There is, today, a political battle in progress that will determine the future of the United States. The war is between those who think that it is important for national leaders to make decisions based upon solid science, science that has been hammered out by SCIENTISTS who engage in the self-correcting process known as "science," and those who think that their ideas, their wants ("druthers"), and the desires of funding groups will yield the "facts" they need to promote their point of view. This is not a new battle, but one that has been on-going for many years.
Government leaders really first became convinced that they needed good hard scientific advice during the depression. As the nation began to take increasing notice of the machinations of the axis powers (to be), it became obvious to President Roosevelt that he needed help. So he created a wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development under Vannevar Bush (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush for a brief biography). Under President Eisenhower, the President's Science Advisory Committee, under MIT president James Killian gave the President needed advice. That office lasted until killed by newly sworn-in President Richard Nixon. Since then, presidents have made do with a series of more or less effective advisory groups, often on an ad hoc basis.
In 1972, Congress, feeling the need to legislate with effective scientific information created the Office of Technology Assessment ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Technology_Assessment for a brief overview of that office). It came under severe criticism from Republicans when it published a paper, by physicist Ashton Carter, that warned that the Reagan era Star Wars program would not protect America. A series of papers confirming that came under severe Republican criticism. The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, began to increase its attacks on OTA. When Newt Gingrich and his colleagues came to power in 1994, they suceeded in de-funding (killing) OTA. Congress has since had no internal organ to assess science or technology, despite calls for its re-creation. Today, political leaders hold hearing and invite "science experts" who agree with the hearing chairperson, hardly a path to unbiased scientific knowledge or advice.
In the meantime, attacks on scientific consenses continue, especially by far right-wing politicians. In a 2005 book, "The Republican War on Science," by Chris Mooney, the author documents dozens of attacks on science over the last thirty years. His book ends in 2005, when Mooney felt that the attacks couldn't get worse than they were then. That was before the 2012 Presidential campaign began in late 2010 and the attacks did, indeed, get worse. Today the attacks are broad-based and cover the gamut of the environment, energy, basic biology (of all things), climatology, medicine and other fields.
When this author worked in Naval Intelligence (for a bit less than two years), he read a book that cautioned that absolute knowledge of an enemy's intentions can never be had - for the dictator might change his mind after he leaves the final meeting. Likewise, we cannot know, for certain, that the current crop of Republican Presidential hopefuls really believe what they are saying. Pandering to the crowd is an old and acceptable feature of political life (here, as elsewhere). If one had to venture a guess, it would be that 25% or less of the people in a political rally audience, know much about science. Oh, they can twitter their minds out, make phone calls at 75 mph, but they have no clue how any of that magic actually happens. Their expectation is probably that it will always get better and better. So, in that environment, office seekers can tell the crowd whatever makes the crowd louder and more supportive. Do Perry, Bachmann, et al, really believe that creationism trumps evolution, that climate change is "just a normal thing and will get better no matter what WE do," that there will ALWAYS be more oil to suck out of the earth, or that medicine doen't need to be based on modern biological concepts to improve? If they do believe it, is it possible that they, with almost no scientific knowledge, could they be right? What would their tomorrow look like? If they don't believe it, what on earth do they believe, except that they somehow have the right to high political office and the power and wealth that would bring to them. Is that it? What kind of tomorrow is that?
We can't know the answer to any of that. And not knowing is really, really scary.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
The Right Wing Truth
The right wing in our country seems to have its own set of truths. These "truths" have nothing to do with facts. They have everything to do with a warped vision of some sort of make-believe reality that the right wing has made up. They seem to have a set of goals which, they believe, would take America back to the "good old days" that they have imagined. If they could just put actions in place, they think, to take the country back from the "tax and spend" liberals, all would be well. What would such a place be like? We have a couple of examples - incomplete as of yet, but heading in that direction. Let's look at one example.
In Texas, we have the specter of a de-regulated business environment, an inadequately insured work force, poor to nearly nonexistent decent educational opportunities for youth and/or adult learners, and an economy that is beginning to resemble that of the late 19th Century, when workers were poorly paid, unorganized, unprotected, and generally left to the whims of the owner-management classes. Texas is now at the bottom of the heap, along with Mississippi, for the highest percentage of jobs at a minimum wage level. It leads the nation "in the percentage of children who lack medical insurance," according to an editorial in the Washington Post by Harold Meyerson.
The number of young people lacking high school diplomas is over 12% and slated to reach 30% within 20 years - a damning statistic that condemns the youth of Texas to a life of ignorance and prejudice. Yet the current government has slashed educational funding by $4 billion. The governor's response is to call for teaching Bible Creation instead of modern biology. If they do that, students in Texas might as well never apply to go elsewhere to school, since Texas will be on an educational level with the worst third-world nations.
The current governor, Gov. Rick Perry, is running for President and stands a decent chance of becoming the Republican nominee. He advocates doing away with virtually all regulation and permitting the individual states to do things how ever they want to - sort of a throw-back to those wonderful days of 1781 - 1792, when the United States was a solid failure until a revised Constitution could be put into effect that gave much more power to the collective nation.
Perry further states his belief that scientists who hold the climate change is upon us and we are to blame are just greedy people looking to continue getting grant money for their favorite projects - which are all filled with lies anyway. It beggars belief that a man as scientifically ignorant as Perry obviously is makes supposedly authoritative statements about science. If Perry's ideas about science become the law of the educational world, human progress in this country would regress to the dark days of pre-medical science, pre-modern physics, pre-modern chemistry, and pre-modern biology. If Texans really want to be that ignorant, we should, of course, let them. But, Lord, don't let them across the border into the modern world!
In the ancient days, before modern educational institutions arose, the country held a debate over how much education people should receive. The answer, of course, was as much as they want or can handle. There was another side, though, that said education above the absolute minimum needed for manual labor or simple machine jobs, should be denied the "working classes" since too much education might make them want a better life, more leisure time, more "stuff" (which meant more money). An underlying motive behind all of this right wing rhetoric is to return the nation to that place - where the super-rich have 99% of the wealth, and the other 99% of us can fight over the 1% by competing for ever-lower paying jobs. And when companies want to increase productivity, they can squeeze the workers until they quit, then hire new drones at even lower wages.
Well, I'm an old man, now and I've had what little time in the sun I will ever have. But I love this country enough to have offered to die for it and I'll be damned if I'll let the right wing destroy the last, best hope for all of humanity. 'nuff said for one night.
In Texas, we have the specter of a de-regulated business environment, an inadequately insured work force, poor to nearly nonexistent decent educational opportunities for youth and/or adult learners, and an economy that is beginning to resemble that of the late 19th Century, when workers were poorly paid, unorganized, unprotected, and generally left to the whims of the owner-management classes. Texas is now at the bottom of the heap, along with Mississippi, for the highest percentage of jobs at a minimum wage level. It leads the nation "in the percentage of children who lack medical insurance," according to an editorial in the Washington Post by Harold Meyerson.
The number of young people lacking high school diplomas is over 12% and slated to reach 30% within 20 years - a damning statistic that condemns the youth of Texas to a life of ignorance and prejudice. Yet the current government has slashed educational funding by $4 billion. The governor's response is to call for teaching Bible Creation instead of modern biology. If they do that, students in Texas might as well never apply to go elsewhere to school, since Texas will be on an educational level with the worst third-world nations.
The current governor, Gov. Rick Perry, is running for President and stands a decent chance of becoming the Republican nominee. He advocates doing away with virtually all regulation and permitting the individual states to do things how ever they want to - sort of a throw-back to those wonderful days of 1781 - 1792, when the United States was a solid failure until a revised Constitution could be put into effect that gave much more power to the collective nation.
Perry further states his belief that scientists who hold the climate change is upon us and we are to blame are just greedy people looking to continue getting grant money for their favorite projects - which are all filled with lies anyway. It beggars belief that a man as scientifically ignorant as Perry obviously is makes supposedly authoritative statements about science. If Perry's ideas about science become the law of the educational world, human progress in this country would regress to the dark days of pre-medical science, pre-modern physics, pre-modern chemistry, and pre-modern biology. If Texans really want to be that ignorant, we should, of course, let them. But, Lord, don't let them across the border into the modern world!
In the ancient days, before modern educational institutions arose, the country held a debate over how much education people should receive. The answer, of course, was as much as they want or can handle. There was another side, though, that said education above the absolute minimum needed for manual labor or simple machine jobs, should be denied the "working classes" since too much education might make them want a better life, more leisure time, more "stuff" (which meant more money). An underlying motive behind all of this right wing rhetoric is to return the nation to that place - where the super-rich have 99% of the wealth, and the other 99% of us can fight over the 1% by competing for ever-lower paying jobs. And when companies want to increase productivity, they can squeeze the workers until they quit, then hire new drones at even lower wages.
Well, I'm an old man, now and I've had what little time in the sun I will ever have. But I love this country enough to have offered to die for it and I'll be damned if I'll let the right wing destroy the last, best hope for all of humanity. 'nuff said for one night.
Monday, August 1, 2011
The Past is Key to the Future
Copy of an article on Skeptical Science. Well written excerpt of a peer-reviewed article by these two emminent climate scientists.
===================================================================
Earth's Climate History: Implications for Tomorrow
This a re-post of an article by James E. Hansen and Makiko Sato
The past is the key to the future. Contrary to popular belief, climate models are not the principal basis for assessing human-made climate effects. Our most precise knowledge comes from Earth's paleoclimate, its ancient climate, and how it responded to past changes of climate forcings, including atmospheric composition. Our second essential source of information is provided by global observations today, especially satellite observations, which reveal how the climate system is responding to rapid human-made changes of atmospheric composition, especially atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). Models help us interpret past and present climate changes, and, in so far as they succeed in simulating past changes, they provide a tool to help evaluate the impacts of alternative policies that affect climate.
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Humans lived in a rather different world during the last ice age, which peaked 20,000 years ago. An ice sheet covered Canada and parts of the United States, including Seattle, Minneapolis and New York City. The ice sheet, more than a mile thick on average, would have towered over today's tallest buildings. Glacial-interglacial climate oscillations were driven by climate forcings much smaller than the human-made forcing due to increasing atmospheric CO2 -- but those weak natural forcings had a long time to operate, which allowed slow climate feedbacks such as melting or growing ice sheets to come into play.
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Paleoclimate data yield our best assessment of climate sensitivity, which is the eventual global temperature change in response to a specified climate forcing. A climate forcing is an imposed change of Earth's energy balance, as may be caused, for example, by a change of the sun's brightness or a human-made change of atmospheric CO2. For convenience scientists often consider a standard forcing, doubled atmospheric CO2, because that is a level of forcing that humans will impose this century if fossil fuel use continues unabated.
We show from paleoclimate data that the eventual global warming due to doubled CO2 will be about 3°C (5.4°F) when only so-called fast feedbacks have responded to the forcing. Fast feedbacks are changes of quantities such as atmospheric water vapor and clouds, which change as climate changes, thus amplifying or diminishing climate change. Fast feedbacks come into play as global temperature changes, so their full effect is delayed several centuries by the thermal inertia of the ocean, which slows full climate response. However, about half of the fast-feedback climate response is expected to occur within a few decades. Climate response time is one of the important 'details' that climate models help to elucidate.
Fig. 1. Global temperature relative to peak Holocene temperature, based on ocean cores.
We also show that slow feedbacks amplify the global response to a climate forcing. The principal slow feedback is the area of Earth covered by ice sheets. It is easy to see why this feedback amplifies the climate change, because reduction of ice sheet size due to warming exposes a darker surface, which absorbs more sunlight, thus causing more warming. However, it is difficult for us to say how long it will take ice sheets to respond to human-made climate forcing because there are no documented past changes of atmospheric CO2 nearly as rapid as the current human-made change.
Ice sheet response to climate change is a problem where satellite observations may help. Also ice sheets models, as they become more realistic and are tested against observed ice sheet changes, may aid our understanding. But first let us obtain broad guidance from climate changes in the 'recent' past: the Pliocene and Pleistocene, the past 5.3 million years.
Figure 1 shows global surface temperature for the past 5.3 million years as inferred from cores of ocean sediments taken all around the global ocean. The last 800,000 years are expanded in the lower half of the figure. Assumptions are required to estimate global surface temperature change from deep ocean changes, but we argue and present evidence that the ocean core record yields a better measure of global mean change than that provided by polar ice cores.
Civilization developed during the Holocene, the interglacial period of the past 10,000 years during which global temperature and sea level have been unusually stable. Figure 1 shows two prior interglacial periods that were warmer than the Holocene: the Eemian (about 130,000 years ago) and the Holsteinian (about 400,000 years ago). In both periods sea level reached heights at least 4-6 meters (13-20 feet) greater than today. In the early Pliocene global temperature was no more than 1-2°C warmer than today, yet sea level was 15-25 meters (50-80 feet) higher.
The paleoclimate record makes it clear that a target to keep human made global warming less than 2°C, as proposed in some international discussions, is not sufficient – it is a prescription for disaster. Assessment of the dangerous level of CO2, and the dangerous level of warming, is made difficult by the inertia of the climate system. The inertia, especially of the ocean and ice sheets, allows us to introduce powerful climate forcings such as atmospheric CO2 with only moderate initial response. But that inertia is not our friend – it means that we are building in changes for future generations that will be difficult, if not impossible, to avoid.
Fig. 2. Greenland (a) and Antarctic (b) ice mass changes deduced from gravity field measurements by Velicogna (2009) and best-fits with 5-year and 10-year mass loss doubling times.
One big uncertainty is how fast ice sheets can respond to warming. Our best assessment will probably be from precise measurements of changes in the mass of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which can be monitored via measurements of Earth's gravitational field by satellites.
Figure 2 shows that both Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are now losing mass at significant rates, as much as a few hundred cubic kilometers per year. We suggest that mass loss from disintegrating ice sheets probably can be approximated better by exponential mass loss than by linear mass loss. If either ice sheet were to lose mass at a rate with doubling time of 10 years or less, multi-meter sea level rise would occur this century.
The available record (Figure 2) is too brief to provide an indication of the shape of future ice mass loss, but the data will become extremely useful as the record lengthens. Continuation of these satellite measurements should have high priority.
=============================================================
References
Hansen, J., M. Sato, 2011: Paleoclimate implications for human-made climate change, Accepted for publication in "Climate Change at the Eve of the Second Decade of the Century: Inferences from Paleoclimate and Regional Aspects: Proceedings of Milutin Milankovitch 130th Anniversary Symposium" (A. Berger, F. Mesinger, and D. Šijači, Eds.)
Velicogna, I., 2009: Increasing rates of ice mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets revealed by GRACE, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L19503, doi:10.1029/2009GL040222.
Posted by James Hansen on Tuesday, 26 July, 2011
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===================================================================
Earth's Climate History: Implications for Tomorrow
This a re-post of an article by James E. Hansen and Makiko Sato
The past is the key to the future. Contrary to popular belief, climate models are not the principal basis for assessing human-made climate effects. Our most precise knowledge comes from Earth's paleoclimate, its ancient climate, and how it responded to past changes of climate forcings, including atmospheric composition. Our second essential source of information is provided by global observations today, especially satellite observations, which reveal how the climate system is responding to rapid human-made changes of atmospheric composition, especially atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). Models help us interpret past and present climate changes, and, in so far as they succeed in simulating past changes, they provide a tool to help evaluate the impacts of alternative policies that affect climate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Humans lived in a rather different world during the last ice age, which peaked 20,000 years ago. An ice sheet covered Canada and parts of the United States, including Seattle, Minneapolis and New York City. The ice sheet, more than a mile thick on average, would have towered over today's tallest buildings. Glacial-interglacial climate oscillations were driven by climate forcings much smaller than the human-made forcing due to increasing atmospheric CO2 -- but those weak natural forcings had a long time to operate, which allowed slow climate feedbacks such as melting or growing ice sheets to come into play.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paleoclimate data yield our best assessment of climate sensitivity, which is the eventual global temperature change in response to a specified climate forcing. A climate forcing is an imposed change of Earth's energy balance, as may be caused, for example, by a change of the sun's brightness or a human-made change of atmospheric CO2. For convenience scientists often consider a standard forcing, doubled atmospheric CO2, because that is a level of forcing that humans will impose this century if fossil fuel use continues unabated.
We show from paleoclimate data that the eventual global warming due to doubled CO2 will be about 3°C (5.4°F) when only so-called fast feedbacks have responded to the forcing. Fast feedbacks are changes of quantities such as atmospheric water vapor and clouds, which change as climate changes, thus amplifying or diminishing climate change. Fast feedbacks come into play as global temperature changes, so their full effect is delayed several centuries by the thermal inertia of the ocean, which slows full climate response. However, about half of the fast-feedback climate response is expected to occur within a few decades. Climate response time is one of the important 'details' that climate models help to elucidate.
Fig. 1. Global temperature relative to peak Holocene temperature, based on ocean cores.
We also show that slow feedbacks amplify the global response to a climate forcing. The principal slow feedback is the area of Earth covered by ice sheets. It is easy to see why this feedback amplifies the climate change, because reduction of ice sheet size due to warming exposes a darker surface, which absorbs more sunlight, thus causing more warming. However, it is difficult for us to say how long it will take ice sheets to respond to human-made climate forcing because there are no documented past changes of atmospheric CO2 nearly as rapid as the current human-made change.
Ice sheet response to climate change is a problem where satellite observations may help. Also ice sheets models, as they become more realistic and are tested against observed ice sheet changes, may aid our understanding. But first let us obtain broad guidance from climate changes in the 'recent' past: the Pliocene and Pleistocene, the past 5.3 million years.
Figure 1 shows global surface temperature for the past 5.3 million years as inferred from cores of ocean sediments taken all around the global ocean. The last 800,000 years are expanded in the lower half of the figure. Assumptions are required to estimate global surface temperature change from deep ocean changes, but we argue and present evidence that the ocean core record yields a better measure of global mean change than that provided by polar ice cores.
Civilization developed during the Holocene, the interglacial period of the past 10,000 years during which global temperature and sea level have been unusually stable. Figure 1 shows two prior interglacial periods that were warmer than the Holocene: the Eemian (about 130,000 years ago) and the Holsteinian (about 400,000 years ago). In both periods sea level reached heights at least 4-6 meters (13-20 feet) greater than today. In the early Pliocene global temperature was no more than 1-2°C warmer than today, yet sea level was 15-25 meters (50-80 feet) higher.
The paleoclimate record makes it clear that a target to keep human made global warming less than 2°C, as proposed in some international discussions, is not sufficient – it is a prescription for disaster. Assessment of the dangerous level of CO2, and the dangerous level of warming, is made difficult by the inertia of the climate system. The inertia, especially of the ocean and ice sheets, allows us to introduce powerful climate forcings such as atmospheric CO2 with only moderate initial response. But that inertia is not our friend – it means that we are building in changes for future generations that will be difficult, if not impossible, to avoid.
Fig. 2. Greenland (a) and Antarctic (b) ice mass changes deduced from gravity field measurements by Velicogna (2009) and best-fits with 5-year and 10-year mass loss doubling times.
One big uncertainty is how fast ice sheets can respond to warming. Our best assessment will probably be from precise measurements of changes in the mass of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which can be monitored via measurements of Earth's gravitational field by satellites.
Figure 2 shows that both Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are now losing mass at significant rates, as much as a few hundred cubic kilometers per year. We suggest that mass loss from disintegrating ice sheets probably can be approximated better by exponential mass loss than by linear mass loss. If either ice sheet were to lose mass at a rate with doubling time of 10 years or less, multi-meter sea level rise would occur this century.
The available record (Figure 2) is too brief to provide an indication of the shape of future ice mass loss, but the data will become extremely useful as the record lengthens. Continuation of these satellite measurements should have high priority.
=============================================================
References
Hansen, J., M. Sato, 2011: Paleoclimate implications for human-made climate change, Accepted for publication in "Climate Change at the Eve of the Second Decade of the Century: Inferences from Paleoclimate and Regional Aspects: Proceedings of Milutin Milankovitch 130th Anniversary Symposium" (A. Berger, F. Mesinger, and D. Šijači, Eds.)
Velicogna, I., 2009: Increasing rates of ice mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets revealed by GRACE, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L19503, doi:10.1029/2009GL040222.
Posted by James Hansen on Tuesday, 26 July, 2011
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