A geek at the peak, in a world at the peak
The dust bowl summer of 1936 was a hot one, and until this year, the hottest on record. No more. July 2012 is officially the hottest month ever recorded in the continental US. We also set a record for the warmest January through July period, and for the past 12 month period of time.
Climate change is real, it’s happening, and the worst part is yet to come as atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise unchecked. Scary stuff.
Finding a climate change scientist who does NOT believe that people are responsible for global warming is pretty hard (the commonly-reported estimate is that 98% of climate change scientists are in agreement that people are mostly responsible for climate change)…and it’s getting harder. One of the more prominent skeptics, Richard Muller, has accepted the scientific evidence and is no longer a skeptic…he was part of a team of more than a dozen scientists at the University of California, Berkeley that have been studying global warming, specifically with respect to how global warming correlates to human and natural events, to try to determine the cause. What they found was that the average land temperature has increased by 1.5C over the last 250 years, and that “”the most straightforward explanation for this warming is human greenhouse gas emissions.” Most of that increase has been in the past 50 years, too.
I think former skeptic Muller put it best when he said, “While this doesn’t prove that global warming is caused by human greenhouse gases, it is currently the best explanation we have found, and sets the bar for alternative explanations.” This is what science is all about. Recognizing the facts, but also maintaining an open mind, for science is rarely 100% certain about anything. Perhaps some new hypothesis will be put forth that shows that CO2 is NOT responsible for global warming, but until such a hypothesis is presented and proven, we need to stop this media debate over global warming and report the scientific facts. The media needs to stop giving air time to climate change skeptics who don’t have the science to back up their claims…for doing so only works to legitimize their ideas in the mainstream public’s minds.
The project’s official website is here, where you can view full results of this study. Or, read more about it over at The Guardian.
The droughts and wildfires that have hit this country are signs of what’s to expect with climate change in the coming years, but here’s the thing…people are, I fear, overreacting to this. Meaning, they’re looking at what’s happening and saying that climate change is here, this is the new norm, etc. While that’s mostly right, climate is a variable thing and you need to look at long term trends. I have little doubt that, long term, yeah, this is the new ‘norm’. I also have little doubt, though, that in the next year or two, we’ll probably get a lot of rain, maybe cooler temperatures, and people will then use that as an argument to attempt to refute the idea of climate change, to try to convince others that there’s no threat. Just keep a level head about you, this year was bad, future years will seem better, but you need to look at long term trends of many years when you look at this global climate. Those trends make it clear that the planet is warming, and what’s really scary is that we’re already experiencing bad weather, when the worst impacts of climate change aren’t forecast to happen for many, many more years to come.
26 states have been declared natural disasters due to drought. Crops are withering. While it’s not possible to tie one year of weather to climate change, this is just another data point in a continuing trend, one that’s going pretty much as climate scientists have been predicting. Another result has been the wildfires in Colorado. Increased rainfall in the Pacific Northwest. These are, most likely, not ‘abnormalities’, but rather the new norm…and we’re nowhere near predicted levels of global climate warming, that’s still decades away (or more, if we don’t find a way to drastically cut CO2 levels). If we were to slash CO2 emissions to zero this year (great TED talk from Bill Gates here on that topic), much of this could be held at the levels we see now (except that sea level rise would continue for quite some time). The chances of that happening are zilch, I’d say. Expect weather extremes to get worse, and be ready to adapt the best you can.
Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil, acknowledged that burning fossil fuels is warming the planet, but says we’ll be able to adapt. While I agree with that statement, I’m sorry, but I don’t want to have to adapt to a changing and warming planet, I like Earth the way it is now! We currently have the technologies needed to enormously decrease CO2 emissions and decrease global warming. We do not need to depend on adapting to a changing environment, we can instead prevent it from changing in the first place!
I do agree with much or most of what Tillerson goes on to say, about how the public is illiterate in science and math, and the press is lazy. I just disagree about the idea that depending on adaptation to a warming planet is an acceptable path to follow. I live in Colorado, where we are ‘adapting’ to what climate scientists have been predicting – erratic precipitation amounts, warmer temperatures, which right now means I’m living in the path of the most destructive wildfire in Colorado’s history. Yes, we can adapt, but I’d prefer a Colorado with a more stable climate, please!
Read more over at The Hook.
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