An Inconvenient Truth

[Makalakumu]

That is not fact. The fact is the earth is a very resiliant environment and is ever changing. Yes, every living thing here affects the environment in one form or another. Yes, humans have the capacity to effect more than their share. I agree we should reduce our footprint, but I also face the fact that we as a species may not "live forever". Whether our demise is at our own hand or the cleansing forces of nature I do not know. But in reality what the film is about is not letting nature do as it wishes, but rather to bend and force nature to preserve the human species. It is truely an inconvenient truth that the human species just may not live forever.

My take on the whole environment thing is that yes, we do some things to speed things along (in the worst of ways) but this isn't soley a creation of humans, I believe it is largely the natural cycles of the planet, the solar system, and the universe.

As for the film, I will pass on it. I don't identify with Al Gore in any way, so it would be very difficult for me to watch it.

When you look at the sum total of the changes that humans have wrought on the environment in the last 100,000 and attempt to imagine what the Earth would have looked like if our species went extinct, what do you see? Do you see an earth as it looks now, or is it completely different?

That is what I'm talking about. Global changes and natural processes can occur very quickly or very slowly. Humans, and the environmental changes that we have wrought are a natural change that is happening very quickly. And I would wager that it is far quicker then our ability to know how it will affect everything.

Incidentally, 80,000 years ago, a supervolcanic eruption at Toba did, nearly, wipe our species off the face of the Earth...

 

[Flying Crane]

So you know this because you have read both versions?

No, actually there was an interview a few weeks ago with one of the scientists who was writing the original reports and submitting them to the Whitehouse. He resigned from his post over it. Unfortunately, I can't remember his name. It was a 60 Minutes piece, I believe.

According to this piece, the head attorney at the Whitehouse who was doing the revising has also left his post, and is now working for one of the big oil companys.

 

[Flying Crane]

I seriously do not believe that either. I am sure the government would JUMP at the chance to make it sound more dire than it really is. They have nothing to gain by doing what you assert, but everything to gain by doing the opposite, which they do have a track record for.

No, you are incorrect. If they made is sound more dire than it is, then we would all need to stop driving and burning petroleum, stop buying cars, stop shopping for crap that is not made to last and will end up in a junk heap, basically stop doing everything that we do and that our economy is built upon. It would destroy the economy. It would be political suicide, so they downplay it and make it sound like conjecture so that we keep on with our merry lives, spend money on junk, and keep buying gas.

 

[Marginal]

So you know this because you have read both versions?

Or are you saying that every environmental study on earth is first filtered through the Whitehouse before anybody in the USA hears about it?

Come on, you just cheapened all the good stuff you said with your anti-government crap.

This isn't a secret. It's not dismissable as a conspiracy theory. Philip Cooney, (Former lobbiest for API then appointed as chief of staff on the White House council on environmental quality.) resigned in June 2005 after the New York Times revealed he had edited government reports to challenge the link between carbon emissions and global warming. (Seems like a bit of an admission of wrongdoing...) Thankfully he landed on his feet. He's working for Exxonmobile now.

College drop out and political appointee to NASA, (hey, he worked the Bush campaign) George Deutsch also for some reason elected to keep NASA scientists from publicly discussing global warming trends. (Also insisted that they edit mentions of the Big Bang on the NASA web site etc.)

 

[Flying Crane]

Can you cite an objective source for this?

Well, I just did a 30 second search on Yahoo for Polar Icecap Melting, and discovered this article from the New York Times in 2000.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/081900-03.htm

This is one of many readily available examples that indicate the globe is changing in measurable ways, in years and decades, instead of the tens and hundreds of thousands of years that changes usually take when they are not speeded up, probably by human activity and pollution.

 

[crushing]

Well, I just did a 30 second search on Yahoo for Polar Icecap Melting, and discovered this article from the New York Times in 2000.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/081900-03.htm

This is one of many readily available examples that indicate the globe is changing in measurable ways, in years and decades, instead of the tens and hundreds of thousands of years that changes usually take when they are not speeded up, probably by human activity and pollution.

It sure looks like people have taken the place of those darned hairosol-spraying -SUV-driving wooly mammoths that ended the last major ice age.

But, even those that refuse to believe that there is a man-made impact on climate surely can't use that 'non-impact' to justify continued human mass pollution of our environment.

 

[Flying Crane]

http://science.hq.nasa.gov/directorate/04review.html

Here is another link, to an article by NASA. This one has satellite images that show the Arctic icecap as it was in 1980, compared to how it was in 2003. The size difference is stunning. The article contains some good information to help understand what impact this will probably have.

 

[Flying Crane]

But, even those that refuse to believe that there is a man-made impact on climate surely can't use that 'non-impact' to justify continued human mass pollution of our environment.

Very good point. No matter how you look at it with regard to global warming issues, the pollution levels that we pump into our environment is just unacceptable.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

All those thousands (if not more) years of burning wood, coal, whale oil, manure.those were the good old "clean days"? The last what, generation or two (my grandmother remembered horse drawn wagons when she was a child). And we are responsible for "destroying the world"? I dont buy it. We do need to be mindful in our consumption but the rest of this crap reeks of politics, money (gotta get that funding) and sky is falling hand wringing. As if Americans arent neurotic enough what with bird flu, meteors, tsunamis and what all bearing down to kill us all too.

 

[Flying Crane]

All those thousands (if not more) years of burning wood, coal, whale oil, manure.those were the good old "clean days"?

Yes, actually they were. The global population is much larger today than it was then, so use has increased dramatically. When I was a kid, a mere 25 or so years ago, I remember the global population was estimated at about 4 billion. I believe it is now estimated at or above about 6 billion. That is just 25 years. Go back a hundred or two hundred years ago, and global population was much much smaller, with demand also much much less than it is today.

By the way, we still burn plenty of coal today. that hasn't stopped.

And I don't think that burning manure emitted the same kind of poisonous and greenhouse causing gasses that burning coal and oil does. That might actually be considered a cleaner alternative, if it was viable.

Wood and whale oil have obvious problems of their own.

 

[michaeledward]

In the old days ... more photosythesis, less CO2.

Population growth, to a great extent, could not occur as it has in the last two centuries without improvements brought about by burning fossil fuels. They are intricately linked.

Now we are clear-cutting rain forests around the globe, short-sighted though it may be. For the incredibly rich rain forest soil, when cleared and planted, is good only for a growing season or two.

Much of the photosythesis on the planet; the lungs of the planet if you will; exist in the phytoplankton is the oceans. How will a minor temperature change in the surface of the oceans affect these plants?

An interesting study took place after the aircraft were grounded over North American; post 911. Mathematical models predicted that the amount of gases in the atmosphere should be gerenating more greenhouse effect than was measurable. For the three days there were no jet plain contrails after 911 .... measurable temperature changes were observed. The best science available is telling us that condensed H2O from jet engines is reflecting much of the solar energy.

Things that make you go "hmm".

 

[Monadnock]

http://science.hq.nasa.gov/directorate/04review.html

Here is another link, to an article by NASA. This one has satellite images that show the Arctic icecap as it was in 1980, compared to how it was in 2003. The size difference is stunning. The article contains some good information to help understand what impact this will probably have.

That looks more like photoshop than an actual satelite image. Maybe they were only showing certain thicknesses of the icecap, but Google Earth shows a lot more ice cover than that when you zoom in to some of the arctic islands. Of course I don't know how old Google's images are for that area. I'm just surprised to see something that appears to be that distorted from NASA. Then again they need a lot of "good stuff" to justify their budget, for things like going to Mars.


I think the ice has been melting for eons. It's only recently that we can track it. I think that has to be considered.

 

[Makalakumu]

http://science.hq.nasa.gov/directorate/04review.html

Here is another link, to an article by NASA. This one has satellite images that show the Arctic icecap as it was in 1980, compared to how it was in 2003. The size difference is stunning. The article contains some good information to help understand what impact this will probably have.

Albedo is a ratio of reflectivity of the Earth's surface. This figure measures how much heat is reflected off of the Earth's surface and back into the atmosphere...and space. Areas that have alot of snow and ice cover have high albedo. Areas that can absorb lots of heat like oceans and darker colored land have lower albedo.

I've seen some studies that show that within my lifetime there will be no more north polar sea ice. The reduced albedo in that region from global warming will (is) creating a positive feedback system that is acting like a double whammy on the region. Say good bye to your polar fauna. They depend on the sea ice. Another human caused extinction...except this time entire Taxonomic Orders will dissappear.

 

[Makalakumu]

All those thousands (if not more) years of burning wood, coal, whale oil, manure.those were the good old "clean days"? The last what, generation or two (my grandmother remembered horse drawn wagons when she was a child). And we are responsible for "destroying the world"? I dont buy it. We do need to be mindful in our consumption but the rest of this crap reeks of politics, money (gotta get that funding) and sky is falling hand wringing. As if Americans arent neurotic enough what with bird flu, meteors, tsunamis and what all bearing down to kill us all too.

The population of the world has risen exponentially since 1900 and so has our usage of resources. "Chicken Little" is one thing, but I really believe that we are approaching an honest to God bottleneck. Fossil fuels are nothing but the Earth's reserve of trapped sunlight. Humans have learned to tap that source of energy and THAT is the fundamental reason for our exponential growth. Within the next few hundred years, a Die Back is not out of the question.

 

[Rich Parsons]

http://science.hq.nasa.gov/directorate/04review.html

Here is another link, to an article by NASA. This one has satellite images that show the Arctic icecap as it was in 1980, compared to how it was in 2003. The size difference is stunning. The article contains some good information to help understand what impact this will probably have.

Not argueing that Global Warming is in progress.

Yet at one time there were theories that all costal cities would be flooded with that much polar cap melt.

So, while I agree it is happening, I am the cautious type versus the sky is falling type. I would like to see more trend data as well before we can get a better fix on this.

In the mean time, the EPA driven by CARB, has created more and more strict requirements for emissions. With the new SULEV (* Super Ultra Low Emisison Vechile standard *), the start up is critical and you know that drop of gas that always falls when you pull the nozzle out of your tank after filling it? Well that is more than the new requirements for start up which is one of the hardest points to control, as the catalyst is not heated and the system is not running and gone "Closed Loop", to be able to adapt to its; changes from the environment and also from driver input.

More and more Hybrids have hit the street, look at the "Magic Bus" by GM in Seattle and in other cites as well. Not only have the draxtically reduced the amount of fuel to pay for themselves in the first year of usage, they also have less wear and tear and this means the fleet size can be 20% to 30% smaller as the number of busses down to get new asbestos brake pads or rotors has decreased.

Also for what you can do, READ you Owners Manual for Oil Change recommendations. (* Of course check it for foriegn content and burnt smells but follow the receomendation of the manufactures which is about 7500 to 12000 miles now. *) If you have an up level vehicle you may have Oil Life % remaining on your display. NOTE: The engineers plan on people running it to 0% and then getting an oil change. This may be longer then what is in the Manual as this is a measure of time at temperature.

Go out and buy a new lawn mower (* Get rid of your old two-cycle one *) and get one that is much mroe efficient and even more likely better on fuel economy.

Get better long lasting energy saving light bulbs, as this energy will also save the energy that the energy company has to make. Turn down you temperature in the winter and turn it up if you have AC in the summer.

More emmisions are put into the air by sulfur bruning coal at the pwoer plants then per vehicles. Yet the vehicles are easy to legislate and also woudl have emissions in the city where people can see and smell and feel the SMOG.

Recycle all your paper and plastic and glass ware.

 

[Makalakumu]

I think the ice has been melting for eons. It's only recently that we can track it. I think that has to be considered.

We can measure the melting of sea ice by measuring the corresponding melting of glaciers. Also, varve counts in glacial lakes can also give us a good handle of what was happening in the past. Basically, for the last 500,000 years, the Arctic Ocean has been covered in ice. This is why entire orders of mammals evolved and now depends on it. In the next 50, that ice could be gone...

 

[Rich Parsons]

Any thoughts on this: http://www.psc.edu/science/glatzmaier.html

The Magnetic Pole shifting ?

What happens when it shifts towards 45 degrees declination?

What happens as it gets closer to 0 degrees?

Does this cause a change in the core temperature?

Does this cause extra heat from the core into the oceans?

Once the heat is in the oceans does this cause more storms?


Another Article: http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/03/20/north.pole/



This Article: http://deeptow.whoi.edu/northpole.html states that Magentic North is shifting even further North.


Another Article tracking the Magnetic North in Canada: http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/geomag/nmp/northpole_e.php


This article states Magnetic North could end up in Siberia in 50 years: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4520982.stm



***********

And a Rock Band by the name of Magnetic North. http://www.myspace.com/magneticnorth Do we think this could be having an effect on the enviroment.

 

[elder999]

No, actually there was an interview a few weeks ago with one of the scientists who was writing the original reports and submitting them to the Whitehouse. He resigned from his post over it. Unfortunately, I can't remember his name. It was a 60 Minutes piece, I believe.

According to this piece, the head attorney at the Whitehouse who was doing the revising has also left his post, and is now working for one of the big oil companys.

Rick Piltz, a government scientist for 14 years, resigned in March, 2005 over concerns that scientific documents were being amended for political reasons. Evidence released by Piltz was reported in the NY Times on June 8, 2005. Philip Cooney, the White House official accused of editing the reports, resigned June 10, 2005.

from Rick Piltz's resignation memo
The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) is the vehicle through which U.S. Government agencies coordinate their support for research on climate change and associated issues of global environmental change. From 1995 until my March 2, 2005 resignation, I served in responsible positions such as Associate Director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program Office (its name until 2002) and Senior Associate in the CCSP Office. Since it was first established as the U.S. Global Change Research Program under the Global Change Research Act of 1990, this program has supported thousands of scientists who have developed an extraordinary body of scientific research, observations, and assessments, dealing with issues of fundamental scientific and societal significance. The program currently has 13 participating federal agencies and an annual budget of about $2 billion.

Global climate change is a problem with great potential consequences for society. This administration has acted to impede honest communication of the state of climate science and the implications for society of global climate change. Politicization by the White House has fed back directly into the science program in such a way as to undermine the credibility and integrity of the program in its relationship to the research community, to program managers, to policymakers, and to the public interest. The White House so successfully politicized the science program that I decided it was necessary to terminate my relationship with it.

I resigned in March 2005, after working for 10 years in the program office. I have drafted a memorandum to the interagency principals committee for the Climate Change Science Program  essentially the board of directors  that discusses in some detail the problems that finally led me to resign, in order to be able to speak more freely about these issues. I know that others who are less free to speak out share these concerns. I believe these issues are worthy of more penetrating Congressional oversight and public attention than they have thus far received.

The ability of our society and our elected officials to make good decisions about climate change and numerous other important public issues depends on a free, accurate, honest, and unimpeded flow of communications about the findings of scientific research and scientifically based assessments of relevant issues. To block, distort, or manipulate this flow of communications in order to further political agendas can be seen as analogous to interference with freedom of the press. The White House should not be in the business of pre-clearing scientific communications based on political impact, any more than it should be in the business of pre-clearing the reporting of the news. Key questions that should be raised follow.

Why are administration political officials who are not career science program managers, and whose job is essentially to satisfy the administration's constituencies on climate change politics and policy, participating in governing the Climate Change Science Program? In particular, why does a former oil industry lobbyist have the authority to edit scientific statements developed by career federal science professionals? The White House Council on Environmental Quality, in particular its Chief of Staff  a lawyer and former climate team leader with the American Petroleum Institute, the main lobbying arm of the oil industry  has played a central role, including having final review and signoff authority on CCSP publications  such as the CCSP Strategic Plan for scientific research, the CCSP annual reports to Congress with highlights of recent scientific research, and the prospective state-of-the-science CCSP Synthesis and Assessment Reports. This CEQ generally under Chairman James Connaughton has been especially notable in the administrations commingling of politics and science.

CEQ final reviews of CCSP draft documents have made hundreds of changes in text drafted by career federal science program management professionals, who work closely with the research community, and approved by principal representatives of CCSP participating agencies. Many, if not most, of these changes and proposed changes have included alteration of science-related text, generally either to downgrade the significance of certain issues of concern about climate change and its implications, to downgrade accomplishments of previous scientific work by creating an enhanced sense of scientific uncertainty, or to substitute CEQs judgment for that of science program professionals about research priorities. Documentation of these CEQ interventions should be examined.

What is the role of the CCSP Director  the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere  and the CCSP interagency principals group, vis-à-vis CEQ and the rest of the administrations political operation on climate change? The administrations policy commitments on climate change have led it to play down scientific evidence on the extent of observed climate change and its impacts, the projections of substantial change during this century, and a range of potential adverse consequences of 21st century climate change that are considered likely according to the conclusions of the most authoritative scientific assessments of the problem. Is CCSP leadership free to express and represent the mainstream scientific perspective, or are CCSP public communications shaped by White House political priorities?

Why has the administration suppressed the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change  the most substantial scientifically based climate change assessment project sponsored by the program, and a pioneering experiment in modes of stakeholder engagement and societal relevance announced as a landmark on the likely and potential impacts for the U.S. from climate change when released is 2000? The serious process initiated in the assessment for follow through has been abandoned. Apparently, the first National Assessment will be the only one. Why has the White House required the CCSP to systematically delete any substantive reference or use of the multiple volumes of this major work in setting climate change research priorities? It has been stripped from the record for all program planning documents and reports to Congress; such as the CCSP Strategic Plan, the annual editions of Our Changing Planet (the annual program report to Congress), as well as internal planning and budgetary discussion. These scientific assessments are intended as the underpinning to support policy and management decision making. Why has the CCSP stonewalled repeated criticism from the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences for suppressing this report? The NRC has said: The National Assessments Overview and Foundation reports are important contributions to understanding the possible consequences of climate variability and change. The processes of stakeholder engagement and transparent review of the National Assessment reports were exemplary.

Why has the administration been evasive about embracing the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) and communicating and using its findings? ACIA was a major project, commissioned by the U.S. Government along with the other parties to the Arctic Council, funded by CCSP-participating agencies, and chaired by the long-time former chair of the USGCRP interagency committee, with substantial participation of U.S.-based authors and reviewers. Yet the administration has ducked and shortchanged ACIA in a number of ways. The ACIA Overview report was published in late 2004, with policy recommendations withheld until after the election. Why has the CCSP failed to transmit copies of the report that were purchased for distribution to Members of Congress and others? They are still gathering dust in a storeroom, sitting in unopened boxes. What roles have CEQ, the State Department, and the CCSP Director played in what appears to be an administration decision to distance itself from the Arctic Climate Impacts Assessment, which identifies a range of observed and projected adverse impacts of climate change on Arctic ecosystems and communities, with implications for global climate change and potential global consequences, including accelerated sea level rise? The ACIA Chair testifies and gives briefings, but it is on his own. The U.S. government has been sitting out the follow through process, without acknowledging the findings, briefing Congress, or even delivering the report.

A recent GAO report was critical of how the CCSP is carrying out its mandate under the Global Change Research Act of 1990 with regard to providing scientific assessments of global change to Congress. In particular, the GAO focused on the prospective 21 state of the science synthesis and assessment (S&A) reports, which the CCSP is at an early (and much-delayed) stage of developing, in lieu of focusing on the key issues raised by the U.S. National Assessment. These S&A reports are supposed to replace the scientifically independent National Assessment as the objective science used to support the development of national policy. But they are a piecemeal, governmentally controlled substitute and are not being produced expeditiously. They have become a bureaucratically convoluted way to sit on some two billion dollars annually of vitally-needed climate change research, running out the clock instead of acting on lessons learned that should underpin decision-making to limit adverse impacts by mitigating and adapting to climate change. Why do the administrations guidelines for final review and approval of these reports fail to guarantee the scientific independence of the reports and authority for final approval of text to the scientific experts who author them? Why, instead, are the final review drafts of these reports to be run through a White House, cabinet and sub-cabinet-level clearance process prior to publication, under the jurisdiction of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and with the involvement of CEQ, thus opening an avenue for political interference? Now a murky political clearance process controls the official results of climate change science reports trapped in bureaucratic bottlenecks.

The issue of lead author independence and other critical issues were raised very strongly at a meeting at the National Academy of Sciences and by public review comments in the spring of 2004. Why have the administration and the CCSP agency leadership stonewalled the critics on the issue of lead author independence? The scientific authors do not have the guaranteed right to approve, or even see changes to their work prior to publication. Leading scientists objected on grounds of credibility for the work, but have been ignored. The science community has a right to be concerned about the integrity of this process. These actions occur in the context of a widespread distrust of the political leadership of this administration in the scientific community  for exactly the reason that the administration has come to be perceived as not keeping politics out of science.

Under the current administration, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy from the outset set a tone of speaking evasively about the state of the science on climate change. His testimony has been inconsistent with findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the worlds primary and most authoritative independent scientific report issued every six years, to support decision-making by parties to the Rio climate change treaty, which the U.S. has ratified (and the Kyoto Protocol, which it has not). In response to reports documenting the administrations politically-driven interference with scientific integrity in a number of areas, he has responded evasively. These actions have contributed to the atmosphere of mistrust.

Why did the administration choose to require that all of the prospective CCSP synthesis reports be government documents rather than, for at least most of them, following a more straightforward path of asking independent scientists to write them and let the chips fall where they may?

In defending against a current climate change-related lawsuit filed by Friends of the Earth et al. against the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, why did the administration, through the Justice Department, choose to have the U.S. Governmentscience brief be prepared by a single professor, not involved in the CCSP, whose main claim to fame appears to be as a global warming skeptic, and who writes about his particular personal points of opposition to the more widely-authored and thoroughly-vetted assessments? Why did the administration not instead rely on sources with broad credibility and acceptance in the scientific community, in particular the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which are extraordinarily well-vetted and with policymaker summaries signed off line-by-line by government representatives, as well as other major scientifically based assessments supported by the CCSP participating agencies?

In the case of this administration, it seems clear that high-level policymakers will take up any source on the scientific assessment of climate change that they perceive as congenial to their predetermined political and policy positions and will discount or ignore any source that states implications and draws conclusions that might be taken to imply the need for a reconsideration and strengthening of U.S. climate change policy  regardless of where the material comes from.

 

[Makalakumu]

Heat from the core is insulated pretty well from the surface of the Earth by the various layers in the earth, especially the lithosphere. Heat does escape the earth, but the process in which this occurs is through the highly viscous convection in the asthenosphere, which tears apart lithospheric plates and allows it to escape.

The shifting the magnetic poles is very complex. If you remember you basic geophysics, the Earth has many layers. The mantle - which is composed of dense rock, the outer core - which is composed of molten rock and iron and the inner core - solid iron and heavier metals are the main players that describe how poles shift.

As the Earth rotates on its access, the mantle exerts forces on the liquid core that cause it to spin. Fluid mechanics inside the liquid core cause the solid core to spin. This is not a perfect process, however, so the inner core tends to tumble a bit. This tumbling has been proposed as a possible cause for magnetic pole shifting.

 

[mrhnau]

As the Earth rotates on its access, the mantle exerts forces on the liquid core that cause it to spin. Fluid mechanics inside the liquid core cause the solid core to spin. This is not a perfect process, however, so the inner core tends to tumble a bit. This tumbling has been proposed as a possible cause for magnetic pole shifting.

And occassional flipping. I understand we are about due for another pole flip, if I recall correctly. Wouldn't that be exciting LOL