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Climate change futility

Sean Kilcarr June 17th, 2009

“Responses to climate change impacts in the United States will almost certainly evolve over time as we learn through experience. Implementing these response strategies will require careful planning and continual feedback on the impacts of policies for government, industry, and society.” –Dr. Anne Waple is with the US Global Change Research Program

If you missed it, President Obama’s administration issued a big report this week on the potential impact of climate change in the U.S. You’d be forgiven if, upon reading it, you’d think the authors used the Bible’s “Book of Revelations” as a style guide, but that’s beside the point I’d like to make here.

First, the report – given the surprisingly bland title of “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States,” considering the almost hysterical nature of the prose within – outlines the possible direction of climate change under two broad scenarios, according to Dr. Anne Waple: the first projects what might happen if the U.S. focuses on aggressively reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with the second postulating what happens if we don’t.

The report also details the current impact of climate change already being felt across the U.S. as well as those that will soon emerge or become more intense if action is slow to occur. Some of the impacts that Dr. Waple pointed out in her briefing this week are:

• More rain is already coming in very heavy events, and this is projected to increase across the nation. This would have impacts on transportation, agriculture, water quality, health, among other sectors;

• Heat waves will become more frequent and intense, increasing threats to human health and quality of life, especially in cities;

• Warming will decrease demand for heating energy in winter and increase demand for cooling energy in summer. The latter will increase peak electricity demand in most regions;

• Water resources will be stressed in many regions. For example, snowpack is declining in the West, and there is an increasing probability of drought in the Southwest, while floods and water quality issues are likely to be more of a problem in most regions;

• In coastal communities, sea-level rise and storm surge will increase threats to homes and infrastructure including water, sewer, transportation and communication systems.

Dr. Waple went on to say that effectively managing the nation’s response to a changing climate falls into two general categories:

1. Implementing measures to limit climate change and therefore avoid many of the impacts discussed in the report. These measures must reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and might include increasing our reliance on clean energy, and developing energy efficient technologies

2. Reducing our vulnerability and increasing our resilience to ongoing climate change in pro-active, community-based ways. Examples of this include such measures as developing more climate-sensitive building codes to keep people out of harm’s way, or planting more drought or heat tolerant crops, for example.

OK, now, whether you agree with anything in this report or not, it’s my belief that not much is going to be done about it – except for an effort here and there by the federal government to raise taxes. In short, this is an exercise in futility.

Now, why would I say that? It’s simple – and we’ll use the third bullet point above as an example. Climate change is supposedly going to increase demand for heating and air conditioning – thus driving up energy demand. Yet President Obama’s administration is saying that we must reduce our overall energy demand and, further, significantly cut our reliance on coal, petroleum, and even nuclear power for it.

When push comes to shove, though, do you think 400 million Americans are going to willingly turn down the heat and turn off the A/C … or scream for more juice so they can stay warm and cool? We talk a good line about being “green” in this land of ours, but when it comes time to sacrifice, we’re always waiting for someone else to do it.

Here’s the other big problem – we in the U.S. don’t live on our own ecologically isolated island. We share the same water, air, and wind with the rest of the world. So we could become as “green” as conceivably possible … yet find all our efforts cancelled out by the two billion denizens of China that decide being “green” might remove a competitive advantage for them.

Right now, the environmental and safety mandates governing China’s factories and cities can’t even come close to ours – which is why in large measure so much manufacturing has been outsourced to them over the last two decades. And everything they do – or don’t do – is going to impact our climate issues, regardless of what we do or don’t do.

[This is one reason the U.S. refused to sign the Kyoto Protocols back in 2000 – because they severely restricted developed countries yet let nations like China, India, and others continue to pollute with abandon.]

Is this to say that we should NOT attempt to deal with climate change? Hardly. It’s just that we must realize that doing so will require a lot of sacrifice on the part of ALL Americans (especially from the Malibu house set in Hollywood), that it will change the way we live our lives for good … and that if the entire world doesn’t get on the bandwagon, it very well might be all for naught.

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6 Comments to “Climate change futility”

1. Mike Scott Says:
   

   June 17th, 2009 at 12:55 pm

   I will disagree in that, when coming to terms with the problem, the first step is to objectively define it and establish that it is, in fact, a problem. Given that it has taken lawsuits to pry the actual scientific data from the people, like NASA, who issue these reports, who then have to (as NASA did) issue “we take it back, our conclusions were wrong” — it shouldn’t take lawsuits to get at the real data, which in this particular case revealed that we were actually in a cooling trend for the past 30 years, not a warming one (the NASA report, which they, after the lawsuit, had to apologize for, concluded that we were in a warming trend, establishing that they are willing to ignore the actual science and lie, since the actual data established the opposite of their initial report).

   This is by no means the only report of its sort that has had to be “withdrawn” or that was countered by actual science. Most of the reports that come out in support of global cooling - no, wait, it’s warming — no, wait, it’s “climate change” so we can encompass virtually anything that happens and blame people for it. Most of the reports come out and their methodologies wouldn’t be accepted in a first-year college science class. For instance, a report about the thinning of ice in Eastern Antarctica didn’t actually measure anything, which their methodology revealed — they couldn’t get actual probes in most of the places needed to get an accurate picture, so they created “computer models” and “estimated” what they thought should be happening. Of course, you can all see what that is: creating the conclusion and then bending your science to fit the conclusion, rather than gathering actual scientific data and forming a conclusion FROM and that includes the data. Worse, the historical trend for thousands of years is that when the ice on the east side thaws, the ice on the western side thickens — and lo and behold, when scientists actually bothered to look, the western side is thickening, exactly in keeping with the historical trend. So, how can man be causing something to occur that has already been happening pre-dating man’s industrial revolution and fits that trend across time? How can we say “global warming” when we’re objectively in a cooling trend? How can we let people get away with going for the third round of language, now calling it “climate change,” which by definition is so broad as to include literally everything?

   Science first. Ideology last. The President claimed to want to get back to the “science” — but when reporters tried to ask him about the actual temperature measurements, a la the NASA report, etc, he ducked the question and blathered about how “right” it is to fight “man’s impact in climate change.” So much for “getting back to science”.

   By the way, the UN report on climate change, which said the issue was “settled”? 3000 scientists signed it, according to the UN. Pity they didn’t note the 34,000 scientists who penned and signed a counter to it saying by no means was the issue settled.

2. Lance Keith Says:
   

   June 17th, 2009 at 3:01 pm

   I don’t know anything about this NASA report that Mike references, and I also don’t know about this UN report and disagreement. What I do know, without a doubt, is that greenhouse gases trap heat. I also know that humans, primarily through the burning of fossil fuels, are releasing billions of tons of greenhouses gases into the atmosphere every year. Without knowing anything else, my common sense tells me that this will eventually affect the climate of the Earth.

   Why nitpick about lawsuits and the president not having temperature data on hand at a press conference? The science behind global warming is basic and not arguable. Isn’t it better to be safe than sorry? Why not do what we can to reduce waste now? Really that is what pollution is, just wasted resources.

   I find it quite the hypocrisy to talk about China when our own per capita emissions are by far the highest in the world. How about we worry about cleaning up our own backyard before we complain about the neighbors.

3. Bob Lee Says:
   

   June 17th, 2009 at 3:04 pm

   Aaaahhhh.Global Warming,,,oops,,,, sorry Climate Change. Those of us who live in Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, we all know about “climate change” Has there ever been a period in recorded history that climate did not change. HELLO !!!! It’s called Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.
   The preposterous notion that the climate has “warmed” .6 Deg Centigrade,,, One Deg Fahrenheit in the last 100 years is in itself not demonstrable. In 1909 Ernest Schackleton had made his first attempt at the South Pole. Nobody knew that the Antarctic continent covered 6.000.000 square mile of the Earth’s surface. Even less known was that there is 9.000 feet of Ice at the South Pole. The Earth’s surface is about 197.000.000 square miles.
   A Thousand dollars to a charity of the Editor’s choice if any of your readers can demonstrate the methodology of measuring the “average” temp over such a huge area. Of course they cannot do it, and they know it, hence the “catch all” Climate Change.
   Follow the Money and you will uncover a vast Enviro/Industrial/Agricultural complex after the gullible taxpayers money. GE being the leader of this CABAL

4. bruce thompson Says:
   

   June 17th, 2009 at 4:45 pm

   And what about all the identical changes in the past? ..before industrial revolution?..”Anticipatory climate change” doesn’t work, cannot. Nature has had more severe cycles even since USA was a country and many also before that….One volcano trumps all mankind’s output of many years

5. Dave Meekhof Says:
   

   June 18th, 2009 at 6:23 am

   First of all, carbon dioxide promotes vigorous plant growth which converts it back to oxygen. The next largest byproduct of burning fossil fuel is water vapor. So we are already “green”. Secondly, where is this “green house”? Is there a glass roof over our heads? Thats how a greenhouse works, doesn’t it? Can someone please explain how heat is being “trapped”. Can we be sure the earths interaction with the sun and other planets isn’t the largest factor driving our climate?

   You see, once our energy is taxed; we will be taxed for everything we do, not to mention merely existing.

   Lets work to conserve resources for better reasons and drop the climate change BS.

6. Sean Kilcarr Says:
   

   June 18th, 2009 at 6:32 am

   Longtime reader Steve Grantham sent in a comment offline that I’m posting for him. Thanks for adding your thoughts to this debate Steve! –SK

   Steve Grantham writes:

   “The idea that something as insignificant as Man can effect the atmosphere of a planet that has been here for billions of years seems a mite arrogant to me. I read in the paper a few days ago that Earth was going to collide with Mercury in 3.5 billion years. Global Warming seems slightly less important than that.

   I guess the point I would try to make is, since the scientists cannot tell me if it’s going to rain or the sun will shine three days from now, how can they possibly predict global warming or the planets colliding?

   It’s just guessing folks. I’ll tell you this….if there wasn’t an exorbitant profit in it, it wouldn’t be happening.”

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