I just finished watching this: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/
and it seems clearer and clearer everyday that our actions today will hurt us and our kids in a major way. (I hope you all get a chance to watch this program too)
Why post this: I believe that great thinkers who will lead (and currently lead) our profession (Arch being the #1 polluter) view this site and I think that we together can do something to change this bad situation.
Synopsis: Scientists have found that visible pollution particles have created a world-wide reduction of solar radiation of up to 22%. What it means is that the visible pollution (soot, nitrates, sulfates) pollution is reflecting 22% of the sun that we used to get down here, thus cooling the earth.
The scientists say that this "Global Dimming were partly to blame for the famines in Ethiopia as the oceans in northern africa got cooler and prevented the monsoon season that northern African countries depend on.
The U.S. and the E.U. are making efforts at eliminating these visible particles (although not the global warming Greenhouse Gases). So what is happening is that we continue to release global warming Greenhouse Gases while reducing (as we should for health, etc...) global cooling Visble pollution. If even with the global cooling particles out there the world is actually HEATING, can you imagine without them? Couple that with the fact that oil is getting harder and harder to produce and now we have to use more enrgy intensive methods to produce gas and we are fucked.
This, I believe, is the #1 issue we as a human people will face in the next few decades. People from all backgrounds and professions will need to start thinking what to do in their own way.
I hope this thread: A- isnt ignored B- doesnt get politicized
Scary stuff, but we must be aware of it if we hope to do something.
That looks quite chilling, and interesting- do you know if it is availble too look at on-line? seeing as i don't know enough about global dimming- does it contradict established theories about global warming?
I think that all of this will really come to a head over the summer. It will probably be hotter than ever. There will probably be some major natural disaster. And Al Gore's movie is soon to be released that will be getting a lot of national media attention- it could even be as popular as 9/11- the way the critics are talking about it maybe more. At this point its too big of an issue to be marginalized.
The problem is bigger than individual responsibility. I think that the best thing we can do as professionals is to put this to the forefront of the national and international political agenda. We need responsible political leaders that make this issue high on the top of their agenda. unfortunately, Iraq will be dominating the political agenda for the next few years (at least) and people won't get the the two issues are tied together- climate change and our dependence on oil...of course there is also environmentally responsible architecture, but a little governmental regulation would help that go a long way...
Studies on plants suggest they will grow better and use less water with increased atmospheric CO2.
Over the past 25 years buildup of CO2 has been linear - - - emissions, on the other hand, have been steadily increasing. What gives?
U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says CO2 buildup will be exponential in the future. They could be right, but where is the basis for that assumption? If they are basing it on emissions, they could be wrong.
As I see it, both human population and global oil production will steadily decrease over the next century - almost no way to avoid it.
The planet warms up a couple degrees in the mean time. Have a nice day.
I see- this attitute is sort of like smoking- you're going to die anyhow, so why not just get used to it even if your life expentancy and health while living slowly decreases in the meantime...and rising water levels? that will just provide more jobs for engineers- that works out for us professionals i suppose...
true some studies show that some plants can do better with increased co2. however the plants that can do so may not be the plants that will be able to exist in the new growing regions that emerge as a result of climate change. lab tests and reality are not the same thing.
btw, linear = steadily increasing. do you mean to say co2 buildup has been flat?
cosmoe 32, global dimming is not in contradiction to global warming. rather the idea is that the increased pollution of certain types has reduced the amount of solar insolation hitting the earth and this has in turn dampened the current warming trend. the thing is that air pollution standards are now beginning to remove the pollution, and with it, the damping effect. The fear is that when global warming is allowed to run without the impediment of global dimming the temperatures will jump dramatically.... so not a contradiction, just a clarification....
frightening ennit. climate science is still far too complex to say one way or another what the cause of the trend is, and there are a lot of feedback-type dampers and accelarants in the system that we don't entirely understand, but most real scientists are quite certain that something big is happening, and that it possibly won't be good for us...some of my profs are studying the problem (i am in a multi-disciplinary faculty, so the architects get to rub shoulders with climate scientists and genetic engineers. presentation day is quite weird) and even they aren't ready to offer a scientifically based opinion.. which is too bad as politicians are very good at jumping onto this gap...
actually international corporations are the number one polluter...you can throw some militaries in there too...like the US, Russian, and Chinese military to name just a few.
I love it how most car commercials feature their products in bucolic natural settings. I love how global warming sounds like such a comfy word. I love it how people preach about the impending doom while holding a bottle of water shipped all the way from Fiji or something. I love it how I love places like Tokyo, New York, LA draped in wasteful energy consuming wattage advertising yet more crap that I love but don't need. I love how easy it is to bash China for the reason that seemingly EVERYTHING is made there, and THEY are the big polluters and yet I NEED more.
I agree. Take the bus. Ride your bike. Live in a smaller house. Wear a sweater, don't turn up the heat. Unfortunately this POV is in the minority.
The New York Times -- authoritative, good citizen journalism -- has sections on Travel, House and Home, Automobiles, of course, and yet bitch and moan about the environment as well.
Where is the ENVIRONMENT section ? When we turn on TV, why don't we see ANY content on ANY of this stuff featured on the occasional PBS special. Because it's the bucolic car ads that pay for the news, and they make the news.
Gas is up to 3 dollars gallon. THat's all we really care about anyway.
The paradigm shift necessary to get where we need to be going is so radical that I honestly do not see how we are going to get there. Our economy is based on consumption. In a freetrading democracy a GNP growth rate of 3-4% is necessary to keep things moving forward (american dream, college, 401k, etc) The only way to keep that 3-4% growth is through consumption. Inherent obsolesence is necessary, greater energy consumption ensues, freedom reigns.
"it is difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it."
sadly, the people who currently determine our environmental policy don't just stop at being conveniently ignorant, they actively suppress information. anyone else see this 60 minutes interview with government scientist james hansen?
Good NY TImes Article, although Im nto sure whther this guy is saying that there is or isnt Gobal Warming. And I disagree, many scientists blam droughts directly on us (see the NOVA special in my original post) but I think it is an itneresting read:
Yelling 'Fire' on a Hot Planet
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
GLOBAL warming has the feel of breaking news these days.
Polar bears are drowning; an American city is underwater; ice sheets are crumbling. Time magazine proclaimed that readers should be worried. Very worried. There are new hot-selling books and a batch of documentaries, including one starring former Vice President Al Gore and his climate-evangelist slide show that is touted as "the most terrifying movie you will ever see."
Are humans like frogs in a simmering pot, unaware that temperatures have reached the boiling point? Or has global warming been spun into an "alarmist gale," as Richard S. Lindzen, a climatologist at M.I.T. wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed article?
There is enough static in the air to simultaneously confuse, alarm and paralyze the public. Is global warming now a reality? What do scientists know for sure and when are they just guessing?
And what can truly be accomplished by changing behavior? After all, there are still the traditional calls to limit heat-trapped greenhouse-gas emissions, but a growing number of experts are also saying what was once unthinkable: humans may have to adapt to a warmer globe.
Here, an attempt to shed a little light in all the heat.
What We Know
Between the poles of real-time catastrophe and nonevent lies the prevailing scientific view: without big changes in emissions rates, global warming from the buildup of greenhouse gases is likely to lead to substantial, and largely irreversible, transformations of climate, ecosystems and coastlines later this century.
The Earth's average surface temperature rose about 1 degree over the 20th century, to around 59 degrees, but the rate of warming from the 1970's until now has been three times the average rate of warming since 1900. Seas have risen about six to eight inches globally over the last century and the rate of rise has increased in the last decade.
In 2001, a large team of scientists issued the latest assessment of climate change and concluded that more than half of the recent warming was likely to have been caused by people, primarily because we're adding tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other long-lived greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, mainly by burning coal and oil.
There is no serious debate any more about one thing: more of these gases will cause more warming. Dr. Lindzen, who contends any human climate influence is negligible and has long criticized those calling global warming a catastrophe, agreed on this basic fact in his article.
At the same time, few scientists agree with the idea that the recent spate of potent hurricanes, European heat waves, African drought and other weather extremes are, in essence, our fault. There is more than enough natural variability in nature to mask a direct connection, they say.
Even recent sightings of drowned polar bears cannot be firmly ascribed to human influence on climate given the big cyclical fluctuations of sea ice around the Arctic.
What Is Debated
The unresolved questions concern the pace and extent of future warming and the impact on wildlife, agriculture, disease, local weather and the height of the world's oceans — in other words, all of the things that matter to people.
The latest estimates, including a study published last week in the journal Nature, foresee a probable warming of somewhere around 5 degrees should the concentration of carbon dioxide reach twice the 280-parts-per-million figure that had been the norm on earth for at least 400,000 years. This is far lower than some of the apocalyptic projections in recent years, but also far higher than mild warming rates focused on by skeptics and industry lobbyists.
As a result, by 2100 or so, sea levels could be several feet higher than they are now, and the new normal on the planet for centuries thereafter could be retreating shorelines as Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets relentlessly erode.
Rivers fed by mountain glaciers, including those nourishing much of south Asia, could shrivel. Grand plans to restore New Orleans and the Everglades would be rendered meaningless as seawater advances. Manhattan would become New Orleans — a semi-submerged city surrounded by levees. In summers, polar bears would be stuck on the few remaining ice-clotted shores around the largely blue Arctic Ocean.
Projections of how patterns of drought, deluges, heat and cold might change are among the most difficult, and will remain laden with huge uncertainties for a long time to come, said M. Granger Morgan, a physicist and policy expert at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
For example, while computer simulations of the climate consistently show that the centers of big continents are likely to grow drier, and winters and nights generally warmer, they cannot reliably predict conditions in Chicago or Shanghai.
What's the Rush?
By the clock of geology, this climate shift is unfolding at a dizzying, perhaps unprecedented pace, but by time scales relevant to people, it's happening in slow motion. If the bad stuff doesn't happen for 100 years or so, it's hard to persuade governments or voters to take action.
And there is the rub. Many scientists say that to avoid a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations, energy efficiency must be increased drastically, and soon. And by midcentury, they add, there must be a complete transformation of energy technology. That may be why some environmentalists try to link today's weather to tomorrow's problem. While scientists say they lack firm evidence to connect recent weather to the human influence on climate, environmental campaigners still push the notion.
"The issue clearly has an urgency problem," said Billy Parish, a founder of Energy Action, a coalition of student groups. "Maybe I'm just a paranoid that sees global warming everywhere, but the here-and-now effects do seem to be mounting, and I think we need to connect the dots for people."
A Gallup survey last month shows that people are still not worried about climate change. When participants were asked to rank 10 environmental problems, global warming was near the bottom, far below water pollution and toxic waste (both now largely controlled).
Without a connection to current disasters, global warming is the kind of problem people, and democratic institutions, have proved singularly terrible at solving: a long-term threat that can only be limited by acting promptly, before the harm is clear.
Problems that get attention are "soon, salient and certain," said Helen Ingram, a professor of planning, policy and design at the University of California, Irvine.
Stressing the problem's urgency could well be counterproductive, according to "Americans and Climate Change," a new book by the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
The book notes that urgency does not appear to be something that can be imposed on people. Moreover, it says, "Urgency is especially prone to being discounted as unreasoned alarmism or even passion."
Among its recommendations, the Yale book suggests something radical: drop the reluctance to accept adaptation as a strategy. Adaptation to climate extremes has long been derided by many environmentalists as defeatism. But, the book says, adaptation may help people focus on the reality of what is coming — and that may motivate them to cut emissions to limit chances of bigger changes to come.
Actions could range from developing drought-resistant crops to eliminating federal insurance and other subsidies that have long encouraged coastal development.
Could stressing adaptation work? The Yale group calls global warming "the perfect problem" — meaning that a confluence of characteristics make it hard, if not impossible, to solve. Its impact remains clouded with scientific uncertainty, its effects will be felt over generations, and it is being amplified by everything from microwaving a frozen dinner to bringing electricity to an Indian village.
"I wish I were more optimistic of our ability to get a broad slice of the public to understand this and be motivated to act," said David G. Hawkins, who directs the climate program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group.
In an e-mail message, he wrote: "We are sensory organisms; we understand diesel soot because we can smell it and see it. Getting global warming is too much of an intellectual process. Perhaps pictures of drowning polar bears (which we are trying to find) will move people but even there, people will need to believe that those drownings are due to our failure to build cleaner power plants and cars."
'linear' and 'steadily increasing' are not the same thing when they refer to 'rates of increase' - - - that is to say 'increase' times 'increase' equals exponential growth. A linear growth rate actually yields a declining percentage increase - - - that is to say (5/10) becomes (5/15) becomes (5/20) etc. - so if the earth gets 2 degrees warmer the first 100 years, it might only get 1.5 degrees warmer the next 100 (assuming the butterfly doesn't flap those damn wings).
Civilization (the thing we architects are beholden to) has given mankind a false sense of security - tell a nomad about global warming and he'll laugh his ass off at you (right before he kills you and takes your boots)
melkquiades -- perhaps social adaptation approached with the same zeal that the initial cold war years showed. Instead of hiding under desks or jumping into a backyard bunker -- live without your car for a day. or Not recycling supports terrorism. ( a troped, but arguable stretch ) Anyhow, any conceivable form of -- pro-active? - adaptation to prevent yet further damage to the environment depends on less consumption of everything imaginable, the common denomenator to all things being energy use itself.
I don't know how we can sell that to the average man in the street. The hiding under desks thing during the cold war was a direct action of survival. And in many ways it was a competitive act. After all, commies were bad, and we were the really victors in WW2, right? And that form of propagandized socialization had an enemy in Stalin, sputnik, ICBMs, nuclear holocaust, etc. Communism itself was never really allowed to be grasped in this country, and so the symbols of 'the evil empire' were perhaps rightfully exaggerated and simplified.
As far as imagery goes, drowning polar bears might do it, but again, I have my doubts. It's China's fault that they're drowning anyway, isn't it?
after the oil crisis in the 70's Japan was able to halt their oil use at that level, thanks to the government and willing effort (to some extent) on the part of the citizen's. Korea is also in the process of doing the same (since 1997)
The Japanese economy is now no longer tied to oil availibility to the extent that the USA is. BUT, there are lots of quite frightening nuclear power plants, gas prices are very high, and very few homes have central heating (most rooms are heated and cooled individually). america faces a similar choice. if only politicians were willing to make such choices...
if only politicians were willing to make such choices...If only the polpulous would vote for polititians to make such choices? we live in a democracy after all.
tinsec9.
i agree with pretty much everything you wrote in your previous posts. to me your analysis is spot on.
what i think however, is that modern civilisation (western countries to name them) has reached a point of no-return in the way it operates, meaning that we will never be able to turn the tide of certain forms of capitalism and consumerism that have gone totally irrational and out of control, but that we take for absolutely granted, such as getting a new mobile phone or a new laptop every year, jumping in our car to go buy a loaf of bread, eating strawberries shipped from god knows where in the middle of winter etc... These are just a few basic examples that make me think that the necessary paradigm shift you advocate is almost impossible. our very society is based on over-consumption and in-built obsolete features in every item we buy. things don't get fixed, they get thrown away and replaced when they don't work, yet the question of where the waste goes remains mostly unanswered and probably impossible to solve anyway, at least not on such large a scale. That makes for a truly unsustainable development, yet the system relies on these forms of consumption and models of development so heavily (and we are so damn used to them), that we'll never be ready to go back to more 'reasonable ways of life' and break that vicious circle. We are creating the very condiditons of our own demise and i dont see any way out of it. Add into the mix emerging countries like china and india and it gets pretty obvious that it's all going to end up in tears.
To illustrate that, i recently took a test to see if i live a sustainable way of life (the link was posted on this site a few months ago): i don't own a car, i only use public transport, i favor train over planes, i use LEC lightbulbs in my place, i recycle evrything in every way i possibly can, yet for some reason, 2.5 earths would be needed to sustain my life style... that really makes me feel like shit about myself and it sure leaves me wanting to do more but for some reason i don't see that happening collectively.
don't fret doberman - I'm assuming you are young, and your legs will be kept in good shape for a long while to come. Paradigm shifts happen in days, not years. After they occur a few poor souls launch themselves out of windows - but the rest of us go on to do the hard work that needs to be done. And who knows - all this extra CO2 in the atmosphere might grow back the planned obsolesce of the arrogant past twice as fast.
BOTS (still rules) - we don't live in a democracy - we (Yanks, at least) live in a land where stupid people elect smart people to make smart decisions for them - in theory. If things go wrong, I guess it is because stupid people get elected by smart people and make stupid decisions for them - - - oops! I'm thinking you might have been alluding to this . . .
yeh bots that is just it i suppose. if only we were willing to vote for politicians who are willing to lead rather than pander.
but it takes a politician willing to stand up and take a stand to begin with. jimmy carter didn't do so well when he said we (well not me specifically, as i am canadian, but you get the drift) were up shit creek during the first oil crisis. so it is understandable that calls for energy conservation and alternative sources don't get talked about much by the lawmakers.
but i think the subject WILL be talked about. once things get a bit worse. or maybe a lot worse. hopefully the former will be enough, though i have my doubts. the tragedy of the commons seems to be the status quo for humanity. still, i have my hopes...
paradigm shifts in days? i don't think energy is the same as consumer appliances. it took decades to shift from whale oil to petroleum. even korea reducing its oil dependency in 10 years was a minor miracle.
man are we in trouble.
Apr 27, 06 2:46 am ·
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Global Dimming-Masking the true effects of Global Warming
I just finished watching this: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/
and it seems clearer and clearer everyday that our actions today will hurt us and our kids in a major way. (I hope you all get a chance to watch this program too)
Why post this: I believe that great thinkers who will lead (and currently lead) our profession (Arch being the #1 polluter) view this site and I think that we together can do something to change this bad situation.
Synopsis: Scientists have found that visible pollution particles have created a world-wide reduction of solar radiation of up to 22%. What it means is that the visible pollution (soot, nitrates, sulfates) pollution is reflecting 22% of the sun that we used to get down here, thus cooling the earth.
The scientists say that this "Global Dimming were partly to blame for the famines in Ethiopia as the oceans in northern africa got cooler and prevented the monsoon season that northern African countries depend on.
The U.S. and the E.U. are making efforts at eliminating these visible particles (although not the global warming Greenhouse Gases). So what is happening is that we continue to release global warming Greenhouse Gases while reducing (as we should for health, etc...) global cooling Visble pollution. If even with the global cooling particles out there the world is actually HEATING, can you imagine without them? Couple that with the fact that oil is getting harder and harder to produce and now we have to use more enrgy intensive methods to produce gas and we are fucked.
This, I believe, is the #1 issue we as a human people will face in the next few decades. People from all backgrounds and professions will need to start thinking what to do in their own way.
I hope this thread: A- isnt ignored B- doesnt get politicized
Scary stuff, but we must be aware of it if we hope to do something.
Some other related stuff:
America's Oil addiction:
http://archinect.com/news/article.php?id=37564_0_24_30_M
the environmental tipping point?
http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=P32466_0_42_0_C
Architecture 2030:
http://archinect.com/news/article.php?id=30769_0_24_0_M
That looks quite chilling, and interesting- do you know if it is availble too look at on-line? seeing as i don't know enough about global dimming- does it contradict established theories about global warming?
I think that all of this will really come to a head over the summer. It will probably be hotter than ever. There will probably be some major natural disaster. And Al Gore's movie is soon to be released that will be getting a lot of national media attention- it could even be as popular as 9/11- the way the critics are talking about it maybe more. At this point its too big of an issue to be marginalized.
video">http://video.google.com/vivideo
The problem is bigger than individual responsibility. I think that the best thing we can do as professionals is to put this to the forefront of the national and international political agenda. We need responsible political leaders that make this issue high on the top of their agenda. unfortunately, Iraq will be dominating the political agenda for the next few years (at least) and people won't get the the two issues are tied together- climate change and our dependence on oil...of course there is also environmentally responsible architecture, but a little governmental regulation would help that go a long way...
somehow i blew the link posting- let's try again-
link
Studies on plants suggest they will grow better and use less water with increased atmospheric CO2.
Over the past 25 years buildup of CO2 has been linear - - - emissions, on the other hand, have been steadily increasing. What gives?
U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says CO2 buildup will be exponential in the future. They could be right, but where is the basis for that assumption? If they are basing it on emissions, they could be wrong.
As I see it, both human population and global oil production will steadily decrease over the next century - almost no way to avoid it.
The planet warms up a couple degrees in the mean time. Have a nice day.
I see- this attitute is sort of like smoking- you're going to die anyhow, so why not just get used to it even if your life expentancy and health while living slowly decreases in the meantime...and rising water levels? that will just provide more jobs for engineers- that works out for us professionals i suppose...
dazed and confused,
true some studies show that some plants can do better with increased co2. however the plants that can do so may not be the plants that will be able to exist in the new growing regions that emerge as a result of climate change. lab tests and reality are not the same thing.
btw, linear = steadily increasing. do you mean to say co2 buildup has been flat?
cosmoe 32, global dimming is not in contradiction to global warming. rather the idea is that the increased pollution of certain types has reduced the amount of solar insolation hitting the earth and this has in turn dampened the current warming trend. the thing is that air pollution standards are now beginning to remove the pollution, and with it, the damping effect. The fear is that when global warming is allowed to run without the impediment of global dimming the temperatures will jump dramatically.... so not a contradiction, just a clarification....
frightening ennit. climate science is still far too complex to say one way or another what the cause of the trend is, and there are a lot of feedback-type dampers and accelarants in the system that we don't entirely understand, but most real scientists are quite certain that something big is happening, and that it possibly won't be good for us...some of my profs are studying the problem (i am in a multi-disciplinary faculty, so the architects get to rub shoulders with climate scientists and genetic engineers. presentation day is quite weird) and even they aren't ready to offer a scientifically based opinion.. which is too bad as politicians are very good at jumping onto this gap...
it is available for viewing on bittorrent
Global dimming is old news. It appeared a couple of years ago in New Scientist.
We all know america and the american population are the worst polluters / wasters of global resources currently or is that too political?
Jump - remember who votes for these politians in a democratic system and therefore who is ultimately responsable. - the individual.
doesn't matter if it is old news BOTS. it is relevant news.
make a difference, catch public transport or walk.
actually international corporations are the number one polluter...you can throw some militaries in there too...like the US, Russian, and Chinese military to name just a few.
-George Orwell in 1984
I love it how most car commercials feature their products in bucolic natural settings. I love how global warming sounds like such a comfy word. I love it how people preach about the impending doom while holding a bottle of water shipped all the way from Fiji or something. I love it how I love places like Tokyo, New York, LA draped in wasteful energy consuming wattage advertising yet more crap that I love but don't need. I love how easy it is to bash China for the reason that seemingly EVERYTHING is made there, and THEY are the big polluters and yet I NEED more.
I agree. Take the bus. Ride your bike. Live in a smaller house. Wear a sweater, don't turn up the heat. Unfortunately this POV is in the minority.
The New York Times -- authoritative, good citizen journalism -- has sections on Travel, House and Home, Automobiles, of course, and yet bitch and moan about the environment as well.
Where is the ENVIRONMENT section ? When we turn on TV, why don't we see ANY content on ANY of this stuff featured on the occasional PBS special. Because it's the bucolic car ads that pay for the news, and they make the news.
Gas is up to 3 dollars gallon. THat's all we really care about anyway.
The paradigm shift necessary to get where we need to be going is so radical that I honestly do not see how we are going to get there. Our economy is based on consumption. In a freetrading democracy a GNP growth rate of 3-4% is necessary to keep things moving forward (american dream, college, 401k, etc) The only way to keep that 3-4% growth is through consumption. Inherent obsolesence is necessary, greater energy consumption ensues, freedom reigns.
global dimming, global warming, either way it's a critical issue.
in case you weren't aware of this new documentary opening next month featuring a politician we "didn't vote for", here's a link:
"an inconvinient truth"
http://www.climatecrisis.net/
"it is difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it."
sadly, the people who currently determine our environmental policy don't just stop at being conveniently ignorant, they actively suppress information. anyone else see this 60 minutes interview with government scientist james hansen?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/60minutes/main1415985.shtml
oops, i got political. sorry.
tinsec- great post
Good NY TImes Article, although Im nto sure whther this guy is saying that there is or isnt Gobal Warming. And I disagree, many scientists blam droughts directly on us (see the NOVA special in my original post) but I think it is an itneresting read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/weekinreview/23revkin.html?pagewanted=1
Yelling 'Fire' on a Hot Planet
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
GLOBAL warming has the feel of breaking news these days.
Polar bears are drowning; an American city is underwater; ice sheets are crumbling. Time magazine proclaimed that readers should be worried. Very worried. There are new hot-selling books and a batch of documentaries, including one starring former Vice President Al Gore and his climate-evangelist slide show that is touted as "the most terrifying movie you will ever see."
Are humans like frogs in a simmering pot, unaware that temperatures have reached the boiling point? Or has global warming been spun into an "alarmist gale," as Richard S. Lindzen, a climatologist at M.I.T. wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed article?
There is enough static in the air to simultaneously confuse, alarm and paralyze the public. Is global warming now a reality? What do scientists know for sure and when are they just guessing?
And what can truly be accomplished by changing behavior? After all, there are still the traditional calls to limit heat-trapped greenhouse-gas emissions, but a growing number of experts are also saying what was once unthinkable: humans may have to adapt to a warmer globe.
Here, an attempt to shed a little light in all the heat.
What We Know
Between the poles of real-time catastrophe and nonevent lies the prevailing scientific view: without big changes in emissions rates, global warming from the buildup of greenhouse gases is likely to lead to substantial, and largely irreversible, transformations of climate, ecosystems and coastlines later this century.
The Earth's average surface temperature rose about 1 degree over the 20th century, to around 59 degrees, but the rate of warming from the 1970's until now has been three times the average rate of warming since 1900. Seas have risen about six to eight inches globally over the last century and the rate of rise has increased in the last decade.
In 2001, a large team of scientists issued the latest assessment of climate change and concluded that more than half of the recent warming was likely to have been caused by people, primarily because we're adding tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other long-lived greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, mainly by burning coal and oil.
There is no serious debate any more about one thing: more of these gases will cause more warming. Dr. Lindzen, who contends any human climate influence is negligible and has long criticized those calling global warming a catastrophe, agreed on this basic fact in his article.
At the same time, few scientists agree with the idea that the recent spate of potent hurricanes, European heat waves, African drought and other weather extremes are, in essence, our fault. There is more than enough natural variability in nature to mask a direct connection, they say.
Even recent sightings of drowned polar bears cannot be firmly ascribed to human influence on climate given the big cyclical fluctuations of sea ice around the Arctic.
What Is Debated
The unresolved questions concern the pace and extent of future warming and the impact on wildlife, agriculture, disease, local weather and the height of the world's oceans — in other words, all of the things that matter to people.
The latest estimates, including a study published last week in the journal Nature, foresee a probable warming of somewhere around 5 degrees should the concentration of carbon dioxide reach twice the 280-parts-per-million figure that had been the norm on earth for at least 400,000 years. This is far lower than some of the apocalyptic projections in recent years, but also far higher than mild warming rates focused on by skeptics and industry lobbyists.
As a result, by 2100 or so, sea levels could be several feet higher than they are now, and the new normal on the planet for centuries thereafter could be retreating shorelines as Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets relentlessly erode.
Rivers fed by mountain glaciers, including those nourishing much of south Asia, could shrivel. Grand plans to restore New Orleans and the Everglades would be rendered meaningless as seawater advances. Manhattan would become New Orleans — a semi-submerged city surrounded by levees. In summers, polar bears would be stuck on the few remaining ice-clotted shores around the largely blue Arctic Ocean.
Projections of how patterns of drought, deluges, heat and cold might change are among the most difficult, and will remain laden with huge uncertainties for a long time to come, said M. Granger Morgan, a physicist and policy expert at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
For example, while computer simulations of the climate consistently show that the centers of big continents are likely to grow drier, and winters and nights generally warmer, they cannot reliably predict conditions in Chicago or Shanghai.
What's the Rush?
By the clock of geology, this climate shift is unfolding at a dizzying, perhaps unprecedented pace, but by time scales relevant to people, it's happening in slow motion. If the bad stuff doesn't happen for 100 years or so, it's hard to persuade governments or voters to take action.
And there is the rub. Many scientists say that to avoid a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations, energy efficiency must be increased drastically, and soon. And by midcentury, they add, there must be a complete transformation of energy technology. That may be why some environmentalists try to link today's weather to tomorrow's problem. While scientists say they lack firm evidence to connect recent weather to the human influence on climate, environmental campaigners still push the notion.
"The issue clearly has an urgency problem," said Billy Parish, a founder of Energy Action, a coalition of student groups. "Maybe I'm just a paranoid that sees global warming everywhere, but the here-and-now effects do seem to be mounting, and I think we need to connect the dots for people."
A Gallup survey last month shows that people are still not worried about climate change. When participants were asked to rank 10 environmental problems, global warming was near the bottom, far below water pollution and toxic waste (both now largely controlled).
Without a connection to current disasters, global warming is the kind of problem people, and democratic institutions, have proved singularly terrible at solving: a long-term threat that can only be limited by acting promptly, before the harm is clear.
Problems that get attention are "soon, salient and certain," said Helen Ingram, a professor of planning, policy and design at the University of California, Irvine.
Stressing the problem's urgency could well be counterproductive, according to "Americans and Climate Change," a new book by the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
The book notes that urgency does not appear to be something that can be imposed on people. Moreover, it says, "Urgency is especially prone to being discounted as unreasoned alarmism or even passion."
Among its recommendations, the Yale book suggests something radical: drop the reluctance to accept adaptation as a strategy. Adaptation to climate extremes has long been derided by many environmentalists as defeatism. But, the book says, adaptation may help people focus on the reality of what is coming — and that may motivate them to cut emissions to limit chances of bigger changes to come.
Actions could range from developing drought-resistant crops to eliminating federal insurance and other subsidies that have long encouraged coastal development.
Could stressing adaptation work? The Yale group calls global warming "the perfect problem" — meaning that a confluence of characteristics make it hard, if not impossible, to solve. Its impact remains clouded with scientific uncertainty, its effects will be felt over generations, and it is being amplified by everything from microwaving a frozen dinner to bringing electricity to an Indian village.
"I wish I were more optimistic of our ability to get a broad slice of the public to understand this and be motivated to act," said David G. Hawkins, who directs the climate program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group.
In an e-mail message, he wrote: "We are sensory organisms; we understand diesel soot because we can smell it and see it. Getting global warming is too much of an intellectual process. Perhaps pictures of drowning polar bears (which we are trying to find) will move people but even there, people will need to believe that those drownings are due to our failure to build cleaner power plants and cars."
'linear' and 'steadily increasing' are not the same thing when they refer to 'rates of increase' - - - that is to say 'increase' times 'increase' equals exponential growth. A linear growth rate actually yields a declining percentage increase - - - that is to say (5/10) becomes (5/15) becomes (5/20) etc. - so if the earth gets 2 degrees warmer the first 100 years, it might only get 1.5 degrees warmer the next 100 (assuming the butterfly doesn't flap those damn wings).
Civilization (the thing we architects are beholden to) has given mankind a false sense of security - tell a nomad about global warming and he'll laugh his ass off at you (right before he kills you and takes your boots)
gotcha.
any nomads in particular? i suspect maybe they are as tied to place as lazy ass house dwellers...
melkquiades -- perhaps social adaptation approached with the same zeal that the initial cold war years showed. Instead of hiding under desks or jumping into a backyard bunker -- live without your car for a day. or Not recycling supports terrorism. ( a troped, but arguable stretch ) Anyhow, any conceivable form of -- pro-active? - adaptation to prevent yet further damage to the environment depends on less consumption of everything imaginable, the common denomenator to all things being energy use itself.
I don't know how we can sell that to the average man in the street. The hiding under desks thing during the cold war was a direct action of survival. And in many ways it was a competitive act. After all, commies were bad, and we were the really victors in WW2, right? And that form of propagandized socialization had an enemy in Stalin, sputnik, ICBMs, nuclear holocaust, etc. Communism itself was never really allowed to be grasped in this country, and so the symbols of 'the evil empire' were perhaps rightfully exaggerated and simplified.
As far as imagery goes, drowning polar bears might do it, but again, I have my doubts. It's China's fault that they're drowning anyway, isn't it?
after the oil crisis in the 70's Japan was able to halt their oil use at that level, thanks to the government and willing effort (to some extent) on the part of the citizen's. Korea is also in the process of doing the same (since 1997)
The Japanese economy is now no longer tied to oil availibility to the extent that the USA is. BUT, there are lots of quite frightening nuclear power plants, gas prices are very high, and very few homes have central heating (most rooms are heated and cooled individually). america faces a similar choice. if only politicians were willing to make such choices...
if only politicians were willing to make such choices...If only the polpulous would vote for polititians to make such choices? we live in a democracy after all.
tinsec9.
i agree with pretty much everything you wrote in your previous posts. to me your analysis is spot on.
what i think however, is that modern civilisation (western countries to name them) has reached a point of no-return in the way it operates, meaning that we will never be able to turn the tide of certain forms of capitalism and consumerism that have gone totally irrational and out of control, but that we take for absolutely granted, such as getting a new mobile phone or a new laptop every year, jumping in our car to go buy a loaf of bread, eating strawberries shipped from god knows where in the middle of winter etc... These are just a few basic examples that make me think that the necessary paradigm shift you advocate is almost impossible. our very society is based on over-consumption and in-built obsolete features in every item we buy. things don't get fixed, they get thrown away and replaced when they don't work, yet the question of where the waste goes remains mostly unanswered and probably impossible to solve anyway, at least not on such large a scale. That makes for a truly unsustainable development, yet the system relies on these forms of consumption and models of development so heavily (and we are so damn used to them), that we'll never be ready to go back to more 'reasonable ways of life' and break that vicious circle. We are creating the very condiditons of our own demise and i dont see any way out of it. Add into the mix emerging countries like china and india and it gets pretty obvious that it's all going to end up in tears.
To illustrate that, i recently took a test to see if i live a sustainable way of life (the link was posted on this site a few months ago): i don't own a car, i only use public transport, i favor train over planes, i use LEC lightbulbs in my place, i recycle evrything in every way i possibly can, yet for some reason, 2.5 earths would be needed to sustain my life style... that really makes me feel like shit about myself and it sure leaves me wanting to do more but for some reason i don't see that happening collectively.
don't fret doberman - I'm assuming you are young, and your legs will be kept in good shape for a long while to come. Paradigm shifts happen in days, not years. After they occur a few poor souls launch themselves out of windows - but the rest of us go on to do the hard work that needs to be done. And who knows - all this extra CO2 in the atmosphere might grow back the planned obsolesce of the arrogant past twice as fast.
BOTS (still rules) - we don't live in a democracy - we (Yanks, at least) live in a land where stupid people elect smart people to make smart decisions for them - in theory. If things go wrong, I guess it is because stupid people get elected by smart people and make stupid decisions for them - - - oops! I'm thinking you might have been alluding to this . . .
yeh bots that is just it i suppose. if only we were willing to vote for politicians who are willing to lead rather than pander.
but it takes a politician willing to stand up and take a stand to begin with. jimmy carter didn't do so well when he said we (well not me specifically, as i am canadian, but you get the drift) were up shit creek during the first oil crisis. so it is understandable that calls for energy conservation and alternative sources don't get talked about much by the lawmakers.
but i think the subject WILL be talked about. once things get a bit worse. or maybe a lot worse. hopefully the former will be enough, though i have my doubts. the tragedy of the commons seems to be the status quo for humanity. still, i have my hopes...
paradigm shifts in days? i don't think energy is the same as consumer appliances. it took decades to shift from whale oil to petroleum. even korea reducing its oil dependency in 10 years was a minor miracle.
man are we in trouble.
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