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Why Does the U.S. Get All the Tornadoes?
Posted By Annie Lowrey
Wednesday, December 9, 2009 - 12:31 PM
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Our parent publication, the Washington Post, today published an opinion piece from Sarah Palin -- former governor of Alaska, former running mate of Sen. John McCain, and foreign-policy interest of mine -- on the subject of the international climate change treaty being worked out in Copenhagen.
I wouldn't recommend reading it, but for those whose curiosity is piqued, here is a boil-down of the boilerplate: the ClimateGate emails show there's no consensus on anthropogenic global warming; changes in Alaska's climate are due to "natural, cyclical environmental trends"; the costs of cap-and-trade outweigh the benefits; the Copenhagen agreement will be "party to fraudulent scientific practices"; the president should boycott.
In essence, Palin critiques politicized science with, erm, some very politicized science. Take, for instance, this nugget:
As governor of Alaska, I took a stand against politicized science when I sued the federal government over its decision to list the polar bear as an endangered species despite the fact that the polar bear population had more than doubled. I got clobbered for my actions by radical environmentalists nationwide, but I stood by my view that adding a healthy species to the endangered list under the guise of "climate change impacts" was an abuse of the Endangered Species Act.
What's missing here is the recognition that a broad range and vast number of different scientists -- zoologists, biologists, etc., and not all "radicals" either -- concurred that polar bears were threatened; recognized that in some cases the populations would wax and wane, but that they would ultimately wane; and decided to list the animal as endangered. The reason wasn't "climate change." The reason was that polar bears might go extinct.
But, in Palin's reading, the polar bear researchers must be drinking the same water as the climatologists, since, in both cases, thousands of scientists from different specialties differ on details but concur on the trend -- or, more importantly, the threat it might pose.
TIMM SCHAMBERGER/AFP/Getty Images
Actually, by simple logic she's right and you're wrong, and the article you link proves it. The reason why polar bears are supposedly threatened, according to the scientists you cite, is the possible melting of ice due to global warming. If there is no global warming, there won't be the melting, and the polar bears should not be threatened from this; it's a simple logical deduction.
Your argument would seem to be:
1. Polar bears are currently healthy and in no danger.
2. When global warming occurs, their habitat will melt, endangering them.
Therefore, we should list them now as endangered.
This is such a silly argument, with practically no evidentiary claims. that even a 12 year old can see the gaps.
You would do well to recall Carl Sagan's maxim: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
And study a bit of logic.
He's saying that although polar bears are threatened by climate change, they were not put on the endagered species list because they are endangered not to support climate change.
And speaking of melting ice, did you read this? I know, it's probably just a fluke and not indicitave of any melting ice, global warming or anything like that.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/30/the_top_10_stories_you_missed_in_2009
Palin pointed to a short term fluctuation in one polar bear population. The actual zoological experts pointed to long term prospects given predicted changes in their habitat. Lowrey correctly points out that short term population changes are not the issue. Failing to understand the logical relationships between short term trends, long term projections, and the endangered species act, blue jumps in with a bit of arrogant condescension about needing to "study a bit of logic". Foolish irony in that.
And, btw, Sagan would have been appalled by the libelous attacks on working scientists. The evidence in this case is extraordinary. Decades of research are summarized in the IPCC consensus reports. This is the reason the right has become so invested in forwarding a conspiracy theory to undermine the evidence. If there wasn't extraordinary evidence then the extraordinary theory (to which Sagan's comment is indeed more apt) of thousands of scientists colluding to perpetrate a socialist hoax would be irrelevant. Palin suggests in her WaPo piece that the hacked emails prove that data was manipulated. There is NO support for this conspiracy theory in the emails, which Palin grossly and negligently mischaracterizes, and furthermore independent data sets from NASA and other scientific research organizations confirm CRU's observations.
Pardon me for speculating but I think this is important given Palin's ambitions. Rumor has it that exKGB are behind the hack. Serving Russian oil barons? Possibly in collusion with Saudis who want to keep us dependent on foreign oil? Who knows. It would be irresponsible to do anything more than speculate, but the fact is that Palin, Inhofe, and the rest of the wingnut conspiracy theorists don't know whose interests they're forwarding by distorting the contents of these emails. How can Palin say she's ready to be CiC when she rushes to judgment in a situation where she may very easily be manipulated because she lacks knowledge? Regardless of who's behind the hack, Palin, Inhofe, etc. are, sadly, on the side of Russia and the Saudis in wanting to keep American ingenuity out of the renewables race and dependent on fossil fuels.
it's the difference between facts and predictions.
Sarah Palin argued against placing polar bears on the endangered species list because of the *fact* that the population of that animal in Alaska had doubled.
jrshipley argues that as global warming threatens polar bears as a species that she was wrong to do this as they are endangered. But this rests on a *prediction* and there's the difference.
Taking jrshipley's bizarre brand of logic, it could be argued that as some endangered species will find their range extended by global warming, we should REMOVE them from the endangered species list now, but who would advocate that?
Finally, two other quick points regarding jrshipley's post:
1) consensus is nothing to recommend an argument. There was a consensus that 'satanic ritual child abuse' was happening on a massive scale (no cases at all were ever succesfully prosecuted). There was a consensus that the Y2K millennium bug would lead to wide-spread computer failure with huge disruption (nothing happened).
2) talking of predictions, Mr Hansen, who heads NASA's climatology division, predicted in 1988 that New York would be under water in parts in 20 years time (i.e. by 2008 - search salon.com for the relevant article) - have you been to the Venice of the east coast recently?
Predictions are one thing. Facts are another.
Well maybe Mr. Hansen is wrong!
The IPCC consensus report goes to great lengths to discuss uncertainties in the data and projections. The latest assessment predicts a 0.5 m sea level rise in 100 years under most plausible scenarios, so Mr. Hansen's estimate was obviously wrong and extreme. You can look it up on the IPCC web site if you don't believe me. That wouldn't mess up New York too much but would wreck some small island nations.
And speaking of logic, you can't use one incorrect extreme prediction as evidence that ALL predictions about climate change are wrong.
it's the difference between facts and predictions.
You make a very good point here. It was because of the predictions about the Y2K millennium bug that hundreds of thousands of computer professionals worked their tails off to prevent it. I know this because I was one of them. If everyone had said "Oh no big deal", there would have been many severe failures.
Much like so many are now saying "no big deal..." to an even bigger problem.
Unfortunately, this is a common approach used by the so-called right in America. They find subsets of data points that coincide with their agenda and posit the data as fact for their position. The book "How to Lie With Statistics" should be mandatory reading in high school.
I read many of the so-called controversial emails deemed as part of "Climategate" and found nothing that indicated fraud. Most of it was lingo used informally by scientists for how to program the computer to properly run the model.
The more I hear Palin talk, the more I question whether or not she is mentally challenged. Sorry for the name calling.
She can see polar bears from her house
Jrshipley is not entirely fair to blue13326. If Blue is merely commenting on the brief article (and not the larger, critical anthropogenic climate crisis), he has a point. And if he is commenting on the crisis, his failure is not precisely a lack of logic, but a lack of statistical understanding -- which is apparently ubiquitous in our silly public discourse.
Of course, jrshipley is correct that it is the long-term trend (and not minor oscillations around it) that matter. The war on science in the US waged from the political right has pushed multilateral carbon and methane emissions protocols perhaps beyond redemption. And the left has become so focused on health care and the depressed economy that it is not doing nearly enough to redeem us from eight years of foolishly naive (or horrifically irresponsible) climate policy. Sadly, the first round of victims will not be the perpetrators -- the US will be hit rather late with the full pernicious effects of climate change.
in the year 1970 their were 5000 polar bears.Now that it is 2009 their are 25000 according to U.S interior.If the the polar bears are endangered somebody needs to inform them.
The reason the global polar bear population has increased in recent decades is because in the 60s and 70s most of the circumpolar countries with polar bears eliminated sports hunting (which in Alaska took place with aircraft) or better controlled hunting. Overhunting by "sportsmen" was a serious conservation problem at the time. Poaching remains a problem in some places, particularly Russia.
If you read the original nine reports by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Scientists, it's pretty clear why they made the recommendation they did.
However, as an Alaskan I think it's important to point out that Palin has some credibility problems on this subject (many others, too, but never mind that). Her administration's review of the USFWS reports cited at least six well-known climate deniers whose work was either funded in part by Exxon or has been discredited as poor science by actual climate scientists.
The State of Alaska also withheld email messages by state biologists who actually agreed with the work done by the federal biologists. It took the FOIA act to dislodge some of these emails; others were kept secret under executive privilege with the claim that they revealed policy details.
(The Palin administration is regarded in Alaska as the most secretive, least publicly responsive adminstration EVER, and their abuses of FOIA responsibilities continue under our new governor.)
The larger issue is not merely polar bears, it is the effect of climate change on the entire Arctic ecosystem, and several other species demonstrably are having problems -- walruses, ringed seals, some birds, etc. Recent research on ocean acidification shows that the ocean's absorption of carbon dioxide is quickly changing the PH levels of northern waters and affecting, among other things, the growth of a tiny mollusk that forms the base of major food chains. This is potentially a very serious problem, along with other big changes in the Arctic.
It's pretty simple to understand the issues if you read the science rather than relying on politicians and partisans for mere talking points.
Her op-ed was a disengenuous, inaccurate, pandering, and manipulative piece of propaganda from someone who thinks creationism should be taught alongside evolution.
the lies from the Al Gores of the world are repulsive. he says the temperature of the earth 2 kilometers down is 2 million degree.he said he invented the internet. he said the e-mails from England were 10 years old.I read several from September of this year.TO MANY LIES TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.
warveteran,
If you are a veteran, I thank you for your service. However, I can't excuse the lack of logic in your post. Simply because discrepancies were found in some of the data Gore presented in his movie does not contradict the consensus of human induced global climate change by scientists. As for Gore inventing the Internet, you are getting into nonsense politics here. Read Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
jrambo: You, sir, are arguing semantics. In today's society, most people would interpret "created" to mean "invented." It is NOT political, it came out of his own mouth.
If one of the people in your circle of friends was notoriously known to be a liar, would you trust anything coming out of that person's mouth? Any intelligent human being would begin to suspect most of the information surrounding the issue of Global Warming if there were found to be misleading information to support that "all-important" cause. I believe it was found that he had nine important discrepancies in his movie "An Inconvenient Truth" as well as the suspect eMails back and forth both internally and to other global agencies to suppress or change information to accomodate their THEORIES! Read that word once again... This Global Warming hysteria is a THEORY as is the endangered polar bear! None of this has been proven to be FACT.
Yet we should all empty our pockets to make Gore and his ilk fatter cats than they already are? I don't think so and I believe there are more average citizens of the world who are beginning to feel the same way. We will no longer blindly accept what our governments are collectively trying to feed us!
Not that Greenland has anything to do with Alaska and it's polar bears, but a lot of people have intimated that as the arctic, and Greenland in particular, are melting that this endangers polar bears. But Greenland is no longer melting as this paper from The American Geophysical Union spells out:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/323/5913/458a
Summary: For a few years some glaciers speed up, but have since slowed to normal speeds. This seems to be a reaction to a shock induced by warmer water or air, moderated by the characteristics of the underlying rock. Other glaciers have speed up, and not slowed down yet because of different conditions. So we're left without a sudden disappearance, but merely the increase rate of melt associated with global warming. Nor can we rule out the occurrence of another shock, creating another cycle of temporarily increase melt.
******
Things were looking bad around southeast Greenland a few years ago. There, the streams of ice flowing from the great ice sheet into the sea had begun speeding up in the late 1990s. Then, two of the biggest Greenland outlet glaciers really took off, and losses from the ice to the sea eventually doubled. Some climatologists speculated that global warming might have pushed Greenland past a tipping point into a scary new regime of wildly heightened ice loss and an ever-faster rise in sea level.
So much for Greenland ice's Armageddon. "It has come to an end," glaciologist Tavi Murray of Swansea University in the United Kingdom said during a session at the meeting. "There seems to have been a synchronous switch-off " of the speed-up, she said. Nearly everywhere around southeast Greenland, outlet glacier flows have returned to the levels of 2000. An increasingly warmer climate will no doubt eat away at the Greenland ice sheet for centuries, glaciologists say, but no one should be extrapolating the ice's recent wild behavior into the future.
...
A short-lived speed-up makes sense if something had given the glaciers some sort of jolt at their lower ends, says glaciologist Richard Alley of Pennsylvania State University in State College. Two possibilities for a disturbance are the warmer air over southern Greenland in recent years and warmer coastal seawater. Either could have eaten away, weakened, and begun to break up the floating seaward ends of outlet glaciers, he says. That would have weakened the glacier's grip on its bounding rock and sent a wave of glacier thinning and acceleration inland. But given time, a glacier would regain its footing--like a fighter rolling with a punch--thicken again, and slow down to its original speed, he says.
That's just what glacial modeler Faezeh Nick of Durham University in the United Kingdom and her colleagues found when they modeled the flow of Helheim Glacier, as they report this week in Nature Geoscience. In their model, Helheim, and presumably similar outlet glaciers, is extremely sensitive to disturbances at its margin but can adjust rapidly even as the disturbance continues. "Our results imply that the recent rates of mass loss in Greenland's outlet glaciers are transient," the group writes, "and should not be extrapolated into the future."
Not that Greenland's ice is safe, says Alley. "If you turn the thermostat too high, it will melt," he notes. And the glaciers of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), some of which have already picked up speed, don't have the shallow rocky underpinnings that allow Greenland's glaciers to regain their equilibrium. "With nothing to hold on to," he says, "we think [WAIS] will run away."
God forbid we actually read for ourselves...
"I wouldn't recommend reading it." What a wonderful comment on what's wrong with public opinion today. When we only read the opinion we want to agree with, and reinforce our talking points with only that information, we never really LEARN anything do we? I'm not saying I agree or disagree with Palin. But why would you ever discourage anyone from reading the SOURCE DOCUMENT rather than a filtered version. We really are smart enough to develop our own opinions.
burns1217: I think they want us to "pay no attention to the man behind the green curtain." Not recommend reading it, indeed! There is every reason to question what is trying to be foisted on us with no regards to legitimacy whatsoever. Since "ClimateGATE" has been broadcast to the world, those who don't question or do blindly follow should be likened to "Stepford Wives" which I have no wish to be. And, as the weeks pass, I think there will be more of those former mocked and discredited scientists as well as former threatened scientists who were "on the bandwagon" that will come forward to have a larger discussion on the "realities" of GW. And the "powers that be" don't really care if we are smart enough to develop opinions. In fact, they hope we don't!
The Problem with Global Warming
The problem with today's consensus is that most geological evidence points to GW being a cyclical event. Ice and dirt core data has given HARD proof. There have been 6 proven ice ages in Earth's history. It follows that there were also warming periods between, and sometimes during, those ice ages. Interpretation of Greenland ice core data suggests that between 800 and 1300 AD the regions around the fjords of southern Greenland experienced a mild climate, known as the Medieval Warm Period, with trees and herbaceous plants growing and livestock being farmed. What IS verifiable is that the ice cores indicate Greenland has experienced dramatic temperature shifts many times over the past 100,000 years — which makes it possible to say that areas of Greenland may have been much warmer during the medieval period than they are now and that the ice sheet contracted significantly.
Life thrived during warm times and life suffered in cool times. Great civilisations collapsed when it was cool.
It was so hot during the 600-year-long 'Roman warming' that grapes were grown as far north as Hadrian's Wall. Sea levels did not rise and polar ice did not vanish. Some Alpine glaciers disappeared, only to reappear later. The cold Dark Ages followed: starvation, rampant disease and massive depopulation occurred. A 400-year warm period followed. The Vikings grew barley and wheat, and raised cattle and sheep in parts of Greenland that are now uninhabitable.
Yet sea levels did not rise and the ice sheets were not lost. And, significantly, humans could not have driven the Roman and medieval warmings by carbon-dioxide emissions, as there was no industry.
The Little Ice Age followed. There was famine, disease and depopulation. Ice fairs were held on the Thames up until the 1820s. The Little Ice Age ended in 1850. It is no wonder that temperature has increased in the past 150 years - this is what happens after a cold period.
There have been countless articles in the past 20 years which have been shunted to the little read back pages of newspapers, magazines and journals that could explain some of the phenomenom that is blamed on GW. One item of interest... Suddenly active volcanoes under the glaciers in the Antarctic which would destabilize the ice sheets from beneath as well as possibly warming the surrounding waters with heat vents.
There is nothing wrong with trying to end our dependence on fossil fuels, we most definitely should! However, we shouldn't have to become cavemen or go bankrupt to do it. As for the polar bear, how did the species survive during the warming trends between ice ages? Anyone can make a GUESS as to IF and when a species will go extinct and what the reason could be. But to declare an animal "endangered" on a possibility is going to make that special list nothing but common (we may as well add every animal, including humans, to the list and name an asteroid as the cause of our future demise). Kind of like giving Obama the Nobel Peace Prize on the grounds of a promise or the premise of "hope and change." Quite nebulous!
I'm sick and tired of mendacious neo-Malthusians who are captivated by the "pathetic fallacy" trying to make major economic changes to "stop it" on specious grounds. I still remember the Club of Rome and Limits to Growth crowd who almost influenced government policy only to be proven completely wrong on their doomsday predictions of "running out" which displayed total ignorance of dynamic economics.
Once I met with the head of a major environmental organization who told me despite trying to stop the Alaska Pipeline knowing it was completely safe, that his real objective was to keep all that gasoline out of Los Angeles. Caribou crossings were created at enormous cost by raising the pipeline to mollify such people. I have seen many photographs of caribou crossing OVER the pipeline rather than using these passages where the pipeline was raised over their migration paths.
Once again the "smaller is beautiful" neo-Malthusian crowd and their dupes are at it, this time with considerably more political success that will endanger economic growth and bring about the "dark age" they claim to fear.
There is no doubt climate changes. That it is anthropogenic is in considerable doubt.
(The writer is a Ph.D. Economist who has build many econometric models showing that the neo-Malthusian argument is bogus.)
As a highly experienced MIT-trained modeler, I have to say about climate models, especially those which neglect economic dynamics, "Give me a free hand with the assumptions and I'll produce any result you want."
I must say, great materials for college classes!
Essay papers
Still on the fence about mrs.Palin. Part of me wants to like her and part of me finds it impossible.
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