Discuss: How to Be a Climate Hero

An incredible article...and really inspiring words/actions/thoughts from all those who’ve commented! Very moving on two fronts! ;-)

Between climate change and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s made me think alot about all the environmental and money saving things my Grandma did (and still does) as part of her everyday life...things she’s carried with her as growing up through 2 world wars, the Depression and raising 8 kids alone. Too many to mention, but I now find myself doing these some of these things at first what I thought was either “out of the blue” or being a 30 something in this new age of environmentalism and stewardship. Until I stopped and realized...it was Grandma that taught me these practices with her actions...she never told me why she did them, but now I know. Like saving bread wrappers for food bags and containers for instance. She must have a 100 things she has done that she’s learned all on her own would have save money, decrease her carbon footprint (although she’d never call or recognize it as that) and live a greener life all around.

It makes me wonder why for the duration of this war, and being tied in to the climate crisis, why our “leaders”, those who are supposed to be the ones standing up on the train snapping us out of our have not reintroduced ideas such as Victory Gardens or War Stamps...that we are doing the modern day equivalents en masse like tire drives, etc. There are parallels to the larger greater good of the country (and now the world) that I see between the US in the 20’s and 40’s that I see now...it’s just that then they seemed to do so much as a society for the greater good...today we are so centered on ourselves, our luxuries and what “we’d have to give up”, that the masses just want to keep doing the status quo eating their processed fast food meals, watching the 58” plasma screens, driving their Hummers and FJ cruisers...hopefully you get my point.

Anyway...THANK YOU to the author and to those folks here who’ve written inspiring words. I’m glad that I can stand in your midst...hopefully between us all, the author and my Grandma, we can snap some other folks out of the collective haze and really start changing the world for the better.

Giving up the ‘wars’ in Iraq and Afghanistan would be a good thing to do.

There is no causal relationship between carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere and the temperature of the climate.  There may be a converse relationship, i.e. increasing temperature may cause increasing carbon dioxide concentration, but even that is not proven.

The hypothesis that carbon dioxide has and is causing our climate to warm has failed several crucial tests.  First of all, in spite of continuing and unattenuated increases in carbon dioxide concentration, the climate has not warmed since 1997. 

Second, the models do not describe the measured temperature profile in the troposphere.  The models predict that the temperature at 3 to 10 km altitude will increase 3 times faster than the surface temperature.  The satellite and high altitude balloon data show that to be false. 

It is time to acknowledge that the IPCC is wrong and get on with our lives.

It really is about time that people realised that they are responsible for climate change, stop denying it, stop trying to protect their comfortable lives, take responsibility for their actions and get on with changing their lives to ameliorate the effects of climate change. Head-in-sand time is over!

Col,

Have you reviewed the science behind the IPCC claims?  Do you have any rationale as to why we should continue to behave as if the hypothesis, which has failed to describe reality, has any value?  Do you know of any physical data that demonstrate that the carbon dioxide-induced warming hypothesis is true? 

Scientists discard hypotheses that fail to describe the real world.  Religious beliefs do not have to be able to describe reality in order to survive.  Into which category shall we place belief in the IPCC position?

Dennis, yes, I have reviewed the science and having been a university lecturer for 22 years I think I understand the arguments. I know there is a lot of junk, propagated and sponsored by vested interests, wanting us to believe that climate change does not exist, or if it does, that humans have no part in it. Those arguments are usually entirely driven by self interest. So, I do what I can to limit my carbon footprint and will continue to do so. A low carbon lifestyle is not as difficult, or as scary, as many of the deniers think. In fact it is very liberating to take some control of your own life and not rely so heavily on oil. You should try it some time soon.

Col,

I know of no one who denies that the climate is warming.  Climate change is not the issue.  The issue is the cause of the climate change.  I offered two examples of why I believe that carbon dioxide is not the cause of the ongoing climate change.  One was that in spite of the fact that the carbon dioxide concentration has increased at its historical rate for the past decade and is now about 5% higher now than it was in 1970, the atmosphere has not warmed during the past decade.  I did not mention, but also know that the present temperature is below the lower error band that IPCC claimed for its models. 

I also mentioned that the data show that the stratosphere, between 3 and 10 km is not warming 3.5 times faster than the surface, as the carbon dioxide-induced warming hypothesis demands.  In fact, the surface is warming faster than the stratosphere, which is impossible if carbon dioxide is responsible for the warming.  As you know the carbon dioxide hypothesis assumes that carbon dioxide in the stratosphere will absorb some of the heat radiated from the earth at night and will re-radiate equally in all directions (i.e. up, down and sideways).  Because only some of the heat returns to the surface, the stratosphere must absorb more of the heat, exiting the surface than it returns to the surface, ergo, the stratosphere must warm faster. 

I did not mention, but am sure that you know that the IPCC hypothesis assumes that the increasing warmth in the atmosphere will cause the concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere to increase and that most of the future warming that IPCC projects is due to the increased water vapor concentration and not to the increased carbon dioxide concentration.  Did you also know that neither NASA nor any other investigator has been able to document an increase in the water vapor concentration in the atmosphere during the past 30 years? 

Your response was to allude to rumors that “there is a lot of junk, propagated and sponsored by vested interests”.  The same old tired ad hominem arguments that seem to be a primary tenet of the environmental religion, which have nothing at all to do with the technical argument.  As a matter of fact, two of the most vocal and articulate scientists who doubt the carbon dioxide hypothesis, John Christy and Roy Spencer work for the same agency as Jim Hansen, the patron saint of warmists NASA.  A third, Richard Lindzen, holds an endowed chair at MIT.  How is it that these scientists and many others like them are driven by self-interest and Hansen is not? 

You close by invoking the need to reduce oil consumption apparently, using that need as an excuse to reduce energy consumption precipitously thereby plunging hundreds of millions of our poorer citizens and those living in poverty throughout the world deeper into economic misery.  However, that too is a red herring; it is not a viable reason to take any action.  I happen to agree that we should reduce our dependence on oil.  Not because I believe that using it is causing catastrophe, but because I recognize that its supply is finite.  Ultimately, we all will have to stop using oil.  I do not think that the end of oil is eminent.  I know that there are a few hundred billion barrels available on our continental shelf and in the ANWAR, and happen to believe that we can extract and use them safely.  I also know that the DOE estimates that there is approximately a trillion barrels (more than is in the entire Middle East) in oil shale in the American Rockies.  These sources are available to us.  Their extraction will be expensive and the increasing price for oil will make alternatives more and more economically feasible.  New technology will ultimately end the oil age, just as new technology ended the Stone Age.  We still have plenty of stones but we don’t use them so much now. 

Why don’t you respond to the issues?  Explain to us how the data are compatible with the IPCC hypothesis.  Thanks.

EVEN IF global warming is not caused by human activity, there is NO UPSIDE to continuing to pollute our air, water and soil with oil, coal, shale,etc. emissions and by-products.

This clear and unarguable truth about the need to cut-down on/eliminate fossil fuels seems to get lost in the “who’s right about carbon dioxide” debate and others like it.

The USA is the world’s per capita greatest polluter, and waster of energy/resources of all kinds. SO it makes sense that we should start HERE and NOW reducing our use of fossil fuel in every way possible, each and every one of us.

Arguments to “get on with our lives” and start drilling in wilderness areas that are already scarce and threatened for other reasons, are irresponsible bordering on immoral.

No matter what the models say or the counter arguments, we Americans need to lead the way because we are already leading the pack as polluters and wasters.

So there can be no “getting on with our lives” as they are now. We have to make changes. They don’t have to be drastic. Steady reasonable changes in everything we do, and how we do it, can get a powerful force moving, until the momentum of change itself becomes in our favor instead of the inertia of fear and denial.

During the second World War, people supported and admonished each other in the direction of living more simply, saving things, donating, recycling, re-using, repairing, sharing!

Why can’t we urge/help/educate each other deliberately today ina similar spirit? Peer pressure/approval works like nothing else!

Sure it would be wonderful to have inspiring, far-seeing leaders in office. Let’s hope it’s not too late for that.

But meanwhile, we have to stop arguing about climate models and get busy inspiring each other to stop poisoning the planet and treat all resources with respect and care.