Global Warmers
 

Interesting debate on CNN.

Lesson 1: don't send in hacks to debate a MIT guy.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...31/lkl.01.html

Lesson two: Larry King is a very bad interviewer.

That was a mess. Nye looked like an idiot, but King never did anything to bring any clarity to the discussion.

At his peak, Larry King was a mediocre interviewer; and his peak was 20 years ago.

Bill Nye got owned in that interview.

poorly designed panel, poor timing
 

There is an IPCC report to be issued Friday. This is as close to a global scientific consensus as there will be, why not wait for the experts to speak first?

Second, you match Lindzen from MIT with Bill Nye the Science Guy. Separately, you could pair a guy with the opposite opinion with just as good an academic credential as Lindzen with Al Roker. Neither is going to get you anywhere.

If anyone cares my own opinion is that the evidence in favor of man affecting the climate is increasing. Regionally, there are some obvious examples of this such as overgrazing leading to desertification leading to reduced precipitation. Globally, its pretty clear man is increasing the CO2 (whether it be by raising too many cows and/or burning fossil fuels). I believe some of the effects of all this HAVE been exaggerated. Mostly by people with political axes to grind (read Al Gore).

One example of good science I have seen shows the kind of effect that is negative, but not exaggerated. This work shows that the latitudinal extent of strong landfalling cyclones (e.g. tropical storms, hurricanes) may increase. It does not presuppose that storms will necessarily get stronger, but this means certain cities that are today not really threatened by such storms may have a higher risk of getting a direct hit. An example is Brisbane, Australia. These effects have some real and direct costs. Whether they are worth the costs to mitigate change is of course an, as yet, unanswered question.

Isn't this Cullen woman the one who believes that if meteorologists and/or climatologists don't agree with her they should be stripped of their certification?

Whether the science is good or not, these are still just predictors. At the beginning of this last hurricane season people were wagering that it would be a very busy season but in fact the actual storm totals were nearly half of what was predicted.

So what I think the best thing to argue is economic policy. In light of science that disagrees and can marginally predict what will occur, where do we spend our money?

Personally I think the global warming issue is being made a bigger deal that what it is. There are other more real threats IMO that deserve more attention than this issue that policymakers are all bandwagoning on.

Lindzen and that British dude made the others look stupid. Boxer was an idiot as usual.

How long have the global warm-mongers been saying the debate is over now? Yet, we're still debating it. Thankfully.

I just hope we can hold off for another 5-10 years or so before doing anything drastic. By that time, my guess is we'll enter another cooling trend and we'll look back at all this hysteria as a time of silliness (as Lindzen put it).

Here is one thing I have always wondered. If it is really true that the earth is warming up and that this will sink some coastal areas, make current farm land barren in places and make the equator to hot to live at....would it not necessarily follow that huge parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland and other places which are currently uninhabitable because they are so cold become more suitable for people making it a wash?

Okay, so the breadbasket of the United States moves north.

My personal take is this: (1) the earth is getting warming (2) the earth is ALWAYS getting warmer or cooler, it is never static (3) we don't truly know what is causing the warm up, though green house gases could be part of it (4) the weather prognostication is an incredibly inexact science (5) we should enact sensible measures to curb greenhouse gases, but not if it will cripple our economy.

Warming will have many consequences, some predictable and some not, which will include social and economic dislocation of the type suggested by Utahdan. THe problem is that it will not be as simple as driving to Saskatchewan to see the bread basket. Weather patterns will change; perhaps more rain in not-so-useful places, or less rain when we need it, etc. In general, there will still be places to live, but if it happens too quickly we will have a hard time adapting economically (not biologically).

Is the earth warming? It sure seems to be. Thw question remains what increment is caused by man's activities? No one knows, but there is probably some marginal effect. The problem is that if man's contibution to warming is significant, given the relatively small amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere compared to the overall atmospheric dynamics, we would probably have to stop almost all of our CO2 producing activities to make a difference. Given that the whole field is specualtive, no one knows for sure how much reduction would be required. IOW, cutting 10% or even 30% of our emissions might make us feel good, but we should probably still make plans to move to Canada whether or not we make that sort of sacrifice.