Comments on: Clearing up climate change misconceptions

By: David Emel

David Emel — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:06:43 +0000

Hank,

It has come full circle. Special Interest groups since 1985 have been circling both parties in Washington. Mostly corporate sponcered groups. I agree with you over-all assesment but it is really a chicken and egg problem.

By: Dan Kulpinski

Dan Kulpinski — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:11:27 +0000

John — If you do enough Google searches, you can probably locate the few people who propogate the climate change myths. Or contact some of the folks who have commented above.

Dan

By: John Dean

John Dean — Fri, 08 May 2009 12:13:15 +0000

Hi
I am UK journalist commissioned to write an article trying to work out the difference between climate change truth and myth and while there are plently happy to talk truth I am struggling to find anyone to talk myth. Do you know anyone who might help?
Thank you

John Dean

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:52:30 +0000

Dan – Thanks for the reference link (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/ann/global.html). It actually was helpful in supporting some of the points I was actually trying to get across.
Please review the graph at the top of the page on this website.. You will note that there was an increase in global mean temperature between approximately 1910 and 1940 ( /- 0.45 degree C) that corresponds very well to the increase shown for the period of warming observed between 1975 and the present ( /- 0.5 degree C). This leads to several questions.

Among them: What caused this increase? Do you believe this warming is due to anthropogenic sources. If you do believe that man’s activities caused this warming period, why would there be a period of cooling over the following 30 or so years?

Data is a wonderful thing. You can manipulate it many ways to advance a theory. Look at that graph again. Why was the period around 1970 arbitrarily chosen as the zero point to show these temperature anomalies? Why not 1880? If that year was chosen the graph would look much different, showing that temperatures have been basically on the increase since 1910.

Another point you have made is that 8 of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001. Here’s another way of looking at that same data: there has been no increase in global temperature since 2001.

I’ll end with the same question I posed in my earlier post – what is the ideal temperature of the earth? Is it what we are experiencing now, or the temperature 12,000 years ago, when approximately a mile of ice covered the land where I now live?

By: David Bross

David Bross — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:31:58 +0000

Dan,
Thanks for the info. I will check out Friedman’s book.
Dave Bross

By: Dan Kulpinski

Dan Kulpinski — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:11:56 +0000

David B — I don’t know of any consensus among climate scientists about limiting population growth, but projections for future energy use and carbon emissions all at least implicitly acknowledge that the global population will continue to grow at a fast pace.

Thomas Friedman discusses population growth a bit in his recent book, ‘Hot, Flat, and Crowded.’ I wrote about it here: http://blogs.earthsky.org/dankulpinski/2009/02/01/energy-internet-needed-in-a-world-that-is-hot-flat-and-crowded/

-Dan

By: David m

David m — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:18:27 +0000

An interesting observation for the objectivists in the room: The National Weather Service reports that February 2009 was a record low for snowfall in Denver! Pretty shocking, with only a trace of snow recorded. However, it turns out that the snowfall was measured at Denver International Airport for the very first time. It heretofore was measured at Stapleton Airport, where they just happened to have an inch of snow, not a record at all. Why didn’t the NWS report a record HIGH snowfall for February 2009 as well? Guess.

By: David Bross

David Bross — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 01:02:58 +0000

Mr.Kulpinski,

Is there any consensus among scientists studying climate change and global warming regarding the need to limit global population growth?

By: Dan Kulpinski

Dan Kulpinski — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:37:21 +0000

Paul — I got the quote from Chris Mooney’s piece. One scientific source for this info is the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). One of their divisions, the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), produces annual climate reports covering both the entire globe and the United States.

The global section of the “Climate of 2008 Annual Report” notes that actually 8 of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001 — and all of the top 10 have occurred since 1997. See this Web page for the global analysis: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/ann/global.html

Scientists have been studying climate change carefully and thoroughly for the last 20 years, employing the scientific method all the way. Over time, they have shown that it is not possible for climate models to reproduce the slight rise in temperatures since the 1800s, without including the effect of greenhouse gases — most of which have been generated by human activities. They have collected data that goes back 600,000 years and I believe recently back to 1 million years ago (ice cores and such).

The 2007 IPCC report contains a lot of the science — see http://www.ipcc.ch/

Since then there have been many more studies confirming the climate change hypothesis. If you have specific examples to support your views, please share them here, along with the links.

By: David Bross

David Bross — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:18:12 +0000

Climate change has been occurring throughout our planet’s existence. For example, at some point in the past 4-5 billion years, much of the earth has been: (a) underwater, (b) under ice, (c) dry as a bone, and (d) lush with vegetation and animal life.
And yet, we have built our civilizations based on how the earth’s climate has been for the past 10,000 years. Our cities, towns, economies, and methods of food production are clear evidence that we don’t expect things like climate and sea levels to change.
Our dependence on a stable climate is even more disturbing when we realize that we have had numerous tastes of climate change and its disastrous effects. The “mini ice age” from 1300 to 1850 wreaked havoc in Europe. The various droughts during the 1900s gave us the “Dust Bowl” in the central U.S. and the famines in Africa. Volcanic eruptions have had devastating and lasting effects on the earth’s climate and our lives.
Even if we don’t consider the distinct possibility that we are affecting the world’s climate, it is clear that we must develop a level of flexibility and adaptability on a scale not seen before.
If we choose not to develop such flexibility, we will continue to be as dependent on an unchanging climate as were the dinosaurs. It didn’t work well for them, and I don’t think it will work any better for us.