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Contradictions
Something to ponder on this second day of summer:
Definition of climate:the long-term weather pattern of an area, including temperature, precipitation, and wind.
Definition of crisis:1.
a. A crucial or decisive point or situation; a turning point.
b. An unstable condition, as in political, social, or economic affairs, involving an impending abrupt or decisive change.
2. A sudden change in the course of a disease or fever, toward either improvement or deterioration.
3. An emotionally stressful event or traumatic change in a person's life.
4. A point in a story or drama when a conflict reaches its highest tension and must be resolved.
Therefore, how can the term "climate crisis" even begin to make sense?
I don't know. Perhaps algore has the answer.
posted by Robert at 9:23 AM
8 Comments:
Climate IS a long-term process. But it's not permanent. Climate is dictated by a number of variables.
Currently, our civilization has the power to affect some of those variables. We have increased the amount of certain compounds in the air to levels previously associated only with massive volcanic eruptions or cometary impacts. When those compounds reach a critical number, the climate will drastically - and relatively quickly - change from its current state into a new state.
This isn't guesswork. Climate records actually extend beyond the historic record: tree ring data, polar ice core samples, sediment from the deep ocean floor - all describe the state of our biosphere at various points in time, and records what was in the air before and after the shifts.
50 years ago, scientists believed that climate change took place gradually. That's before they had access to ice core and sea floor samples. Facts trump "common sense" every time.
We are almost to that saturation point. We might be too late to prevent the coming change; climate is complex, and we still don't understand all its intricacies.
That's why we're at a crisis point; we are at the turning point. Once we pass it, we will not be able to restore the climate to what it was.
But here's the thing: conservatives & Republicans are throwing out a red herring when they deride "global warming" as a myth, or demand to know what happened to the theories about a new ice age.
Whether or not you believe the world will warm up or cool down, whether you believe the sea levels will rise or fall, the fact is that there is no good reason to continue polluting our air. Maybe it will change the climate, maybe it won't, but either way it is not beneficial to us.
Air pollution makes us sick. It causes birth defects. It corrodes bridges and buildings. It contaminates our food and water.
No one can provide a single argument that pollution benefits us, regardless of what effect it will have on climate.
That being the case, we should wonder what's wrong with those who fight to keep us polluting our air, food, and water.
C.L.,
You're absolutely right: we should take better care of the environment. But we should also avoid sounding like alarmists over something that is far from certain (you do realize that there are many scientists who believe that this is yet another cycle, right?). Unfortunately, the rhetoric coming from the far left is that if you're not sold on man-made global warming, you're for dirty air and a total and complete jerk. The reality is that as well-intentioned as some environmentalists are, some of the policies they've supported and helped to enact (and not enact) have hurt more than they have helped. Plastic bags? Sure, let's clog up our landfills. No nuclear plants? Yep, let's depend on dirty oil, and foreign oil at that.
The bottom line is that, as Alberto succinctly mentioned in a comment in Babalu, there are much more pressing matters to worry about than an impending climactic doom that is far from certain and very much open for debate.
Just 30 years ago, most scientists thought we were headed for an ice age. They were wrong then, and they're wrong now in pointing out that we have a climate crisis, IMO.
Just 30 years ago, most scientists thought we were headed for an ice age. They were wrong then, and they're wrong now in pointing out that we have a climate crisis, IMO.
They were not wrong then, and they are not wrong now. If you're going to argue that our climate is driven solely by the climate cycle, then you should be aware that we are at the cusp of the next ice age.
How does an ice age start? First, the planet warms up. The remains of the ice caps shrink and break apart. Unlike the minuscule icebergs that calve off on a regular basis, the remnants of the ice cap are much larger, and drift farther. Bigger chunks take longer to melt. The larger chunks drop the ambient temperature of the water for miles, and when they hit the Gulf Stream, the result will be dramatic and sudden.
The average global temperature HAS increased in the last 200 years, and that increase correlates with the increase in "greenhouse gases" as a by-product of the Industrial Age. There won't be an ice cap over the north pole by August of this year, Robert. That's not to say that there won't be any ice: there will be large chunks crowding against Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Northern Europe and Northern Asia.
The fact is that THIS is the time to do something, while doing something will have an effect. Maybe the Antarctic cap won't melt for another 50 years, and maybe the glaciers won't start growing for another 500. But the damage we are doing is CUMULATIVE. We've spent at least 200 years de-stabilizing our climate; while no one knows exactly how long it will take to restore it to something approaching "normal," everyone agrees that it will be the work of generations.
That said, I agree with you that we need more nuclear plants. And I want to slap all those Audubon nuts who are fighting windmill farms.
The bottom line is that every credible scientist agrees that air pollution is a huge problem. And there are more studies showing that we are altering our climate than scientist who deny the validity of those studies. We know it's a problem, we know how to start fixing it.
If the doom-sayers are wrong, and they force us to clean up the air, we benefit: we get clean air, and a healthier planet. If the Conservatives are wrong, there is no benefit; civilization ends.
From a purely pragmatic standpoint, it's stupid not to clean up our act now.
If the doom-sayers are wrong, and they force us to clean up the air, we benefit: we get clean air, and a healthier planet
You are ignoring the enormous costs of anti-global warming measures (never mind whether these measures are effective; that's a different question).
Every dollar spent on the environmental nostrums you want is a dollar that can't be invested in productive enterprise in China, India, Africa, etc. -- places where poverty kills millions of people directly via malnutrition, disease and accidents and indirectly via shortened lifespans. Historically, increased wealth is what makes people's lives longer, healthier and more enjoyable. This is not speculation, it's what has happened in every society. Increased wealth requires increased productivity, which requires investment, which requires capital. If you spend the capital on unproven anti-carbon schemes it will not be available for investment, and people will be poorer, and on the margin more people will die or will die earlier.
However confident you may be about the benefits of anti-global warming measures, they haven't been tried yet, so their outcome must be uncertain. However, the projected costs are not uncertain: it's going to take significant percentages of GDP everywhere, which is going to keep people in poor countries poorer and sicker than would be the case with faster economic development.
You write as though the question of global warming is a question of good vs. bad, but it's not -- it's a question of tradeoffs. You should tell us which set of tradeoffs you prefer. How many Chinese and Indians is it OK to kill to run your giant anti-global warming experiment? That is the question whether you like it or not.
Jonathan, are you assuming that China and India would even make that direct investment in its people? Or are the benefits of economic expansion enough to press down on the mortality rate?
On second thought, would they even make their share of the total investment in climate change?
I'm not sure the answer to either is yes.
Jonathan, are you assuming that China and India would even make that direct investment in its people? Or are the benefits of economic expansion enough to press down on the mortality rate?
Longer, healthier, more pleasant life is a byproduct of economic growth. I think this is universally true.
On second thought, would they even make their share of the total investment in climate change?
No, of course not. This is another reason why international global-warming mitigation is a nonstarter, even if you can convince western voters to pay for it. Developing countries produce a lot of CO2. They aren't going to keep themselves poor longer, merely because a bunch of westerners are wealthy enough to worry about unproven theories about possible problems in the distant future.
You are ignoring the enormous costs of anti-global warming measures (never mind whether these measures are effective; that's a different question).
No, I'm not. You're ignoring the fact that it's easier to not make a mess than it is to try to clean it up later.
We've been making a mess; we can stop adding to it.
You're begging the question. How do you know that in this case "it's easier to not make a mess than it is to try to clean it up later"? Nobody can reasonably make such a statement about global warming, given the limited data about warming trends and the uncertainty about whether such trends are harmful, much less whether humans can even do anything to mitigate them. IOW, nobody knows if it's really a mess.
You want us to divert an enormous amount of wealth to programs whose results are uncertain. Such a wealth diversion would lower standards of living, and we know from experience that lowered living standards kill people on the margin. Where is the evidence that the benefits of the programs you advocate would be worth the cost? All you are doing is repeating assertions that the sky will fall if we don't sacrifice X percent of GDP to Gaia. Don't you remember the predictions of global cooling, world famine, nuclear winter, fires in the Kuwaiti oil fields that would take centuries to extinguish -- none of which came to pass? Have some humility about this stuff. There are many phenomena, including GW, that simply aren't well enough understood for anyone to have such a confident opinion as you have.
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