Fire and Rain, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld
September 11, 2015 Victor El-Khouri 8 Comments
Like many of the politicians in this country, I’m not a scientist. I passed high school biology, and I read the Tuesday Science section in The New York Times when something appeals to me, but that’s about it.
Unlike many of the politicians in this country, I remain curious about science and the scientific method. I observe what I can see of the world, and pay attention to what other facts are being reported.
For example, I know there is a difference between anecdotes and evidence. An anecdote notes that this was a very hot summer. Evidence is noting that the planet has been heating up for some time and continues to do so in ways that change the way people live.
Because I’m not a scientist, I’m not going to venture into the questions about how much of climate change is man-made and how much isn’t. My understanding is that it is man-made, but I’m not in a position to make that argument in any kind of coherent fashion. Anyway, that’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is that the climate is, in fact, changing, and if we want our species to continue for more than another generation or two, we might want to find some ways to fix that.
Not only is fixing it the right thing to do, but it will save money and lives.
How it will save money: If we don’t have these epic droughts in California, intensified by climate change, our agricultural economy will improve.
How it will save lives: The enormous number of forest fires out west (made more numerous by the afore-mentioned drought) contribute to the deaths of fire-fighters. This is murder by climate-change denial.
Then there is the quality of life issue. I mean, I don’t think I’m being overly greedy by wanting to live in a 21st Century with running water. Maybe I really am a socialist.
Maybe you think that these are not important enough signals to get to work on climate change. Maybe, like me, you don’t live on the West Coast, so you aren’t directly affected. Maybe, like certain Republicans, you sometimes need to wear a sweater so you think climate change is a hoax.
I get that. Sometimes, I, too, find it easier to do what I want to do instead of what I have to do. However, perhaps this recent scientific discovery will finally make us change, if only in self-defense.
If you click on the link, you’ll see that, because of the melting of the polar ice-caps, scientists have discovered a few giant viruses from thousands of years ago. So far, none of these viruses have been harmful to humans.
However …
The scientists are reasonably certain that they will find more and more germs as the ice-caps continue to melt. These are germs for which we have no immunity. We don’t know which, if any, medicines will work on them. Maybe these are the germs that wiped out the dinosaurs. Maybe these are the germs that killed off wooly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers.
I’d happily switch to electric cars and solar panels to avoid such a fate.
Martha Thomases, Media Goddess and Jewish Mother Extraordinaire, wishes you all a joyous new year, full of honey and applesauce.
Howard Cruse
September 12, 2015 - 7:36 am
That’s it! I’m building my fortress here on my Massachusetts mountain and I’m never coming down again. No California wildfire is ever gonna burn MY house down!
Also, I’m keeping my fly-swatter within arms reach in case I spot any of those new giant viruses squeezing under my door.
As long as I’ve got Netflix to entertain me, I shall survive!!
R. Maheras
September 14, 2015 - 7:06 am
Re: The California drought and climate change.
Any linkage between the drought in California (and earlier, Texas) to contemporary “climate change” is anecdotal. The problem is, the people wringing their hands about it — media outlets, liberal politicians, anti-industry-types, and even many scientists (who should know better) — are looking through the wrong end of the paleoclimatological telescope. Droughts in the west are nothing new if one looks at the climate there in geological time. Long-term climate patterns indicate droughts in that part of North America are normal. Based on tree-ring and sedimentary evidence going back thousands of years, some droughts have exceeded 50 years. Ditto for areas on the western part of South America. When our current ice age (yes, we are still currently in the waning stages of the last ice age) was at it maximum about 20,000 years ago, the climate was much drier and even large parts of the current Amazon rain forest were reduced to grassland. Droughts are even suspected to have led to the demise of a number of once-thriving civilizations all across the Americas.
The most recent drought in that region occurred in what is now called the “Medieval Climate Anomaly” — the “anomaly” portion added only recently in what was no doubt a political, rather than scientific, move. In any case, the drought in the Southwest lasted more than 50 years during this Medieval warming period that coincided with a similar warming period in the Northern Atlantic region — a warming period that allowed the Vikings to settle and grow crops in Greenland for more than 100 years.
No one seems to pay any attention to any of these past occurrences. Instead, they focus on the past 100-150 years, and throw around the word “extreme” and/or “unprecedented” to describe every weather event, or short-term climate trend.
The way I see it, since we are still emerging from the last ice age, it stands to reason that warming trends are inevitable. Is our contribution — i.e., increases in atmospheric CO2 and oceanic CO2 contributing? Maybe. And if it is, is that a bad thing? Maybe.
The fact is, if our CO2 output is, in fact, helping the normal waning glacial period run its course, it may actually be keeping us from slipping back into an ice age — something that would be far worse for humanity than global warming. Colder climates in the past were inherently drier, and large expanses of ice sheets as we experienced in the recent past would be devastating on food production and the world’s population.
Too much CO2 is bad for breathing, as we who lived in the US during the 1960s and 1970s can attest. We cleaned up our mess to a large degree, but China, India and other countries eagerly jumped in to take up where we left off.
So do I think the US should cripple its farming and industrial sector to reduce our CO2 output to zero? No. I think that’s a stupid idea. It would drive up costs for everything, and who would get hosed the most? It sure wouldn’t be Hillary or the Donald. It would be the poor, and the working-class stiffs. Screw that.
Martha Thomases
September 14, 2015 - 9:28 am
Straw man argument, Russ. No one said we should cripple the farming and industrial sector. If anything, I think that exploring ways to reduce CO2 could lead to new and better methods. That’s certainly happening vis-a-vis solar/wind versus coal.
Also, there’s this: http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2015/09/10/jerry-brown-to-ben-carson-do-your-homework-on-climate-change/
R. Maheras
September 14, 2015 - 10:42 am
Martha — It’s not a straw man argument. Alternative energy is STILL expensive and needs to be supplemented by traditional power generation methods.
The “could lead new and better methods argument is, however — especially since you ignore the elephant in the room: cost-to-benefit ratio.
I’ve never known a smart business owner who’d say, “You know, I’ll keep using the crappy, more expensive method rather than the better, cheaper method.”
The fact is, alternative methods have their pros and cons like anything else, and the biggest negative for alternatives to date has been cost. I’ve been following the search for “better” since the 1970s, and while there have been great strides, the US is now at a point where the cost/benefit ratio of ever-diminishing returns makes some of the proposed goals unreasonable — particularly when our industries have to compete with China, India, Mexico and elsewhere, where standards are much looser, or even almost nonexistent.
Forcing industry to adopt more stringent carbon reduction methods will increase power costs across the board for industry, which in turn will be passed on to the consumer. And who gets hosed the most? The poor and the working class people — a fact which you conveniently ignored.
R. Maheras
September 14, 2015 - 12:38 pm
It’s stuff like this that really ticks me off: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/09/14/scientists-say-its-been-500-years-since-california-was-this-dry/
Scientists are shocked – shocked, I tell you — that it’s been 500 years since California has been this dry. Seriously? Any fool scientist who knew anything at all about the paleoclimatology of the region would not be at all shocked. It’s happened multiple times in the past, so there’s a pretty good chance it will happen again.
And they said it hasn’t been this dry in 500 years. What they didn’t say is that it was also dry about 500 years before the last dry spell in the 1500s. Notice a pattern there? We just might have been due for another drought in a 500-year cycle. In geological time, 500 years is nothing, and while a mega drought cycle of 500 years seems like a long time to us, it’s actually a blink of an eye.
But what really got me about this alarmist article is the contention cutting down our CO2 emissions are critical to stopping this drought. There is no legitimate scientist on Earth who should be making such a untrue and wildly speculative statement. There is absolutely no evidence that we could “reverse” this drought, even if we cut world-wide CO2 emissions to zero. I can’t even begin to stress how anti-science this claim is.
But it’s NASA, you might say. Yes, it is. And you know who’s largely running NASA? Political appointees who, if they want to keep their patronage jobs and get their agency funded, will dutifully salute and vigorously hawk the president’s environmental agenda.
Oh, yeah, and regarding Jerry Brown’s letter to Carson, Carson should have never said what he said, since it was obviously wrong. But Brown’s been wrong about plenty of stuff as well, yet he got elected. As for the fact Brown cited the IPCC, duh. The IPCC is so frickin’ partisan it’s not funny. Why not cite “Mother Jones,” or “Daily Kos,” Jerry?
George Haberberger
September 14, 2015 - 3:46 pm
Everything Russ has posted here is pretty close to what I was going to say.
I do not deny that the climate is changing but it has always been changing. Glaciers once covered the North American continent and they receded with no input from people burning fossil fuels. There is no correlation to CO2 in the atmosphere and global warming.
Patrick Moore, one of the cofounders of Greenpeace and who has a PhD in ecology, illustrates this point very succinctly in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkdbSxyXftc
What I really find interesting is that most of the people claiming that climate change is a crisis do not live their lives as if they really believed that. They take jets to get to places so they can march to raise awareness of the problem, increasing their carbon footprint unnecessarily. They live in luxurious mansions on Cape Cod and vote against wind farms in the bay because it would spoil their view. Michelle Obama has taken a separate plane to Hawaii for vacation because her schedule was a couple of days out of sync with the president’s.
Maybe I’ll believe climate change is real when people who say it is real, live like they believe it.
And Martha said: “The enormous number of forest fires out west (made more numerous by the afore-mentioned drought) contribute to the deaths of fire-fighters. This is murder by climate-change denial.”
I would ask Martha to seek out Robert Ingersoll to remind her that the term “murder” has a very specific meaning requiring deliberation and premeditation.
Deliberately killing a fireman by causing climate change so a drought would result and cause a fire would be a very complicated and circuitous plot but that is what would be the case if a murder charge was brought.
R. Maheras
September 15, 2015 - 7:08 am
I’ve found that the people who seem to make the most sensational predictions seem to know the least about the history of this planet’s paleoclimatology. And yes, that includes a bunch of scientists.
They don’t know, or care, that in the past few thousand years, this planet has gone through dramatic heating and cooling cycles while the atmospheric CO2 level was pretty much flat. Why? And is that same unknown mechanism affecting current climate change?
They don’t know, or care, that we are still in the waning stages of an ice age, which means that warming trends are inevitable — regardless of what we do. Inevitable, unless, of course, we slip back into ice age mode — something that would be far more catastrophic for humanity than Global Warming.
They also don’t know, or care, that sea levels since the last ice age maximum about 20,000 years ago have already risen 300 feet, and were rising — albeit more slowly — ANYWAY. Have you ever heard one PEEP from Climate Change alarmists who mention this ambient sea level increase, and whether they factored it in when making their sea level rise predictions?
The party of science, my ass.
Rene
September 15, 2015 - 5:07 pm
I don’t have the same faith in the scientific establishment as I used to. Scientists are just as likely to be biased as ordinary folks.
However, I would not jump on the same bandwagon as Russ and George. Because I don’t think alarmism that is not backed by unassailable evidence is necessarily bad.
Humanity always finds things to be scared of and there is always a big cry about how that new problem spells the end of the world. Crime, nuclear weapons, communism, terrorism, pollution, global warming. All of them have produced post-apocalyptic fiction.
The good thing about alarmism is that, even though some of those problems were not quite as civilization-ending as painted (though maybe nuclear weapons proliferation WAS), it still causes positive changes.
Yes, maybe most scientists are full of shit when they say global catastrophe is just around the corner. It is still a good idea to worry about the environment, to fight unrestrained capitalistic greed, to prepare for the future, etc.
R. Maheras
September 16, 2015 - 6:43 am
Rene — If I’m on some “bandwagon,” it’s because I’m driving the damn thing. Keep in mind I’ve been following climate and paleoclimatology since the 1970s — before “Global Warming” was even a twinkle in Al Gore’s eye. I hate it when science is politicized, and climate science has been politicized to the point where it has paralyzed real debate, open discussion about ANY of the real unknown issues I mention above, and funding for any research that does not fit the narrow areas defined by Climate Change bullies.
The vast majority of scientists doing research these days — private or government-sponsored — are at the mercy of the funding gods, and few will openly rock the boat, lest the funding get pulled. In addition, scientists (and their finance officers — if they have them) know that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, so they become carnival barkers who feel compelled to exaggerate and keep raising the noise bar to keep the cash flowing.
To some degree, this has almost always been a problem when it comes to research funding, but in this era of political polarization and the enormous amount of people vying to be heard/noticed in the ever-increasing din of social media and a 24/7 news environment, hype in the scientific community seems to be worse than ever. It drowns out everything, and sucks all of the air out of the room.
For any science with political implications, it corrupts — and even destroys — the quest for real knowledge and understanding.
Neil C.
September 16, 2015 - 1:45 pm
Yes, it’s all a hoax to get that sweet grant money: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/16/1421909/-Top-Exxon-scientists-began-warning-management-about-fossil-fuels-and-climate-change-in-1977?detail=facebook
George Haberberger
September 16, 2015 - 2:36 pm
Russ said: “As for the fact Brown cited the IPCC, duh. The IPCC is so frickin’ partisan it’s not funny. Why not cite “Mother Jones,” or “Daily Kos,” Jerry?”
Apparently Jerry Brown doesn’t read this blog so Neil obliged.
Neil c.
September 16, 2015 - 7:01 pm
You believe in a fairy-tale book from 2000 years ago, yet you deny there might be climate change. Why doesn’t this surprise me. Just because you don’t like the source doesn’t make it wrong.
George Haberberger
September 16, 2015 - 9:02 pm
Neil, if you read my post first post on this thread on the 14th you will see that I said: “I do not deny that the climate is changing but it has always been changing.” Yet you say I am denying it. This is climate change reality not climate change denial.
Your link for the Daily Kos references a report written in 1977, (38 years ago), by Exxon scientists. The point of which is that CO2 causes global warming. If you watched the video I linked to you can see that there is no correlation between the two. How do you explain the absence of all the glaciers that covered North America thousands of years ago?
And if you want to reference information from almost 4 decades ago, here is something from 1978.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kGB5MMIAVA
Also if you think denigrating my faith somehow lessens my point, well that’s just a desperate nonsequiter.
Rene
September 17, 2015 - 8:41 pm
Russ –
” I hate it when science is politicized, ”
Like you said, science has always been politicized, and always will be. For many reasons, one of which is that scientists are not lonely mad geniuses like Frankenstein, they belong to a group and are prone to peer pressure and have to function in that group and in society, and that means, playing politics.
And when you dig really deep and get to the bottom of a lot of scientific positions, you are faced with the surprising truth that a lot of the basic assumptions of science are more akin to a philosophy than a “hard” truth. It’s quite difficult to think outside of comfortable paradigms.
You say the problem is worse than ever, but I have my doubts. I think it has always been like this, only the main problems being fought about were different and the sets of prejudices were somewhat different too, but science has always been deeply influenced by social mores of the day.