The upcoming election battles may be unique in offering for the first time a debate about global warming.
Neither Bush-Gore nor McCain-Obama chose to discuss the issue — maybe because they were not really that far apart. By contrast, Barack Obama has already announced that, if re-elected, he will make climate change an important priority — while Paul Ryan is an assertive skeptic on AGW (anthropogenic global warming).
The science of climate change is not just of academic interest, but has been leading to policies for large-scale changes in energy use and supply — with important economic consequences. The burden of proof for AGW therefore falls on those who call for such policies. They must demonstrate with reasonable certainty that human activities are causing global warming, that a future warming will produce significant economic and ecological damage, and that it would be more cost-effective to mitigate now rather than to adapt later. They must also be ready to respond to any critique of the underlying science.
A recent example of irresponsible AGW claims is a just-released statement by the American Meteorological Society — the same crew that cannot predict the weather three days in advance.
I had an interesting conversation with a supercomputer engineer I ran into at a country club affair. When I asked about the fastest US made supercomputer’s ability to evaluate the effect of water vapor, the engineer said that it would take an 8 fold increase in computing power to even begin to evaluate the effects of water vapor. When I asked about the the current AGW models being flogged for carbon dioxide, the engineer just gave a negative headshake. That said it all.
T.C. Brown
Politicians are fond of passing laws that come into effect after their time in office is over. But for AGW, set to bake the planet etc. well after they’ve been dead and gone, we have to do something *now*. Is this a temporal paradox?
No, just a lot of money in their bank accounts… but maybe a temporal maladjustment could explain their need to take us down a path of no return.