the opinionist

Nothing is more aggravating than a condescending network news anchor scoffing at the latest global warming news story as a piped-in bimbo ‘meteorologist’ stands on location, waist deep in snow, with a bloody silly grin on her face. That just bugs the hell out of me.

I live in Chicago, where this February has had the coldest opening in 112 years! The first eight days have averaged only 4.4° Fahrenheit - which is 20° below the 137-year ‘average’ February temperatures for this Midwest city. So I don’t need some glib TV hack with a teleprompter and warm TV studio lights guffawing over ‘yet another doomsday’ news story.

Luckily today’s crack-of-doom news item is about an amazing multi-billionaire who’s as admired for his business acumen as his eccentricities. Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson, the highly successful multiple entrepreneur of activities ranging from airlines to trains, record companies to hotels, mobile communications to space travel, today announced “a $25 million price for the first person to come up with a way of scrubbing greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere in the battle to beat global warming.”

In a Reuters story released this morning - Branson and a plethora of climate change experts - including Al Gore and esteemed climate-change scientists - effectively challenged inventors, industry and academics alike to devise a solution to the ‘established scientific fact’ that the world is experiencing rapid climate change.

The report suggests, “The winner will have to come up with a way of removing one billion metric tons of carbon gases a year from the atmosphere for 10 years — with $5 million of the prize being paid at the start and the remaining $20 million at the end.”

The U.N. sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would be one of the first to admit that predicting the world climate is a crapshoot. The most the IPCC have been able to do is measure man’s impact on the plan via carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases, ozone depletion, man’s impact on surface albedo (reflecting solar radiation) through land-use, and the sun’s spiky solar activity. They through all these numbers into a sexy spreadsheet report and they’ve determined the net effect (’total net anthropogenic’) impact on the planet due to man.

When it comes to the ’so what?’ the scientific community seems as torn on the implications of man’s selfish environmental abuse as the meanest of any congressional committee hearings (name calling and all) - but the bottom line is the same, they all agree wholeheartedly that something has to be done regardless of the blame!

Some nincompoops with surreptitious and wholly corporate-inspired agendas suggest global warming is nothing to get worked up about! They say we should embrace the benefits and relax!

Dr. Thomas Gale Moore, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute, wrote a book entitled “Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldn’t Worry about Global Warming” published by the Cato Institute. Both institutions are beacons for right-wing policy initiatives and corporate aspirations.

The Doc cheerily describes the benefits of global warming with these optimistic bubbles of laughter:

- “warmer winters are good! … will produce less and snow to torment drivers. families will have less need to invest in heavy parkas, … mittens, and snow boots.”

- “plants also prefer warmer winters and nights. Given a rising world population longer growing seasons, greater rainfall, and en enriched atmosphere could be just the ticket to starve off famine and want.”

The fine fella - almost like someone’s Granddad, puffing on a cigar in the parlor room after a hefty roast dinner, rumpled newspaper in one hand and a fine glass of bourbon on the other - concludes, “Let’s not rush into costly programs to starve off something that we may like if it occurs. Warmer is better; richer is healthier; acting now is foolish.”

The silly old bugger is unfortunately contradicted on so many levels by a group of slightly less cheery and rather more cataclysmic folks at Greenpeace.

In their report - dated October 2003 - and entitled “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security” - they paint a wholly different consequence for the planet of rapid climate change.

“There is substantial evidence to indicate that significant global warming will occur during the 21st century. Because changes have been gradual so far, and are predicted to be similarly gradual in the future, the effects of global warming have the potential to be manageable for most nations.”

That’s not too bad! Unfortunately Greenpeace goes on to say:

“Recent research, however, suggests that there is a possibility that this gradual global warming could lead to a relatively abrupt slowing of the ocean’s thermohaline conveyor, which could lead to harsher winter weather conditions, sharply reduced soil moisture, and more intense winds in certain regions that currently provide a significant fraction of the world’s food production. With inadequate preparation, the result could be a significant drop in the human carrying capacity of the Earth’s environment.”

In other words, the warm waters pushed towards the the North Eastern coast of the United States and across the North Atlantic towards Europe and Scandinavia could slow down or shut down totally.

A total shutdown of the Thermohaline Conveyor would cause a mini-ice-age such as the ‘Younger Dryas‘ over 12,700 years ago that lasted for 1,000 years!

The Greenpeace report suggests even a mild slowing of the warm currents - the Thermohaline Converyor - would bring significantly colder, dryer and windier conditions to the United States, Europe and parts of Asia. This would cause food shortages, reduce access to freshwater, bring colder dryer conditions and disrupt access to energy supplies with drought conditions across the plain states.

Once again the Bush administration appears inept at recognizing the problem, tackling the cause or delivering a solution. I say ‘appears’ because President Bush is so absolutely crap at marketing any ‘good deeds’ his administration brings to the table - once in the blue moon that he does!

In June of 2001 - less than six months into President George W Bush’s first term of office - and some four months before the heinous actions of 9/11 steered this nation into a whole new timeline of war and terror - he announced the formation of a ‘National Climate Change Technology Initiative‘.

President Bush suggested, “America is a leader in technology and innovation. We all believe technology offers great promise to significantly reduce emissions. So we are creating the ‘National Climate Change Technology Initiative.’ ”

The Department of Energy released a detailed report on ways in which the Government can encourage private enterprise and federally-sponsored research to find alternative energy solutions and ‘clean air’ business practices for all Government departments and facilities.

These are lofty words for a new administration less than six months in office and feeling its way on policy.

The objectives of the initiative were proudly listed as:

* Evaluate the current state of U.S. climate change technology research and development and make recommendations for improvements.

* Develop improved technologies for measuring and monitoring gross and net greenhouse gas emissions.

So the political recognition for the problem of climate change did appear to exist in this country some six years ago! And yet in 2007 the U.S. stands on the world stage as an environmental pirate - an industrial and wholly greedy pariah - that produces over 20% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions and consumes the vast majority of the world’s energy supplies.

Enough said of that the better it seems.

So as Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson challenges the world’s smartest technologists, inventors, academics and thinkers-alike to “attempt deliberate planetary engineering” to remove “200 metric gigatons of carbon accumulated in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution” Chicagoans can try to shiver a nod and a wink as we endure another week of record-breaking frigid weather.

This is a wacky world and we’re just living in it!

Posted on February 9th, 2007 under IPCC, al gore, carbon dioxide, climate change, global warming, richard branson, virgin •  Email This Post • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback