All posts in climate change denial

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  May 5, 2013

  A slight misunderstanding?!

   

  Just the other day we read a commentary on Earth Day by Tom Harris, a contributor to the website Canada Free Press.  This Website is a source of denialist (anti-climate change) “information (!)”

  One paragraph in this commentary referred to a statement by President Obama on Earth Day:

  “Obama often labels carbon dioxide (CO₂) as “carbon” and “pollution”. Anyone who remembers their grade 5 science knows that this is a serious mistake. CO₂ is an invisible, odourless and naturally-occurring substance essential to plant photosynthesis and so to all life on Earth. It is anything but a pollutant.”

  The Federal Government philosophy is that only emissions of gases that cause immediate harm to human health or the environment are pollutants.  As CO_2, the main Greenhouse Gas (GHG) apart from water vapour, does neither it is not a pollutant.

  The contrary argument is that the category “pollutant” includes accumulations of gas that longer term can render the planet inhabitable.

  Sugar is not a poison.  Neither is salt.  Yet use of these chemicals over a life time can have serious health consequences, e.g. diabetes (sugar) and hypertension (salt).  These consequences are not recognized until only medical treatment can avoid serious problems.

  Does this illustration explain why GHG emissions should be categorized as a deadly pollutant?

   

   

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  April 7, 2013

  Missing the Point!

  The University of Toronto Alumni Magazine published an article “Apocalypse How” that reflected on forces and events that could have a serious impact on this planet.

  The article included observations about climate change.  Scott Munro, a retired geography professor at U of T Mississauga who specialized in climate and glaciers, described climate change as an “incremental apocalypse”.  According to Munro, what’s most troubling about this “incremental apocalypse,” is that we know it’s coming, but seem incapable of preventing it. And the longer we wait, the worse it gets (even if carbon emissions were stabilized now, the seas would continue to rise for some time). The solution is easy to state, stubbornly difficult to enact. We have a carbon-based economy, and we have to decarbonize it.  Our whole way of life has to change.

  One reader wrote the magazine to disagree with the association of a changing climate with our carbon economy, stating:

  “Is our climate changing? Almost certainly — though as to whether the earth is getting warmer or cooler, scientists are divided. Are humans the cause of climate change? It’s highly unlikely. Great changes in the earth’s climate took place in the distant past without our influence, so does it make sense to conclude we are the cause now?

  Let’s not let our government be coerced by ill-informed climate change alarmists into adding carbon taxes to our already onerous tax burden.”

  Obviously this gentleman does not like the onerous tax burden on him as a Canadian citizen.  Let’s leave that aside, as out real interest is in the issue of climate change. Read more

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  January 18, 2013

  Global Warming isn’t going away!

  Sceptic websites and AGW (anti-global warming) militants have been emphasizing that despite increased atmospheric CO2 world average temperatures have not risen since 1998.  Both the US NOOA and the UK Met office recognize that their theoretical models projected increasing average temperatures during the years since 1998.

  Sceptics consider that there is an inconsistency between observed increases in CO2 and the actual warming experience, which was slightly less than the UK Met office predicted.  The most vocal among the sceptics attribute this inconsistency to the Met Office’s “fraud” on the UK taxpayer.  Fraud is a great exaggeration. The real complaint (not by any means substantiated) is that UK Government meteorologists are committed towards a theory of global warming that will encourage government financial support of the Met Office. Sceptics ignore that nearly every university climatologist in the UK supports the conclusions of the Met Office and regards its scientific investigations as sound.  

  This anti-scientist mindset here appears to be shared by the Canadian Government.  Certain Federal Conservatives consider that the Government scientists are also biased towards global warming theory. So to limit the influence of this “bias” on public opinion the Government cut back financing for environmental projects and limited the access of scientists to the media.

  The US Nation Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office (NOAA) concentrated on the United States to conclude that the 2012 temperature records show continued warming.  Another US institution, the National Administration for Space and Aeronautics (NASA), likewise monitors global warming.  NASA found that 2012 sustained the long term climate warming trend. To avoid debate over what year to choose for the start of trend analysis, NASA focused on warming trends over decades.   NASA concluded:

  “Scientists emphasize that weather patterns always will cause fluctuations in average temperature from year to year, but the continued increase in greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere assures a long-term rise in global temperatures. Each successive year will not necessarily be warmer than the year before, but on the current course of greenhouse gas increases, scientists expect each successive decade to be warmer than the previous decade.”

  There is general agreement that projections based upon climate modelling are just that, and where experience does not support the projections there is need for further research to explain the differences.

  But in the meantime, as we have often said – global warming won’t go away !