Beyond the illusion of debate on the preponderance of scientific evidence, I always come back to the question that if we could access sunlight, wind, wave power, and geothermal possibilities more immediately and more efficiently than say waiting until 2014 to extirpate oil six and a half miles below the surface of the warming, hurricane-ready waters of the The Gulf of Mexico or say using up to nine barrels of clean water to force the Alberta Tar Sands oil soup, why wouldn’t we?

And even given that the ocean temperatures this summer were the hottest ever recorded since record-keeping began, Doug, the ineluctable question remains: if we can design, cultivate, and create more intelligently and more efficiently, why wouldn’t we?

There is something called permaculture that could ensure that the human population is fed while also ensuring that the integrity (and quanity) of soil is kept and in fact enhanced (and not sent down The Mississippi to the tune of a 150 acre farm a day. Companion planting, vertical farming and the use of \”nitrogen fixing\” plants, are all practices that can save our soil, and us in the process. We need to move away from tilling, one-crop monocultures such as corn, which demands much of the soil and requires far more water and fertilizer. We need to start transitioning to the kind of farming that was practiced prior to the presence of cheap oil and industrial farming in the last century.

We’re about to move to a new website – due to launch mid-June – so please expect some glitchy things to happen. The new site will feature both the long and short podcasts from a single interview on one page. And it’ll be much faster to use than this site.

Your voice is welcome here.

Deborah

I couldn’t help but notice that E&S no longer allows comments on podcasts that promote global warming – mainly the climate section of your site. My concern is closing the dialog on such an incomplete and growing discipline of science seems contrary to the methods that have served science so well. I’m hoping there is an alternate explanation that doesn’t presume the science to be complete and beyond question.

Kind regards,

Hank – Las Vegas

Welcome back, Doug! No, we’re not social activists. We’re a voice for science. Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences to formulate a group of studies to inform U.S. climate policy. The NAS kicked off that effect with a meeting in Washington. Lorents Lorentsen spoke at the meeting, and we captured his voice and broadcast it. It’s our mission to broadcast the voices of scientists.

Climate is complex. There can be cooling spells of a decade or more, in a warming world.

If and when mainstream science stops believing that global warming is real and caused by humans, EarthSky will broadcast that information. Until that happens, we’ll continue to broadcast what most scientists believe to be true: that global warming is real and caused by humans.

Many thanks,

Deborah

“Lorents Lorentsen: There’s no doubt that the US could do more to reduce its own greenhouse gases by increasing the prices of fossil fuels, either by using taxes or trading systems, as is used in many states already.

Money from a tax on carbon – or a cap and trade system – he said, could be used to invest in renewable energy technologies – not only for the U.S., but also for India and China.”

So I ask of you Ms. Byrd and you Mr. Block, are you really a science site or are you social activists hiding behind the guise of a science site?

One wonders as the solar sunspot activity has been non-existent for the past 24 months and longer. The NASA Marshall Space Flight Center has some very intersting data on solar sunspot activity. I daily look at the SOHO, or Solar and Heliospheric Observatory’s daily image of the sun showing current solar sunspot activity. Nothing, nada, zero. Did I mention for over two years? Oh yes, I also look at the Unisys current sea surface temperature anomaly plot @

http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html

Please explain that if the earth is getting warmer, why is it so much of the world’s ocean’s sea surface temperatures remain BELOW normal?

If earth sky dot org was so cognizant of the earth and sky, I would be of the belief the alarm of rapid global cooling would be emanating from your site. Sadly, that is not the case.

I understand fossil fuels artificially contribute to the levels but the net green house effect of CO2 is an inverse logarithm of the atmospheric CO2 concentration – a case of diminishing returns. This means an enormous about of CO2 would need to sequestered to result in any measurable decrease in global temperature (if the correlation could indeed be measured). Given that tillable land is small in contribution to the total global CO2 budget, which includes both natural and anthropogenic sources, it seems that even the most proactive management of land and crops will have a negligible effect on global warming.

Irrespective of the above point, it is a common practice to turn under many crops following harvest. Doesn’t that form of tilling the soil serve to lock more CO2 into the soils as opposed to the biomass decomposing in the air and directly releasing CO2 into the atmosphere? I guess I’m wondering how we determine the net CO2 budgets in our agricultural practices.