Naming Hurricanes (funny, but misleading) http://www.mnn.
I like dot earth better: http://dotearth.blogs.
Revkin brought this up earlier too: http://dotearth.blogs.
26:20 They produced a paper that’s probably the most important scientific of the millenium to date, it said we know enough about carbon, any value in the atmosphere greater than 350 parts per million is not compatible with the planet on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted. That’s strong language for scientists to use.
Well it sounds strong, but does it mean anything strong. “to which life on earth is adapted” So that means that there will be some adaption if the world is about 1 degree warmer on average for that last couple thousand years or something like that. It does not mean anything ever remotely cataclysmic will happen. In fact it does not mean that anything would happen that most people would even notice. “not compatible with the planet on which civilization developed.” Well that planet was Earth (not Eaarth) and that planet has flourished with far warmer temperatures. So that part of the statement is just flat wrong. But Hansen (unlike McKibben can’t write) so perhaps he meant to write 350 is not compatible with the development of civilization. But how could it know this, and why would anyone think this is true? Why couldn’t civilization develop just fine one degree warmer? So what we have is a statement that sound very scary and is presented as being very scary but it essentially meaningless. And McKibben has the quote memorized and uses it over and over.
Same explanation advertized as The explanation of 350. What McKibben does not say recently but I hear from him, maybe in an email, was that he asked Hansen to produce that number.
The temp during the Eemian (previous interglacial period) was much (5C) warmer than today for about 3,000, and Greenland did not melt.
Hansen’s paper: http://www.columbia.
This gives us an idea of what it’s really about:
The tipping level is easier to assess, because the paleoclimate equilibrium response to known
climate forcing is relevant. The tipping level is a measure of the long-term climate forcing that
humanity must aim to stay beneath to avoid large climate impacts. The tipping level does not
define the magnitude or period of tolerable overshoot. However, if overshoot is in place for
centuries, the thermal perturbation will so penetrate the ocean (10) that recovery without
dramatic effects, such as ice sheet disintegration, becomes unlikely.
All of Hansens data is paleoclimate data, so it can’t say much about phenomena that take less than a few centuries.
What he thinks he’s found is that if we exceed 350 for a few centuries the long-run feedbacks (heat build up in the oceans) will get us.
McKibben of course gives absolutely no hint of this, and probably doesn’t get it.
He just quotes the line from the abstract discussed above.
Hanson obliged and gave him what he wanted — a round, low number with potentially horrible consequences after a millenium or so.
(Although I don’t really think Hansen even knows that, and I’ve seen no indication that any other scientist has corroborated this.
7:40 So far we’ve raised the sea-level of the Atlantic off the coast of New York a foot.
I would lay heavy odds that this is a lie. I call it a lie and not a mistake because Hansen is one of the top experts in sea level and is very close to McKibben.
Shall we check that are to you agree that that number is unsupportable?
0:56 … on a biblical scale. Last summer the arctic melted.
“We should be naming hurricanes after oil companies.” Because hurricanes are caused by global warming?
5:25 So far the temperature’s only increased 1 degree, and look look at what happens to finely balanced systems even with that small change. You begin to see phenominon, like saw this summer across the midwest, July was the warmest month ever recording in the United States any month any year and it accompanied this epic drought, a drought so deep the 70% of the country is now in a federally declared drought, a drought so deep that they said today for the first time in 38 years America will less grain than it consumes this year, a drought so deep that the price of corn and soybeans up about 40% in the last 10 or 11 weeks.
endlessly weird weather: no tornados
op-ed extreme weather is obviously
In my reading, though Roberts is clearly more “realistic” politically, Gelbspan’s desperate demand for convulsive change displays a more acute realism, one informed by deep immersion in climate science. June 10, 2004, NYRB
“Deep immersion in climate science”? I doubt that’s what led to a “desperate demand for convulsive change.”
Bill McKibben: The interesting thing about this movement is it really has no leader at all. I, as you can tell, am the furthest thing from an activist leader. I’m a writer.
As you can tell from this quote, black is white.
