AP reports that a 7 square mile sheet of ice has broken loose in Canada. Yes, in the middle of summer. While Derek Mueller, “a research[er] at Trent University”, did not blame global warming he does say we are in a “different climate” now. They do not point out that we are in the middle of summer. Only that the ice is declining rapidly…in the last 80 years.
Not everyone is sure the world is experiencing climate change based on man made pollutants. The Physics and Society Forum and apart of The American Physical Society says that “There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.”
This is counter to current pop-intelligence. In a scientific Paper, Lord Christopher Monckton of Brenchley explains that the sun is the most likely cause of our measurable warming. “In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years … Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth.”
Furthermore his data shows a drop in mean global surface temperature anomalies of 0.8 degrees Celsius which “has canceled out almost all of the observed warming of the 20th century”.
The big difference is a measure of climate sensitivity. The debate is about how much a certain mass of greenhouse gasses will change the Earth’s temperature. Monckton believes that the IPCC has grossly overstated this part of the equation. His numbers suggest that more CO2 will have little effect on climate change.
Here is a chart showing the history of CO2 in the atmosphere and global temperatures going back nearly 550 million years. It shows that we are in a much cooler period than the Earth has spent most of its history in and that atmospheric CO2 has has little correlation with world temperature.
Full article:
http://www.dailytech.com/…/article12403.htm
Thank you AP for your detailed article “EPA experts detail global warming’s health risks” After reading one paragraph with four uses of the word ‘could’ when describing possible risks of global warming to quotes like saying global warming “adversely impacting human health and welfare today”. I want to know what will happen and what IS adversely impacting human health and welfare today.
The article goes on to say the Bush administration, known for its brain power and sound science, “has worked to discourage…a link between public health and climate change”.
The article finally ends by saying “While no one doubts that more people die in a heat wave, the question is whether that death is ‘related to man made greenhouse gas emissions’“. I would have also liked the question “Is the world heating up?” to be asked.
Link to article:
http://news.yahoo.com/…/bush_global_warming_1
Full text:
By DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press Writer Mon Jul 14, 6:36 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Government scientists detailed a rising death toll from heat waves, wildfires, disease and smog caused by global warming in an analysis the White House buried so it could avoid regulating greenhouse gases.
In a 149-page document released Monday, the experts laid out for the first time the scientific case for the grave risks that global warming poses to people, and to the food, energy and water on which society depends.
“Risk (to human health, society and the environment) increases with increases in both the rate and magnitude of climate change,” scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency said. Global warming, they wrote, is “unequivocal” and humans are to blame.
The document suggests that extreme weather events and diseases carried by ticks and other organisms could kill more people as temperatures rise.
Allergies could worsen because climate change could produce more pollen. Smog, a leading cause of respiratory illness and lung disease, could become more severe in many parts of the country. At the same time, global warming could mean fewer illnesses and deaths due to cold.
“This document inescapably, unmistakably shows that global warming pollution not only threatens human health and welfare, but it is adversely impacting human health and welfare today,” said Vickie Patton, deputy general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund. “What this document demonstrates is that the imperative for action is now.”
While the science pointed to a link between public health and climate change, the Bush administration has worked to discourage such a connection. To acknowledge one would compel the government to regulate greenhouse gases.
The administration on Friday dismissed the scientists’ findings when it made clear that the Clean Air Act was the wrong tool to control global warming pollution. Instead, the administration asked for public comment on a range of ways to reduce greenhouse gases from cars, airplanes, trains and smokestacks under the 1970 law.
A better solution, the EPA said, would have Congress writing a law aimed just at global warming.
Jonathan Shradar, a spokesman for EPA chief Stephen Johnson, said that while the administrator knows that “the science is clear and that climate change is a significant issue”, Johnson did not want to make a “rash decision under the wrong law.”
“Once there is an endangerment finding, then the Clean Air Act is activated and regulation may begin,” Shradar said.
In December, the White House refused to open an e-mail from the EPA that included the finding that climate change endangered public welfare. The determination was based on an earlier, and similar version of the document released Monday. At the time, the White House insisted on removing all references to the science, according to Jason K. Burnett, a former adviser to Johnson on climate issues.
Burnett, a Democrat, has charged that Vice President Dick Cheney’s office deleted portions of congressional testimony last October prepared by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that made similar assertions on the health effects of global warming. The White House contends the testimony was changed because of doubts about the science.
After the release of the EPA analysis, industry representatives suggested the link between climate change and health was weak.
“The question is not a scientific one. It is a legal and political question, of how much impact justifies the extraordinary use of the Clean Air Act,” said Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a coalition of power companies.
While no one doubts that more people die in a heat wave, the question is whether that death is “related to manmade greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.