White House report says people cause global warming

[Prozac the Robert]

White House report says people cause global warming


13:10 27 August 04

NewScientist.com news service

People are responsible for the spike in global warming in the last 30 years, says a new US government report. The verdict, long accepted by most scientists, has encountered resistance from the Bush administration in the past, prompting experts to question if the president will now enact policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The report, titled Our Changing Planet, is part of a regular series that summarises recent and planned climate change research by 13 government agencies. It was released on Wednesday with a covering letter to Congress signed by the president's secretaries of commerce and energy, along with his science adviser.

The document reports that global warming in the first half of the 20th century, estimated at 0.2°C above pre-industrial temperatures, "was likely due to natural climate variation", including increased solar activity.

But the approximate 0.5°C rise over the second half of the century, most pronounced in the last 30 years, can only be explained when factors related to human activity, such as carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, are taken into account.


Simulating change


"There's nothing else we can blame it on, really," says Kevin Trenberth, head of the climate analysis section at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, where computer simulations produced the result. "If we don't put the changes in carbon dioxide into our models, we don't get global warming out."

Thomas Graedel, an industrial ecologist at Yale University, has reviewed the US government's climate change research strategy and says the report's acknowledgment of a human influence on global warming is encouraging.

"Well over 98% of scientists competent in this area would agree with that," he told New Scientist.

But when a 2002 US government report to the United Nations drew the same conclusion, President Bush "pulled back" from the document, says biologist Anthony Janetos. He is director of the global change program at The Heinz Center, a non-profit environmental policy think-tank, which has some ties to Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of presidential candidate John Kerry.


The effect of humans on global warming in recent decades, according to a US government report (Image: Meehl et al, J. Climate, and Folland et al, Geophys. Res. Lett.)

"The big question is what effect this will have on climate policy," Janetos told New Scientist. "The administration has been pretty consistent in saying they believe in voluntary actions [to cut greenhouse gas emissions]. I haven't seen any indication they've changed their mind, but if they had, that would be big news indeed."

Trenberth agrees, saying Bush's policy thus far has been to "take whatever nature throws at us, whether it's Hurricane Charley or droughts or the melting of permafrost" – events that global warming can intensify.

"Bush has said that if we do something about emissions, it will hurt the economy," Trenberth continues, and suggests developing renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. Others experts have lobbied the government to regulate carbon dioxide through the Clean Air Act.

Administration officials could not be reached for comment, but James Mahoney, assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, said in a statement released with the report: "This research will help decision makers and managers in the US and other countries evaluate and respond to climate change."


Maggie McKee

Link.

[Shinova]

And they've known this since like a decade ago???....



Oh, and scratch renewable sources, instead someone PLEEEEEAAASSEE start a big effort to educate the public about the goodness of nuclear!!

[Thinkmarble]

*waiting for the people to barge in and claim that there is not scientific consense*

[Perinquus]

The problem is, even if the government does an about face, and decides to accept the report fully, we cannot possibly get enough energy from wind and solar power. The only non-polluting option we have that can meet most of our energy needs is nuclear power. And the problem with that is you have too many people out there, including some eco-nazi fanatics, who are even more opposed to nuclear power than they are to fossil fuel plants. Its why we haven't built any new nuclear plants in, what? Twenty years? You ever try to argue with some of these people? They inevitably start out with the refrain that "we're polluting our planet with nuclear wastes that will be spewing radiation for, like, 10,000 years! And what if we get another Chernoby!?! Or even Three Mile Island!?"

Then you can describe, very patiently, how storage of nuclear wastes is not just not much of a problem, the amounts are small, there are all kinds of ways to store it, and any number of places where it will not harm anyone. You can tell them how a Chernobyl-like accident is virtually impossible with modern, western reactors, because of the multiple failsafes designed to shut down the reaction automatically if anything goes wrong, preventing a meltdown. And you can point out that fossil fuel plants are doing a lot more damage to the environment than a few drums of concrete encased nuclear waste stacked in an abandoned mine out in the desert somewhere ever could.

And then they'll say: "But we'll be polluting our planet with waste that will be spewing radiation for TEN THOUSAND YEARS!!!"

And unfortunately, people like this are not rare in oganizations like the Sierra Club, and other groups that are effective political lobbyists.

[Darth Wong]

I imagine the Bush Administration response to this will be to either ignore it or staff a federal-level advisory committee with hand-picked lackeys who will eventually generate a report saying that these claims are bullshit.

[El Moose Monstero]

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has only been saying those exact figures for what? The last 6 years at least? I'm sure the first report was 1998, I might be wrong - it's been a while since I've read it...

[Dennis Toy]

The problem is, even if the government does an about face, and decides to accept the report fully, we cannot possibly get enough energy from wind and solar power. The only non-polluting option we have that can meet most of our energy needs is nuclear power. And the problem with that is you have too many people out there, including some eco-nazi fanatics, who are even more opposed to nuclear power than they are to fossil fuel plants. Its why we haven't built any new nuclear plants in, what? Twenty years? You ever try to argue with some of these people? They inevitably start out with the refrain that "we're polluting our planet with nuclear wastes that will be spewing radiation for, like, 10,000 years! And what if we get another Chernoby!?! Or even Three Mile Island!?"

Then you can describe, very patiently, how storage of nuclear wastes is not just not much of a problem, the amounts are small, there are all kinds of ways to store it, and any number of places where it will not harm anyone. You can tell them how a Chernobyl-like accident is virtually impossible with modern, western reactors, because of the multiple failsafes designed to shut down the reaction automatically if anything goes wrong, preventing a meltdown. And you can point out that fossil fuel plants are doing a lot more damage to the environment than a few drums of concrete encased nuclear waste stacked in an abandoned mine out in the desert somewhere ever could.

And am i correct that a nuclear explosion wont occur because there isnt enough material to creat critical mass?

[Crayz9000]

And am i correct that a nuclear explosion wont occur because there isnt enough material to creat critical mass?

Precisely. That's why uranium fuel pellets are just that, pellets. If the uranium was in a sphere of sufficient mass, then yes, you could get an uncontrollable chain reaction.

[Faqa]

Our civilization causes global warming?!

Fuck, not since the "junk food is bad for you" message of "SuperSize Me" have I witnessed such a brilliant discovery.

This seems to be more of a wake-up call. Odds on everyone ignoring it?

I me-too the "nuclear power" thought...

[18-Till-I-Die]

Nuclear power, and everyone who harps it so much needs to understand, has a SERIOUS and IRREDEEMABLE stigma. To much, too little, too late. After the atomic bomb, three mile island, and chernobyl (i probably mispelled that) no one and i mean no one will touch nuclear power in the US. No one in the general public, the people whose oppinion in the end matter most in these situations, will care if it's clearner now or not, it'll just be touched by that same stigma, which can never be removed.

What we need to do is put everything we have into perfecting fusion as quickly as possible while slowly trying to convert to renewables in the meantime, then never EVER let the word 'nuclar' come within a billion light-years of 'fusion', educate people as just how safe and efficient it is (in fact make a huge announcement about it, saying it's like 'science-fiction Star Trek-tech come to life' or some shit to grab people's attention) and then let it sink in that fusion and nuclear power are in now way related (and if anyone says otherwise, smack it down ASAP, weather it's true or not).

It'll take a while, five or six years maybe more, but people will begin to think of fusion as some kind of miracle sci-fi technology and associate it with pleasent things and salvation, and then we can use it without the problems of nuclear power PR-wise. It may be a bit dishonest in some respects, but with literally the fate of mankind in the deal here who really cares if it is? (in fact, you can use that, 'the last hope for mankind', as a tagline for the big debut of fusion)

Now is this unrealistic? Yeah, a bit. But let me tell you, it's more realistic than the pie in the sky pipe dream people will suddenly fall in love with nuclear power just cause a few people say it's ok. They will, from my experience, except something 'new' and 'high-tech' much, much more readily, however.

[Crayz9000]

If you ask me, it would be easier to launch a full-scale public awareness program about fission power than it would be to iron the bugs out of fusion power. I mean, hell, we've achieved breakeven with fusion, but we can't sustain it! Until that hurdle is crossed, practical fusion might as well be a pipe dream.

Fission is currently the only practical form of nuclear power. Yes, it has a stigma, and yes, there are always going to be people so stupid they'll always be against it -- but most people don't really know anything about it besides the propaganda that the greens are spewing. Educate them, and you can exert considerable pressure on the greens to STFU.