Bill McKibben's three numbers
- The First Number: 2° Celsius
- The Second Number: 565 Gigatons
- The Third Number: 2,795 Gigatons
Climate hawk Bill McKibben has a terrific new piece in Rolling Stone, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math.”Read it at Climate Progress
It is getting monster social media numbers of the kind usually reserved for pieces on HuffPost about Kim Kardashian in a bikini: 66k FaceBook likes and an astounding 6300 retweets. That means millions of people have likely been exposed to at least the headline and probably some of the opening text
McKibben Must-Read: ‘Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math’
By Joe Romm
11 comments:
Future generations may not look too kindly on the hydrocarbon generation. For some further in depth reading:
"Climate sensitivity - How sensitive is Earth’s climate to CO2?"
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2012/2012_Schmidt_1.pdf
"Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change"
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/notyet/inpress_Hansen_Sato.pdf
"Rising Seas: Past, Present, and Future."
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/go03500i.html
It's always interesting to see how every doomsday environmentalist fail to point out that the consensus in the climate science community is that global warming is a net positive for people's lives.
Anonymous said...It's always interesting to see how every doomsday environmentalist fail to point out that the consensus in the climate science community is that global warming is a net positive for people's lives.
Would you care to explain how that might be? I can understand climate change denial. It's a normal psychological reaction to adverse change. But seeing global warming as net positive has me scratching my head. What am I missing?
Tom Hickey,
You said:
"Would you care to explain how that might be?"
In a nutshell, the consensus is that it is a benefit to agriculture, which enables more food production, which helps people's lives more than the additional warmth harms their lives.
It's a margin thing. It's like asking someone "If you had to choose, would you starve to death or would you live in warmer temperature?"
At least with the warmer temperature and more food, they can eat in the shade.
Tom Hickey,
You said:
"I can understand climate change denial. It's a normal psychological reaction to adverse change."
Who is denying climate change? Who would deny the Earth's climate changes?
Don't you mean man-made global warming deniers? Doesn't "denier" imply that it is truth man is actually warming the planet? Where is the skepticism? Man cannot know such things with certainty. I see no conclusive evidence that man is responsible. In fact, the only reason why the scare mongering of "global warming" has deftly turned into scare mongering of "climate change" is because climatologists have found that the average temperature of the Earth hasn't warmed since 1998. The scare mongers don't say "global warming" anymore because there has been no recent warming. But there has been "change".
This doesn't make me a denier. It makes me a scientific skeptic. I am especially skeptical towards computer models, which is where 99% of the scare mongering comes from, and where assumptions are, let me just say, not always realistic.
Anonymous said...
"It's always interesting to see how every doomsday environmentalist fail to point out that the consensus in the climate science community is that global warming is a net positive for people's lives."
"Net Positive", wrong. Droughts and flash flooding are nothing to ignore. The levels of CO2 are increasing faster than for earth's various systems to adapt.
Use credible sources and actual observations because you definitely do not know what you are talking about. It is a complex issue:
"Yield vs. quality trade-offs for wheat in response to carbon dioxide and ozone"
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02489.x/abstract
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/24/science/with-warming-peril-underlies-road-to-alaska.html?_r=1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/22/climate-science-gathering-storm-editorial
"...I see no conclusive evidence that man is responsible."
Dunce Award for Anon. -
You need to re-take high school chemistry. The burning of sequestered hydrocarbons (coal, petroleum-e.g. gasoline, etc.) results in energy, CO2 & H2O. And if you did not realize, the oxygen is already present in the atmosphere.
Ignore Anon and other ignorant types (same thing with economics & Austerians), better to use your time following credibility:
http://www.realclimate.org/
http://www.climatecentral.org/
http://350.org/
In a nutshell, the consensus is that it is a benefit to agriculture, which enables more food production, which helps people's lives more than the additional warmth harms their lives.
Tell that the most of the farmers in the US now. It's not only heat, it is also drought. And it is not only affecting crops, but also animals.
Tom Hickey,
You said:
"Tell that the most of the farmers in the US now. It's not only heat, it is also drought. And it is not only affecting crops, but also animals."
Global warming is a long term effect, not a seasonal variation such as drought. Drought is absence of rain, not higher temperatures.
When climatologists say there is a net benefit to global warming, they don't mean seasons which have lower than average rain.
Of course, that is true, Anonymous, but events are becoming more numerous and more alarming. Tropical species are moving out of the tropics into the temperate zone, and temperate zone critters are one the move, too. And diseases and infestations are coming along with the critters. Those are not short term effects. Nor is the trend in ice melt.
Climatologists do not say climate change is a net benefit. Have you even heard of photoperiod and its effects on agriculture? Leave your dreamworld and enter the real one.
Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming
Tom Hickey,
You wrote:
"Of course, that is true, Anonymous, but events are becoming more numerous and more alarming."
Sure they are Tom, sure they are. I also took fear mongering 101.
"Tropical species are moving out of the tropics into the temperate zone"
90% of every living creature that ever lived, has gone extinct.
reslez,
You wrote:
"Climatologists do not say climate change is a net benefit."
That is false. Climatologists do indeed overwhelmingly agree that global warming is a net benefit to the human population.
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