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Thursday, September 28, 2006

The Global Warming “Debate”

Posted by on September 28 at 13:25 PM

A new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concludes that global temperatures have climbed to levels not seen in thousands of years. According to one of the authors of the study, “If further global warming reaches 2 or 3 degrees Celsius, we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know. The last time it was that warm was in the middle Pliocene, about 3 million years ago, when sea level was estimated to have been about 25 meters (80 feet) higher than today.”

A second PNAS report concludes that human activity is almost certainly the cause of the majority of ocean warming—the main cause of increased hurricane intensity. Substantial research shows that hurricanes have gotten far fiercer and more devastating in the past 30 years—a pattern that can’t be explained by natural fluctuations.

It’s unclear what policy implications might come out of the study, although it will probably add to growing pressure from environmentalists and some legislators to pass laws limiting the release of carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas, from power plants.

Then again, maybe not.


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PNAS is no little journal. It is one of the premiere peer reviewed scientific journals, highly respected for the quality of the science.

Watch out now for Bush decidering that climate change is real, pushing through watered down federal CO2 emission standards to supplant far stricter and more effective state-level laws.

This matches the research I've been seeing in Science and Nature (the other two big peer-reviewed journals).

Basically, think of the weather this week. Nice and hot. That's what it will be like here. San Diego will make Death Valley look like a winter holiday, however, and salmon will either become extinct or migrate to Alaska.

Double plus ungood.

I drive a hybrid car and when I fly I bring along organic sustainable snacks. I fly around a lot for work so I always demand organic cotton towels in the hotels where I stay.


If we all do our part we can prevent the Republicans from causing global warming.

year round swimming! WHEEEEEEEEE!

There is another PNAS article looking at biofuels.

Biodiesel is quite a bit better than ethanol, but neither is great. Corn ethanol requires almost as much energy to make as it produces (with only about a 25% increase.) Soy based biodiesel produces about double the energy that goes in.

Still, neither is really realistic alternative to oil...

Didn't you just berate Nickels yesterday for trying to at least do something about reducing emissions? But now it is a big deal. Losers.

Man, you guys have got to get a backend HTML tidier for your site. People - including Stranger employees - type up markup then don't close tags, or leave off a brace, and it screws up the whole site.

okay, d, i fixed it. takes time, yes, but we get around to it eventually.

golob--yay for sawgrass-based ethanol! and please close your tags.

"salmon will either become extinct or migrate to Alaska."

Hey! Salmon will be spawning on your mothers' graves once they're are covered with water.

It's the non-gilled that need to start worrying.

Gills rule!

We definitely need to be getting more political about global warming. Environmental sustainability is something we need to be rising up to fight for or at least reminding our leaders to keep the promises they made in 2000: Millenium Development Goals. These goals were made to eradicate extreme global poverty and hunger as well as ensure environmental sustainability. However, since the adminstration switch, these goals have hit the backburner. It's really a disappointment too. In any case, for more information on what we can do to solve this and get more political attention to issues that matter, check out this website: http://www.borgenproject.org

Salmon mostly have migrated to Alaska, or rather, they've always been there, but they used to be here, too, and now they barely are. The steelhead run used to extend all the way down to the Sacramento River in California, but now we're lucky to get a few hundred wild fish in WA rivers.

Are you feeling OK, Erica? Why no Viaduct posts today?

Please everyone go see Al Gore's movie and tell everyone to eat organic sustainable foods! We have to all drive hybrid cars. The republicans are trying to make us ignore global warming but we can work together and make the difference.

Sorry about my crappy HTML. Hit post rather than preview by accident...

I think they're trying to pretend the underwater tunnel funding is magically going to appear, so they don't want to have any articles on the viaduct or the 520 bridge that can't be built if they do the tunnel we can't afford.

Excellent reporting, Strangers....there was only *one* paper published. Both of your links reference the same research (you'd probably know that if you read the articles that you linked).

Incidentally, the author of the paper in question -- James Hansen -- is a member of the National Academy of Science, and can therefore publish work in PNAS with only minimal peer review. This paper was reviewed by one of his friends.

I'm not a global warming skeptic, but I hate it when people abuse science for political ends.

It's already too late. Methane emissions from decomposing organisms will likely accelerate global warming even if we miraculously cut all CO2 and CO emissions RIGHT NOW, and leave much of Manhattan and other coastal cities underwater within 10 years.

Can everyone at The Stranger please travel only on airplanes run on biodiesel and bring organic snacks?


You people fly around a lot and it does destroy the environment.

The republicans want to prevent us from using biodiesel in airplanes. We have to fight back.

And when the ice melts at the north and south pole, it's going to flood that $5 billion-dollar traffic tunnel the City wants to build.

ionolsen16 I just don not have anything to say right now.www_4_2
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