Republican vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska debates Democratic vice-presidential rival Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware (not shown) Thursday night in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Don Emmert, Pool)
What does Palin believe causes climate change?
By Eoin O'Carroll | 10.03.08
Climate change came up during Thursday night’s debate between Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Joe Biden, when moderator Gwen Ifill asked each candidate about what they believed was causing it.
Biden’s position is well-known: Like his running mate, Sen. Barack Obama, and like all of the world’s major climatological institutions, the Delaware senator believes that human industrial activity is the primary culprit. Senator Obama’s opponent, Sen. John McCain, also frequently states unambiguously that climate change is human-caused. In 2003 he and Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut introduced the firs- ever climate bill, the Climate Stewardship Act, which would have established a carbon cap-and-trade system.
But as I wrote on Wednesday, Gov. Sarah Palin’s beliefs are harder to pin down. Shortly, before joining the McCain ticket, she told the conservative magazine Newsmax the she is “not one though who would attribute [global warming] to being man-made.” But she subsequently softened her position somewhat, telling ABC News’s Charlie Gibson and CBS New’s Katie Couric that human activity could be – but was not definitely – a contributing factor, but that natural, cyclical changes also play a role.
Here’s how she said it last night (CNN has a transcript of the whole debate):
IFILL: Governor, I’m happy to talk to you in this next section about energy issues. Let’s talk about climate change. What is true and what is false about what we have heard, read, discussed, debated about the causes of climate change?
PALIN: Yes. Well, as the nation’s only Arctic state and being the governor of that state, Alaska feels and sees impacts of climate change more so than any other state. And we know that it’s real.
I’m not one to attribute every man – activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man’s activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.
But there are real changes going on in our climate. And I don’t want to argue about the causes. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?
We have got to clean up this planet. We have got to encourage other nations also to come along with us with the impacts of climate change, what we can do about that.
Palin then goes on to discuss how, as Alaska governor, she established a subcabinet in September 2007 to address how to adapt to climate change, and how she and McCain favor an “all of the above” approach – which includes expanded drilling for oil and natural gas as well as alternative energy projects – to deal with climate change and to achieve energy independence for the United States.
So it looks as though we can safely say that Palin believes that global warming is real. Indeed, it’s pretty hard to miss in Alaska: The state has warmed about 5 degrees F. in the past century, shrinking glaciers, thawing permafrost, flooding coastal villages, sparking forest fires, and inviting insect infestations.
As for the causes, Palin seems to agree that humanity has had a hand in heating the globe, but she has yet to come out and say it without hedging. Last night she said that “there is something to be said” for humanity’s role in climate change. In her interview with Ms. Couric this week she said that “there are man’s activities that can be contributed to the issues that we’re dealing with now.” (She may have meant to say “attributed” or “contributing.”) And she told Mr. Gibson in September that “man’s activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming” and that she is “attributing some of man’s activities to potentially causing some of the changes in the climate right now.” Not exactly straight talk, but it would be unfair to call her a global warming denier.
But whenever she mentions humanity’s role, she always makes it a point to mention natural temperature cycles as well. Last night it was “cyclical temperature changes.” With Couric it was “because the world’s weather patterns are cyclical,” and with Gibson it was “part of the cyclical nature of our planet, the warming and the cooling trends.”
So what, exactly are the cyclical temperature variations? And could they be enough to account for the warming that we’ve experienced so far?
Palin is light on specifics here. She could be talking about the periodic wobbles in the earth’s orbit that have caused the earth’s 100,000-year ice ages (but that would conflict with her reported belief that the world is only a few thousand years old). Or she could be alluding to changes in the sun and the amount of energy that it emits. Or she could be thinking of El Niño events, or of the temperature oscillations ocurring in our oceans. Or maybe she’s talking about volcanic activity, which isn’t really cyclical but nonetheless changes the composition of the atmosphere and therefore affects the climate.
The problem with each of these explanations is that there is not yet any theory to explain how they account for the rapid warming that we have seen beginning in the second half of the 20th century. Nobody has managed come up with a model that is satisfactory to the scientific community that explains how any of these natural processes account for the roughly one-degree-Fahrenheit rise in global surface temperatures over the past 30 years. In fact, the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that such natural variabilities “would likely have produced cooling” during this time.
But we do have a model that explains how human activity – namely, the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use – accounts for this rise in temperature. This model has been endorsed by the overwhelming majority of climate scientists, and most of the presidential and vice presidential candidates endorse it, too. Except, it seems, Sarah Palin.
<< Palin says cause of global warming “doesn’t matter” | MainComments
2. Pharmer | 10.04.08
Typical “pile-on” from the media. So which model is now correct? Every 4 or 5 years the IPCC uses another of Hansen’s models because they are never accurate for more than a year or so. See for yourself. Also check the temps for the past decade and tell me where is the warming. Check with real climate scientist like Lindzen or Singer and see what they think. By the way, the IPCC has had to back off on their predictions with every new assessment due to faulty data and over-zealous catastrophic thinking. If you do buy into Gore and the IPCC, get ready to have large amounts of money sucked from your wallet to produce statistically insignificant changes.
3. August H. Barry | 10.04.08
Great blog on Palin and where’s at on this. I found this link has a bunch more info on it - in particular about how Palin’s views on warming have effected her opposing having the polar bear be listed as an endangered species -
http://dailysource.org/special/palin/160#the_environment
It has this excerpt from the Fairbank Daily News-Miner:
“Palin contends climate models are unreliable, polar bear numbers have not crashed and they’ve survived other periods of warming. She has also claimed polar bears could adapt to living on land — a contention most international polar bear scientists find specious, given that grizzly bears already occupy that niche on land and polar bears have shown little ability to feed on land, other than garbage or the occasional whale carcass.”
I also heard the climate change conference she called for was aimed to gather people opposed to the idea that humans cause warming, and that she now uses it an an example of her action to combat climate change. I don’t have a link to prove that - I read it a week ago and can’t find the article.
4. Mike | 10.04.08
“But we do have a model that explains how human activity – namely, the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use – accounts for this rise in temperature. This model has been endorsed by the overwhelming majority of climate scientists, and most of the presidential and vice presidential candidates endorse it, too. Except, it seems, Sarah Palin.”
Eoin, what planet are you living on? … Are you completely closed off from the rest of the world and, in particular, the many, many alternate points of view independent scientists from around the world?
I would point out that you forgot to include with Sarah Palin all of the rational, thinking people of the world and all the honest, award-winning scientists who have taken the time to look at the evidence for human-caused global warming and found it woefully lacking! … You also forgot to include the 31,000 American scientists (9,000+ PhDs) that have signed the Oregon Petition rejecting the claim that current global warming is primarily man-made. Their peer-reviewed research report debunked the theory than increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can cause dangerous global warming. Other uncontested research also indicates that the increased concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide actually acts as a fertilizer for plants, increasing their rate of growth and reducing the amount of water they require to grow.
You also forgot to include Professor Bob Carter who insightfully points out that the proper answer to the question, “Is the Earth warming?” is “it depends.” It depends on what period of time you are talking about. He points out, based on the ice core records, that over the last 10,000 years the Earth has been cooling slightly, that over the last 2,000 years the Earth has also been cooling, and at a faster rate than over the last 10,000 years. The warming we have experienced in the last 30 years followed a period of 30 years after 1940, during which time the Earth was cooling. By virtually everyone’s calculations, the Earth has been cooling for the past six years. In fact, the average temperature of the Earth in June 2008, based on the most accurate measure we have (satellites) was no different than it was 20 years ago!
Finally, and most importantly, you forgot to include Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who said, “Rational people know that the warming we experience is well within the range of what seems to have been a natural fluctuation over the last ten thousand years… The global warming issue is [actually] about freedom. It is not about temperature or CO2. It is, therefore, not necessary to discuss either climatology, or any other related natural science but the implications of the global warming panic upon us, upon our freedom, our prosperity, our institutions and our legislation. It is part of a bigger story.” Having lived many years under communist domination, I’m sure we can agree that he knows a thing or two about freedom and the ways it can be extinguished by heavy-handed governments.
Read his excellent speech of September 2008 at: http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?ff0796e1-e571-4b15-9d0a-1d53dff2a6bc .
5. Mike | 10.04.08
You can watch Professor Bob Carter’s insightful presentation on global warming at:
6. Mike | 10.04.08
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
–– Global Warming Petition (http://www.oism.org/pproject/)
Signed by 31,000+ American scientists (9,000+ PhDs)
7. Mike | 10.04.08
None of the global warming proponents are able to point to any empirical evidence that proves their claim that more CO2 in the atmosphere causes dangerous global warming. All of their claims are based on computer models that have proven to be dead wrong (e.g., they failed to forecast the drastic cooling of the past 18 months even though CO2 has continued to increase in the atmosphere). Why would you trust them to predict the temperature of the Earth 100 years from today?
View the track records of the computer models at: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/ipccchart.jpg . The blue line represents the satellite record and the green line represents the Hadley Centre (U.K.) surface temperatures. All the other lines represent the predictions of the computer models.
8. Peta | 10.04.08
Eoin is correct on “This model has been endorsed by the overwhelming majority of climate scientists”, as are McCain, Obama and Biden. It is easy to find dissenters, but they are clearly in the minority and most are not expert in the field. And a number of the vocal dissenters have been funded by oil industry sources.
Palin sounds like she is trying to please both sides of the argument while remaining vague, which seems her standard approach.
Alan - to fix something it is necessary to know the cause.
There is a lot of controversy on Lindzen’s views on it. He has questioned other proven science:
“He’ll even expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking. He speaks in full, impeccably logical paragraphs, and he punctuates his measured cadences with thoughtful drags on a cigarette.”
The petition: Petitioners were also requested to list their academic discipline. The petition sponsors state the following numbers of individuals from each discipline: 1. Atmospheric, environmental, and Earth sciences: 3,697; 2. Computer and mathematical sciences: 903; 3. Physics and aerospace sciences: 5,691; 4. Chemistry: 4,796; 5. Biology and agriculture: 2,924; 6. Medicine: 3,069; 7. Engineering and general science: 9,992.
9. OzDoc | 10.04.08
Mike at 4, 5, 6 & 7.
You are sounding like what people of your ilk call a religious zealot. Your lies and twisted distortion of reality (obviously intentional) is frankly, quite scary.
Btw, that petition … my name is on it! How it got there and who put it there is beyond me (I don’t even live in the US) but is typical of fraudulent tactics. You have to question why.
10. Mike | 10.05.08
OzDoc,
My comments are backed up by the links that I have included. Your position is only backed up by faith, which correctly makes your view and those of other proponents of man-made global warming appear to be the one of “religious zealots.”
It’s interesting that proponents of global warming seem to always respond with personal attacks when their beliefs are challenged. Rarely have I found a proponent of global warming who ever thinks for themselves and responds with thoughtful arguments about this subject. This should be a “red flag” to other readers to understand that the arguments for man-made global warming are without substance and without merit.
For more validation, read Dr. Roy Spencer’s testimony before Congress on July 22, 2008 at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/22/roy-spencers-testimony-before-congress-backs-up-moncktons-assertions-on-climate-sensitivity/ .
Dr. Spencer has a PhD in Meteorology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been involved in global warming research for close to twenty years. He has authored numerous peer reviewed scientific articles dealing with the measurement and interpretation of climate variability and climate change. He is also the U.S. Science Team Leader for the AMSR-E instrument flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite and a former NASA employee.
I would also encourage the moderator to review his comments policy and re-evaluate whether personal attacks like those of OzDoc have any rightful place in this comments section. My understanding of the comments policy is that we are permitted to comment as long as our comments are civil and positively contribute to the subject at hand. I would also like to see evidence of OzDoc’s claim about his being listed on the Oregon Petition. It’s likely that there is no credence to his claim.
11. Hays | 10.05.08
“Palin is taking the smart rode. What freaking difference does it make what is causing global warming?”
Agreed and eloquently put comrade! The dissenters are correct! Human’s are not causing global warming and that, my friends, is the rode for us all to take.
12. Richard C. Savage | 10.05.08
Since scientific credentials seem to be important to some correspondents, I have a Ph. D. in Meteorology, Univ of Wisconsin-Madison, 1976, classmate of Roy Spencer. BTW, what credentials does Eoin O’Carroll have? Don’t tell me, let me guess: he’s a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists.
I ask because of Mr. O’Carroll’s claims of “…the rapid warming that we have seen beginning in the second half of the 20th century.” But, from 1951 - indeed, from the 1940’s - until 1978, temperatures decreased, so much that TIME and NEWSWEEK both published front-page articles about our coming descent into a new Ice Age. Thousands of Africans died in the Sahel because the expanded Polar Vortex pushed the African monsoon back into the tropics. Among the many stupid claims I’ve seen from Environmental Journalists, this one is remarkable for its ignorance.
Mike is correct in noting that there has been no warming since 1998; since 2002, based on worldwide microwave satellite data (my dissertation topic), world temperature has decreased.
My only addition to Mike’s knowledgeable remarks is to note that CO2 is a very minor greenhouse gas, which is insignificant in comparison to H2O. The total greenhouse effect is 324 watts/square meter, mostly due to water vapor. The greenhouse effect due to CO2 and ALL manmade greenhouse gas is 1.6 watts/sq meter. That’s a ratio of 200:1. But people like Mr. Gore continue to insist that CO2 is important. This is the fundamental lie of the global warming fraud.
I recommend to all some open-minded reading on the icecap.us and wattsupwiththat websites. Icecap is authored by Joe d’Alesseo, a respected member of the AMS; Anthony Watts is a recent Ph. D. grad from Colorado State. We all have a lot to lose if ignorant (I’m being kind) politicians like McCain, Obama, Biden, and Palin (?) decide to “do something about it.” Nothing can be done - the cycles are natural - and the cost would be enormous.
RCS
13. Hays | 10.05.08
These dissenters seem to have astounding parallels with the Sophists of Ancient Greece. Nine thousand PhD’s in rhetoric no doubt.
14. Hays | 10.05.08
Warming, paradoxically, is not always indicated through warming. Increased temperatures in an oceanic region change the level of salt content in that water. This in turn upsets the thermohaline circulation that brings warmer temperatures to, for example, Italy. Italy is about at the same latitude as New York but feels like Florida. So, conversely, global warming will actually bring about an ice age in Europe.
15. Eoin | 10.05.08
For the record, I’m not a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists. I have an application, but I haven’t gotten around to mailing it in. I think it’s ironic that they don’t allow you to sign up online.
16. Richard C. Savage | 10.05.08
Re: #13, Ms/Mr Hays:
Have you some scientific insight to contribute? Or just sophistry?
Re: #14, Ms/Mr Hays:
“Warming, paradoxically, is not always indicated through warming.” That’s not a paradox; that’s an oxymoron. Stop there (for a moment). Warming is warming. What don’t you understand? I’ll concede that warming CAN cause localized cooling (see below), but warming is warming. Since 2002, worldwide, the Earth has been cooling. The temp has gone down (so it’s now COOLER than it was in 1988, when Gore started this nonsense).
Yes, warming ocean water will cause evaporation, thus increasing the salt content. So what? Tropical ocean water will always be warmer than polar water, and thus saltier. Warm (salty) ocean currents (Gulf Stream, Kuroshio) currents will continue to flow from the tropics toward the poles. If they could actually REACH the poles, we would not have ice ages, an anomaly of the last few million years, when continental drift has blocked oceanic current access to the South Pole and severely restricted its access to the North Pole. Geologically, the Earth has usually been much warmer (where do you think all that coal came from?).
I’m not aware that thermohaline circulation has anything to do with Italy being warmer than New York. The Alps (which block most infusions of cold air from reaching Italy) have a LOT to do with it. Another fundamental climatological fact is that the east coast of a continent tends to be colder than the west coast of a continent at the same latitude - since the atmosphere flows from west to east. The famous “Alberta Clippers” go east as they drop southward; here in Colorado they sometimes miss us entirely and pound the Midwest and East (including NY). And, of course, Italy is a peninsula, surrounded by (warmer) water. Climatologists also recognize a characteristic called “continentality”. Islands/peninsulas are much less “continental” than places like Kansas and Siberia.
I think you have been seduced by a movie called “Tomorrow” (2004?) which (I believe) Mr. Gore cites in his movie. It has an actual historical / climatological precedent, when a massive cold water internal sea in North America, resulting from melting of the glaciers of the most recent ice age, broke through to the North Atlantic (hence the St. Lawrence River) and, indeed, disrupted the Gulf Stream/thermohaline circulation. It’s well documented as the “Lesser Dryas” event; if you look at the temperature record of the Antarctic ice cores, you can see it there. It chilled England and Northern Europe for about 1,000 years. Scary stuff, indeed. However, there isn’t such a pool of cold water available today (Gore tries to claim Greenland is about to melt and do this).
Re: #15: Thank you, Eoin. We have hope for you.
RCS
17. Ron Kilmartin | 10.05.08
Eoin - I totally second Dr. Savage’s comments and to help you come to grips with history, may I suggest you get a copy of th 2-volume tomb “Climate, Present, Past, and Future” by H.H. Lamb, 1972, 1976. Dr. Lamb performed a yeoman’s job (likely before many of the commenters were even born) of documentation of the Medieval Warming, based on human records that indicated even warmer temperatures prevailed in the years 800-1300 than in the current warming. That period (European history’s most productive to that point in time) was well before the time of coal-fired or oil-fired anything, so there could not have been a human “carbon footprint” on the globe causing the warming. For one thing there were one hellova lot less humans on the globe then than now.
The pagan left likes to believe that science in the hands of man can do anything. Thus they fanatically accept deterministic “scientific” temperature projections of 50 to 100 years out and use them as an excuse to justify the imposition of Orwellian 1984 fasci-socialism to enslave the human race and cloth them in sack-cloth.
Whereas climate is a natural phenomena controlled by (pagans: cover your eyes!)God, Economics is strictly an anthropogenic phenomena. And as we all can see from the past week, man has absolutely no control over this, his own invention; the best of the economic scientists and forecasters and investors and economic senators and representatives could not predict humpty-dumpty’s fall, and they are in total confusion and delusion on how to put him back together again. Yet this same team of fools thinks it can glue humpty back together with a few trillion dollars. And by and large, this same team of fools “believes” that 1984 fascistic socialism can prevent global warming (with recent estimates up to 45 trillion dollars).
Hopefully the reality of anthropogenic economics will help stymie the drive for Orwellian fasci-socialism.
Palin has previously been adamantly opposed to the man-made global warming hypothesis, and I believe her less aggressive stance in the latest debate was a deference to McCain’s ignorance of the subject; she had previously suggested that she hoped to change McCain’s mind on Anwar and I believe also on GW. More power to her.
18. Hays | 10.06.08
I think you have been seduced by a movie called “Tomorrow” (2004?) which (I believe) Mr. Gore cites in his movie.
Never seen either of these; my information is primarily from talking to experts in the field (mostly college professors doing research in climatology). I stay away from the obvious commercial propaganda that is usually based off of a pseudo-journalist’s limited understanding of the subject.
“Warming, paradoxically, is not always indicated through warming.” That’s not a paradox; that’s an oxymoron. Stop there (for a moment).”
A paradox is anything that seems to be contradictory in nature and an oxymoron often suggests a level of incongruity between the two contradictory terms being used. I chose the term paradox because it better expresses the reality of the cause and effect relationship. An oxymoron is usually a rhetorical or literary device and this is not the way that I intended suggesting that warming in a larger system can cause localized cooling.
I meant sophistry as the ability to argue any point by distorting or leaving out other positions. Not as simply a false argument. An argument based on true sophistry is based on reason.
In the same breath you questioned if I had any input of scientific value and then went on to handle that input. There is plenty of contradictory evidence both ways and with the small amount of time that we have been taking accurate measures of the climate it is probably foolish to make a definite decision either way. If Italy does not suffice as an example of the situation I illustrated then use southwestern France or northwestern Spain in the areas where there is no blockage by the Pyrenees. I have been the southwestern France (same latitude as Nova Scotia) during almost every month of the year and it is MUCH warmer than Nova Scotia. This I was told by a climatology professor is a result of the thermohaline circulation in the Atlantic, so take that for what it is. I was just pointing out that the burning cold (<– oxymoron), in the views of some scientists, is a part of the cycle leading to a period of warming.
Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas, often overlooked, and our cattle industry is comparable to our automobile industry. Also, I have never heard anyone refer to CO2 as being a massively destructive greenhouse gas, but only a concern expressed for the unprecedented amount that we are releasing into the atmosphere. From what I have read it dwarfs the amount released by even the most massive volcanic eruptions that we have been able to measure, which again we obviously have not been able to measure them for an extended period of time. I am sure Mr. Savage with his doctoral degree is acutely aware of his lack of knowledge, as is anyone who decides to question. There is definitely more I could blabber about but I do not have the time or energy to seek out the necessary sources. One interesting thing I came across that Savage or someone else may be able to enlighten me on is the affect that warming, or maybe even cooling, will have on phytoplankton, which by some estimates produce 98% of our oxygen, more modestly stated to be 50% by others.
Anyways if Gaia theory turns out true I suspect I will not terribly mind. If the human race survives this anthropogenic scare to be wiped out by the natural cycles of the earth, which obivously has historical precedent, I suppose it won’t matter either way. Politicians who do not act to curb human emissions of greenhouse gases probably will not have to face the consequences if they turn out to be wrong. It is a fun philosophical exercise though, damned if I do damned if I don’t.
19. tom | 10.06.08
The degree of climate change is caused by human interaction is not the point. Pollution by man’s activities is a fact. My question to all naysayers of climate change is always the same. What if the majority of scientists are correct and the nay sayers are wrong and nothing was done? Can the naysayers turn back the clock and apologize to their children? What if we take action now on the purported causes of climate change (e.g. CO2, ozone, etc) and climate change scenarios turn out to be wrong? We still end up with less pollution, cleaner air, cleaner water and a cleaner environment. I would rather err on the side of caution than not to take any action and live with regret. Secondly, Palin is just representative of the scientific lightweights that run for political office from both parties as well as the public at large. As a now retired scientist, the scientific illiteracy of the public is huge and the science community at large is very poor at disseminating their ideas and results which just makes matters worse.
20. Jacques Voorhees | 10.06.08
Global warming hysteria–and those who do or do not buy into it–is arguably the defining litmus test of our generation. In Galileo’s day the common wisdom (ie, the church’s wisdom) held that the Earth did not revolve around the Sun, despite all the scientific evidence, and anyone who said otherwise was a heretic. Today, the common wisdom (ie, the non-scientists who wrote the IPCC summaries, and as amplified without critical commentary by about 700 billion cheerleaders in the media) holds that human-caused CO2 emmissions are the primary cause of climate change, despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary, and anyone who says otherwise is a heretic.
Folks, in the last ten years, mankind has hugely increased the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere. During that same time period, the Earth has cooled. Correlation does not prove causation, but lack of correlation does prove lack of primary causation. Logic 101. If Anthro-CO2 was the primary driver of climate change, why is the Earth’s temperature today the same as it was twenty years ago, and cooler than it was ten years ago? Answer: Anthro-CO2 cannot be the primary driver of climate change. And the sun does not revolve around the Earth. The fact that Sarah Palin is the only one of the four candidates on the tickets who gets this implies, for my money, that’s she’s smarter than the other three combined, despite her folksy ways. Is it too late to move her to the top of the ticket?
21. Howard | 10.06.08
@tom
CO2 is not pollution. It is the naturally occuring compound utilized by plants to grow. Increased CO2 results in increased crop yields and reduces the possibility of famines. Dissenters are not advocating for more “pollution”. “Ozone, etc.” are not part of the argument for or against anthropogenic global warming.
22. Stefan Milkowski | 10.06.08
Nice post. Not to speak for our gov, but as an Alaskan, I think I know what she’s talking about regarding “cyclical temperature changes.” It’s pretty well acknowledged here in Alaska that some portion of the warming in the last few decades is attributable to a shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, an atmospheric shift somewhat like El Nino/La Nina, but happening on a longer time-scale. Instead of the steady warming one would expect from man-made climate change, Alaska’s temperatures basically shot up in 1976/77 and have stayed fairly flat since then (http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/ClimTrends/Change/TempChange.html). The 1920s to ’40s were warm, too, and the warmest year on record in Alaska is 1926. That’s not to say man-made climate change isn’t happening, or that it’s not stronger up here, just that natural cycles do play a large role in determining Alaska’s climate. I’ve been tracking climate change in Alaska at http://www.northernflux.blogspot.com.
23. Richard C. Savage | 10.06.08
Apologies to Hays: I know little about phytoplankton and its contribution to the oxygen content of the atmosphere. I do, however, know that phytoplankton is strongly controlled by the nutrient in the water. For example, the water off the coast of Peru, in the equator-ward flowing Humboldt Current, is tremendously rich, the phytoplankton flourish, the fish flourish, and the sea birds also flourish. In the El Nino periods, everything backs up, the flow of nutrient stops, the fish die, yadda yadda.
I deduce from this (and the fact that krill for whales is plentiful in Antarctic waters) that phytoplankton are not very sensitive to warming/cooling.
Hays remarks that “…Also, I have never heard anyone refer to CO2 as being a massively destructive greenhouse gas, but only a concern expressed…” That may explain why the rest of us are a little more exercised than Hays by the likes of Mr. Gore and people who believe him. Gore predicts imminent catastrophe unless all CO2 emission stops immediately. Obama, Biden, McCain, and much of the Congress seem committed to spending massive (literally trillions of $$$$) amounts of money to forestall a “crisis” that is not evident in either theory or climatological data. We’d like to see some proof before making that commitment, since there are other problems in the world where the money might be better spent.
RCS
24. Paul MacRae | 10.07.08
Mike: What does the yellow line on the IPCC versus Hadley etc. chart mean? (Commit). Great chart, though.
25. Mike Higgins | 10.07.08
The Commit line represents the prediction of temperatures if the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is held constant. In other words, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere does not grow any further.
See http://icecap.us/images/uploads/2002-2008TempsvsCO2.jpg for a chart that shows the divergent nature of CO2 and global temperature, as measured by satellites, since 2002.
26. Matt | 10.09.08
If Palin doesn’t attribute climate change to human activities, how in the world does she propose we do something to “positively affect the impacts”?
Perhaps she plans to institute a National Climate Prayer Council to elicit some sort of Divine Intervention. If so, the pastor who protected Palin from witchcraft should get strong consideration to lead any supernatural government initiatives.
27. Rex | 10.09.08
Contrary to Alan what’s causing the climate to change is very important, the reason: if were not causing it then there is nothing we can do about it except adapt. And burdening our industries and power generation with crazy
cap and trade schemes is only going to make adaptation all the harder.
28. A.Viirlaid | 10.17.08
Listening to what Sarah Palin said leads me to conclude that she was correct. Perhaps she could have been a little more clear in her explanation.
But IMHO her questioners were more befuddling in their questioning than she was in her responses.
She maintains that humankind is not the ONLY source of global warming — that is true since the natural background cycles also add to, and sometimes, subtract from, manmade causes. There is no dispute on this.
The IPCC states that mankind is the “predominant” cause — the IPCC makes this SPECIFIC statement, and attaches to it a so-called 90% certainty.
But even the IPCC does NOT state what actual PERCENT of the observed warming is caused by humans and what is not. It could be 70% or something else entirely. The IPCC believes only that a “majority” of the warming is causally anthropogenic in origin.
Sarah Palin says it is not AS important as to what the actual causes are AS IS the fact that action needs to be taken. She says she knows this from the warming effects on Alaska.
On this point, she is also correct — although maybe she does not elucidate her reasoning clearly enough. Her questioners seem dumb-founded.
Why do I think she is correct? It is because NO ONE is going to actually REDUCE CO2 — believe me, it AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN.
Joe Biden says that mankind is 100% the cause of warming, which no one has actually ever said, including the IPCC. So Joe is wrong.
Palin is more accurate than Biden, because humankind is not going to REDUCE CO2 emissions over the next 30 years. We would be lucky to just BEGIN to reduce the GROWTH RATE of such emissions.
This leaves only other MITIGATIVE steps as any kind of “solution” — which is what Palin has promoted. This seems eminently sensible.
What else are you gonna do? Suck CO2 out of the atmosphere?
So “other” steps are the only ones left with which to effectively mitigate the (according to Biden, supposedly 100%) effects of CO2.
Palin ends up being correct in her interpretation.
Namely, that it does not matter what the causes are.
Putatively, according to some, the cause is CO2, but not in the 100% attribution attached to it by Biden and a few others. It has to be something else — again what Palin said.
Folks — realistically — there will NOT be any ACTUAL reductions in CO2 that, over the next 30 years, EFFECTIVELY, can be relied on as mitigations against global warming. That is all that I think Palin was saying.
Even if I personally think CO2 has only about a 5% forcing effect within the array of all warming causes and the IPCC thinks this is about 98%, what difference does that make?
Guess what? In the end, neither my personal opinion on this last point NOR the IPCC’s OPINION is of much relevance.
Maybe the current lack of sunspots will make the whole controversy utterly pointless.
29. Todd Kalutich | 10.17.08
I would like to see you guys ride your bike to these semminars and campains. We have the internet that can get your lies out there without using my fossil fuels.I make a great living drilling for oil and there is no way a bunch of book readers( You need trees for paper ) are going to take my job away. The economy of the world revolves around oil. And you dont seem to remember that climate chang happens anyways. I do not apprciate you thinking Oil is the problem. The jobs you are destroying will cost you more in welare than a real soultion. Drill away!
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1. Alan | 10.03.08
Typical crud.
Palin is taking the smart rode. What freaking difference does it make what is causing global warming? Do you want to sit and argue about the cause, or would you rather work resolve and survive it?
Does it mater if Global Warming is caused by cow ****, supernatural beings, humans or sun spots?