Climatic Moment

Roy Spencer, a real scientist with some climate science chops, is a global warming skeptic. Oops, let me try that again: An anthropogenic global warming skeptic. I had to put in the qualifier because Roy, like Prof M (to whom I owe the link to Roy's article) is exercised by those who are ignorant enough or otherwise sufficiently imprecise as to ignore the vast spectrum of naturally occurring climate change. It's a legitimate point, unless it's used to try to obfuscate the increasing evidence for human induced climate change.

So what's bothering Dr. Spencer? It seems that he was one of the few scientists at the UN's 11th Conference of Parties meeting in Montreal, and he found that most of the delegates weren't interested in how certain or uncertain climate predictions were.

All these people know - or need to know - is that the "glaciers are melting," it's getting "hotter every year", and "climate change is killing people now" (all of these are direct quotes from presenters).

For example, I learned at a Pew Center briefing that anyone (like me) who is skeptical of climate change is a "Flat-Earther." While I thought that had a nice ring to it, it was pointed out to me the term wasn't intended as a compliment.

I also learned that the term "climate change" no longer needs the qualifier of "human-caused," because it has apparently been decided that all purported climate change is caused by the activity of mankind. (Attention: henceforth, all unusual weather events will be due to our burning of fossil fuels.) Natural climate variability has been relegated to the status of quaint myth. Mother Nature wouldn't cause a Category 4 hurricane to hit Louisiana unless mankind forced her hand.

He has a certain amount of my sympathy there. Zealotry and rationality assort badly, as we found out (once again!) in GW's excellent Iraq adventure.

Spencer isn't interested in discussion of uncertainties here, though. What he wants to do is to make amusingly sarcastic remarks about the participants and to push the idea that any attempt to deal with with human caused climate change will have bad economic consequences. He *is* quite amusing, but you will have to read the article to see the funny parts.

The people at COP-11 are well-fed, well-dressed, have been transported half way around the world by fossil-fueled aircraft, and are totally dependent upon myriad goods and services that require access to affordable energy. But that hasn't seemed to cross their minds. If it has, they are under the illusion that the world can live on a whole lot less energy than it is right now. I look around and wonder how all of these people would contribute to life on Earth if they were not so busy trying to save it.

Once again he doesn't present any facts or arguments to back up this idea. I guess I would be a bit disappointed if I were to find out that his trip, or his research, were paid for by someone like Exxon Mobil*.

As it happens, I think that there is quite a lot of evidence for anthropogenic global warming, but it still doesn't even make my list of the three most pressing environmental problems. Here are some that do: 1)overpopulation, 2)habitat destruction, 3)pollution. All the rest, plus global warming, could be managed easily if 1) could be dealt with.

*UPDATE: Oops. Sorry Roy. Exxon's wallet is showing. I can't believe Roy's a sell-out though. I know I'd never sell-out for that kind of bucks. Merely a coincidental confluence of interests, I'm sure. The Exxon crack was just a stab in the dark for me. Funny what you can hit when you aren't aiming.