"The Long Consensus On Climate Change"

[Mirza]

By Naomi Oreskes
Thursday, February 1, 2007; Page A15


With the release of the new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tomorrow, the fourth since the organization's founding in 1988, many will be looking for what's new. How have estimates of sea-level rise changed? How soon will we achieve a doubling of carbon dioxide levels?

Scientists and journalists focus on novelty, because both are largely about discovery. But from a policy perspective, what matters is not what's new but what's old. What matters are not the details that may have shifted since the last report, or that may shift again in the next one, but that the broad framework is established beyond a reasonable doubt. Although few people realize it, this framework has been in place for nearly half a century, and scientists have been trying to alert us to its importance for almost that long.



Ice floes dot the bay in Kulusuk, Greenland, near the Arctic Circle in 2005. (By John Mcconnico -- Associated Press)
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Scientific research on carbon dioxide and climate dates to the 19th century, when Irish scientist John Tyndall established that CO2is a greenhouse gas -- meaning that it traps heat and keeps it from escaping to outer space. In the 19th century, this was understood as a fact about our planet, one that made it hospitable to life, but did not have any political implications.

That began to change in the early 20th century, when Swedish geochemist Svante Arrhenius deduced from Tyndall's work that CO2released to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels could alter Earth's climate. By the 1930s British engineer Guy Callendar had compiled empirical evidence that this effect was already discernible.

Callendar's concern was pursued in the 1950s by numerous American scientists, including oceanographer Roger Revelle, a one-time commander in the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office, who helped his colleague Charles David Keeling find funds to implement a systematic monitoring program. By the 1960s, Keeling's assiduous measurements at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii demonstrated conclusively that atmospheric carbon dioxide was, indeed, steadily rising. (For this work, President Bush awarded Keeling the National Medal of Science in 2002.) Although these scientists may not be household names, they are well known in the scientific community. However, even most scientists don't know that they -- and others -- have been communicating concerns about global warming to presidents of both parties since the 1960s.

One early warning that we "will modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes in climate . . . could occur" came in 1965 from the Environmental Pollution Board of the President's Science Advisory Committee. While the Bush administration has been loath to accept this reality, an earlier administration accepted it as a statement of scientific fact. In a special message to Congress in February 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson noted: "This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through . . . a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels."

A second warning came in 1966 from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Panel on Weather and Climate Modification, headed by geophysicist Gordon MacDonald, who later served on President Richard Nixon's Council on Environmental Quality. While examining the question of deliberate weather modification, MacDonald's committee concluded that increased carbon dioxide might also lead to "inadvertent weather modification."

In 1974, in the wake of the Arab oil embargo, Alvin Weinberg, director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, realized that climatological impacts might limit oil production before geology did. In 1978, Robert M. White, the first administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and later president of the National Academy of Engineering, put it this way:

"We now understand that industrial wastes, such as carbon dioxide released during the burning of fossil fuels, can have consequences for climate that pose a considerable threat to future society."

In 1979 the subject was addressed by the JASON Committee, the reclusive group of scientists with high-level security clearances who gather annually to advise the U.S. government; its members have included some of the most brilliant scientists of our era.

The JASON scientists predicted that atmospheric carbon dioxide might double by 2035, resulting in mean global temperature increases of 2 to 3 degrees Celsius and polar warming of as much as 10 to 12 degrees. This report reached the Carter White House, where science adviser Frank Press asked the National Academy of Sciences for a second opinion. An academy committee, headed by MIT meteorologist Jule Charney, affirmed the JASON conclusion: "If carbon dioxide continues to increase, [we] find no reason to doubt that climate changes will result, and no reason to believe that these changes will be negligible."

It was these concerns that led to the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and, in 1992, to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which called for immediate action to reverse the trend of mounting greenhouse gas emissions. One early signatory was President George H.W. Bush, who called on world leaders to translate the written document into "concrete action to protect the planet." Three months later, the treaty was unanimously ratified by the Senate.

Since then, scientists around the world have worked assiduously to flesh out the details of this broadly affirmed picture. Many details have been adjusted, but the basic parameters have not changed. Well, one thing has. In 1965, the concern that greenhouse gases would lead to global warming was a prediction. Today, it is an established scientific fact.

The writer is a professor of science history at the University of California at San Diego.

[/b]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7013101808.html

[malorn]

This is funny!

Liberals: A very modest proposal
By Burt Prelutsky
Monday, March 12, 2007

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My friend Pat Sajak recently made an excellent point. He said that inasmuch as he doesn’t take global warming to heart, he sees no good reason to alter his life style. However, he wonders why those who are insisting they can feel the rising ocean lapping at their ankles don’t take drastic action to alter theirs.

He’s right, of course. I mean, assuming you are one of those people who actually has faith in U.N. reports and really believes that man controls the earth’s thermostat, wouldn’t you have to shape up? I mean, wouldn’t you think these worrywarts would all begin riding bicycles and start wearing their snow suits to bed? It’s damn hard taking their “The End is Near” placards seriously when they’re driving their Hummers to and from the demonstrations.



House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., discusses the House Democrats' "U. S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health and Iraq Accountability Act " during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, March 8, 2007. Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., left, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., right, flank Pelosi. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) Consider Al Gore, the man who could give Chicken Little lessons in panic and hysteria. As ominous as global warming is, it obviously hasn’t done anything to spoil his appetite. And why, when he isn’t shrieking into a microphone, doesn’t he look terrified? If you thought that, say, a giant comet was hurtling at the earth or a dozen nuclear bombs were set to explode, would be you be grinning and saying “Cheese” to every camera pointed in your direction?

The thing about liberals is that they’re always telling the rest of us how to live and then, oh so conveniently, ignoring their own advice. Take such professional busybodies as Arianna Huffington and Bobby Kennedy, Jr., for instance. She excoriates people who drive SUVs while she and her two tots live in a mansion that I can guarantee sucks up BTUs at a rate that would make your head spin. As for Mr. Kennedy, who spends his life screaming about what the rest of us are doing to destroy the ozone layer, he’s constantly gadding about on private jets.

Let us not forget that other holier-than-thou character, Michael Moore, who has also sworn off commercial airlines in favor of corporate aircraft.

Of course, that brings us to her royal highness, Nancy Pelosi, non-stop Speaker of the House. First off, she insisted on an upgrade to a larger military jet than the one her predecessor had. She wanted one with a private bedroom, a kitchen, and room for her entire family -- second cousins included -- on a jet that was capable of flying non-stop from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco.

When some people began to question the need she had for this airborne palace, she insisted that rabble-rousers were only raising a stink because she was a woman. Poor dear! She had no sooner lifted that marble ceiling all by her wonderful self, and here it came crashing down on her tiara!

Personally, I think she should have the largest plane the military has available. As I see it, they’ll need a jumbo jet just to get Pelosi’s ego airborne.

What’s interesting about global warming is how quickly the Left added it to their manifesto, right along with pacifism, affirmative action, bi-lingual education, open borders, and outlawing gun ownership. What makes global warming such a joke is the way that the same liberals who know even less about climatology than I know about 18th century Romanian poetry are trying to pass themselves off as science experts. As Michael Crichton pointed out, when folks start talking about consensus among scientists, they’re talking politics, not science. Nobody goes around claiming there’s a consensus of experts when it comes to the laws of thermodynamics or asks the U.N. to decide if there’s any validity to DNA. Only with global warming are we supposed to put it to a vote, and then abide by the results of a fixed election.

[Lywyllyn]

Wow you are quoting Michael Crichton? That really gives your post the credibility it needed :P

...however I agree that change has to come from within. That is the only way to achieve a sustainable result. With that comes the courage to stick to ones conviction. So let me make a broad statement. All of us conservatives and liberals reading and posting to this board, have most likely a larger effect on global climate change in the right direction, then any politician, author or other well paid speaker that travels the global to proof their opinions, pro or con to the GW, GCC or whatever you want to call it.

Here is to making a permanent change into the right direction, one Prius at the time!

[Mirza]

Yawn... another wag the dog article trying to point at one person as an example of the rest. There's nothing original - all these conservative nutcase articles rehash the same old arguments over and over and over and over.......................... etc. For a little bit of time malorn actually had credibility.

(Note with a BS in Biology and several courses on ecology/evolution/biology - a couple of which went into detail about the ozone hole and global warming... I think I'm qualified to post these articles - which were written by authnetic people).

[Wildkow]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mirza @ Mar 12 2007, 08:48 PM) [snapback]404578[/snapback]</div>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7013101808.html
[/b]

So the author of this article is stating that scientist were saying in the mid-60's that Global Warming was due to man made greenhouse gases, specifically CO2 and that we had better change our ways? Very entertaining but also pretty dubious as temps were going down during that decade as they did the prior 20 years before and would continue to do so for another decade at least and scientist were almost all saying that another ice age was just upon us if we didn’t change our ways.

Wildkow

p.s. “The brightest flashes in the world of thought are incomplete until they have been proven to have their counterparts in the world of fact.” J.T.

[Godiva]

I think what the scoffers need to keep in mind is....the wolf eventually ate the sheep.

[Wildkow]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Mar 12 2007, 10:59 PM) [snapback]404665[/snapback]</div>

I think what the scoffers need to keep in mind is....the wolf eventually ate the sheep.
[/b]

I think the little boy that cried "Wolf" is a little more apt here.

Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods. From 1895 until the 1930's the media pedaled a coming ice age.

From the late 1920's until the 1960's they warned of global warming. From the 1950's until the 1970's they warned us again of a coming ice age. This makes modern global warming the fourth estate's fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears during the last 100 years.

Recently, advocates of alarmism have grown increasingly desperate to try to convince the public that global warming is the greatest moral issue of our generation. Just last week, the vice president of London's Royal Society sent a chilling letter to the media encouraging them to stifle the voices of scientists skeptical of climate alarmism.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/tgr092606.htm

Wildkow

[Godiva]

The wolf eventually ate the sheep.

[F8L]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Mar 12 2007, 10:14 PM) [snapback]404643[/snapback]</div>

So the author of this article is stating that scientist were saying in the mid-60's that Global Warming was due to man made greenhouse gases, specifically CO2 and that we had better change our ways? Very entertaining but also pretty dubious as temps were going down during that decade as they did the prior 20 years before and would continue to do so for another decade at least and scientist were almost all saying that another ice age was just upon us if we didn’t change our ways.

Wildkow

p.s. “The brightest flashes in the world of thought are incomplete until they have been proven to have their counterparts in the world of fact.” J.T.
[/b]

I wonder how much had to due with aerosols which cause solar insolation to decrease and thus the temp goes down. Search the INDOEX experiment.

[Wildkow]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Mar 12 2007, 11:12 PM) [snapback]404670[/snapback]</div>

The wolf eventually ate the sheep.
[/b]

The Wolf is a figment of the little boys imagination the sheeple that believe in GW are ok sleep tight don’t let the bedbugs bite.

Wildkow