those NASA alarmists again
September 29, 2006 12:04 PM   Subscribe

Earth's temperature is dangerously high, Nasa scientists warn notice the global warming stories that don't get much coverage anymore
posted by hard rain (66 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I'm just going to let someone else yell at you, I'm feeling mellow.
posted by Divine_Wino at 12:09 PM on September 29, 2006


I'm sure someone where knows more about the issue of glolbal warming than I do. However, even scientists don't all agree on whether it exists.

What could NASA possibly have to gain from their warnings? Other than millions of dollars in research money ofcourse..
posted by citizenkane at 12:10 PM on September 29, 2006


I'm sure someone where knows more about the issue of glolbal warming than I do. However, even scientists don't all agree on whether it exists.

.
posted by saulgoodman at 12:16 PM on September 29, 2006


Can somebody please set citizenkane straight? I don't have the strength anymore. I swear, it's like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole!
posted by saulgoodman at 12:21 PM on September 29, 2006


Scientists don't agree on whether it exists, or crazies don't agree?
posted by mrnutty at 12:21 PM on September 29, 2006


And how do they even know this "Globe" exists, let alone is warming up? I have not seen a SINGLE PAPER which proved this theoretical "globe". They just sit in their ivory tower, deciding what the truth should be for the rest of us, because they got a research grant assuming such a thing as a "globe" or a "climate" exists. They used to call global warming a "theory" but now it's like derived truth ofr something. Even if there is a global environment, how do they know it's getting warmer? Maybe their thermometers are just getting colder - better air conditioning in their fancy NASA-pants offices maybe? No, it couldn't be that simple, you don't need a pH to think of THAT.
posted by freebird at 12:21 PM on September 29, 2006 [3 favorites]


However, even scientists don't all agree on whether it exists.

Yes, we must have EVERY scientist to agree, otherwise, why bother eh?


What could NASA possibly have to gain from their warnings? Other than millions of dollars in research money ofcourse..
posted by citizenkane at 12:10 PM PST


And what could happen if the various processes that burn stored sunlight were not allowed by law? I'm sure that involves billions if not trillions in change.

Looks like the money and therefore the action sides against NASA. So you can sleep tight, if not sleep a bit warmer.
posted by rough ashlar at 12:22 PM on September 29, 2006


I thought NASA was so darn oppressed by the Bush administration that they couldn't put out a report?
posted by smackfu at 12:25 PM on September 29, 2006


Can somebody please set citizenkane straight? I don't have the strength anymore. I swear, it's like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole!

Just tell him brickhousesecurity.com sells global warming.
posted by Divine_Wino at 12:26 PM on September 29, 2006 [1 favorite]


Amazingly, we find ourselves culturally debating another climate reason to conserve fossil fuels (besides the common household freezing when the stuff is eventually rationed for mass consumption as a strategic resource).
posted by Brian B. at 12:26 PM on September 29, 2006



I just google newsed "global warming" and "nasa".

No major American news outlet has reported it... which means it's not being reported on any cable, local or network news outlet at the moment here in the U.S.
posted by wfc123 at 12:32 PM on September 29, 2006


ps -- and if it's not found on the AP wires, then chances are your local news will not be reporting it.
posted by wfc123 at 12:33 PM on September 29, 2006


These same people believe that wind powered turbines will 'slow the wind down'.

So If Global warming exists can I extrapolate a theory...Since driving fewer miles will use less gas and decrease demand= decreased prices than shouldn't it follow that warmer climates = less demand for heating oil and gas? /So why am I paying $2.47 per gallon for #2 fuel oil? Twenty years ago when the climate was a heck of a lot cooler I paid .87 per gallon. /
posted by Gungho at 12:33 PM on September 29, 2006


However, even scientists don't all agree on whether [global warming] exists.

I don't know...highest average temperature in a million years? Sounds like something's going on. It might behoove our species to take some precautions regardless of whether or not scientists agree on whether that something is a fluke or not.

After all, the worst consequences of a false positive on global warming would be a few billion wasted dollars and a more efficient energy infrastructure. The worst consequence of a false negative would be the extinction of the human race.

Anyway, I think I'll start investing in soon-to-be-world-class-wine-country British Columbia. Who wants in on the deal? You have a chance to get in on the ground floor—before it's submerged by ten feet of sea water.
posted by Iridic at 12:37 PM on September 29, 2006


Gungho: Your evidence for or against global warming is the price of fuel oil? Or are you being sarcastic? I can't tell.
posted by mrnutty at 12:39 PM on September 29, 2006


So If Global warming exists can I extrapolate a theory...

Sure.

Since driving fewer miles will use less gas and decrease demand= decreased prices than shouldn't it follow that warmer climates = less demand for heating oil and gas?

You seem to be ignoring less overall oil/gas now than 20 years ago. In addition you make a false claim of less driving.

So your theory is flawed because it ignores datapoints.
posted by rough ashlar at 12:44 PM on September 29, 2006


Oooh, I get to post this gem [xkcd] before the thread dies.
posted by onalark at 12:50 PM on September 29, 2006


Scientists who work at NASA, specifically Jim Hansen, have been silenced and censored by the White House for a while now (and "censored", literally-- every press release routed through a Bush appointee and edited for public consumption). This is why Hansen's recent excellent article on global warming in the New York Review of Books was prefaced with a statement about the First Amendment.

Gungho and citizenkane, give me a f*cking break. I know that the Republican disinformation campaign is spewing out talking points at a great rate, but do some goddam research before you start parroting them here. Or anywhere. There is a unified scientific consensus (that's "scientific", not "political") that global warming is occuring, and there is an equally strong consensus as to its cause.
posted by jokeefe at 12:52 PM on September 29, 2006


I'm sure someone where knows more about the issue of glolbal warming than I do. However, even scientists don't all agree on whether it exists.

::burps::

So why am I paying $2.47 per gallon for #2 fuel oil? Twenty years ago when the climate was a heck of a lot cooler I paid .87 per gallon. /

::burps alphabet::
posted by kosem at 12:52 PM on September 29, 2006 [1 favorite]


All glaciers are shrinking (except maybe Mt. St. Helen's). No glaciers left in Glacier Park. The Alaskan tundra is losing its permafrost, bushes are beginning to grow. The arctic ice pack is melting. The Greenland ice pack is melting. Polar Bears are dying, unable to hunt seals on the fracturing ice. Warmer-climate species are moving into the Arctic Circle, Inuits don't even have names for them. All of the hottest years on record, over the previous millenium, are in the last 20 years. Local fisherman everywhere are catching warm-water fish they'd never seen before. The 'sensitive' frog is in world-wide species 'chaos.' Ocean temperatures are up. The high Gulf of Mexico temperatures feed record hurricanes....
posted by toma at 1:00 PM on September 29, 2006 [2 favorites]


I know some seemingly well-educated folks who still cling to the old "it's colder this year so there's no such thing as global warming" chestnut. Really. Unfortunately, it does no good to try to tell them otherwise with the facts. Their eyes just glaze over.
posted by SteveInMaine at 1:08 PM on September 29, 2006


I thought Gungho was being sarcastic... Alongside his mention of turbines slowing wind down, it seemed like it.
posted by klangklangston at 1:11 PM on September 29, 2006


NY Times gave it a brief mention earlier this week. The paper also reported on the Commerce Department blocking an article in the journal Nature on the possible link between hurricanes and global warming.
posted by lunalaguna at 1:21 PM on September 29, 2006


kosem : ::burps::

Think about how much CO2 you are expelling every time you do that. You sir, are part of the problem.
posted by quin at 1:22 PM on September 29, 2006


I don't think there's any real question about whether global warming is happening, and that humans are the cause.

"The basic question of global warming is no longer a subject of dispute in the scientific literature," said Naomi Oreskes, a professor of the history of science at the University of California, San Diego, who reviewed 928 scientific papers about climate change published between 1993 and 2003 and found none challenging evidence of human contributions to global warming.

[link]

But here's someone (referred by NRO blog, natch) who tries to refute the latest NASA report.

Hey, at least the NRO is covering the story. That's more than I can say for all the other newspapers.
posted by mrgrimm at 1:22 PM on September 29, 2006


Alongside his mention of turbines slowing wind down, it seemed like it.
posted by klangklangston at 1:11 PM PST


No, I've seen people who present calculations to support such a POV. I've even seen claims of 'slowing down the spinning of the earth'.
posted by rough ashlar at 1:23 PM on September 29, 2006


better link for Naomi Oreskes
posted by mrgrimm at 1:24 PM on September 29, 2006


What could NASA possibly have to gain from their warnings? Other than millions of dollars in research money ofcourse..

Yeah! And teachers tell us we need an education when really they just want to get paid. Cops and legislators, too! We don't need laws.
posted by lunalaguna at 1:29 PM on September 29, 2006


Critics of Naomi Oreskes in a previous global warming thread here.
posted by Roger Dodger at 1:32 PM on September 29, 2006


This news makes me want a smoke.
posted by homunculus at 1:41 PM on September 29, 2006


Wake me up when any of these clowns can even predict the weather. A million years is a blink of the eye. NHC forecasted 25+ hurricanes back in May & thankfully were dead wrong. God damn the sky isn't falling & if it is there's nothing we can do about it.
posted by poodlemouthe at 1:43 PM on September 29, 2006


Iridic writes "You have a chance to get in on the ground floor—before it's submerged by ten feet of sea water."

BC is almost all above even the extreme end of the sea level rise, your investment is safe as long as you don't plan to raise grapes in Delta or Victoria.
posted by Mitheral at 1:43 PM on September 29, 2006


“Yes, we must have EVERY scientist to agree, otherwise, why bother eh?”

What?! We can’t get all the Lemurs to agree Nasa exists. We can’t even get the guardian to spell NASA right much less worry about ocean sediment changing the temperature in a million years. What’s the middle Pliocene have to do with gas prices? A plant or animal that can’t move 25 miles in a decade deserves to die. And speaking of animals, I thought Jim Hansen died with Kermit the ‘sensitive’ frog not lemurs in Madagascar. Just because I’m schitzophrenic doesn’t mean my opinion is invalid.
posted by Smedleyman at 1:48 PM on September 29, 2006


I just google newsed "global warming" and "nasa".

And you checked all 1000+ resulting stories to see if this one was among them from any US sources? Or you refined your search?

This was reported on CNN.com on Monday. IIRC, it was linked from CNN's front page.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:50 PM on September 29, 2006


The "slowing the wind down" thing is for real, though, isn't it? I remember hearing an interview with a environmental scientist who had done projects and - under some parameter regimes - running enough wind turbines to seriously impract global fuel use *would* in fact have severe impacts on global wind patterns and climate. That was only one model, but the idea is scientifically valid.

Fundamentally, you *are* taking energy out of the wind, otherwise it wouldn't work, right?
posted by freebird at 2:00 PM on September 29, 2006




Wake me up when any of these clowns can even predict the weather. A million years is a blink of the eye. NHC forecasted 25+ hurricanes back in May & thankfully were dead wrong. God damn the sky isn't falling & if it is there's nothing we can do about it.
posted by poodlemouthe at 1:43 PM PST


Yes, keep doing what you are doing. Don't worry. Its all a scam, and you are right.
posted by rough ashlar at 2:05 PM on September 29, 2006


[...] who had done projections [...]
posted by freebird at 2:06 PM on September 29, 2006


Wake me up when any of these clowns can even predict the weather.

If you are not awake by now your not listening.
posted by stbalbach at 2:09 PM on September 29, 2006


The "slowing the wind down" thing is for real, though, isn't it?

Up to the 59% theoritical max extraction, yes.

Fundamentally, you *are* taking energy out of the wind, otherwise it wouldn't work, right?
posted by freebird at 2:00 PM PST


Global warming, peak oil, slow windless earth....all kinds of horrors, eh?

I'd like to see it become an actual potental problem VS the problems we are now known to have.
posted by rough ashlar at 2:11 PM on September 29, 2006


Forget the doubters, they are left behind and slow. Anyone who hasn't bothered to educate themselves on this topic by now probably never will - the problem is them, not the science.

The real action right now is in the private sector among investment bankers and VC. There is tons of money to be made. Branson is the most public face of this sea-change - there was a big conference in NYC last week with some of the worlds richest people all looking at "clean technologies" - massive opportunities ahead, it's like the dawn of the computer age all over again lots of excitement.
posted by stbalbach at 2:18 PM on September 29, 2006




Wake me up when any of these clowns can even predict the weather.

Ah - so if you can't predict the weather, you can't predict climate change? That makes sense. Like how since I don't know what the temperature will be tomorrow, there are no seasons? Or how since you can't predict the motion of individual molecules, chemistry doesn't actually have any use at all?
posted by freebird at 2:19 PM on September 29, 2006


However, even scientists don't all agree on whether it exists.

Stop getting your news from the Drudge Report and take a gander at any respectable science journal site. Maybe the scientists in your world don't agree on global warming, but the scientists in mine are in near universal agreement and have been for about a decade. I think it's safe to say at this point that any scientists who dispute the reality of global warming are on the Exxon payroll, or write hack scifi supermarket potboilers.

Recommended reading: The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery, which gives an excellent overview of the emergence of scientific consensus regarding global warming.
posted by slatternus at 2:21 PM on September 29, 2006


Metafilter: Stop getting your news from the Drudge Report
posted by Smedleyman at 2:30 PM on September 29, 2006


Why isnt anyone reporting this?

Because if the president can lock you up and have you tortured at will, you don't want to piss him off.
posted by fungible at 2:41 PM on September 29, 2006


Good point odinsdream, it's not a closed system, and solar/wind takes advantage of that fact a bit more directly than fossil fuels. I think it's pretty unlikely that we'd ever "stop" the wind, and for the record am a big fan of windpower.

I'm also a believer in TANSTAAFL though, and I do think it's interesting to consider unintended consequences of what seem like free sources of energy. I do think it's possible we could significantly alter wind patterns and climate structures - as pointed out above, this is probably a much preferable problem to the ones we face now - but it would be foolish to ignore it entirely.

If nothing else, I find it really interesting scientifically.
posted by freebird at 2:44 PM on September 29, 2006


Why isnt anyone reporting this?

Oh for heaven's sake, it's being reported everywhere from Scientific American to CNN. The problem is, no one gives a fuck.
posted by slatternus at 2:45 PM on September 29, 2006


I like how vague aspersions and thin or non-existent proof is acceptable when accusing someone of being a terrorist, but when it's suggesting that global warming is a reality, suddenly we must have iron-clad 100% agreement among all scientists. I guess the President Knows Better, eh?

...

I think global warming isn't getting much attention because of the other seventeen ways the world is going to hell in a more immediate fashion.
posted by jiawen at 2:51 PM on September 29, 2006


notice the global warming stories that don't get much coverage anymore

No major American news outlet has reported it

Hey, at least the NRO is covering the story. That's more than I can say for all the other newspapers.

Why isnt anyone reporting this?


CBS News
CNN.com
Fox News
New York Times
USA Today
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 3:05 PM on September 29, 2006


Global warming is a complex issue. Most Americans feel they are causing it if it exists, so they avoid the topic. On the other hand, most global warming doubters also deny evolution and believe that the earth is a few thousand years old. Global warming demands that they seriously entertain data that is millions of years old, forcing a complex denial of something that shatters their beliefs. Industrially, however, claiming to be unconvinced is the oldest trick in the book to turn the tables against those who don't have the burden of proof in the first place.
posted by Brian B. at 3:12 PM on September 29, 2006


One small point, with regard to scientific consensus.

Think of all of the scientists you've ever heard of.

Einstein. Newton. Neils Bohr. Watson and Crick. etc. etc.

What do they all have in common? Their hypothesizes, though contrary to conventional wisdom and scientific consensus at the time, proved to be, through observation and experimentation to be more accurate descriptions of reality.

They were the lone, correct voice crying out in the wilderness. Now, tell me if you think I'm lying, but, do you honestly think that any scientist in their right mind would choose to go along with the consensus if they had compelling, reproducible and evidence to the contrary?

Does anyone honestly think that scientists everywhere secretly want to go along with the crowd? Moreover, that there is a significant incentive to simply agree with the crowd?

No, I tell you this, any scientist who produces solid, scientific, reproducible evidence contrary to the conventional theories, any conventional theory, that scientist would be an instant scientific celebrity, and would never want for grant funding, much like those names I listed above.

Are conservatives that ignorant of the mechanisms of basic human ambition?
posted by Freen at 4:05 PM on September 29, 2006


I think it's safe to say at this point that any scientists who dispute the reality of global warming are on the Exxon payroll, or write hack scifi supermarket potboilers.

i don't think there are any scientists who dispute that mean global temperatures have increased since we started recording them. the discussion is about whether the trend is due to industrial activities, or simply a natural fluctuation in the climate, which is a system that has incredibly complex dynamics over many time scales.

so, here's some data:



this goes back about a thousand years. those yellow lines are the actual data, taken from a combination of tree ring measurements, and in more recent times direct temperature measurements.

the black lines are time averages applied to smooth that data. what should be apparent, however, is that the width of the yellow band basically represents the error bars on this measurement.

as you can see, the post-industrial upward trend is more or less at the edge of the range, which says to my scientific sensibilities, this is an experimentally insignificant deviation. is the smoothed average going up? definitely. however similar fluctuations over the last 1000 years could be hidden within those error bars.

more data:



this goes back a lot further, over the last ice age. this comes from various sources too, including counts of the number of animals around and polar ice cores. notice the wild "spiky" behavior - swings of up to 10 degrees C over the span of what looks like 500-1000 years or so.

could it be that the recent data is just another one of these rapid fluctuations? i don't know. nobody knows because climate models aren't sophisticated enough to predict this behavior.

the problem here is that scientists are people, and typically have a profound appreciation of nature and want to see it protected. from an ideal-science standpoint it's bad form to cherry-pick data and state conclusions that are only partially justified, but truth be told this happens all the time, and not only in hot-button policy science.

so i think it's wrong to say that the only scientists who dispute these claims are crooked scientists. i think if we were able to divorce our sympathies from our reasoning and subject this question to a truly objective analysis, there would be a lot more debate within the community.

personally i am undecided as to whether the warming trend is human-caused or not, but i do think it's a good time to err on the safe side.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 4:09 PM on September 29, 2006


sergeant sandwich: indeed, does it matter? Aren't we humans supposed to be the masters of our environment? The only sentient sacks of protoplasm on this spinning rock?

Surely, we, as a species are up to this challenge.

Mother Earth, is not the kind nurturing provider we were all taught she was. Red in tooth and claw, and she'll be mighty fine long after we've managed to make her inhospitable.
posted by Freen at 4:17 PM on September 29, 2006


And yet, among the simplest, free market solutions to this problem is to cap carbon dioxide emmisions and allow carbon credits to bought and sold in carbon markets. Thankfully, California, the world's 12th largest CO2 polluter, is getting on board. The potential for this is enormous. Not only will companies be motivated to reduce green house emmisions rather than buy carbon credits, but the greenest companies will actually make money by being able to sell their emmisions credits. This will in turn be a boon to the alternative energy industry. All that's required is the political will to enact legislation that caps greenhouse emmisions, but instead, we have to worry about politicians voting to kill habeas corpus because otherwise, their opponents might run a 30 second attack add claiming that they support terrorists, and whether or not 9/11 was all Clinton's fault.

On preview: What isn't displayed on that graph is the average level of atmospheric carbon. Current CO2 levels are over 3 standard errors away from the average levels of atmospheric CO2 over the last 600,000 years, which is a highly significant result. So, given that rises in global CO2 precede global rises is temperature, the fact that global temperature is at the edge of statistical significance should not be reassuring, but rather should be very, very alarming.
posted by Nquire at 4:22 PM on September 29, 2006


The width of the yellow band is not the "error bar". Error is typically reported as the standard deviation, which would be less than the full width of the yellow band. In any case, the 1998 data is clearly higher than any other point in that data set, and it sits at the end of an upward trend. Additionally, the older data has a great deal of error in it, precisely because those tree ring samples don't provide enough information to accurately measure global average temperature. As time progresses, the information we have available increases and the error clearly decreases. The modern trend is unquestionably up when compared to data from 1600 onward.

Furthermore, those tree ring data sets are not the only source of global climate information (including temperature) that we have today. Also, we have a mechanism -human emission of CO2- that was predicted to cause global temperature increase, and we have subsequently observed that increase. Of course it is possible for any individual scientist to honestly believe that humans aren't responsible for this (although I'd argue that extreme stubborness is necesary). All the same, the consensus view is currently that humans are responsible. It doesn't matter if you can find some scientist, somewhere, who (honestly) thinks that it's just random fluctuations.
posted by Humanzee at 4:36 PM on September 29, 2006


> Aren't we humans supposed to be the masters of our environment?

That theory is what got us into present straits. Next time you feel like inventing fire or the wheel or something to make your life more comfortable or your job easier, just lie down with a cold compress until the fit passes.


> Oh for heaven's sake, it's being reported everywhere from Scientific American to CNN.
> The problem is, no one gives a fuck.

As one widely acknowledged expert says,

"The planet itself will do nicely, thank you very much, what is at risk is human civilization"
-- Al Gore

I give that a big ho hum. I wouldn't so much as push a button on the remote just to save human civilization. Let the rats and roaches have their turn to run things, they're bound to do better than the monkeys did.
posted by jfuller at 5:02 PM on September 29, 2006


I'm sorry. Which scientists are in disagreement? Please by all means lets be specific here. Because by my last count there was one legit active scientist in this category against a few thousand who agree that global warming is here, is real and is cause by man.
posted by aaronscool at 5:17 PM on September 29, 2006


Study: People Who've Spent Generations Shitting Where They Sleep Divided on Question of Where that Smell is Coming From
posted by George_Spiggott at 6:55 PM on September 29, 2006


I give that a big ho hum. I wouldn't so much as push a button on the remote just to save human civilization. Let the rats and roaches have their turn to run things, they're bound to do better than the monkeys did.
posted by jfuller at 5:02 PM PST on September 29 [+] [!]



Oh please. Enough with the pomo disaffected hipster too cool for humanity schtick. It's the kind of crap that comes out of a precocious and moody sixteen year old kid's mouth.
posted by stenseng at 2:59 AM on September 30, 2006


MetaFilter: It's the kind of crap that comes out of a precocious and moody sixteen year old kid's mouth.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:12 AM on September 30, 2006


Although I will say, roaches are doing just fine as they are without "running things".
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:18 AM on September 30, 2006


"...And its 1,2,3 what are we fighting for?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn,
The next stop is a fryin' pan,
And its 5,6,7 open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
WHOOPEE we're all gonna die..."

*with apologies to Country Joe and the Fish*

In the 1920's, people used to drive Model T's on the frozen Cumberland River in Nashville, Tennessee, (and take pictures of same, which I've seen, but don't have handy) but my children and grandchildren have never seen the river even freeze over, much less to a thickness great enough to support cars. That's a direct measure of average winter temperature that can be verified at more and more rivers and lakes in North America, from local memories and newspaper archives, fairly easily.

Whatever the cause, winters aren't as cold as they used to be, and it's a phenonmenon noticeable in one human life span.
posted by paulsc at 6:41 AM on September 30, 2006


That pitcher wif the yeller on it must be that there Hockey Stick graph that guy on the radio the other day said was no good, and he oughta know, so them scientists is all fulla shit.

Wack.
posted by flabdablet at 7:29 AM on September 30, 2006


It's the kind of crap that comes out of a precocious and moody sixteen year old kid's mouth.

As opposed to the kind of crap that a precocious and moody sixteen year old Metafilter commenter writes, eh Stenseng?
posted by slatternus at 1:18 PM on September 30, 2006


Look - the whole "Mankind is fucked, we had our shot, and fucked it up, and so I don't care what happens, we deserve it" schtick is a cop out, and not something anyone really believes, unless they're some sort of sociopath.

No matter how bad things get, or how bad we fuck up, we're human beings, our entire psychological wellbeing is predicated on continued interaction with other human beings.

Nobody in their right mind is really rooting for mankind to go the way of the dodo, just cause we've fucked up in various areas.

To claim otherwise is a cute pose, but intellectually and emotionally dishonest.
posted by stenseng at 2:17 PM on September 30, 2006


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