“Electric word life – It means forever and that’s a mighty long time”. Eighties music aficionados will probably recognise this line, from Prince’s Purple Rain.
It came to mind when reading a report from the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Put plainly, we have crossed the climate Rubicon. To a large extent, there’s probably no going back.
The new study, by NOAA scientist Susan Solomon, shows how changes in surface temperature, rainfall, and sea level are largely irreversible for upwards of 1,000 years, even if all CO2 emissions were somehow to completely stop. The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Our study convinced us that current choices regarding carbon dioxide emissions will have legacies that will irreversibly change the planet,†said Solomon.
The study examines the effects of allowing CO2 to build up to several different peak levels beyond present-day concentrations of 385 parts per million and then completely halting the emissions after the peak. The authors found that evidence supports some irreversible climate impacts, including rainfall changes in certain key regions, and global sea level rise.
If CO2 is allowed to peak at 450-600 parts per million, the results would include persistent decreases in dry-season rainfall that are comparable to the 1930s North American Dust Bowl in zones including southern Europe, northern Africa, southwestern North America, southern Africa and western Australia. This would have devastating effects on global food production.
The study notes that decreases in rainfall that last not just for decades but centuries are expected to have severe impacts. Such regional impacts include decreasing human water supplies, increased fire frequency, ecosystem change and expanded deserts. Dry-season wheat and maize agriculture in regions of rain-fed farming, such as Africa, would also be affected.
Climate impacts were less severe at lower peak levels. But at all levels added carbon dioxide and its climate effects linger because of the ocean. The study appears not to have factored in sudden climate shifts and ‘surprises’ that can occur as invisible tipping points are crossed.
In that sense, you’d have to say the folks at the NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, are in fact optimists.
“In the long run, both CO2 loss and heat transfer depend on the same physics of deep-ocean mixing. The two work against each other to keep temperatures almost constant for more than a thousand years, and that makes CO2 unique among the major climate gases,†said Solomon.
Increases in CO2 that occur this century “lock in†sea level rise that would slowly follow in the next millennium. Just looking at the expansion of warming ocean waters – without taking into account melting glaciers and ice sheets – the authors find that the irreversible global average sea level rise by the year 3000 would be at least 1.3–3.2 feet (0.4–1.0 meter) if CO2 peaks at 600 parts per million, and double that amount if CO2 peaks at 1,000 parts per million.
“It has long been known that some of the CO2 emitted by human activities stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years, but the new study advances the understanding of how this affects the climate system, says the aptly named Solomon.
So much for the experts. What have the idiots got to say about all this? And before you ask: who cares? The answer is, apparently, RTÉ, and more specifically, the Late Late Show. Last Friday night the once-respected scientist once again disgraced himself with a pack of utter lies and nonsense that host Pat Kenny did almost nothing to counter.
Temperature drives CO2, and not the other way round, said Bellamy. What he neglected to mention is that this is a two-way process, unless perhaps the laws of physics have been repealed since the 1890s, when Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius calculated that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would lead to global temperature increases of 5-6 degrees.
Bellamy, with his training in science, knows this, so his contribution is based on mendacity, not ignorance. “If we actually wanted to double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, we’d have to burn all the known gas, all the known oil and one third of all the known coal reserves – we couldn’t actually do it…and that would put the temperature up by at most two degrees centigrade” Bellamy thundered.
As any scientist with a shred of professional integrity will confirm, all we in fact have to do to achieve a doubling of pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 is continue on our current business-as-usual path for another two, three or perhaps four decades. As for temperature magically stopping at 2 degrees C, total bull.
More Bellamy bullshit: “Over the last decade the temperature has not gone up, despite the fact we are pouring more CO2 into the atmosphere…in the last two years the whole of that (0.7 degree) rise in temperature has disappeared – gone!” There then follows some standard garbage about the key role of sun spots.
Of course this isn’t just his theory, it’s the view of “around 34,000 damn good scientists”, bleated Bellamy. Pat Kenny then waved a single sheet of paper at his guest, describing it as data from the IPCC showing the irrefutable link between carbon-driven anthropogenic warming and climate change.
Oddly, none of the thousands of ‘damn good scientists’ Bellamy quotes have published any papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals in the last decade in support of CO2 not being a driver of global temperature increases. Lots of them have, on the other hand, contributed to right wing pro-energy industry publications and think tanks.
Like Bellamy himself, this group (probably running to the low hundreds worldwide, rather than thousands) are disgraced and discredited within the scientific community. And no, it’s not because they’re “rebels”, it’s simply that they use pseudo-scientific sophistry to spread dangerous misinformation via a gullible mainstream media that feeds on controversy, real or manufactured.
Having opened with a clip from Purple Rain, it’s only fair to leave the last word to Prince:
“We’re all excited
But we don’t know why
Maybe it’s ’cause
We’re all gonna die…”
Hi John,
Having studied this topic intently for the past fifteen years I have come to the conclusion that about the only thing that can be said with any certainty is that there is no “consensus” on the subject as you have claimed in your articles. While I respect your sincerity and passion (I was once as a strident in my views as you are now) I find your lack of respect for the scientists who question your beliefs hard to stomach.
As regards funding for scientists it is also quite clear that both schools of thought have been well funded and the side that claim man is the main driver of global warming (although it appears the planet has been cooling for the past ten years) probably to a larger degree. There are many left-wing, internationalist think-tanks and organisations funding your point of view.
Kind regards,
David Quinn
David, thanks for your comments. If you can point me in the direction of scientists who have published in a major peer-reviewed scientific journal a paper of significance that contradicts the ‘consensus’ you so decry in the last 10 years, I’d like to hear about it. I could, on the other hand, point you to hundreds, in fact thousands (if you expand it to include related fields) that present original scientific research evidence that broadly aligns with this dreaded ‘consensus’.
There is also a consensus that the Earth is not in fact the centre of the Universe; it took scientists centuries to have this rudimentary fact accepted. I could cite a dozen more examples of irrefutable scientific observation that has helped us to better understand the world we inhabit, including its limits.
There will always be people posing as free thinkers or ‘anti-establishment’ pedalling their dogmas and challenging science at every turn. Just look at the Creationists, they’ve even invented a makey-uppey “Creationist Science” to teach to children, and so perpetuate their folly. Anti-consensus? Yes. Worthy of the respect you suggest? I don’t think so. Anyhow David, glad you called by and am always happy to engage in reasoned discussion. John G.
John,
Without a doubt the severe lack of sceptic’s papers being published in the mainstream journals is a strong argument suggesting a consensus. However, just because a paper has been peer-reviewed doesn’t mean its findings have been critiqued, replicated and proven or that if it hasn’t been chosen for publication that it is incorrect. There is the distinct possibility that papers are not published in mainstream journals for political reasons.
When you listen to experiences of Davd Bellamy and other sceptics in trying to access funding for research or to get a fair hearing it does make one suspicious, particularly when you consider the sheer number of scientists who question the idea that human activity is the main cause of global warming. Having read Chomskys ‘Manufacturing Consent’ and Francis Stonor Saunder’s book ‘Who paid the piper?’ it is clear to me how easy it has become to highlight certain information and to keep other data out of the public eye. For example, why is it that the mainstream media rarely if ever mention the fact that the average global temperature has been dropping for ten years (did any of the computer models predict that?), that C02 represents only a very small percentage of all greehouses gases, that we are coming out of an ice age and should expect some warming, that we exhale C02 as we breath, the new data relating to solar activity and its effect on climate, or the extreme difficulty in measuring the role of clouds in weather/climate and factoring the data into the computer models?
The other thing that makes me sceptical is just how neatly the anthropogenic warming theory fits in with the extremely well-funded agenda for a global government. In ‘The Impact of Science on Society’ (1951) Bertrand Russell admitted “There is, it must be confessed, a psychological difficulty about a single world government. The chief source of social cohesion in the past, I repeat, has been war: the passions that inspire a feeling of unity are hate and fear. These depend upon the existence of an enemy, actual or potential.” Then in ‘The First Global Revolution’ (1991) the powerful globalist think-tank the Club of Rome revealed that “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
Which leads me to the next problem I have with the attempt to blame global warming on humanity. How much of a coincidence is it that nearly sixty years after one of the pioneers of the green movement the eugenicist Julian Huxley (the first Director of UNESCO and a founding member of the World Wildlife Fund) openly talked about “culling the human herd” along comes a “man-made” problem that the green movement thinks can only really be fixed by reducing numbers?
Considering the extreme sacrifices (including lives) that the green lobby are demanding us all to make do you not think it is in all our interests that the sceptics get a fair hearing?
I also think it is verging on propaganda and definitely unscientific the way you use emotive, derogatory words (bleating, pedalling etc.) when describing those scientists on the other side of the argument. Why not play the ball instead of the man? Or are the anthropogenic warming arguments not convincing enough?
David
John,
Perhaps in the interests of balance you would put up this link to the list of scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders that put their names to the Manhattan Declaration which stated the following:
“That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.”
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=63
David
David,
The dangers of a warming globe were made clear over twenty years ago by concerned climatologists. It took the world until now to start doing something about it. Your reading of the situation is incorrect: the question was not taken seriously by mainstream media until recent years; before then, calls for action from scientists were drowned out by oil companies, a highly influential lobby that had the ear of the White House (before Obama).
Things had to reach a critical pass before the world could see that action was essential, action which had been delayed by the wealthiest of vested interests and the politicians in their patronage. Only now, when we may be ten years away from an irreversible tipping point, are the scientists and environmental groups being listened to. But it seems you have decided that their efforts to prevent global catastrophe is some kind of conspiracy to create a global government or new world order. Where virtually everyone else sees a need for immediate precautionary action, you see a James Bond movie plot. This idea just might have been sown in your head by the oil companies that have most to lose from a switch to a new energy paradigm.
We have arrived at a point where fossil fuels must be phased out and new energy sources phased in. This demands such a comprehensive rethink of power generation and its distribution infrastructure that there is an understandable lethargy on the part of governments everywhere though, to their credit the Greens here, and Minister Eamon Ryan in particular, have set us on that path. An enormous task lies ahead, but the first steps are being taken and it won’t be long before we are all driving electric cars. (The roads will be quiet, there won’t be any fumes; it’ll be great.) Whatever the political fall-out from the current mess in the nation’s finances, one thing will be clear: we need the Greens in government, or at least we need a green government; otherwise we’re banjaxed.
We are between ice ages at the moment and the next one is due. It could be 15,000 years away or it could start tomorrow, no one knows. But when it happens, Ireland will be covered in an ice-sheet a mile high. So we can only hope that the warm period we are in at the moment remains for some time to come. What we don’t want to do is tip the scales and bring on that ice age immediately. Don’t think it couldn’t happen.
Energy prices (gas and electricity) are to fall soon, to many businesses’ relief, and oil prices remain quite low. So now would be a very good time to introduce John Gibbons’ idea of setting a high floor price for petrol and diesel, say around one euro twenty per litre. This would have the double benefit of reducing oil consumption while delivering much-needed extra cash to the Exchequer. The money could be used to develop new types of energy and create green-tech jobs. This is about the only sector where largescale indigenous job creation is going to be possible for some time to come, I’d imagine.
Coilin
Well said. I read David’s last two postings and sort of lost the will to respond. There is little point in engaging in a fact-based debate with the Sammy Wilson School of Climate Modelling which roughly runs that anyone telling us to slow up on our current path to certain self-immolation is (a) some sort of Commie Pinko type trying to take away our great consumer freedoms; or (b) hasn’t been reading the whack-job websites funded by energy companies and their PR front operations cooking up total bull for consumption by the delusional or desperate.
I asked David Q. to point me to a single solitary per-reviewed paper published in the last 10 years that is significantly at odds with the IPCC consensus on anthropogenic climate heating. What I get instead is a link to Loon Central, aka the Manhattan Declaration.
I visited this site and actually read its grand-sounding Declaration. This Polyanna nonsense would make even George W, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney wince. I won’t bore you with the full text, but here’s the closing line: “That all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith”.
Aaah, now we get it. Taxes are BAD. Regulations are BAD. Interventions are BAD. Just leave everything to the free market and the Titans of Wall Street. Who’d listen to boring old scientists when the Masters of the Universe tell us everything is just swell?
Yes, these are the same geniuses who have plundered the Earth, bankrupted the world’s major – and minor – economies and left those awful Governments to pick up the pieces and us dumb taxpayers to bail these crooks out when their whole rotten Ponzi scheme tanked.
The upside of the current financial/economic crash is that many people, including economists, politicians, academics and others you’d think should have known better in the first place have begun to come out of their collective trance and wake up and realise the sheer madness and rampaging greed that got us into this giant hole in the first place.
Who knows, maybe even some of them might take their heads out of their backsides long enough to look up and see the sustainability calamity that is gathering pace and is now on a collision course with humanity. But then again, don’t hold your breath.
think its funny that you guys think I see a James Bond movie plot but reckon that all the sceptics are funded by energy companies
Nice one, John. You’re spot on and it’s very funny too. Here’s my effort as a follow-on from my last posting:
James Bond is dragged into a cavernous boardroom with floor to ceiling windows overlooking Manhattan, now mostly under the sea. A black leather armchair swivels around to reveal Al Gore stroking an endangered snow leopard cub. The leopard fixes Bond with a basilisk green-eyed stare.
“Ah, Mr Bond, we have been expecting you,†says Gore. “You now know about our master plan for world domination. Wonderful, wouldn’t you say? Sadly, you won’t live to see it. But don’t worry; we will recycle all your body parts sustainably. Some of my bodyguards now need them.â€
James Bond (played by Josh Brolin in a mock-reprise of his W role) raises a quizzical eyebrow: “Your plan won’t work. The penquins won’t march to your tune. They’ll be wiped out once we’ve finished melting Antarctica tomorrow.â€
“On the contrary, Mr Bond. In one hour’s time our crack team of Robert Redford, Leonardo Di Caprio and Daryl Hannah – Hollywood insisted on an eco-love triangle – and of course George Monbiot – the token geek – will switch on our global network of tropospheric decarbonators. The Antarctic will quickly freeze over and expand, allowing our penquins to set off across the globe. They have been genetically programmed by James Lovelock to capture every remaining sceptic, especially David Bellamy, and to bring them here to me for a long lecture. No doubt they’ll be bored to death. Very inconvenient for them, wouldn’t you say? But of course you know that, Mr Bond.â€
Ha ha ha. Very amusing Coilin – if I ever manage to recycle it into an IT column (that forms the basis for the inevitable Hollywood blockbuster), I’ll deny all knowledge of the above and claim it was my idea all along! JG.
You forgot the scene where the wicked oil barons, who know there is only four years to stop the planet from becoming uninhabitable for everybody including themselves conspire to prevent anything being done about it for the sake of a few years profits. What dumb evil people!
When you have finished ridiculing me perhaps you would address at least some of the points I made.
There are thousands of scientists who do not agree with the man-made global warming hypothesis. Just because they do not get as much press attention or you do not feel they deserve respect does not mean they do not exist. It is therefore incorrect to claim a “consensus”.
The world has cooled since 1998. Did any of the computer models predicting our demise say this would happen? Why is this fact practically never mentioned in the mainstream media?
A call not to introduce carbon taxes is clearly not a campaign against all taxes or regulation. Why not stick to defending your own arguments instead of inventing ones for those of us unconvinced of your beliefs?
This is an extremely important debate. If you want to convince everybody of the need to reduce the population (a big pretty extreme request) I suggest you stop resorting to bullying techniques and stick to reasoning.
David, much as I’m enjoying this punch-and-judy show, what you refer to as my “beliefs” suggest these are opinions I plucked from the sky. Rigorous peer-reviewed science is the process of dismantling dearly held ‘beliefs’, hunches, old wives tales and replacing them with empirical, research-based evidence.
There’s nothing one scientist enjoys more than thrashing a colleague’s research findings, if he can. That keeps everyone honest, and is a powerful antidote to the myth of ‘consensus’. Any scientist who can publish definitive evidence that disproves the IPCC 4th Assessment Report will win the Nobel Prize. Sadly, much as I wish that were true, it’s wishful thinking that got us into this hole in the first place.
World cooling since 1998? We’ve just had one of the coldest winters in a couple of decades as well. What this proves is that weather is variable, unpredictable, but climate patterns, when viewed on the scale of decades, are entirely consistent.
David, given your persistence on this thread, can I ask if you have looked at the role played by the world’s oceans in taking up (absorbing) excess atmospheric CO2 in the last five decades? If so, you must be aware that the seas have absorbed so much additional CO2, it has actually changed PH globally, for the first time in aeons. This is catastrophic for marine life, most especially coral reefs (already under pressure from increased water temperature).
The booby prize is that, some time soon, the seas will cease absorbing billions of tons of CO2 a year and start instead releasing it back into the atmosphere. Then you’re likely to see a ‘positive feedback’ that pushes up atmospheric CO2 levels by 100+ppm in a matter of years, throwing us headlong into global average temperature rises in the range of 2-3 degrees C (polar magnification means this is likely to be of the order of 8-10 degrees at the poles, which will trigger ice melt on a scale unseen in 55 million years).
If you’re read Mark Lynas’ excellent ‘Six Degrees’ you’ll be aware that once that Rubicon is crossed, there’s no going back. My last word on this David is the ‘precautionary principle’.
If any of the foregoing leads you to think that maybe, just maybe, the scientific community (other than those in the pay of energy companies and right wing media) might be on to something here, shouldn’t you and I be doing something about it, not squabbling over he-said-she-said petty fringe disagreements and jesuitical disputes about arcane, unprovable but irrelevant side issues.
Regarding the ‘dumb evil people’ bent on self-destruction, well yes, greed, power and status can blind people to an extraordinary degree. Just read Jared Diamond’s ‘Collapse’ on the fate of Easter Island if in any doubt about how, time and again, hubris comes before the fall.
If on the other hand none of this means anything to you, then you and I really have nothing further to discuss. JG
Apologies all, due to an error that occurred in the course of this blog being transferred to a new server, the last seven postings went MIA. Am glad to now restore them. David Q, thanks for alerting me to their disappearance. JG
Considering the extreme sacrifices we are being asked to make (I have heard calls for a reduction in world population to a “sustainable” 1 billion) I think it would be a reasonable precaution that the AGW case be proved beyond reasonable doubt.
My main point is that although you may have no respect for those sceptical scientists who do not go along with the IPCCs reports you cannot claim they don’t exist. It is therefore misleading to say there is a consensus view among scientists in general. I am guessing that some of the thousands of scientists David Bellamy was referring to are here:
http://www.petitionproject.org/
I take it that you dont know of any model that predicted the drop in global temperature. Do you not find it curious that the mainstream media never seem to mention this? Having been someone who previously was very vocal in support of your thesis I have become increasingly sceptical. In part this is due to the lack of acknowledgement in the mainstream media of the genuine scientific doubts that clearly exist.
We can’t predict the weather but we can tell what is going to happen with the climate you say. You claim that increased C02 could precipitate a new ice age or alternatively possibly raise the temperature to unbearable levels. Basically you don’t know so does the possibility not also exist then that if CO2 is heating the atmosphere (and the increase is not a result of naturally caused warming) it could possibly stave off a new ice age? Does the precautionary principle not apply to the drastic steps being proposed to reducing the population.
The acidity of the oceans is a concern, particularly if it is caused by CO2 in the atmosphere (approximately 95% of which is produced by the biosphere and not humanity). However that is a different argument to AGW which is where the main debate is.
As regards the IPCCs credentials in this whole debate it was interesting to note the admission from Professor William Schlesinger, a lead author for the IPCC. when asked in a public debate how many of the IPCCs contributors are in fact climate experts. The best he could come up with was that “something on the order of 20 per cent have had some dealing with climate”.
I accept that your conclusions are based on peer-reviewed science and not beliefs plucked from the sky. However coming to any conclusion about the climate inevitably involves making some decisions about who you choose to believe. We all have our prejudices and vested interests and they can be difficult to see sometimes. Climate science is an extremely well funded pursuit these days, but not it seems particularly lucrative for those whose research calls into question the IPCCs conclusions.
It seems we agree on the possibility that there is a conspiracy at work. I just think it may go a bit deeper than you do. I think you underestimate the intelligence of those with “power and status”. It takes a lot of cunning to accumulate and hold on to power. Which side of the AGW debate do you think is the most well-funded?
I think we will just have to agree to disagree for the moment John. I do care about the environment but if you wish to convince me of your arguments on AGW I suggest dropping the rhetoric and intemperate language in your articles and concentrating on reasoning. Disrespecting your opponents (like David Bellamy) really makes it look like you are unsure of your views, in my opinion.
all the best
David
David
I see Petitionproject.org is a Frederick Seitz project. I’m guessing you didn’t make it along to TCD a few months back when Prof Naomi Oreskes of the University of San Diego brilliantly dismantled the cabal of so-called sceptics, including Fred Singer and Seitz, once-reputable scientists who have been in the pay of corporations for decades.
Seitz is a former President of the National Academy of Sciences, but the Academy disassociated itself from him in 1998 when Seitz headed up a report designed to look like an NAS journal article saying that carbon dioxide poses no threat to climate.
The report, which was supposedly signed by 15,000 scientists, advocated the abandonment of the Kyoto Protocol. The NAS “went to unusual lengths to publicly distance itself from Seitz’ article” (Source: Exxonsecrets.org Factsheet on Seitz).
I’m still waiting for just ONE solitary peer-reviewed article that fundamentally disproves or significantly weakens the IPCC’s two decades of rolling research and its four Assessment Reports. Phony petitions run by discredited former scientists just don’t cut the mustard, and David, you claim to “care about the environment”. Why on earth then do you keep looking under rocks to pull out the slimiest of ‘evidence’?
Your suggestion that the ‘mainstream media’ is uniquely supportive of the arguments supporting anthropogenic global warming is at variance with the facts. Much of the media, from the entire Murdoch right wing press to the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Sunday Times to Channel Four are openly hostile to AGW, mainly because they closely reflect and report the views and prejudices of their billionaire proprietors.
If you believe the “media” is a monolithic Al Gore fan club, you are very much mistaken. Even within the “liberal” media, there are plenty of high profile climate change deniers.
Why in all your postings have you studiously avoided quoting a single mainstream academic, scientific or peer-reviewed research source? It takes quite an effort to ignore these mountains of evidence while sifting around the fringes looking for the smallest of crumbs to support an anti-AGW position.
I’m beginning to think this is a wind-up on your part; if so, my mistake for engaging seriously thus far. JG
I have been reading the comments on “life on the far side of the rubicon”
with much interest and a sinking feeling about what can still be done now about climate change. Since pessimism is not an option, we ought to look for something constructive to do. It occurs to me that the European elections in June offer an opportunity to those who would like to press for more urgent action. Climate change must be tackled on a global basis to have any hope of a successful outcome. The EU is a global player and can exert some influence if a consensus can be mobilised. We could make a start here by putting a list of questions to EU candidates which would indicate how strongly they feel about measures needed to tackle global warming. One question could be about whether current targets to curb CO2 emissions by 2020 are ambitious enough. John Gibbons has written a lot about aviation and its contribution to such emissions. The scandal that aviation fuel remains untaxed ought to be tackled also. It ought to be done by the EU without waiting for the rest of the world to follow suit, an argment which has suited the aviation industry wonderfully for years.
I would like to hear further suggestions from any interested parties. A list should be short, say no more than ten questions. If enough people could be induced to put these to candidates it might elicit some responses and move the debate along a little. A further consideration is that the Copenhagen meeting is taking place in December. The outcome of the EU elections could possibly have some bearing on how much weight Europe brings to bear at this important event. This is an added reason to take some action now.
David Walsh
John in relation to the famous computer models I found this article particularly interesting:
Japan’s boffins: Global warming isn’t man-made
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/25/jstor_climate_report_translation/
On a seperate, but related note the following may be of interest:-
http://www.seamusenniscentre.com/eventsi.asp?e=429