We Have Run out of Excuses

By Keith R. Schmitz

For those in this country who are worried that the Chinese are not going to do anything about climate change and therefore we will become uncompetitive if we do, looks like the Chinese will be in fact going after the problem.

And for those of you in the peanut gallery who though you only believe the likes of sociopaths like Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and John Bolton; and who will be skeptical, the proof is that the Chinese will be looking to make money off of their push.

That, for a country like ours that gives credence to nonsense such as creationism and intelligent design rather than legitimate science, plus in the virtue of exporting jobs overseas, that is the bad news.

Simple Answers to Simple Questions

by folkbum

James Tiberius Harris asks, "Is there any other country in the whole wide world that has bought into the junk science of global warming like American has?"

Answer: No country buys into junk science like America does.

Pascal's Wager and Climate Change -- Do We Feel Lucky?

By Keith Schmitz

One of my favorite professors when I was chasing an MA in History at the graduate school at UWM was David Hoeveler.

Though he is known as a conservative, he opened me up to a number of the great American philosophers.

One topic was tossed around during one of his excellent seminars was what is known as Pascal's wager.

Here is how it is defined in today's New York Times in a column about economics:

Blaise Pascal, a French mathematical genius in the 17th century who spelled out the laws of probability more clearly than anyone before him. This was a thunderclap of an insight that, for the first time, gave humanity a systematic way of thinking about the future.

Pascal was both a gambler and a religious zealot. One day he asked himself how he would handle a bet on whether “God is or God is not.” Reason could not answer. But, he said, we can choose between acting as though God is or acting as though God is not.

Suppose we bet that God is, and we lead a life of virtue and abstinence, and then the day of reckoning comes and we discover that there is no God. Well, life was still tolerable even if less fun than we might have liked. Here, the consequences of being wrong would be acceptable to most people.

Suppose, however, we bet that God is not, and lead a life of lust and sin, and then it turns out that God is. Now being wrong has put us into big trouble.

Let's apply this concept to what to do about climate change.

Supposed we bet that man-made climate change is a real threat. The economies of the world re-gear themselves to make needed corrections -- support for alternative energy policies, taxes on traditional energy consumption, promotion of alternative energy industries, etc. Some countries are already heading in that direction.

Suppose then that we are wrong about global climate change. In the process and in the case of our country we have weaned ourselves off of dealing with touchy third world countries that are our current sources for energy, we will be spending much less on a defense program that is designed to defend these sources of energy, we have created industries within our borders which led to the growth of a new economic sector that could lead to higher paying jobs for many Americans, revitilizing our economy.

On the other hand we can suppose that the crisis does not exist and we continue to behave accordingly, yet it turns out that assertion is wrong. Then our country, and our world, goes to hell.

Then again there is one big difference between Blaise's bet on the existence of God and our current energy situation. Many of us believe that there is this entity in charge of the universe, but no scientist can actually prove it. That is what we call faith and that is all we have to go on. Isn't life fun?

As for climate change, there are legions of scientists who are proving that it exists and something like 95% of them have lined up on that side. Oddly the critics like to label these perceptions based on research as a "cult" or a "religion." But here the big difference is that faith is not at work here, research dealing with physical realities is.

All the results, as has been said, are not in leaving some among the minority of climate experts to claim the man-made climate change has not been proven. But like the watchman in the crow's nest of the Titanic spotting the tip of the ice dead ahead, those in the majority of the scientific community have a pretty good idea of what lies beneath the surface.

So the question is, how do we want to bet on our future?

No Escape

By Keith Schmitz

Nothing is more frustration that the drip, drip, drip of becoming slowly marginalized. So it is with the climate change deniers.

The recognition that the world is slipping into a global climate change is reaching its fingers into all facets of the media.

I was doing an article search for a client, and ran across this article in, of all places, Sports Illustrated:

The next time a ball game gets rained out during the September stretch run, you can curse the momentary worthlessness of those tickets in your pocket. Or you can wonder why it got rained out -- and ask yourself why practice had to be called off last summer on a day when there wasn't a cloud in the sky; and why that Gulf Coast wharf where you used to reel in mackerel and flounder no longer exists; and why it's been more than one winter since you pulled those titanium skis out of the garage.

Global warming is not coming; it is here. Greenhouse gases -- most notably carbon dioxide produced by burning coal, oil and gas -- are trapping solar heat that once escaped from the Earth's atmosphere. As temperatures around the globe increase, oceans are warming, fields are drying up, snow is melting, more rain is falling, and sea levels are rising.

Never know where climate change is seeping into the media? What's going to be left for these guys to read? Didn't I spot something on the topic in Bon Appetite?

Weatherman Tells You Which Way the Wind Blows

By Keith Schmitz

Kudos to Channel 4's weatherman Craig Koplien for stepping up on his blog to weigh in on the climate change issue and makes the obvious choice (though others in the employ of Journal Broadcasting will vehemently disagree and as their habit deride this):

I am not a climatologist, oceanographer, glaciologist, solar physicist or expert in any other field related to climate change or global warming. Nor are most meteorologists you see on TV across the United States.

Broadcast meteorologists are, however, the closest most of the public gets to people whose life's work is the study of global warming.

Therefore, it is our responsibility to be up to date on the research and conclusions made by those who are experts. This is imperative so we can present factual and unbiased information to our viewers.

Moreover, it is our responsibility to present information regarding global warming in a fashion that is consistent with the majority of the evidence presented by the experts and adopted by our professional organization, the American Meteorological Society (AMS).

Some broadcast meteorologists don't feel the same way. Some have instead chosen to ignore the evidence and present views contrary to those who have far greater expertise in the field. At the very least, it seems that those who take a position contrary to the prevailing view of the scientific community owe it to their viewers to admit this.

Two heavyweights in broadcast meteorology have recently written about this. Certified Broadcast Meteorolgists Bob Ryan of NBC-4 in Washington D.C., and John Toohey-Morales, AMS Commissioner on Professional Affairs, co-authored a guest editorial that appeared in the August 2007 edition of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

I agree with their points of view and conclusions.

Here is a sample of their conclusions:

Alarmingly, many weathercasters and certified broadcast meteorologists dismiss, in most cases without any solid scientific arguments, the conclusions of the National Research Council (NRC), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and other peer-reviewed research (that would be you State Rep Jim Ott -- R-Mequon).

As outlined in the CBM and CCM programs, a responsible broadcast and/or consulting meteorologist should continue to stay as informed as possible and look to the AMS for leadership. The “AMS Statement on Climate Change” recently adopted by the AMS Council should be required reading for all of us who communicate with the public or seek guidance on climate change. While some of us may disagree with its exact wording, the weight of the scientific evidence behind the Statement is very solid.

As the above indicates, this is an issue that will not be fully settled. But then again science doesn't work that way.

But at some point both the rational ability to sort out facts and a modicum of survival instinct has to kick in.