Middle Stance Emerges in Climate Debate

I would point out that the "3rd" stance leans closer to the Al Gore side than that of the energy sector biostitutes. From all that I have been able to gather in my climatology studies on sites like RealClimate.org and here at school it seems to me that most real climatologists are in this 3rd group. The believe 100% that AGW is real. They believe that something needs to be done or we will face major problems in the future. What seems to sperate them from the "Al Gore" crowd, is their relucatance to throw out alarmist type projections. Even when their own models show catestrophic projections they moderate those projections with admissions of uncertainty due to unknown climate forcing factors and the myriad collection of negative and positive feedback loops.

 

This middle stance is where most scientists have been for 5 years or so. It is nice to see that the media is finally catching on. I think the start of the article overstates somewhat the alarmist view. If we take Al Gore as being an alarmist, I don't think he argues that more storms, disease, and drought can be firmly linked to current warming, which so far has been modest (except maybe in the Arctic) my take on his argument is that if we do nothing to change course that in 50-100 years a lot of bad things are likely to happen and we should start taking action now to reduce the likelihood of serious problems. Overall a good article. Thanks.

Dennis

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(maineprius947 @ Jan 2 2007, 01:24 PM) [snapback]369666[/snapback]</div>

It's the extremes that sell newspapers, unfortunately. Those with the loudest voices and the scariest numbers (for climate change, or for economic costs for CO2 reductions) tend to be heard, while the mild-mannered studious folks are overlooked. And it's the 3rd group that can give us the real solutions to this problem.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Jan 2 2007, 04:12 AM) [snapback]369520[/snapback]</div>

I'd like to point out an important distinction there - 100% may believe AGW is real, but they may not think 100% of the warming is anthropogenic. That is, maybe 80% is human-caused and 20% is solar-radiation variations and lack of big recent volcanic eruptions, or something along those lines. Initially, many AGW deniers first said global warming wasn't happening, then as more evidenced mounted, that it is happening but is natural, now it's more often quibbling about the percentage human vs. natural. Of course, these shades of gray take more in-depth reporting, hard to do in a couple paragraphs at an 8th-grade reading level that keeps people entertained.

 

Nothing like hurtling towards a cliff while arguing over who sent us down this road. Nevermind what we'll do about it, it's who's at fault that matters.

As I've said before, Peak oil will vastly overshadow environmental concerns in 2-10 years. AGW will be a moot point if there's not enough oil burn and contribute to global warming anyways. I'm not a AGW denier either, I just don't believe anything can be done about it until most people have realized that the oil supply curve has dropped below the demand curve. China/India will burn ANY oil we don't and you can't tell them to stop without being a complete hypocrite.

We've all seen the co2 "hockey stick" curve and the matching global Warming curve.
But don't these also match the worldwide oil production curve AND human population curves?
Shouldn't we then expect ALL of these curves to follow oil production down the other side of the bell curve?