Earth & Sky

Expert: Humanity has been on an energy

DB: This is Earth & Sky, with climate scientist Jerry Mahlman of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

JB: He?ll be the senior review editor for the final draft of an upcoming climate assessment, a report in 2007 from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Jerry Mahlman: So, I’m a person who has a sunny personality. I see the good side of everything. And, yet, when I start talking about global warming, I realize that I sound like an old crank, who’s saying, “All you jerks get your act together.” And, quite frankly, a number of my colleagues feel the same way.

DB: According to Mahlman and others, we humans have burned – or will burn – 200 million years of buried fossil fuels in only a few centuries.

JB: The result is a warming climate – which no reputable scientist disputes anymore – and which will cause major changes that we humans will have to adapt to … beginning now.

Jerry Mahlman: When you say that, you sound like a horrific pessimist, when all that we’re really doing is saying, “Look, we’ve got this train coming down the track. And it’s coming downhill, and it’s accelerating. You’ve got to stop this son-of-a-gun.” And so you can’t say, “Well, let’s talk about it.” You have to say, “What are our options for doing something about this?”

JB: Mahlman suggests we work proactively. And mostly he suggests taking global warming seriously. Thanks today to NASA. We?re Block and Byrd for Earth & Sky.