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"What is our energy future?"
IPCC Scientist Takes On Sarah Palin. Who Wins?
Michael Mann is a climatologist in the meteorology department at Penn State University and the director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center. He wrote a chapter in the IPCC report, and is credited as one of the creators of the famous “hockey stick graph” that shows the alarming rise in temperatures in the last one hundred years.
On the pages of today’s Washington Post Opinion section, Mann takes on an op-ed by Sarah Palin that appeared in the same section just a few weeks ago. On Dec 9, she argued that while Alaska’s climate is changing, the “thawing permafrost and retreating sea ice” is a part of “natural, cyclical environmental trends.” She cites the controversy over the hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia as proof of her claim.
Is there consensus within the scientific community on climate change or has this controversy over these emails been overblown? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
Micheal Mann, “E-mail furor doesn’t alter evidence for climate change”
I cannot condone some things that colleagues of mine wrote or requested in the e-mails recently stolen from a climate research unit at a British university. But the messages do not undermine the scientific case that human-caused climate change is real.
The hacked e-mails have been mined for words and phrases that can be distorted to misrepresent what the scientists were discussing. In a Dec. 9 op-ed, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin argued that “The e-mails reveal that leading climate ‘experts’ . . . manipulated data to ‘hide the decline’ in global temperatures.” Yet the e-mail she cites was written in 1999, just after the warmest year ever recorded (1998) to that date. It could not possibly have referred to the claim that global temperatures have declined over this decade — a claim that is false (the current decade, as has been recently reported, will go down as the warmest on record).
Sarah Palin, “Sarah Palin on the politicization of the Copenhagen climate conference”
With the publication of damaging e-mails from a climate research center in Britain, the radical environmental movement appears to face a tipping point. The revelation of appalling actions by so-called climate change experts allows the American public to finally understand the concerns so many of us have articulated on this issue.
“Climate-gate,” as the e-mails and other documents from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have become known, exposes a highly politicized scientific circle — the same circle whose work underlies efforts at the Copenhagen climate change conference. The agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen won’t change the weather, but they would change our economy for the worse.
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On December 30th, 2009 at 10:01 pm Per Flem Said:
We all know certain facts. There are more people in NYC than Atlantic City. There are more people north of the equator than south of the equator. Where is the data that shows that what we know as facts effects the environment in a quantifyable manner? New York is not warmer than Atlantic City. There is a greater shift in CO2 by season than between the two hemispheres. If trees are the answer, why isn’t there a bigger difference in CO2 levels between summer and winter? The polar ice has retreated in the Atlantic but not the Pacific. Isn’t that closer to China with all it’s pollution? There are no people on the moon, why is it getting warmer? I have so many questions, that can’t be answered by real data. Why do “experts” try to lead us to believe an ice berg(already displacing it’s weight) will increase sea levels?
I’m just trying to get the believers started on the blog. I have probably spent more money/effort on environmental projects than most, but probably for different reasons.
On December 31st, 2009 at 2:45 pm Susanna, PF Web Maven Said:
Isn’t Mann’s famous “hockey stick” graph enough? We can see a measurable increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and we need to bring that number down. Even though we may not know all the effects of what that carbon is doing to the planet, anyone that has ever maintained an aquarium knows that if you pollute a closed system the end result is death (i’m sorry, my fishies!). I think we do need to figure out the answers to your questions–but not to stall us from taking action but to better prepare for the damage we have already caused.
On January 1st, 2010 at 1:09 am Per Flem Said:
Again no facts. I had 13 aquariums running at one time breeding Discus, with 5 breeding pairs, so I know what a closed system really is. It would be better if you removed the fish so you didn’t feed them carbon products. All of the carbon that was on the planet a billion years ago is still here. Just in different forms. Trees take CO2 in during the day, gives it off at night. Are they polluters? When they fall to the ground they start to give off CO2.
Go to NOAA and look at global CO2 levels for the last 30 years and the results are more varied by year than long term. Only when the data is manipulated does it change it’s results, kinda like the hockey stick guy who used “data” to achieve what he was exposing. WSJ had a scientist writing today that “claims” that CO2 hasn’t changed for the last 160 years. Didn’t see reliable facts there either.
I’m not ashamed to want to make the air cleaner, lessen our dependence on Middle Eastern countries, and save petroleum for our grandchildren. I just don’t like to see advocates take opinions and call it fact. A mis-applied program that increases costs to those least able to afford it doesn’t appeal to my sensibilities. The leaky run down home of the poor, versus the well insulated home of the rich, who pays more for energy? A 5% income tax in Massachusetts hits a disproportionate balance to the poor. The same with a carbon tax. When we look for answers it can’t be viewed from the perspective of the advantaged, especially those who fly to a global warming summit in their private planes. The hypocrisy is unavoidable. Anyone who spends $10,000 for the jet fuel, isn’t going to change their actions if it cost $20,000. The guy earning $10/hr can’t afford to double his energy costs.
Remember the amount of CO2 we are talking about is 1/3 of 1% in the air. There are bingo games with more methane, or CO2 than in New York City. Perhaps that environment is the canary in the mine?
A good example of misdirected programs was the removal of lead from gasoline, with a more toxic chemical that has been found at extremely high levels in lakes and ponds doing real damage to the fishy environment. Never found any lead there.
On January 12th, 2010 at 3:33 pm Susanna, PF Web Maven Said:
“All of the carbon that was on the planet a billion years ago is still here. Just in different forms.”
Well, yes, but carbon that’s underground has a different impact on the environment than when it’s a gas.
“I’m not ashamed to want to make the air cleaner, lessen our dependence on Middle Eastern countries, and save petroleum for our grandchildren.”
Fine. I’m not a scientist, I’m an activist, and I do want to stop climate change. However people come to the movement is fine with me. The problem to me is not why people come to the movement but that they do.
“The guy earning $10/hr can’t afford to double his energy costs.”
The fact is, the poor have been disproportionately harmed by this economy that’s run on fossil fuels. Polluting power plants get put in poor neighborhoods, coal companies devastate the mountains the Appalachian communities have lived in for generations all in the name of “jobs” – but you shouldn’t have to choose between a clean environment and jobs.
We need to help people insulate their homes and create a strong infrastructure of buses, rail, bike trails and walking paths so that people can avoid using their cars and avoid the increased costs of energy. This will help them in the long run, not just keeping up the status quo.
“I had 13 aquariums running at one time breeding Discus, with 5 breeding pairs”
Wow! That’s awesome. Discus are beautiful fish.
On January 12th, 2010 at 4:56 pm Per Flem Said:
An activist needs to operate from fact. The more fact the more credibility. My opinion is no one can affect climate change so I think there might be a little Don Quiote effect with activists here. Facts: there is 25% more ice since 2007 according to National Snow and Ice(Colorado U) website. We had the coldest December since 1885 according to NASA. Mars has had similar temperature increases as Earth(NASA). If man made climate change is responsible why are these events taking place, unless we are ready to say the “war” is over and we have won.
Making the air clean is noble and appropriate for everybody. Claiming that man is making the air dirty is fair, but volcanoes make their share as well. If “we” want to make clean air, activist for that, not by claiming man caused global warming because like “halogens eliminating the ozone layer”, and in the 70′s “A new Ice Age”, these issues were found to be wrong, and the real problem still exists.
You believe the poor have been “disproportionately harmed” by an economy run on fossil fuels. I disagree. The low cost petroleum environment has resulted in a standard of living for our country that is the envy of the world. Real poverty, not the USA brand, but the sub-Sahara version where no one has 42″ TV sets, would probably accept a little pollution rather than their current poverty. Even in the Appalachian communities you refer to, have a real problem with “cap and trade” because it will take away their coal mining jobs, and they will be poorer yet. “You shouldn’t have to choose between a clean environment and jobs”, is your statement, what is your solution?
Good intentions with bad results, a recent example was “cash for clunkers”. We lost a category of cars that the poor could afford to get to work. Perhaps that hurt them more than “the economy run on fossil fuels”.
What really concerns me is having a totally “electric economy”, where the cost and distribution is controlled by a few large utility companies. Talk about a lack of competition there.