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A Disturbance in the Force
On the east coast there is a heat wave making the climate change debate more intense. When blizzards hit the east last March, the debate was hot also. Extreme weather events are being seized upon by both sides to support their global warming arguments within the debate that is all about climate change and also the energy bill in Congress. And just in time for the heat wave, a British panel exonerated the "Climategate" scientists, saying it found no evidence the group manipulated research to back up global warming. 2010 is turning out to be the hottest year in history.
Post resource: _http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2010/07/07/heat-wave-climate-change/
Wave of heat is going around the globe
The heat wave is mostly hitting the news because it is cooking places like New York and Washington where the national media hang out. But other parts of the world are also roasting. According to the Christian Science Monitor, the heat wave has gone global. Beijing hit a near-record 105 degrees Fahrenheit. On July 6 in Baghdad and Riyadh, it was 113 and 111 degrees. The world temperature high was set in Kuwait at 122 degrees. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), the combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the first five months of the year was the warmest on record, and 1.22 degrees warmer than the 20th century average.
Climate change leads to more heat waves and blizzards
Climate change skeptics mocked Al Gore during March blizzards. But will heat waves continue if carbon emissions aren’t reduced? According to TIME, the fact that no single weather event is caused by climate change is clear, but politicians and lobbyists will try to use them in the climate and energy bill debate anyway. Actually, weather and climate aren't the very same thing. Figuring out precisely how climate change affects the weather is tricky. But the March blizzards and the July heat wave conform to a scientific consensus that climate change will result in much more extreme weather.
Climategate scientists' research could possibly be legitimate
The above climate change argument is the position of the Climategate scientists, a group of researchers at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in England. It was reported by the New York Times that these individuals have played a leading role in efforts to understand the earth’s climate. Last year some e-mail messages sent by the scientists about global warming were stolen and posted to the Internet. Politicians, lobbyists and other global warming skeptics used these e-mails as proof the scientists were hiding data that conflicted with their positions on global warming. But a report by the panel investigating Climategate said no evidence was found of behavior that might undermine their conclusions.
Better safe than sorry – climate change
Even without the heat waves and blizzards, climate change is such a controversial issue because climate science is incredibly complex and hard to explain, and the people doing the explaining nevertheless don't understand climate as well as they would like. This opens windows of opportunity arguments on both sides of the issue. Meanwhile, Ezra Klein at the Washington Post points out that if we can't deal with a disaster like the oil spill within the Gulf of Mexico 2010, how are we going to reverse concentrations of carbon within the atmosphere?
Carbon tax - pay me now or pay me later
This leads us to the climate and energy bill and its cap and trade system or carbon tax. Republicans against government intervention are potentially setting up a future in which the government has to intervene on a planetary scale. Klein said he's a lot more comfortable with the government's ability to levy a carbon tax currently than its ability to repair the atmosphere later. That's why, he said, when faced with the choice between avoiding the economic risk of a carbon tax or simply just taking a step to preserve the future of the planet, we should choose the planet.
More details accessible at these sites:
Christian Science Monitor
csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2010/0707/Global-heat-wave-hits-US-reignites-climate-change-debate
TIME
ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2010/07/06/turning-up-the-heat-on-climate-change/?xid=rss-topstories
New York Times
nytimes.com/2010/07/08/science/earth/08climate.html?src=mv
Washington Post
voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/the_case_for_being_careful_wit.html
Post resource: _http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2010/07/07/heat-wave-climate-change/
Wave of heat is going around the globe
The heat wave is mostly hitting the news because it is cooking places like New York and Washington where the national media hang out. But other parts of the world are also roasting. According to the Christian Science Monitor, the heat wave has gone global. Beijing hit a near-record 105 degrees Fahrenheit. On July 6 in Baghdad and Riyadh, it was 113 and 111 degrees. The world temperature high was set in Kuwait at 122 degrees. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), the combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the first five months of the year was the warmest on record, and 1.22 degrees warmer than the 20th century average.
Climate change leads to more heat waves and blizzards
Climate change skeptics mocked Al Gore during March blizzards. But will heat waves continue if carbon emissions aren’t reduced? According to TIME, the fact that no single weather event is caused by climate change is clear, but politicians and lobbyists will try to use them in the climate and energy bill debate anyway. Actually, weather and climate aren't the very same thing. Figuring out precisely how climate change affects the weather is tricky. But the March blizzards and the July heat wave conform to a scientific consensus that climate change will result in much more extreme weather.
Climategate scientists' research could possibly be legitimate
The above climate change argument is the position of the Climategate scientists, a group of researchers at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in England. It was reported by the New York Times that these individuals have played a leading role in efforts to understand the earth’s climate. Last year some e-mail messages sent by the scientists about global warming were stolen and posted to the Internet. Politicians, lobbyists and other global warming skeptics used these e-mails as proof the scientists were hiding data that conflicted with their positions on global warming. But a report by the panel investigating Climategate said no evidence was found of behavior that might undermine their conclusions.
Better safe than sorry – climate change
Even without the heat waves and blizzards, climate change is such a controversial issue because climate science is incredibly complex and hard to explain, and the people doing the explaining nevertheless don't understand climate as well as they would like. This opens windows of opportunity arguments on both sides of the issue. Meanwhile, Ezra Klein at the Washington Post points out that if we can't deal with a disaster like the oil spill within the Gulf of Mexico 2010, how are we going to reverse concentrations of carbon within the atmosphere?
Carbon tax - pay me now or pay me later
This leads us to the climate and energy bill and its cap and trade system or carbon tax. Republicans against government intervention are potentially setting up a future in which the government has to intervene on a planetary scale. Klein said he's a lot more comfortable with the government's ability to levy a carbon tax currently than its ability to repair the atmosphere later. That's why, he said, when faced with the choice between avoiding the economic risk of a carbon tax or simply just taking a step to preserve the future of the planet, we should choose the planet.
More details accessible at these sites:
Christian Science Monitor
csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2010/0707/Global-heat-wave-hits-US-reignites-climate-change-debate
TIME
ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2010/07/06/turning-up-the-heat-on-climate-change/?xid=rss-topstories
New York Times
nytimes.com/2010/07/08/science/earth/08climate.html?src=mv
Washington Post
voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/the_case_for_being_careful_wit.html
