climate Panel issued its report yesterday, an update on a report last issued in 2001. The Washington Post reported that the panel, “which groups 2,500 scientists from more than 130 nations, predicted more droughts, heatwaves, rains and a slow gain in sea levels that could last for more than 1,000 years. The scientists said it was “very likely” - or more than 90 percent probable - that human activities led by burning fossil fuels explained most of the warming in the past 50 years.”
Two memorable quotes from the article:
“February 2, 2007 may be remembered as the day the question mark was removed from whether (people) are to blame for climate change,” said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program.
“Faced with this emergency, now is not the time for half measures. It is the time for a revolution, in the true sense of the term,” French President Jacques Chirac said. “We are in truth on the historical doorstep of the irreversible.”
JK and Sen. Olympia Snowe yesterday “reintroduced their aggressive bipartisan legislation to reduce the emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.”
The “Global Warming Reduction Act” sets forceful greenhouse gas emissions targets that leading scientists say are the best way to keep temperatures below the danger point. Besides just capping pollution, the Kerry-Snowe plan promotes incentives to buy efficient products that reduce greenhouse gas emissions for American homes, businesses and roads.
Kerry and Snowe also announced that they would hold a hearing on the role of small business in slowing climate change in the next few weeks, in their capacity as the Chair and Ranking Member of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
“It’s time to take serious action on this issue. Our bill does that by proposing the most far-reaching, bipartisan plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions, to create new and enhanced tax credits for ordinary Americans who invest in energy-efficient technologies and offer new funds for research and development on cleaner, more efficient vehicles,” said Kerry.
“Although President Bush just noticed that the earth is heating up, the American public, every reputable scientist and other world leaders have long recognized that global warming is real and it’s serious. The time to act is now.”
Global Warming Reduction Act Highlights:“The issue of global warming is no longer a question of science - it is now a question of political will,” Snowe said. “Global warming is a comprehensive problem that demands a comprehensive solution. The Global Warming Reduction Act is that solution. It is realistic, aggressive, science based approach to tackling this issue without putting a stranglehold on our economy. This legislation is the right course at the right cost, and we can no longer afford the price of inaction.”
- Requires that the U.S. freeze emissions in 2010 and then calls for a gradual reduction each year to 65 percent below 2000 emissions levels by 2050. The bill achieves these targets through a flexible, economy-wide cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions.
- Provides immediate incentives to reduce emissions, producing direct results in the near-term.
- Requires that passenger vehicles reduce their global warming pollution.
- Includes measures to advance technology and reduce emissions through clean, renewable energy and energy efficiency in the transportation, industrial and residential sectors.
- Requires the US to derive 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
- Includes a resolution expressing the urgent need for President Bush to re-engage in international climate negotiations.
- Establishes a National Climate Change Vulnerability and Resilience Program to help communities assess their vulnerability to climatic changes and shorter term climatic variations – including changes and variations resulting from human activities – and better prepare for it.
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For JK this is a consistent stance. Here’s the record of the vote on Climate Change in the Senate on July 25, 1997. JK spoke on the Senate floor about this resolution which he co-sponsored. The speech is longer but here is a short excerpt:
Let me point out one other fact that was set forth at the hearings we had in the committee.
We know that we are the world’s greatest emitter of greenhouse gases. We know that carbon dioxide is the most significant of those. We know that the oceans mitigate the increase of carbon dioxide that we put into the atmosphere. The oceans consume the carbon dioxide.
But what we have also learned as a matter of science is that there is some level at which there is this potential of saturation of the oceans. We do not know where that is. The oceans re-circulate it. And the question remains whether or not you might have an extraordinary, dramatic impact because of the reaching of this saturation point.
Some people may want to tempt that. Some people may not feel any kind of generational responsibility or any kind of global responsibility and suggest that, well, all of these thousands of scientists, all of the consensus reached by 155 nations—they may want to choose to ignore it.
But when scientists tell me that the oceans are already rising and they are already rising at a discernible and measurable rate and that we are continuing a process of warming and that between now and the middle of the next century oceans will rise 1 to 3 feet and that the impact of that will be devastation on the coast of Florida, the loss of island nations, and the remarkable impact on wetlands all around the planet, I think we have a responsibility to say, well, we ought to try to think about that. And that is exactly what this effort to deal with global climate change is trying to do.
Now, I am not going to debate all of the science and the models and what can or cannot be done here. But it is clear that one of the chief sponsors of this resolution, Senator Byrd-
and you have heard him speak-agrees, and Senator Lieberman and Chafee and others do, that the prospect of human-induced global warming as an accepted thesis with adverse consequences for all is here, and it is real.
JK has spoken out consistently on global warming for a long time.
In Part II, we’ll share some of what he had to say during Sen. Boxer’s hearing on global warming and how to address climate change, held earlier this week on Jan. 30th.
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Mars Is Warming, NASA Scientists Report
Data coincide with increasing solar output
Publication Date: November 1, 2005
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17977
The planet Mars is undergoing significant global warming, new data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) show, lending support to many climatologists’ claims that the Earth’s modest warming during the past century is due primarily to a recent upsurge in solar energy.
[snip]
Scientists are not sure whether the Martian warming is entirely due to Mars-specific forces or may be the result of other forces, such as increasing solar output, which would explain much of the recent asserted warming of the Earth as well.
Sallie Baliunas, chair of the Science Advisory Board at the George C. Marshall Institute, said, “Pluto, like Mars, is also undergoing warming.” However, Baliunas speculated it is “likely not the sun but long-term processes on Mars and Pluto” causing the warming. However, until more information is gathered, Baliunas said, it is difficult to know for sure.
[snip]
The new research mentioned by Michaels is the October 2 release of findings by Duke University scientists that “at least 10 to 30 percent of global warming measured during the past two decades may be due to increased solar output rather than factors such as increased heat-absorbing carbon dioxin gas released by various human activities.”
“The problem is that Earth’s atmosphere is not in thermodynamic equilibrium with the sun,” Duke associate research scientist Nicola Scafetta explained in a Duke University news release. Moreover, “the longer the time period [that the Earth’s atmosphere is not in thermodynamic equilibrium] the stronger the effect will be on the atmosphere, because it takes time to adapt.”
[snip]
Applying their long-term data, the Duke scientists concluded, “the sun may have minimally contributed about 10 to 30 percent of the 1980-2002 global surface warming.”
“[Greenhouse] gases would still give a contribution, but not so strong as was thought,” Scafetta observed.
“We don’t know what the sun will do in the future,” Scafetta added. “For now, if our analysis is correct, I think it is important to correct the climate models so that they include reliable sensitivity to solar activity.”
[snip]
The September 30 news release announcing the findings of the Duke University research, “Sun’s Direct Role in Global Warming May Be Underestimated, Duke Physicists Report,” is available online at http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2005/09/sunwarm.html
Link to full article:http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17977
[Edited due to excessive length, please visit above links for complete article and press release. Thnx.]
Paul:
The article you link to seems to misuse the Duke study. The study proposes that global warming models should attribute more of the observed global warming to an increase in the sun’s energy in recent years. They say that it could count for a minimum of 10 to 30% of the observed increase.
However, that means as much as 90% of the observed increase can not be definitively explained by the changes in the sun’s energy. The researchers are saying that the factor used in these models should be changed due to the study. The Duke news release that this article and several others out in the RW blogosphere are basing their stories on does not say what % of the observed change was attributed to the sun’s energy in the existing models - but it was clearly not considered to be zero.
It would be interesting to see what would happen to the results of the various models if the assumptions were changed to reflect this study. I suspect that they would change less than the people trying to use this study to discredit global warming would like.
Hmm.
That’s an interesting article to cite by way of a reply to a thread on the current initiatives to address the known issues of climate change and global warming, Mr. Marinelli.
Without going into much detail about the topic of climate change itself—I may do so in a subsequent post, but I want to be sure that I reference actual facts rather than just repeat spin or opinion on such an important issue—here are some interesting points that I’ve discovered while looking into the article cited above:
(1) The Duke study referenced in the Heartland.org article cited presents core data and possible conclusions about their possible interpretations that in their original form are not slanted in the same direction as the article cited presents them to be;
(2) The article cited is well over a year old, the study nearly two years old, and the data that the study is based upon are years older than that (which sort of begs the question as to why it’s cropping up here in response to this thread at this time);
(3) The article cited has been reposted many times since its original publication in a number of online venues whose editorial biases are open to question—in fact, that angle was directly addressed at the time in articles such as those referenced below;
(4) The newly-released climate change report does acknowledge other factors besides just greenhouse gas buildup and does allow for variations in the climatic models used to support its conclusions. But as the report itself states (see below for citation), “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal… Any notion that we do not know enough to move decisively against climate change has been clearly dispelled”;
(5) As noted in the progressive blogosphere, in the mainstream media, and elsewhere (see below for citations), a lobbying group funded by one of the world’s largest oil companies has been offering cash rewards to undermine the UN climate change report that was released this week.
So perhaps the timing and content of this post by Mr. Marinelli—who has never posted on this site before and who apparently added no personal comment other than to copy and paste the previously-debunked article from heartland.org in its entirety—is not as coincidental as one might think.
Hmm, hmm.
As a wise man once said: “Son, don’t worry about how come they’re shooting at you. That just means you must be doing something right.”
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No surprise, but this proves once again that John Kerry, along with Al Gore, is one of this country’s premier environmental champions. No wonder that the League of Conservation Voters endorsed him in 2004, before a single primary vote was cast!
We owe him a debt of thanks, for leading the fight against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. As with health care, he has offered a comprehensive plan on energy and conservation (for those who can read).
Sorry, but I won’t be respectful of Nader or anyone else who claims that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans!
Thomas Chacko.
How ironic that the most recent campaign issue has become the UN statement on global warming and its causes—us!
To Ralph Nader, who single-handedly swayed the 2000 election to Bush: are you listening? London’s Mayor Kenneth Livingstone called Bush “the greatest threat to human life on this planet that we’ve probably ever seen.”—do you care? He still won’t sign Kyoto or otherwise upset his big-business contributors—are you proud? I hope Gore gets the Nobel and clocks you and Bush with it!
Posted by Otter | February 2, 2007 12:18 PM
Excellent post, Otter.
Also, good comments Karynj, Thomas and Andy.
The payoff attempts are criminal.
Many thanks to our well-informed posters. Proof positive that our new Kerry home is operating how we had hoped.
To otter, and all, a big paws up.