The reality of global climate change
By Sharon Begley, Newsweek
Joplin, Mo., was prepared. The tornado warning system gave residents 24 minutes’ notice that a twister was bearing down on them. Doctors and nurses at St. John’s Regional Medical Center, who had practiced tornado drills for years, moved fast, getting patients away from windows, closing blinds, and activating emergency generators. And yet more than 130 people died in Joplin, including four people at St. John’s, where the tornado sucked up the roof and left the building in ruins, like much of the shattered city.
Even those who deny the existence of global climate change are having trouble dismissing the evidence of the last year. In the U.S. alone, nearly 1,000 tornadoes have ripped across the heartland, killing more than 500 people and inflicting $9 billion in damage. The Midwest suffered the wettest April in 116 years, forcing the Mississippi to flood
Snow in Lake Tahoe keeps coming in June. Photo/LTN February 2011
thousands of square miles, even as drought-plagued Texas suffered the driest month in a century. Worldwide, the litany of weather’s extremes has reached biblical proportions. The 2010 heat wave in Russia killed an estimated 15,000 people. Floods in Australia and Pakistan killed 2,000 and left large swaths of each country under water. A months-long drought in China has devastated millions of acres of farmland. And the temperature keeps rising: 2010 was the hottest year on earth since weather records began.
From these and other extreme-weather events, one lesson is sinking in with terrifying certainty. The stable climate of the last 12,000 years is gone. Which means you haven’t seen anything yet. And we are not prepared.
Picture California a few decades from now, a place so hot and arid the state’s trademark orange and lemon trees have been replaced with olive trees that can handle the new climate. Alternating floods and droughts have made it impossible for the reservoirs to capture enough drinking water. The picturesque Highway 1, sections of which are already periodically being washed out by storm surges and mudslides, will have to be rerouted inland, possibly through a mountain. These aren’t scenes from another deadly-weather thriller like The Day After Tomorrow. They’re all changes that California officials believe they need to brace for within the next decade or two. And they aren’t alone. Across the U.S., it’s just beginning to dawn on civic leaders that they’ll need to help their communities brave coming dangers brought by climate change, from disappearing islands in Chesapeake Bay to dust bowls in the Plains and horrific hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. Yet only 14 states are even planning, let alone implementing, climate-change adaptation plans, says Terri Cruce, a climate consultant in California. The other 36 apparently are hoping for a miracle.
The game of catch-up will have to happen quickly because so much time was lost to inaction. “The Bush administration was a disaster, but the Obama administration has accomplished next to nothing either, in part because a significant part of the Democratic Party is inclined to balk on this issue as well,” says economist Jeffrey Sachs, head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. “We [are] past the tipping point.” The idea of adapting to climate change was once a taboo subject. Scientists and activists feared that focusing on coping would diminish efforts to reduce carbon emissions. On the opposite side of the divide, climate-change deniers argued that since global warming is a “hoax,” there was no need to figure out how to adapt. “Climate-change adaptation was a nonstarter,” says Vicki Arroyo, executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center. “If you wanted to talk about that, you would have had to talk about climate change itself, which the Bush administration didn’t want to do.” In fact, President Bush killed what author Mark Hertsgaard in his 2011 book, Hot, calls “a key adaptation tool,” the National Climate Assessment, an analysis of the vulnerabilities in regions of the U.S. and ideas for coping with them. The legacy of that: state efforts are spotty and local action is practically nonexistent. “There are no true adaptation experts in the federal government, let alone states or cities,” says Arroyo. “They’ve just been commandeered from other departments.”
I don’t think anyone is smart enough to understand climate change let alone control it.
The issue is further obfiscated by the con job from Al Gore.
The climate happens. To use the tornados as “evidence” of climate change is outright imbacillic.
the only thing this article proves is that the American education system needs vouchers.
I just think it’s funny that when the facts failed to support their “evidence” the politicians changed the terminology from global warming to climate change. There always has been and always will be climate change. Duh. Can people control it? No flippin’ way. It’s just another atempt to gain more power and money for the ruling class. Don’t be a sheep.
Bingo!
Don’t be SHEEP!
Use your brain not someone elses!
If you were willing to use your brain, you would read the facts, and yes they are facts, about climate change and know that what is happening is EXACTLY what the scientists computer models said would happen. So Al Gore conned us did he… did he also con all the scientists and the governments of the countries that know this if truly happening… all of Europe, all of South America, Asia… wow all this and he couldn’t get elected… oh wait, maybe he did. here were many reputable scientists who were not sure this was happening in the 90s, but with more data there virtually none who have not changed their mind. Yes the climate has always changed, but at a far far slower and less drastic rate. Hide behind your political beliefs all you want, but you can’t believe facts away and your children will face the consequences for your ignorance.
‘Dogwoman’ is right – there was a ‘behind-the-scenes’ discussion about which term to use global warming or climate change – based on concerns as to whether one was more prone than the other to create either panic or abject denial.
It was decided to use ‘climate change’ to mitigate both – as people are well aware of how to determine for themselves their own weather changes: look out the window, if they have one left.
PubTV is obviously (at least to me) a failed product of the educational system, as a shift to “vouchers” will not change the ongoing perpetuation of a lack of appropriate critical thinking.
It appears that the conservative portion of ‘privatizing’ everything they don’t agree with belies irrefutable science, as if changing the mode of payment will change the increasing reality.
As to Al Gore and “Inconvenient Truth”, I have always considered the most important thing in that documentary to be the Upton Sinclair quote:
“It’s difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends upon his not understanding it”.
Or a contribution to his campaign coffers.
This would account for our current overemphasis on money as a panacea needing to be coveted by those of “PubTV” ilk, which of course is ridiculous. . . think instant deflation once reality replaces denial. Now there is a real threat to be confronted.
To quote yet another IT truth, discovered upon verifying Upton Sinclair, by Mark Twain:
““What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Noting that the Mark comment can be taken either way, I will lean to the side of egalitarian global scientific perspectives, which has already included reversed skeptics. Not to mention the increasing frequency (tightening up of events domestically and worldwide), consistent with the “funnel” theory of occurrences – the longer we wait to change our ways, the less room we will have to maneuver. There’s another threat.
This is already occurring, even if PubTv still chooses to think otherwise – whose dialogue will be ever more strident as it dawns on them that they have no other answer – as they have continually ignored the question.
Some things can not be politicized, and nature is one of them.
At the very least, I hope ‘PubTV’clicks on “read the whole story”, as Sharon Begley is a very credible reporter.
Lastly, another quote of Mark Twain, from 150 years ago. . .”Common sense is the most uncommon thing of all”. Some things have still not changed since then, regardless of whether it’s paid for with a voucher or as another part of the education budget.
That’s why we are in trouble now. . .
I was going to let this go as, apparently, no amount of fact is ever adequate for the haters. However, I have to agree with Satori and place a little support to the excellent post. I don’t think anyone expects science to control climate change, global warming or whatever you want to call it. What is needed is to recognize that we can do better with slowing the damage we do to our environment. That is it. Attack that all you want, call it liberal propaganda, I don’t care. We can do better.
Dogwoman you said it!! Just to add, if anyone who’s lived in Tahoe these last two snowy, cold Springs, especially if you were outside trying to support the Amgen race, still believes in Global Warming, then you might as well believe the Earth is flat!!
I know, some people have the audacity to claim that record cold spells proves warming! Just a sign that you can take the facts and shamelessly spin them to prove whatever point you want! So just make sure you don’t fall off the planet the next time you go on a long trip!
I still remember a research paper I did in 9th grade (yep, that was a hecka long time ago). I wish I still had it…I titled it “Ice Man Cometh?” because of all the talk that another ice age was coming. This was in 1972.
Satori,
You reference a reporter, a politician and an author in an effort to support your scientific perspective. Do you have any idea how little credibility you have?
Did you think or just vomit your thoughts to paper…
Do you really THINK that you are smart enough to know what will causes climate change? Take a second or two… THINK – no one is – get it – huh ?
Hardly- hardly – such arrogance and ignorance all rapped up in one package.
You do not count among those I would listen to.
As California crumbles …
A shockingly fast turn away from opportunity in a once great state in a once great country.
Perhaps we can still save America, I think Cali is to far gone and the pain coming will be severe.
Geez where to start here…
dogwoman the politicians didn’t change it, the scientists stared using the more accurate term, climate change. You are a sheep. Read any research papers?
I don’t think I really care. Put up your best evidence as to why climate change is not human caused or is not happening, etc, and I will gladly destroy it.
First I ask you. Cite some peer reviewed research that counters the current scientific consensus.
Actually before that, how many of you deniers can tell us the difference between weather and climate. And answer the question ‘how many weathers does it take to make a climate’.
Most of you can’t answer that. Ex: Parker.
Good luck. Your report is due Wednesday.
Hello:
Two questions for PubTV ? . . . Does your moniker refer to a sports bar with 25 screens spewing non-stop hype on the sam event . . . over & over. . . or to public broadcasting, with a mostly reasoned & objective approach to what they report.
If the latter, then the term vomit may refer to a bird feeding its’ young, digesting its’ food to make it more palatable for its’ brood, which cannot digest it without help. Mama bird then regurgitates it so her young get the nutrition they need to survive. . .
If the former, then I can readily understand that the excess noise has caused you to absorb too much red-neck bar talk, which usually translates into believing whatever pseudo-scientific blather that comes your way. . .
Either way, I admire the righteous passion, even if misguided and clueless. . . and stand by my earlier suggestions for you.
The Conservation Robot, the climate has changed throughout time! Before there were factories, farms, or even humans, there has been changes in climate! That’s scientific fact!!
And gee, there was all this evidence of Global Warming!! We were told, “It’s fact!! No debate! If you don’t believe it you’re ignoring the facts!”
Then when people replied, “What about the fact! we just had a couple real cold winters?” Oh, we’re then told, “We didn’t mean Global Warming! We meant Climate Change! That’s our new fact that can’t be questioned!!” So even though Global Warming alarmists were wrong before, this new spin is supposed to be the new unquestioned fact??? Yeah, right!!
But Dumbfounded, yes, correct, I agree we should minimize pollution regardless! Commonsense (which again says Cold Winters refutes Global Warming!) says we should do what we can to maintain our environment!
Parker, how many ‘weathers’ does it take to make up a ‘climate’?
Also, what about the other places who had warmer and drier winters? By your own logic, that supports climate change?
You don’t know the different between weather and climate. But that doesn’t stop you from telling everyone about climate.
Ignorance is a choice.
Yeah, you said it, ignorance is a choice! Other places had warmer, drier winters, just like we had a couple years ago! And a couple years ago, those places had wet, cold winters!
How many Ice Ages have come and gone? Let me put it simply so it can be understood-“There’s always been Climate Change!” That fact is now being used to justify the Global Warming scare tactics! Heck it made Al Gore rich!! So rich in fact he bought a place right by the ocean where he doesn’t seem too scared about the rising tides he was warning about?!
How many weathers does it take to make a climate?
How many flights on Al Gore’s private jet does it take to change the weather?
No matter what you want to call it, the world is changing because of how we’ve treated our earth in the past. We just won’t know the full extent of these actions until its too late.
Warming, cooling, ozone layer disappearing, and whatever else is going on in the world can’t be good for our future so why not do what you can to make this a better place for those to come?
Who cares what Al Gore does with his jet or how big the environmentalist’s families are? What we should care about is how we live our lives as part of the big picture. Make educated choices, that’s all.
I won’t keep going on the back & forth. So on this matter I’ll be done posting after one last comment! As I stated earlier, yes, we should take care of the planet! Just worth noting, some have profited quite handsomely by pushing the Global Warming, now ‘Climate Change’, scare!
You can’t figure it out Parker? Or you don’t want to? You don’t know the difference between weather and climate. You got called out on it. I know you have on the internet, all that information at your disposal. Wasted. It really isn’t a hard question to answer. And yet no one who denies climate change will answer it.
Ignorance is a choice. It is such a fundamental concept to this or any discussion of climate. And you refuse to even learn about it. But you will just talk and talk about it.
Also, rising tides would be caused by changes in the distance or mass of the moon.
Ignorance is a choice.
“Group think” in California has done you real bad.
Amazing – indoctrinated ignorance is at the heart of the state failure.
Science is science and it is not voted on…
ding dong…knock knock McFly
You can argue all you want … or take your head out of your buttuski and start using your own brain in stead of the spoutin the same old liberal mantras.
Regardless California no bailout for you!
… bye bye ship ship of fools.
GBA
I said I wasn’t going to respond The Conservation Robot, but then you attack me personally! I’m not hear to take some test just because after I, and others, pointed out the flaws in the Global Warming scare tactics! Hence, why now the same people are now calling it ‘Climate Change”. I didn’t get called out on anything.
You, Conservation Robot refuse to open your eyes! Global Warming was supposed to bring about melting polar ice caps and thus rising tides, and thus the irony of Al Gore taking his movie profits and buying a home right by the ocean! Open your eyes Conservation Robot and as PubWorksTV says, show you can think independently and not buy into the Group Think!
I am not attacking you personally. You made some statements that are characteristic of someone who does not know the difference between climate and weather.
You don’t know what you are talking about. At all. You could go take the time to learn about climate. But you choose not to, and continue to speak out of ignorance.
Good luck with that.
How many weathers make up a climate Parker….
FYI, I’m a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley. While FAR from an expert on weather or climate, and was in no way a science major of any kind, I did take science classes that involved sections on weather and climate. Again, I’m no expert, but I am educated on the topic!
I choose not to answer specifically your question because if you can’t acknowledge there’s been ‘Climate Change’ throughout the history of the planet and mankind, I don’t feel the need to respond to someone lecturing me or calling me names such as ignorant!
Respectfully disagree with me! Fair Enough! But there’s been too much condescending talk on the Global Warming/Climate Change matter! To just blatantly dismiss educated people such as myself as ignorant, just further convinces me of the thinness of the whole scare tactic argument!
Hey, Condescending Robot. Give it a rest. You aren’t the smartest person here, stop insulting people.
I never said I was. I seem to be the only one who knows the answer the that very simple question. It isn’t a straight forward question but you can use the internet and find it pretty easily. And people won’t do it.
If you want to discuss climate I am all for it. But you should know the very basics.
Parker, why won;t you answer such a simple question. It really is simple, and at the very heart of the discussion.
There is no way you can know much about climate given what you have written. It doesn’t matter if you are educated or not. If you demonstrate that you don’t know the difference between weather and climate, your opinion on the subject is meaningless.
It is like discussing the signaling pathways in biochemistry and not knowing the difference between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.
Also you didn’t cite any sources or even take a scientific stance.
Answer the question.
Conservation Robot, since you won’t even acknowledge that there’s been ‘Climate Change’ throughout history, it’s clear you’re in your own little clueless, make believe World!!
You never asked my to acknowledge it. I called you out on making a judgement of long term climate from a few months worth of weather data. In this case, it doesn’t matter.
You can’t even answer the most basic question of climate science. What is climate and how do we define it?
Let me make this google search really easy. How many days of weather data does it take to determine 1 unit of climate data?
Where you went to school doesn’t matter if you are unwilling to continue to learn.
If I wanted to play your stupid game and didn’t know the answer, I could just look it up and log back on!! But your arrogant attitude of I need to jump when you say so, just shows how delusional you are!!
Two straight very cold Winters AND Springs, in conjunction with so-called experts changing the panic term from Global Warming to Climate Change, with the FACT that you won’t acknowledge-The Climate has always changed throughout the Planet’s history has caused many to strongly question the junk trying to be rammed down our throats!
Now go play your stupid game of, “Parker doesn’t know how many weathers are in a climate” which is so false and shouldn’t be dignified with a response! And then delude yourself that your superior! And I’ll go debate with the many intelligent friends I have, who may disagree with me about environmental issues. But make their points without being condescending, or delusional!! Or try some stupid pop quiz, followed by some childish-“Na, na, na, na, I’ve called you out!”
It’s time to move on.
Yes, the climate has changed throughout time.
Yes, there is a difference between climate and weather.
Kathryn Reed, LTN publisher
It isn’t a game.
“Two straight very cold Winters AND Springs,”
2 years(actually not even full years) (units) of weather, is not even a fraction of the data needed to describe 1 unit of climate. a 2 year trend in weather can not be used, statistically, to predict the next year, let alone 5 years or 10. And you want to use 2 years to judge a trend that is orders of magnitude greater. That is laughable. Anyone who knows the answer to that question should laugh at anyone who expresses that notion. Even a decade of weather data is insufficient to make a statement about a trend in climate. It isn’t a pop quiz.
You obviously do not know that.
How many years (units) of weather does it take to make up 1 unit of climate Parker?
You want to talk about climate, at least demonstrate that you know what it means. It isn’t a ‘pop quiz’. This is not subjective.
You were called out. The answer to the question will make you look ridiculous. You might not be a ridiculous intellect, but the fact that you won’t even step up and learn, challenge what you think you know, is the acme of foolishness.
PS: Go find me some peer reviewed research that refutes anthropogenic climate change or any of the data that shows a warming trend.
Also those last 2 years of weather data can be better explained by the ENSO. And even then you are talking about only 2 of the 7 years that usually describe that cycle. Which is insufficient.
2 points can describe a line. How many to describe a curve? How many to define a system that fluctuates? Let alone with any accuracy. I am talking about the ENSO here and not even climate.
It is greater than 2.
And here is another hint, more than 3 ENSOs occur during 1 unit of climate.
“Even a decade of weather data is insufficient to make a statement about a trend in climate.” Well The Conservation Robot, since you said the above quote that just shows you’re willing to twist any information you come across and form it into any conclusion you see fit! Just like how the Global Warming alarmists, now use the phrase ‘Climate Change’, and say, “See we were right along!”
A decade of cooling means the planet is warming? NO, it means what I said from the start-There has always been Climate Change throughout the History of the Planet! You need to educate yourself and discover the most basic form of intelligent thought, LOGIC, and not be such a closed-minded “Robot”!
Yes, “Even a decade of weather data is insufficient to make a statement about a trend in climate.”
That is true.
Obviously you still haven’t figured out ‘how many weathers make a climate’
That is not twisting information, that is the consequence of the definition of the ‘climate’
Nice try though.
And thanks for the laugh, trying to say I am illogical, without even breaking down the logic to expose what is wrong.
Which is what I have done to you now on multiple occasions.
So please tell us how many years (units) of water data make up one unit of climate.
You won’t because you know that we devastating to every argument you have tried to make.
Wow, are you two married?
HA!. Who is the woman? (assuming that this is a ‘traditional’ marriage)
No Dumbfounded, The Conservation Robot is in his own little world!! He presents no facts!! Even my pro-Global Warming friends are laughing at his inability to present anything substantial! Plus, his weird obsession to name call and try to get me to take some quiz. Yet he (or she) can’t even acknowledge the most basic sets of information. You know, like that there’s always been Climate Change!
And then I thought how can get this individual to at least agree on something so simple? But then it was pointed out to me. That last sentence of his illustrates that he lacks the basic understanding of simple grammar!! So why bother debating someone who can’t even form proper sentences?!
So first learn grammar The Conservation Robot! Then recognize some basic facts! Until then, you’re not on the necessary level worthy of having even the simplest of discussions!! (I know! Now you’ll babble some more about how many……..)
From your first post you failed to demonstrate an elementary knowledge of what climate is and how it is defined.
And you want to talk about climate change?
The most pathetic thing once can do in an argument is resort to grammar, specifically confusing typos for grammar.
How many years of weather data make up one unit of climate data Parker. And how many units of climate data do we need to determine a trend?
Forget facts, lets talk about basic knowledge of a subject.
You do not know the first thing about climate. The first thing, being the definition. You demonstrated that numerous times.
You are just angry because you got called out on not knowing what you are talking about and can’t do anything to fix it.
Want me to start bringing numbers into this? Numbers that show how many times we have to multiply your statement to make them approach reality? It is more than a factor of 10.
Define climate, use a number. Wikipedia has it.
Irony: Wanting to talk about long term climate (millions of years), while making a judgement about the current trend in climate based on 2 years of weather data…
You both are being childish. Let it go or be banned from Lake Tahoe News. You decide.
Kathryn Reed, LTN publisher
“if anyone who’s lived in Tahoe these last two snowy, cold Springs, especially if you were outside trying to support the Amgen race, still believes in Global Warming, then you might as well believe the Earth is flat!!”
-Parker
Climate is defined using a 30 year average of weather.