Global Warming Viewed Practically

[JerrySeinfeld]

Sorry guys but I this article on our position re: Global Warming makes way to much sense not to post. I love it when objective writers say sensible, non-partisan, non-emotional things...

Foot-dragging is a tradition

At the Second World Climate Conference in 1990, Canada committed to stabilizing its emissions of greenhouse gases at then-current levels within a decade. The pledge was repeated in the federal government’s Green Plan of that year.

There followed a federal-provincial National Action Strategy on Global Warming, the federal Efficiency and Alternative Energy Program (1991), and a National Action Program on Climate Change (1995). A revised commitment, at Kyoto, to reduce emissions by 6 per cent from 1990 levels by 2008-12, resulted in the National Climate Change Process (1998), soon overtaken by Canada’s First National Climate Change Business Plan (2000), not to mention Canada’s National Implementation Strategy on Climate Change and, inevitably, a second National Climate Change Business Plan (2002). Meanwhile, the federal government was churning out Action Plan 2000, a Climate Change Plan for Canada (2002), and, in 2005, Project Green, billed as “a plan for honouring our Kyoto commitment.”

Altogether, I make that two programs, four plans, a process, two strategies, and a project. The result: by 2004, Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions were nearly 27% above their 1990 baseline, having risen in more or less a straight line throughout this period. Ottawa alone had spent, by the federal environment commissioner’s count, $6-billion on sundry climate change schemes, to no discernible effect.

So before we start, let us discard this notion that the Conservatives’ Clean Air Act, with its leisurely timetables and hazy specifics, represents some radical new achievement in the field of foot-dragging, wheel-spinning and pointless busywork. If they see further -- all the way to 2050! -- it is because they are standing on the shoulders of giants.

For that matter, there’s not a lot of difference in how the two parties would proceed from here. The Conservatives’ short-term timelines are not far off those the Liberals had in mind, their regulatory approach -- cap and trade -- is broadly similar, and their long-term targets are in the same ballpark as those proposed by the Liberal leadership candidates. (My own plan: let the greenhouse gases escape through the hole in the ozone layer. Mind you, I am not a licenced climatologist...)

If it seems ludicrous for governments to be setting emissions targets for 2050, when they cannot even hit their budget targets for the current year, it is. But that simply reflects the scale of the problem. To turn around something as vast and unmanageable as global warming -- assuming we can do anything about it -- will take decades. You have first to slow the growth of emissions, then reduce them in absolute terms, before you can finally stabilize atmospheric concentrations -- the accumulated residue of all those yearly emissions -- at levels that will, even then, merely halt the increase in global temperatures, never mind actually reverse them. The critics are screaming because the Tory plan would do little to reduce emissions in the next four years. But what does it matter if the long-term target is the same?

I understand that the longer we wait to get started, the greater the reduction we will eventually have to make. But since the same critics seem to believe we can slash emissions by 30 to 40 per cent in the space of two years -- the kind of effort that would be required, at this late date, to meet our Kyoto targets -- it is surely possible to reduce them by 60 or even 80 per cent over 30 years.

Yes, there’s a danger, should concentrations rise above a certain level, that we may pass a tipping point, where the very processes unleashed by atmospheric warming give rise to further warming. But it is impossible to fix that point with any precision. The head of climate science for NASA, James Hansen, warns that global emissions must be capped by 2016. The Conservatives propose to do so starting in 2020. Four years marks the difference between whether the planet lives or dies?

Four years, moreover, in Canada -- a country that accounts for just 2 per cent of world emissions? To listen to some of the more hysterical of the government’s critics, you’d think they held the fate of the world in their hands. They -- we -- do not. We have a moral obligation to do our part, and we hardly set a good example when we renege on our international commitments, either de facto (the Liberals) or de jure (the Tories). But the cold fact is that Canada is largely irrelevant to the overall picture.

This is a problem, in sum, that will require concerted international action over the better part of a century. That’s a hard thing for democratic societies to manage, even one at a time, let alone trying to herd 160 or so countries with wildly diffferent resource bases, standards of living, and political ideologies inside the same corral. Now consider that the costs of global warming are distant and uncertain, while the costs of preventing it are real and apparent, and it is easy to understand why politicians are so slow to come to grips with it. The same public that demands action on global warming screams blue murder if the price of gas rises a nickel.

That points to both the importance, and the insignificance, of Kyoto. It’s a treaty: nothing more, nothing less. Its targets were not decreed by cosmic writ, but were the result of the usual horse-trading and grandstanding -- witness the 6 per cent figure to which Jean Chretien committed Canada, on the basis that it was 1 per cent more than the Americans had promised.

Still, you have to start somewhere. Without some such agreement, the temptation for every nation would be to free-ride on the others. So it’s unfortunate and embarrassing that we have not lived up to our commitments. But it’s not -- well, it’s not the end of the world.

[JerrySeinfeld]

This is a great post an I'm surprised there are no opinions - perhaps because it's too airtight

[B. Max]

This is a great post an I'm surprised there are no opinions - perhaps because it's too airtight

How about the proof of man made global warming. To date there is none. All there is are computer models that don't work. The article is really meaningless.

This was written in 1998. So far all we've had is an ever increasing amount of fear mongering.

Achieving that consensus meant painting scary scenarios of a hurting, dying planet that frighten children, anger youth, and persuade adults to submit to the unthinkable regulations. (See "Saving the Earth") It means blaming climate change on human activities and ignoring the natural factors that have - throughout time - brought cyclical changes in climate, storm patterns, wildlife migration, and ozone thinning (there has never been a "hole").

[B. Max]

Here is a good article on climate predicting models.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,225719,00.html

[jdobbin]

Here is a good article on climate predicting models.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,225719,00.html

Steve Milloy is not a scientist, does not do research and is a paid activitist.

Junkscience would be credible with a list of scientists who affirm its findings. There are none. It's an opinion piece.

[B. Max]

Here is a good article on climate predicting models.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,225719,00.html

Steve Milloy is not a scientist, does not do research and is a paid activitist.

Junkscience would be credible with a list of scientists who affirm its findings. There are none. It's an opinion piece.

Looks like he does a pretty good analysis. By the way, what kind of a scientist is Al Gore and what analysis of anything has he done.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/What_Watt.htm

[jdobbin]

Looks like he does a pretty good analysis. By the way, what kind of a scientist is Al Gore and what analysis of anything has he done.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/What_Watt.htm

None. His books were fully references though and so was his movie. They are filled with footnotes and a long bibilography.

Where are Milloy's references?

[B. Max]

Looks like he does a pretty good analysis. By the way, what kind of a scientist is Al Gore and what analysis of anything has he done.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/What_Watt.htm

None. His books were fully references though and so was his movie. They are filled with footnotes and a long bibilography.

Where are Milloy's references?

Actually Milloy is scientific referenced to the hilt.

http://themes.eea.europa.eu/IMS/ISpecs/ISp...lic#Methodology

Gores movie was full of misleading information and has been fully debunked.

[jdobbin]

Actually Milloy is scientific referenced to the hilt.

http://themes.eea.europa.eu/IMS/ISpecs/ISp...lic#Methodology

Gores movie was full of misleading information and has been fully debunked.

Milloy's work has been fully debunked. His interpretations are disputed.

[B. Max]

Actually Milloy is scientific referenced to the hilt.

http://themes.eea.europa.eu/IMS/ISpecs/ISp...lic#Methodology

Gores movie was full of misleading information and has been fully debunked.

Milloy's work has been fully debunked. His interpretations are disputed.

Who debunked it.

[jdobbin]

Who debunked it.

The scientists he lists as resources on his website. They say he misinterprets the data.

Steve Milloy has come out in support of the Atkins Diet and has said evolution is a plot to promote atheism. This is just a number of areas that have raised eyebrows in his Junscience website.

http://timlambert.org/category/science/

Steve Milloy also tries to destroy character.

http://www.grist.org/news/muck/1999/10/18/dont/

[Remiel]

Without going too far into this, Canada may account for 2% of the emissions, but it only accounts for 0.5% of the population.

Second, I don't know if you were just joking with the greenhouse gases escaping the ozone layer thing, but it just doesn't work that way. Gravity, not the atmosphere, keeps the atmosphere intact. I'm not sure what level exactly the ozone layer is, and I don't know why it is up higher than the oxygen, because ozone is heavier than oxygen, is it not? Very little, if any, gas escapes gravity, however.

[B. Max]

Who debunked it.

The scientists he lists as resources on his website. They say he misinterprets the data.

Steve Milloy has come out in support of the Atkins Diet and has said evolution is a plot to promote atheism. This is just a number of areas that have raised eyebrows in his Junscience website.

http://timlambert.org/category/science/

Steve Milloy also tries to destroy character.

http://www.grist.org/news/muck/1999/10/18/dont/

That's not debunking a thing. That is the usual character assassination from the left, and the radical left at that. These are the same outfits behind the climate fear mongering. They are anti business anti development anti private property and pro UN. I believe it was the environmental defense fund that was behinf trying to shut down a new coal mine in western Alberta a couple of years ago. Saying it was to close to Jasper park. They've been trying to grab that land outside the park for UNESCO. They did the same in yellowstone in the states where they had an operational gold mine shut down, and some other place where they've been trying to drive people off their land. This is what we need economic treason laws for. To put a stop these bastards.

Signatories on the letter include: Leon Billings of Clean Air Trust, Phil Clapp of National Environmental Trust, Joan Claybrook of Public Citizen, Shelly Davis of Farm Workers Defense Fund, Lois Gibbs of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, Gene Kimmelman of Consumers Union, Fred Krupp of Environmental Defense Fund, Bob Musil of Physicians for Social Responsibility, John Passacantando of Ozone Action, and Arlie Schardt of Environmental Media Services.

[jdobbin]

That's not debunking a thing. That is the usual character assassination from the left, and the radical left at that. These are the same outfits behind the climate fear mongering. They are anti business anti development anti private property and pro UN. I believe it was the environmental defense fund that was behinf trying to shut down a new coal mine in western Alberta a couple of years ago. Saying it was to close to Jasper park. They've been trying to grab that land outside the park for UNESCO. They did the same in yellowstone in the states where they had an operational gold mine shut down, and some other place where they've been trying to drive people off their land. This is what we need economic treason laws for. To put a stop these bastards.

Signatories on the letter include: Leon Billings of Clean Air Trust, Phil Clapp of National Environmental Trust, Joan Claybrook of Public Citizen, Shelly Davis of Farm Workers Defense Fund, Lois Gibbs of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, Gene Kimmelman of Consumers Union, Fred Krupp of Environmental Defense Fund, Bob Musil of Physicians for Social Responsibility, John Passacantando of Ozone Action, and Arlie Schardt of Environmental Media Services.

The far right wing doesn't use science to back its arguments.

Economic treason is something that only the extremists in the far right would use. And who would they go after? Enron? Doubtful.

Milloy attacks evolution and says it promotes atheism. Where is the science there?

Milloy doesn't actually do research to back his assertions.

[August1991]

This is a great post an I'm surprised there are no opinions - perhaps because it's too airtight

It's a good post because Andrew Coyne wrote it, not you.

National Post

I have reported your post to the moderator. It is both a violation of copyright and it is also dishonest.

[B. Max]

That's not debunking a thing. That is the usual character assassination from the left, and the radical left at that. These are the same outfits behind the climate fear mongering. They are anti business anti development anti private property and pro UN. I believe it was the environmental defense fund that was behinf trying to shut down a new coal mine in western Alberta a couple of years ago. Saying it was to close to Jasper park. They've been trying to grab that land outside the park for UNESCO. They did the same in yellowstone in the states where they had an operational gold mine shut down, and some other place where they've been trying to drive people off their land. This is what we need economic treason laws for. To put a stop these bastards.

Signatories on the letter include: Leon Billings of Clean Air Trust, Phil Clapp of National Environmental Trust, Joan Claybrook of Public Citizen, Shelly Davis of Farm Workers Defense Fund, Lois Gibbs of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, Gene Kimmelman of Consumers Union, Fred Krupp of Environmental Defense Fund, Bob Musil of Physicians for Social Responsibility, John Passacantando of Ozone Action, and Arlie Schardt of Environmental Media Services.

The far right wing doesn't use science to back its arguments.

Economic treason is something that only the extremists in the far right would use. And who would they go after? Enron? Doubtful.

Milloy attacks evolution and says it promotes atheism. Where is the science there?

Milloy doesn't actually do research to back his assertions.

The right uses real science not the junk science pushed by the left. Evolution is a theory that athiets use to promote atheism.

Milloy analyzes the research. The left promote phony computer models as research fact, and waste millions of taxpayer dollars in the process.

[jdobbin]

The right uses real science not the junk science pushed by the left. Evolution is a theory that athiets use to promote atheism.

Milloy analyzes the research. The left promote phony computer models as research fact, and waste millions of taxpayer dollars in the process.

What computer model is used on the Atkins diet? That's one that he supports as well.

What computer model on evolution?

Does he use science to promote Intelligent Design?

I think even Conservatives can't be too confortable with the paid for extremist right wing.

[Liam]

FWIW, my view on our response to global warming has always been thus: what harm does it do to assume that human-influenced gloabl warming exists? Would we not be better off with fewer toxic gases in the air, with fewer miles driven on our cars, with fewer hydrofluorocarbons in our midst? Whether or not we create greenhouse gases and influence global warming, if we acted as though we did, we might actually stave it off. Worst case scenario, we'd simply live a healithier life. Not a bad alternative, if you ask me.

[jdobbin]

FWIW, my view on our response to global warming has always been thus: what harm does it do to assume that human-influenced gloabl warming exists? Would we not be better off with fewer toxic gases in the air, with fewer miles driven on our cars, with fewer hydrofluorocarbons in our midst? Whether or not we create greenhouse gases and influence global warming, if we acted as though we did, we might actually stave it off. Worst case scenario, we'd simply live a healithier life. Not a bad alternative, if you ask me.

The Stern Report was released today. Most consider him neutral in his economic analysis of global warming.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6093396.stm

[geoffrey]

The right uses real science not the junk science pushed by the left. Evolution is a theory that athiets use to promote atheism.

Please don't make the rest of us Christians or conservatives look so ridiculous, ok.

--

EDIT: Just to prove my point, the real big guy (Pope Benedict, about the most conservative guy out there) says:

"According to the widely accepted scientific account, the universe erupted 15 billion years ago in an explosion called the 'Big Bang' and has been expanding and cooling ever since. Later there gradually emerged the conditions necessary for the formation of atoms, still later the condensation of galaxies and stars, and about 10 billion years later the formation of planets. In our own solar system and on earth (formed about 4.5 billion years ago), the conditions have been favorable to the emergence of life. While there is little consensus among scientists about how the origin of this first microscopic life is to be explained, there is general agreement among them that the first organism dwelt on this planet about 3.5 - 4 billion years ago. Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution. While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. However it is to be explained, the decisive factor in human origins was a continually increasing brain size, culminating in that of homo sapiens. With the development of the human brain, the nature and rate of evolution were permanently altered: with the introduction of the uniquely human factors of consciousness, intentionality, freedom and creativity, biological evolution was recast as social and cultural evolution." (paragraph 63, from "Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God," plenary sessions held in Rome 2000-2002, published July 2004)

The Catholic Church believes in evolution... it's actually pretty much just backwoods hick types from the Deep South that protest now. It's unfortunate.

I personally have issues with evolution, but they aren't spritually related... I struggle with some timeframes suggested and paths of change. There are many issues with it... all scientific issues.

Anything from one of those wacko-southerners is simply uneducated BS.

[B. Max]

Please don't make the rest of us Christians or conservatives look so ridiculous, ok.

What is ridiculous. It is a fact that atheists us evolution to promote atheism. By the way evolution is a theory, not a fact.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiege...44787%2C00.html

Now what does all of this have to do with computers and global warming.

[B. Max]

What computer model is used on the Atkins diet? That's one that he supports as well.

What computer model on evolution?

Does he use science to promote Intelligent Design?

This thread is about computer models and global warming, not about anything else. The rest is a red herring you are using to try and change the subject.

[Wilber]

After reading all this is it any wonder that some of us can't figure out if anyone really knows what they are talking about.

Not knowing if they have any basis in truth but doing a little arithmetic with the numbers presented here, Kyoto depends on us reducing CO2 emissions to 6% below 1990 levels and we are now 27% higher than 1990 so we would have to reduce by 33% today in order to meet our Kyoto commitments. Canada produces 2% of world emissions so a 33% drop would result in a 0.66% reduction in world emissions if we met our Kyoto commitments today. What is it we really expect to accomplish here and at what cost?

As someone pointed out, the Kyoto figures are not based on science but a result of getting a consensus between enough countries to make an agreement through horse trading. They may be overkill or they may not be enough.

[jdobbin]

What is ridiculous. It is a fact that atheists us evolution to promote atheism. By the way evolution is a theory, not a fact.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiege...44787%2C00.html

Now what does all of this have to do with computers and global warming.

It goes to the credibility of the your source.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear geoffrey,

Please don't make the rest of us Christians or conservatives look so ridiculous, ok.

Don't you hate having wackos on your side? The 'left' has them too...

I generally don't paint everyone with the same bruch, and I also ignore B. Max and all the strange thing he posts, except perhaps for a chuckle. Creationism is a theory too, like evolution, but one of them is based on logic, fact, reason and evidence.