Comments on: ’Tis the Season of Climate Idiocy

By: Anne

Anne — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:13:11 +0000

Hi again, Chris, I linked to this story of yours in my new blog at anneminard.com. It’s called “100 Days of Science,” and the new climate change post is on Day 24 … Check it out! Cheers, Anne

By: Anne

Anne — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:17:34 +0000

Good, intelligent article and comments.

I especially like this idea:
It would be especially helpful if we could get some prominent conservative thinkers to flip, join the show, and speak to the Deroy Murdocks of the world in a way that might inspire them to listen.

But the battle begins on a small scale right here, with your headline writer, whose use of the word “idiocy” serves no good purpose at all and is in fact most certainly a conversation-stopper for the people you aim to engage.

By: darcy

darcy — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:21:05 +0000

These semantic debates do so very little other than misdirect from the real issue. In more than a century of fossil fuel buring we’ve belched hundreds of billions of tonnes of CO2 into the air. The vast majority of this is still in the air as CO2 has a residence time of over a century in the atmosphere. The issue is that the CO2 in the air amounts to a lethal dose of slow poison to the ocean ecosystem. Sure it creates cimate change and global warming but those are glacially slow processes that threaten change that is far from what the oceans are already suffering. The carbon bomb airborne and now impacting on the oceans is more than sufficient to destroy higher life in the oceans, that above the level of bacteria for example. Even if we stop the emission of another single molecule of CO2 that airborne carbon bomb will destroy higher life in the oceans… unless something is done to mitigate the damage from the already emitted deadly dose of CO2. No matter whether you jet off to a winter holiday, drive a Prius, or buy more energy efficient lightbulbs the dose of CO2 already in the air will do its deadly job.

ONLY the massive immediate enhancement of photosyntesis on this small blue planet offers a means or even a chance to capture the existing lethal dose of CO2 and convert it into green life instead of acid death.

But engaging in meaningless semantic debates while fueling up the Prius or pointing fingers of blame at those who drive SUV’s is so much easier than actually doing something meaningful like perhaps saving the planet. If we merely sit back and critique others and reduce the amount of new poison we belch into the air it all amounts to doing nothing.

It’s as if we treated patients arriving in hospital emergency rooms bleeding profusely from traffic accidents by first making them take drivers education class before treating the wounds that will surely kill them. Stop carping and do something, get a life, save a life of a plant (and planet) today.

By: Jeff Green

Jeff Green — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:24:47 +0000

I disagree with running from the term Global Warming. Taking a stand that is open to the change in discussion of science is all that’s required. Its a matter of creating open dailogue and not getting sucked in by the emotional spatter.

Running from the denialists only allows them to restrict the ground you work on.

By: Art Cothary

Art Cothary — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 14:12:04 +0000

Most definitely, climate change is the appropriate term. It rankles me that you, like many, want to draw a line in the sand between human caused climate change and planetary trends. The truth is that both are in action. The truth is that we can create models but we don’t know the eventual outcome. I think very few people would argue at this stage that releasing massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere is a good thing. But “global warming” is unfortunately a partisan football and has become more of a belief system than an evolving studied phenomenon. Like religion it is difficult if not impossible for many people to stand back and say, “I believe this now, but maybe I am wrong”. It is much easier to ridicule those who ask the uncomfortable questions.

By: Neil

Neil — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:26:27 +0000

I don’t know that I would consider it fair to use a warm year or a tropical event to bolster your position, while at the same time claiming that a cold year or winter event is not valid for the other side. You can’t have it both ways. Likewise, warming and cooling cannot both be used to justify warming. That is a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose argument. The recent cooling is from a weak La Nina in phase with a tanking PDO, and solar cycle minimum (that is 12 months (and counting) longer than expected). It has as little to do with GHG-induced warming as does the 1998 (you have 1988) El Nino-linked heat wave. Obviously, when ENSO, PDO, and the solar cycle are in positive phase, there will be constructive interference above and beyond the level AGW is responsible for, and yes, it will get really hot. You are no more a scientist than Deroy Murdock, Seth Borenstein, or Anthony Watts for that matter, and until the world comes to peer-reviewed blog posts, we should all stick to taking our “facts” from the ever-changing positions of real scientists (e.g., Emanuel et al. 2008 BAMS Re: GCMs and tropical shear). The mainstream media’s alarmism is just as detrimental to the legitimate science as these online denier blogs.

By: Philip H.

Philip H. — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:59:00 +0000

Wes,
I would just add that we also have a better chance of influenceing local news coverage then national news coverage. So its a great feed back loop. Have you contacted those statsions and thanksed them for the coverage? I’d be willing to bet a few emails and letters from locals will go a long way toward making that sort of coverage the norm.

By: Wes Rolley

Wes Rolley — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:14:06 +0000

It is important for leaders to speak out because that keeps the conversation in the news. For example, Steven Chu's being quoted in the LA Times regarding the fact that California's biggest industry, agriculture, may be headed to an end. I still find that there is a change happening in local TV news, one that is welcome. The ABC station in San Franicsco, KGO focused on the fact that the current warm weather in California with it's attendant lack of rain will be the new "norm" as our climate changes. Warm Weather Comes at a Price. In the same week, the Fox affiliate in Oakland, KTVU, carried a similar story with more detail. Both cited university professors. When local TV news begins to tell the story consistently, then attitudes will change.

By: Philip H.

Philip H. — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:44:01 +0000

I like David’s reasoning, and I’ll take it one step further. Trends in climate are often accompanied by trends in extremes of weather – more intense hurricanes, more and longer snowfalls in Seattle, etc. BY rightly calling it climate change, we can account for these trends in extremes as the likely result of a climate that is being pushed to one end of the spectrum. Afterall, any natural system will try to right itself whenever possible.

By: David Bruggeman

David Bruggeman — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:56:37 +0000

It’s arguments like those Chris highlighted that suggest sticking with climate change over global warming is worth considering. By emphasizing global warming as the proper name for what’s happening, there’s this rhetorical hole that even the simplest opposition can find. By emphasizing climate change, we can emphasize the significant differences that are popping up – of any temperature.