The Telegraph has a story that the Max Planck Institute has released a report on global warming, suggesting that solar cycles are responsible for global warming (with some interaction between increased solar energy and increased greenhouse effect).
Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.
A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes.
…
Dr Solanki said that the brighter Sun and higher levels of “greenhouse gases”, such as carbon dioxide, both contributed to the change in the Earth’s temperature but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.
Damn Bush and the Neo-Con for making the Sun hotter than it has for a 1000 years. Had Bush and Republican Senate ratified Kyoto Treaty, this wouldn’t have happened. 🙂
As a Canadian, all I can say to this is… BURN, BABY, BURN!!!
Just in time for recent advances in solar power technology, too.
Rather than being a definitive answer to our curiosity about Global Climate, this study is just another data point in our understanding. Furthermore, it shows just how imperfect our current understanding is about the global climate and its drivers.
Global temperatures are rising perhaps one to 3 degrees centigrade per century. Humanities production and release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is certain to have some effect; it is likely that that effect is to raise the overall global temperature. Its local climatic or weather effects are highly speculative. That’s a fairly neutral statement of the current wisdom.
The political argument begins when people posit that we should “do something” about this.
I will simple put this out there for discussion:
*Should we do _anything_ about changing climatic factors. Why?*
We live with destructive weather everyday — hurricanes, tornados, and floods. These factors are largely known but we simply handle them with insurance, rebuilding, and emergency responses. Why? Because that what most folks think is the most reasonable answer. They believe that it is worth having a home that may be destroyed once every 50 (100, 200?) years on average, rather than try to live an a location that is safer.
We could choose to react to global warming in the same way — live with it. So far as I can tell, the most dire prediction (not that we should trust the magnitudes of these predictions )is a gradual sea level rise. These sea level properties are already at risk of floods and storms, and those that choose to use them accept that risk. Now they have another reason to live “up beach”.
Letting everyone separately decide what is the right course of action about future events is precisely what our economic system is good at. Our system optimizes and balances current needs and desires across many diverse opinions and individuals.
Let’s let capitalism and individual freedom figure this one out.
–Fred
Fred,
You’re killing the moment here, man. Crank that baby up! Go, Sun go! Canada loooooves you…
(Now you know why we stealthily expanded the National Hockey League to places like Tampa and San Jose – it was all an advance feasibility test.)
I’m shocked that such a thing could be occuring. As I recall from 5th grade science stars eventually burn out and in the process they become hotter and eventually novas. I admit we have come a long way with science since my 5th grade indoctrination but why wasn’t this noticed before? I know we didn’t fund a government study to find this out.
USMC, stars are not uniform in their energy output, which rises and falls within a normal range. This makes sense – the fusion reaction cycle in a star is a complex process and not precisely even, so one should expect cycles here just like so many other natural phenomena.
Expansion to Red Giant status and/or nova behaviour comes from changes that would be waaay outside the scope of these observations, and involve the steady migration of fusion fuel sources to heavier elements. There are definitely ways to detect that, but the Planck study isn’t one of them.
Hey Joe,
Getting warmer, eh. I’m going to buy some beachfront property in Newfoundland.
–F
Put sun screen on when you go outside. Look for skin cancer to increase rapidly as the sun gets brighter. Still, we need to find an alternative to burning fossil fuels. One day the oil will run dry.
For what its worth, there was an article by Sallie Baliunas in the Aug 5, 1999 WSJ which showed there was a significantly stronger correlation between solar changes (measured as sunspot activity) and global temperatures than between greenhouse gases and temps, so its not a brand-new idea, just one that hasn’t gotten a lot of publicity.
“Still, we need to find an alternative to burning fossil fuels. One day the oil will run dry.”
The question is “when”:http://www.techcentralstation.com/052704F.html will it “run dry”?
Joe:
“As a Canadian, all I can say to this is… BURN, BABY, BURN!!!”
Well, as an Arizonan, all I can say is “Bite me, Canada, it’s too damn hot already!”
Maybe we can set up a hot/cold air exchange? Gimme good rates on arctic air, and I’ll cut you in on some really good Mexican food. I promise there won’t be any shenanigans like those softwood lumber deals.
Tom- how about stopping with sending the monsoons westward and we wont complain about you zonies overrunning our great beaches (when it doesnt rain) in San Diego?
😀
_Let’s let capitalism and individual freedom figure this one out._
Since the people bearing the brunt of the fallout from global warming are poor third worlders, this is a stupid idea. If it’s up to Wall Street to decide whether or not a few hundred thousand drowned Bangladeshis is worth a few billion in additional profit, there’s no doubt how “capitalism” will choose.
Free market worshiping voodoo BS that’s indifferent to the suffering and death of the poor and the weak is morally abhorrent. Markets have their place, but making decisions about the price of poor people’s lives is not one of them.
Unfortunately global warming has spawned more hysteria than science. The causes are complex, the dynamics still not clear. Anyone who is claiming that there is an obvious policy prescription for dealing with global warming is deluded. It is, however, absolutely clear that simply not giving a damn about the possible deaths of hundreds of thousands of people is not a moral option.
Condescending, Andrew Case, condescending. Since when is capital formation limited to Europe and the United States? Last time I checked there was quite a bit going on in India, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Andrew,
bq. Since the people bearing the brunt of the fallout from global warming are poor third worlders, this is a stupid idea.
So much wrong with this….
1) Cite? Exactly what effects are there from global warming? How are they deleterious?
2) Let’s presume, charitably, that you believe the wilder theories about the rise of the sea level due to global warming and from this you conclude that there may be “a few hundred thousand drowned Bangladeshis”. Let’s explode these false premises:
Do you seriously believe that a sea level rise will drown these folks? How?
I realize the land is low lying, and if there was a sea level rise some land might be inundated /very slowly/. I recommend moving, seriously. On the time scale of decades or centuries, moving seems like a reasonable proposition.
Folks in “Tuvalu”:http://www.terradaily.com/2004/040218023512.hxucbncd.html can move too, seriously. Things change, humans are smart and adaptable — do the right thing.
I’m sure you are smart enough to realize that all of global warming isn’t caused by CO2 put out only by mankind. Solar isolation changes over time, and natural volcanic production of green house gases may be bigger drivers of the current global warming (or other factors we are as yet unaware of). Therefore even if we all held our breath and otherwise did the other impossible, impractical and uneconomic things and ceased outputting CO2, global warming wouldn’t necessarily stop, or perhaps even slow down appreciably.
I reject your false premise that *anyone* would die if we as a society made this choice. Did you really mean to argue that? Really?
I’d go as far to argue that if we wasted effort by NOT using fossil fuels, and instead used other more expensive technologies, that we would be missing the opportunity to spend that money in the third world creating clean water supplies, reforming murderous regimes, and mitigating/curing dangerous diseases.
I reject the premise that the environment isn’t changing by itself. I also reject the premise humans shouldn’t have an impact on the environment.
My point is that it makes a whole lot more sense to adapt to changing climate by moving, adjusting our lifestyle, or making other needed changes, rather than changing by gov’t fiat the amount of CO2 that we emit.
Global warming proves capitalism is a failure.
Once capitalism has failed the planners will need to take over.
If CO2 is the culprit the planners will have to manage that. If it is the sun the planners will have to go into overdrive. And if we are really confronting global cooling then the planners will have to help. In fact if the climate stays the same that will need plans too. And really smart people who can at gun point force us to do the right thing.
The fact that there is weather has proved that capitalism, science, technology, and god have all failed. Which is where socialism comes in. Or went out. Depending.
Wow, that’s an amazing amount of stuff getting read into my comments.
From the top: Dave – “Wall Street” is a pretty well understood generic shorthand for the capital markets of the world. Subsistence farmers do not typically have much say about how these markets carry out cost/benefit analyses.
Fred; Your argument is a wonderful destruction of a strawman. I tried to head this sort of thing off with my comment about complex dynamics, but apparently to no avail. Increases in sea level due to global warming do not have to be large on average in order to be destructive. Even small rises bring large areas of low lying land under increased threat from flooding. The fact that the change in the average is slow is irrelevant – the danger is from extreme events on top of the slow change.
In addition, adding energy to a complex system increases the fluctuations in the system. In the case of the atmosphere, that means an increase in severe weather events. This would increase the danger of flooding even without the rise in sea level.
I’m not taking a stand on the causative agent(s) for global warming – I’m merely pointing out that assuming that somehow everything will be OK because the magic of the market will take care of things is reprehensible BS.
In other words – there is no guarantee that anyone will die. Nor is there a guarantee that nobody will die. Therefore, in making moral judgements about the issue, we have to assume that there is a possibility that people will die. It’s not hyperbole to point out that markets assign a vastly lower value to the lives of poor third worlders than to the lives of rich westerners. Therefore, leaving matters in the hands of the market implies permitting the market to choose the death of some number of poor people if that turns out to be part of the decision space.
finally: _My point is that it makes a whole lot more sense to adapt to changing climate by moving, adjusting our lifestyle, or making other needed changes, rather than changing by gov’t fiat the amount of CO2 that we emit._ This is arguable, but I think it’s a legitimate point. It’s not like the world hasn’t undergone massive climate change in the past. Government fiat is dangerous and often counterproductive. OTOH, if anthropogenic global warming is a reality, surely there is some obligation on the part of those who cause the problem to address the impact on those who are most severely affected. It might be as simple as an open immigration policy for people whose land comes under increased threat from flooding or desertification, or it might take some other form entirely. I don’t think its possible to come up with dynamics under which the market handles the problem in a way that prevents the harm from being concentrated on the poorest and weakest, and I think it’s fairly clear that the benefits tend to be concentrated among the wealthy and strong.
Andrew,
Your clarifications about people dying (or not) are noted.
I agree that people that living in low lying areas are at risk from floods/storms. They might even be at a higher risk now that previously, although I doubt it because I haven’t seen convincing data yet. I’m sure you get my point by this time — move if you don’t like the risk (no sympathy from me if the folks living there don’t know any better either).
Granted, “Wall Street” gives near-zero value to residents in a far away country. I just don’t think it matters. What matters is that those residents have a high value on their own life. They will be clever and resourceful and do the right thing from their point of view (Note I’m not even supposing what the right thing is).
Note that this attitude stems from the fact that I don’t believe that WS has a direct causal relationship to the perceived wrongs in this situation. I find the causal relationship exceedingly minuscule and thus far-fetched, although not entirely zero.
.bq _I don’t think its possible to come up with dynamics under which the market handles the problem in a way that prevents the harm from being concentrated on the poorest and weakest, and I think it’s fairly clear that the benefits tend to be concentrated among the wealthy and strong._
I don’t’ agree. Both the benefits (burning fossil fuels and biomass) and costs (possible climatic shifts) are globally distributed.
It is pretty hard to settle on the exact causes of GWarming and on the relative magnitudes of the drivers, as such it wouldn’t make much sense to prematurely assign blame to “Wall Street”, neglecting all the other human contributors (not to mention the natural forces). We have all contributed to the production of greenhouse gases; first world, second world, and third world.
I happen to think cooking food, heating my home, etc is worth it, as do most of the other 6 billion people on earth today, including the “weak and poor” in China and India who are very close to being the largest contributors of greenhouse gases.
Humans all over the globe, from the most basic societies to the most developed will continue to absorb damage from floods and storms as we have in the past.
The market won’t move the dispersed costs on to the CEO’s of the Oil companies, but it will allow everyone the choice of where to live, what to drive, and the cheap energy needed do everything else. Ultimately, the risk of increased energy costs are much more a burden *on everyone* than the possible weather effects.
PS. I enjoy your work on Tranterrestrial Musings