Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
Countering the contrarians on global warming
Just how hot is it going to get?
That’s what everyone wants to know, and the focus of a lot of research. But parsing through the science can present some problems, with plenty of opportunity for mischief.
Aaron Huertas has been in this game for a while, so he figured there might be problems as soon as he saw the headline on the release from Rice University: “Global warming: Our best guess is likely wrong.”
The text of the release, which was promoting a paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience, noted that climate models can’t explain all of the heating indicated in the geologic record of a warm period some 55 million years ago. And one of the scientists who did the research told Reuters that this could mean current forecasts are underestimating how hot Earth’s atmosphere will get in the future.
But Huertas, press secretary at the Union of Concerned Scientists, figured the initial headline from Rice University might be used by those skeptical about climate change — he calls them contrarians because he feels all scientists are skeptical — to argue that the carbon dioxide generated by human activities isn’t to blame for global warming.
Sure enough, USAToday’s headline read “Could we be wrong about global warming?” There was no reference to the notion that this research could indicate a greater global warming trend ahead.
The blog Right Side News went further, with a post entitled “UN models on global warming fundamentally wrong.” The subhead read: “Study shakes foundation of climate theory! Reveals UN models ‘fundamentally wrong’ – Blames ‘Unknown Processes’ — not CO2 for ancient global warming.”
Should climate sinners face World Cup ban?
Among suggestions for slowing global warming it may be the most radical — countries failing to keep promises to curb emissions should not be allowed to send a soccer team to the World Cup.
June 2-13 talks in Bonn on a new deal to widen the Kyoto Protocol after a first period ends in 2012 are ending on Friday with few agreements and many criticisms about a lack of progress.
But how do you focus delegations’ minds and get countries to do more to curb greenhouse gas emissions? U.N. reports last year warning the world of rising temperatures, droughts, rising seas and other risks in coming decades have not fully done the trick.
Sanctions under the Kyoto Protocol, the main existing plan for fighting climate change running to 2012, involve imposing stiffer greenhoues cuts in a next period. But does that do the job?
Rarely for a U.N. climate meeting, the Bonn sessions have often ended promptly at about 6 p.m. – and some delegates have been more agitated talking about the Euro 2008 soccer than about the threats to the planet.
So Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, has a joking proposal: ”if countries don’t comply their teams shouldn’t be allowed to go to the World Cup.”
What do you think?
Oh I don’t know – a World Cup final of Mongolia v Butan would be something worth seeing!
The “logic” of Global Warming Deniers is succinctly displayed by Mr. Wyatt: the fix for Global Warming is expensive, therefore Global Warming does not exist.