Global Warming Poll

[Tim Smith]

Who is Brian Pielke? And what exactly does he say about the "greenhouse effect"? What percentage of the "greenhouse effect" is directly attributable to human activities?

The question about quantifying major wasn't related to whether the EFFECTS will be major. The original question was, did human activities play a major ROLE in global warming.

If you got the cash to build a beach house .5 meters above high tide, then you got the cash to pay an insurance company big bucks to insure it against loss (I'm thinking a hurricane or small storm) would get it before rise in sea level.

You can do the google searches on Pielke. He's a climatologist and his points are pretty well known. On the climate change spectrum he falls more conservative than most...but yes he does see a human role in global warming as do 95% of climate scientists (and the American Fisheries Society agrees with them).

As for the insurance issue, you're missing the point. For instance, Katrina virtually bankrupted the Louisiana insurance industry. As those kinds of problems become more and more frequent, our capacity to handle them erodes away. It's already hard to get home insurance in some places in the Caribbean. We're not far from the point it won't be possible to get insurance at all in places like that.

[gotmuddy]

Brian Pielke at the University of Colorado answers your question by estimating that greenhouse effect is responsible for about 25% of temperature variability on the planet. But really, that doesn't answer your real quesion at all. 25% of the control over global temperature variability is plenty enough to do us real harm.

If 25% of people have diabetes, why ignore it because 35% of people are going to die from cancer, especially when you've already got an infection in your foot? The chances the Yellowstone caldera will blow up enough to affect the climate in 100 years is small. The chances the planet will warm tremendously over that time frame because of greenhouse gases is very, very high.

Will the effects be major? One good way to quantify "major" is by the impacts on human societies. In a study based on predicted changes,in the Caribbean Basin, they expect to be spending 5% of their GDP cleaning up from climate effects by 2025. That number will be 21% by 2100. 45% of the resorts in the Caribbean will be underwater within 100 years. In the Albert Pike campground (where I often vacationed as a child) that 13 inch rain that killed all those people this summer took a pretty heavy toll too.

In Belize where I work, almost all of the coastal communities are already losing their beaches and there are already neighborhoods in standing water. Sea level rise is projected to be 0.5 to 1.2 meters over the next 100 years, yet people from the US are still building vacation homes less than 0.5 meter above the high tide mark.

The adaptive approach simply anticipates and side-steps emerging problems like that...

...but as long as people who think scientists are out to get them are driving the conversation, there are going to be a lot of nice vacation houses underwater in the years ahead.

I love the "scientific" approach used by this person. What a farce.

[Tim Smith]

I love your analogy, however it proves my point. If you drink 4 drinks and stop, or 6 drinks and stop, in 8 hours you will be back to normal, like you havent had a drink.

Not quite.

The half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere is over 100 years, not 8 hours. We're still tearing out the forests that take it out of the atmosphere and pouring in more from fossil fuels all the time. Based on the rate we're adding it to the atmosphere now (with no let up in sight) there's going to be a lot of GWI over the rest of our lifetimes.

[Tim Smith]

I love the "scientific" approach used by this person. What a farce.

I'd be glad to discuss your points. What you posted here isn't a point.

What you posted here is what you do when you know your points are in trouble.

[Tim Smith]

You can do the google searches on Pielke. He's a climatologist and his points are pretty well known. On the climate change spectrum he falls more conservative than most...but yes he does see a human role in global warming as do 95% of climate scientists (and the American Fisheries Society agrees with them).

As for the insurance issue, you're missing the point. For instance, Katrina virtually bankrupted the Louisiana insurance industry. As those kinds of problems become more and more frequent, our capacity to handle them erodes away. It's already hard to get home insurance in some places in the Caribbean. We're not far from the point it won't be possible to get insurance at all in places like that.

...and since you asked here's an interview with Mr. Pielke (it's Roger not Brian Pielke, apologies for that...I've read his work but not recently).

Roger Pielke brought to you by the Nazis at NPR.

I don't agree with him on all his points (i.e. he says you can't attribute a specific weather disaster to climate change, which is technically true but practically false since the total number of extreme weather events is directly linked to climate change) but he cuts through a lot of the political BS and still comes down on the side of taking action on climate, including CO2 emmisions.

Unless you resort to the people who are outright lying, he's about as credible a "skeptic" as you'll find on the topic...and he's saying we need to cut CO2 emissions.

[ness]

You can do the google searches on Pielke. He's a climatologist and his points are pretty well known. On the climate change spectrum he falls more conservative than most...but yes he does see a human role in global warming as do 95% of climate scientists (and the American Fisheries Society agrees with them).

As for the insurance issue, you're missing the point. For instance, Katrina virtually bankrupted the Louisiana insurance industry. As those kinds of problems become more and more frequent, our capacity to handle them erodes away. It's already hard to get home insurance in some places in the Caribbean. We're not far from the point it won't be possible to get insurance at all in places like that.

Welcome to the forum, Tim

You know, when I hear statistics like '95 percent of climate scientists', the skeptic in me says 'who did THAT poll, where'd they get the list of climate scientists from?' That smells a little like the hyperbole I mentioned earlier, but I don't really doubt there are a lot of scientists who think we have A role. We're just trying to get to how much.

I think Coldwaterfshr's point is that you don't wait until after the event to take out the insurance. So, why wait until we have an environmental catastrophe before we worry about it? Why wait until you've got cancer before you start shopping for life insurance?

(BTW: Insurance carriers are typically nationwide or global so their risk is diversified, and they further spread the risk around with reinsurance. There is not a substantial 'Louisiana insurance industry' to even bankrupt. And, it's nothing new to not be able to insure, or pay more, for a high risk. Call your homeowner's insurance agent and tell them you got a pit bull and a trampoline and see what happens ).

[ColdWaterFshr]

There is Roger Pielke, Jr. and then there is Roger Pielke, Sr. Junior is in the book-selling business and the one you have in your link. From what I can tell, he isn't really a hardcore meteorological or research scientist. His Dad may be, but certainly not him. Junior is more interested in the discussion of politics as it relates to climate change and teaching THAT subject at the school, chatting it up with NPR, etc.

And notice how "climate change" is the new buzzword now. Not global warming.

What were we talking about?

[Tim Smith]

Welcome to the forum, Tim

You know, when I hear statistics like '95 percent of climate scientists', the skeptic in me says 'who did THAT poll, where'd they get the list of climate scientists from?' That smells a little like the hyperbole I mentioned earlier, but I don't really doubt there are a lot of scientists who think we have A role. We're just trying to get to how much.

I think Coldwaterfshr's point is that you don't wait until after the event to take out the insurance. So, why wait until we have an environmental catastrophe before we worry about it? Why wait until you've got cancer before you start shopping for life insurance?

(BTW: Insurance carriers are typically nationwide or global so their risk is diversified, and they further spread the risk around with reinsurance. There is not a substantial 'Louisiana insurance industry' to even bankrupt. And, it's nothing new to not be able to insure, or pay more, for a high risk. Call your homeowner's insurance agent and tell them you got a pit bull and a trampoline and see what happens ).

Thanks, Ness. Good to be here.

I believe that was a Harris poll, which is generally considered to be as fair as it gets. You can google it and check if you like. Maybe I'll take a break in a minute and do it myself.

I believe that poll also had a break down of skeptics and assenters across scientific fields. Climate scientsts had the highest level of acceptance. Petroleum geologists had the lowest. The majority of every field agreed the climate was warming and except for the field associated with the fossil fuel industry, most also agreed there was an important human role.

EDIT: I double checked cold's point about insurance and I think I gave the appropriate response. Yes, risk is spread across insurance holders and the fact that most people AREN'T in trouble is what makes it work. I might have phrased the Katrina point differently but the point is the same. Katrina almost sank several insurance companies active in Louisiana (with a broad risk base as you point out), and it was just one storm. If the number of very large storms continues to increase there won't be any insurance available in those high risk areas because no one can make a profit with that frequency of storms. Either that, or buildings will have to evolve considerably (at much greater cost to the builders) to handle the stress.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Without man where would we be? Some talk as if we would still be in the ice age. Too many scientist are taking questionable data and using it to explain what they belive is an unusual change in climate, but how do they know when they comparing the equivalent of years of climate change to a second of change?

The climate is obviously changing, everyone knows that and you don't need a scientist to tell you, it's in the geology and the very short history of mankind's first hand experience.

The big question is do we put our money and labor into preparation for climate change, or diddle around thinking we control it? Someone show me that this big battle to change the progression of climate change isn't making more billionaires than progress?

[Tim Smith]

There is Roger Pielke, Jr. and then there is Roger Pielke, Sr. Junior is in the book-selling business and the one you have in your link. From what I can tell, he isn't really a hardcore meteorological or research scientist. His Dad may be, but certainly not him. Junior is more interested in the discussion of politics as it relates to climate change and teaching THAT subject at the school, chatting it up with NPR, etc.

And notice how "climate change" is the new buzzword now. Not global warming.

What were we talking about?

Not sure what all your points are here, Cold.

Both Pielkes have essentially the same position on climate change.

Pielke Jr. does talk about science policy and he has several academically-oriented books on the topic (not sure how publishing a book makes you less credible? Perhaps you could explain that.).

Also not sure what your point is about "buzz words". The climate is changing and it is getting warmer...in Mid-America, other things have been predicted such as more extreme precipitation events but a reduction in average precipitation...which has in fact occurred.

We're coming to the close of what will probably be the warmest year on record globally, and the end of the warmest decade on record.

If you want to defend the idea that the average temperature on the planet isn't increasing, we should probably skip straight to the part about how the entire scientific establishment (including the American Fisheries Society) is lying to you. We could then weigh the probability that government vegetarians are going to force you to stop fishing and hunting at the point of a gun (direct quote from AM radio heard earlier this month) and enslave the planet into worshipping Satan. All those ideas are pretty much on the same footing.