Environmental Global Warming

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[edit] Memo exposes Bush's new green strategy

Green strategy

The US Republican party is changing tactics on the environment, avoiding "frightening" phrases such as global warming, after a confidential party memo warned that it is the domestic issue on which George Bush is most vulnerable.

The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz, concedes the party has "lost the environmental communications battle" and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases.

"The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science," Mr Luntz writes in the memo, obtained by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based campaigning organisation.

"Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly.

"Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate."

The phrase "global warming" should be abandoned in favour of climate change, Mr Luntz says, and the party should describe its policies as "conservationist" instead of "environmentalist", because "most people" think environmentalists are "extremists" who indulge in "some pretty bizarre behaviour... that turns off many voters".

Words such as "common sense" should be used, with pro-business arguments avoided wherever possible.

The environment, the memo says, "is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general - and President Bush in particular - are most vulnerable".

A Republican source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said party strategists agreed with Mr Luntz's conclusion that "many Americans believe Republicans do not care about the environment".

The popular image is that they are "in the pockets of corporate fat cats who rub their hands together and chuckle manically [sic] as they plot to pollute America for fun and profit", Mr Luntz adds.

The phrase "global warming" appeared frequently in President Bush's speeches in 2001, but decreased to almost nothing during 2002, when the memo was produced.

Environmentalists have accused the party and oil companies of helping to promulgate the view that serious doubt remains about the effects of global warming.

Last week, a panel of experts appointed at the Bush administration's request to analyse the president's climate change strategy found that it lacked "vision, executable goals, clear timetables and criteria for measuring progress".

"Rather than focusing on the things we don't know, it's almost as if parts of the plan were written by people who are totally unfamiliar with where ecosystems science is coming from," panel member William Schlesinger told the Guardian.

Mr Luntz urges Republicans to "emphasise the importance of 'acting only with all the facts in hand'", in line with the White House position that mandatory restrictions on emissions, as required by the Kyoto protocol, should not be countenanced until further research is undertaken.

The memo singles out as a major strategic failure the incoming Bush administration's response to Bill Clinton's last-minute executive order reducing the permitted level of arsenic in drinking water from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion.

The new administration put the plan on hold, prompting "the biggest public relations misfire of President Bush's first year in office", Mr Luntz writes. The perception was that Mr Bush "was actively putting in more arsenic in the water".

"A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth," Mr Luntz notes in the memo.

Majority Say Environment, Global Warming Not A Top Priority

A new poll shows that people who once put a huge emphasis on the government’s green efforts now have other issues they care about more.The latest Pew Research Center poll shows that the economy and job market have jumped to the top of the priority list for most people. Last January, 75 percent of Americans polled said that the economy should be a top priority, and in a year’s time, that has jumped to 85 percent.On the other hand, however, protecting the environment has fallen from 56 percent a year ago to just 41 percent today. Of the 20 issues raised, the least important issue raised was global warming. Experts say that issues such as the environments are secondary when there is a more immediate problem. For example, Pew Research Center president Andrew Kohut said that they saw a similar drop in secondary issues after September 11, 2001, when terrorism skyrocketed to the number one spot.

Unfortunately, this could cause problems for Obama, who has already been criticized for focusing on the environment when the public considers other issues to be more important. There is a partisan agreement that strengthening the economy should be the government’s top priority, but support for environmental issues as a top priority still divides Democrats (54%) and Republicans (20%).

[edit] Global Warming: Green with Controversy

Every decade of our recent history is marked by at least one dominant controversy. Since December 1997, when Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, aiming at reducing Green House Gas emissions, a controversy is ranging about the science of global warming. As legitimate uncertainties exist in the vast field of study, such as the science of climatology, the skeptics take full advantage of those uncertainties to create doubts in the minds of law-makers and the public at large. Funded or recruited by big energy conglomerates, they are making every effort to stop actions directed to curtail the use of fossil fuels. Historians will remember this controversy as the controversy of the first decade of the 21st century.

This point was brought home to me when, out of the blue, a colleague of mine propounded that having more CO2 in the atmosphere is better for the greening of the earth. After many years of working with him, and trusting him as a committed energy conservationist, it was a rude shock hearing him voice this statement. Saying ‘the more CO2 the better’ is like turning the theory of global warming on its head. This is the newest bait the skeptics are throwing out—and their hook is catching some fish. In their propaganda blitz, they question whether CO2 emissions and rising average earth temperatures are related; whether global warming is the result of human activities and not due to natural phenomena; whether global warming might not have a positive impact rather than a negative one; whether, in fact, having more CO2 might be good for plants and therefore for greening of the earth.

To get to the truth of the matter we must look beyond the rhetoric and understand the fundamentals of global science. We must consider how scientific work is carried out in this field. The bedrock of the theory of global warming is the science of the greenhouse effect. Greenhouse effect is produced by the presence of CO2 in the atmosphere. Although the amount of CO2 is very small compared with that of the major atmospheric gases—oxygen and nitrogen—CO2 (along with methane, water vapors and clouds) absorb, and thus stop, the earth’s infrared radiation from escaping back into space. “Of the energy coming from the sun, about half … is radiated back (from the earth) as heat or infrared radiation.? In the absence of the greenhouse effect, Earth will freeze at an average temperature of 0 degree Fahrenheit. �?The presence of a balanced greenhouse effect causes the earth's surface to warm up to an average of 59 degree Fahrenheit.�? On this front there is no point of contention among the different views. The contentious issue is if that fine-balance of the climate system is disturbed by excessive CO2, what the consequences are, and how serious they are. The majority of scientists believe that the higher the CO2 level in the atmosphere, the warmer the earth becomes and, the warmer the earth, the higher the environmental damage. The list of possible damages includes: melting of the ice caps and rising of the sea levels, freak storms and frequent tornados, landslides and droughts, increasing acidity of the oceans, and the disappearance of many species, along with hoards of other known and unknown effects. Skeptics, however, keep challenging these assertions and that prompts a lot of intense scientific work that goes into proving the truth.

Scientists have conclusively proven that the average global temperature is increasing. The current temperatures have been unprecedented in the last 1,000 years all over the globe. The current atmospheric CO2 level is the highest in the last 450,000 years. The unprecedented levels of CO2 and global temperature coincide with the unparalleled industrial and commercial activity of the last 25 years. In contrast, during this past quarter century, the sun spot activity should have caused the global temperature to slightly cool. The above fact clearly suggests a link between CO2 level and human activity. The majority of scientists now believe that the present global warming is human made and not due to natural causes.

Scientists embarked upon massive undertakings to prove the above facts. Knowing a little about those projects is not only interesting but also inspires confidence in the truth of global warming. Initially, the climate historians gleaned tons of data in Europe. These records yielded a detailed picture of central European areas going back more than 1,000 years. A historian of the University of Bern, Christian Pfister, said, “We had other periods which were also very warm … but I would say it was a period of warm natural climate. With the period between 1988 and 1997, there's absolutely no equivalent as far as I can look back.�? But that was only in Europe. To prove global warming, two other major ventures were undertaken. One in the Canadian Arctic, about 500 miles from the North Pole, by the University of Massachusetts, and the second one, thirty-five hundred miles to the south, by Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In the first, samples from the bottom of Lake Tuborg were taken which showed year by year layers of sedimentary records. The variations in thickness were used to estimate past temperatures. The second one was based on examining the trees in Mammoth Park, California. “Because trees grow all over the world, they are one of the most powerful natural recorders. Their annual rings not only give scientists a built-in date, they also contain a record of past temperature and precipitation.�? The thickness of the two portions of the annual ring in a tree indicates the type of weather experienced by it year by year: drier, moist, hot or cold. Also, investigations on coral reefs have shown similar results. The combined data of all this work has conclusively shown an increase of global temperatures by one degree in the 20th century—an increase that scientists consider ‘dramatic’.

To predict trends of global warming, super computers at the world’s top centers for climatology, The National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, offer “the only means of thinking through the climate consequences.�? Their simulations show that when the present level, which is one third higher than previous ones, is extrapolated to double or triple in next 100 years, warming of the globe ranging from 2.5 to 10.5 degree Fahrenheit is indicated. The skeptics vehemently attack even the outcome of these computer simulations. They point out that models do not exactly match each other. This line of reasoning takes undue advantage of the complexities involved in a computer model of such complex phenomena and, it ignores the obvious, namely, the trend of increasing risks with increased global temperatures. As Tom Wigley of NCAR explains, “A climate model starts by trying to capture all the many factors, natural and human …The model is … complicated by the feedback which it receives in terms of outcome of the original parameters. … (With more CO2 and resulting warming) the oceans would warm, and the amount of water evaporating from the oceans would increase (which amplifies) the effect of carbon dioxide alone.�? Other complicating factors includes cloud covering, the heat flow in the oceans, the amount of exposed dark surface to sunlight, and many more. With such legitimate uncertainties, skeptics play on the idea that, if the warming was only a degree or so, it won’t have much impact on the environment. In fact, that it may have a beneficial impact. Obviously, they play a dangerous game of half truths and ignore even already visible impacts such as the melting of the ice caps, freak weathers, and landslides.

Besides creating confusion about simulations, and ignoring simple reasoning and available evidence, skeptics have come up with a new argument: they claim that CO2 is good for plants; it is a fertilizer—so, the more the better. This is the bait by which my colleague was hooked. It is true that a higher level of CO2 helps plant growth. But that does not mitigate the presence of CO2 in stratosphere and therefore its effect on global warming. It has been shown by experiments carried out by the Duke University that doubling the amount of CO2 in an enclosed jungle accelerated plant growth. However, it also showed tendencies of increased decay catching up with photosynthesis. Eventually, according to Pieter Tans, of the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, carbon locked in wood finds its way back into the atmosphere as CO2.

Moreover, skeptics also sound alarm bells about the economic catastrophe sure to take place if we curtail our use of conventional energy such as oil, gas and coal. They ignore the economic cost of inaction. At the base of these skeptics’ economic argument lays the question about the viability of renewable energy resources such as solar, wind and tides; a whole new topic exceeding the scope of this article.

Words of James Trefil of George Mason University nicely recap the controversy. He says, “You're dealing with something that's very complicated. You're dealing with something where there's legitimate uncertainty in the science. …You're dealing with something that has enormous consequences for people. And you're dealing with something whose effects will happen 30 years down the road, you know, when they happen. And then you say … "Okay, do something about it."

[edit] Surefire Way to Save the Environment! @ Global Warming For Kids

Ok, no more debate needed. I have the ideal way to save our planet!

No doubt you have heard all about global warming and climate change being blamed on human activities. Humans this and humans that. Gosh, humans must be the worst thing to ever happen to this planet! I cannot take this too light hearted, as I am a human and apparently I am also helping to kill the planet. For this I apologize, but rather than make excuses, I have devised the perfect solution to the ‘human problem’. now, if the term ‘human problem’ sounds earily like hitler’s ‘Jewish problem’, it is intentional. No, I am no fan of the nazi party or hitler, but sometimes the solution to climate change starts to mimic the solutions hitler had in mind for his ‘Jewish problem’.

How can I equate the two seemingly very different issues. Just research the nazi movement of the ‘30 and ’40s. Citizens are told that Nazis measures against the Jews are reasonable and defensive — but there are also hints of what was to come. Hmm, sounds a bit like what we are being told about climate change. “we must make new laws to control people”.

The following list is from the above link, but the words jew and jewish have been replaced:Legal Measures to Solve the human Problem

Humans are prohibited from owning shops, mail order firms, or branches, and from owning an independent craft firm. they are further prohibited from offering goods or business services at markets, exhibitions, or trade fairs of any kind. A human can no longer be a factory director, a leading official, or a member of a cooperative.Shops, mail order firms, and branches owned by humans are to be closed down and eliminated. Only in particular cases can human firms be aryanized. The same is true for human craft firms.Human commercial firms and the associated property, as well as wholesale operations and industry that are human because of the degree to which they are under human ownership, can be de-humandified. Important patents and commercial secrets must be transferred to non-human control.

Surefire Way to Save the Environment

Humans in the German Reich may no longer own or control property. humans stocks must be turned in. Humans with German citizenship, or humans without a nationality, are prohibited from acquiring, selling or disposing of items of gold, platinum, or silver, as well as precious gems and pearls.

Far fetched? probably, but is it really much different from some of the modern proposals to solve global warming? Laws that punish certain groups of people for the sake of the greater good! some will say that the proposed legislation on climate change is aimed only at large industry. that is the way it is supposed to be heard. But who actually works at these large industries and will be hurt by the proposed changes? it is the little guy trying to earn a living. it is the consumer who drives the economy. will it stop CEO’s from retiring with multi-million dollar bonuses – No. will it cause people looking forward to a decent pension to be hurt – yes.

So, the point of this far fetched rambling? Incentives are key, not more taxes and legislation.

And the only true answer to the ‘human problem’? No more humans!