Out on a Limb
Last week I wrote an entry about the rare middle ground on global warming - how it doesn't really help to paint a picture so dismal and gloomy that it causes people to give up. As Mike Hulme of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research wrote in a BBC Editorial:
The language of fear and terror operates as an ever-weakening vehicle for effective communication or inducement for behavioural change.
I was reminded of these things today when I read a piece in The Canadian, which bills itself as "Canada's new socially progressive and cross-cultural national newspaper." The headline grabbed my attention - stating that "Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012." Pause for a minute. Think about that. The world's current population is a few ticks over 6.5 Billion, so this author is claiming that in a mere 5 years, almost three quarters of the world's population will have succumbed. Heck, if that's the case, I might as well go right down to the GM dealership and buy a Hummer. What difference will that make?
A quick read of the article finds it to have some significant holes. First of all, the author is citing a rapid climate warming due to the release of methane caused by the melting of permafrost. This, he says is a "weeks old" scientific theory - which is simply not true. I touched on it back in November, referencing a RealClimate.org entry from October, and methane hydrates were also addressed at RealClimate in December of 2005.
The author then goes on to state that methane in the atmosphere oxidizes into atmospheric carbon dioxide (true) which "lasts for hundreds of thousands of years." Oh really? I thought it stayed in the atmosphere 50-200 years.
If I gave an award for global warming hysteria, this would be the winner.
Comments (4)
I you can state Global Warming based on a few days ( or even weeks) of warmer than average weather, than I can say, shut your Global Warming face with a coulple (or weeks) of colder than average weather. I am now convinced that certain people have som much invested in the scare tactic of Global Warming that they are blinded by any sort of alternate reality other than what they believe. This Global Warming hysteria is now to the level of religous zelatry and for some, is now their religion of choice.
Posted by J B | January 10, 2007 11:40 AM
Thank you Laura for posting this hilarity....if the global warming propagandists want us to take them seriously, they have to at least publish material that isn't completely fictional!!
This is as bad as that cheesy hollywood movie that came out a year ago (I can't remember its name) or the latest silliness from Al Gore and his Inconveniant Truth....
Their is no doubt the world is experiencing odd weather.....overly cold in some places and overly hot in others....that is beyond dispute...
BUT...what in reality is causing all of this?? Leading Scientists are all over the map...some say it comes from the Sun, Bovine Farts, Human related causes or otherwise....we just don't know enough to be dogmatic about it.....
Btw...wasn't thier hysteria in the 70's about a new glacial ice age or something?? If memory serves, the chicken littles were proclaiming the world was cooling over into a new ice age???
I guess the old Who Song is relevant....'meet the new boss....same as the old boss' or something to that effect!
Thanks from CHILLY Alberta!!!
Posted by WesternCanuck | January 10, 2007 11:42 AM
JB: Environmentalism is a religion. I first cam across it 20 years ago in a new age bookstore in Colorado Springs where I was buying some hand made paper. There was a book on the gaia theory and it was basically a religeous text. You can trace the rise of pantheism with the increase in hysteria over global warming. Looks like a religios frenzy to me.
The article and the headline don't look any different thatn a lot of the crap brought out by the global warmers and other enviro-wackos. These people are happy to pull numbers out of their nether regions if they can get them in front of an audience. I'm sure the author is quite happy with the result because he knows many people will never follow up with any research of their own. From a business end though you have to wonder why a paper would print such unmitigated nonsense while facing dwindling subscription sales as are most news papers and magazines. Don't they understand that many people no longer find them believable or even relevant because of the trash they print?
Also, there is nothing odd about the current weather; we haven't broken many of the old temperature records here in New England yet. It was warmer in the 40's and 50's. All this stuff is cyclical anyway, it just has very long cycles, much of it longer than our short life spans.
Posted by woodNfish | January 10, 2007 1:52 PM
Hey Laura!
Yeah, I saw that story and I was amazed at the claims that were made. I guess you have to sell newspapers somehow (or ad clicks - on a website).
Anyway, one of the links you gave was for the Kyoto Forestry Association. On that site, the writer discussion the carbon sequestration capabilities of trees. The numbers given are pretty impressive. The writer even discussed the "Carbon Sink Forests" there in New Zealand and their effect. From the pictures, the trees appeared to be coniferous.
That said, what's your opinion on a study like this from Ohio State University:
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/pinetree.htm
According to the study, pine plantations actually increase CO2 emissions over a hardwood or naturally occurring pine stand. Instead of a plantation approach, wouldn't it be better to foster a "natural growth" forested area?
Posted by Greg Simmons | January 10, 2007 1:58 PM