RAHN: Cool look at the future

Comforting thoughts on global warming ... but probably a strong element of wishful thinking. What we know that is happening now, not in our children's time, is that the the ice caps are melting at an alarming rate, we're getting more and bigger storms than usual, temperature rates of increase have been accelerating, etc. The past is not always a good indicator. We're been living in an age of cheap energy. Costlier energy probably means we will have less not more available financial resources in the future. A stitch in time ...

There other theories about global warming that have been shouted down by consensus science. The hockey stick model is a linear analysis with a nonlinear prediction attached to the end. This in itself should be suspect and was noted in a study by Kesten C. Green and J. Scott Armstrong that determined the IPCC study violated 89 out of 140 forecasting principles. I don't know about most people but for me that is not enough to invest trillions of dollars on. The current financial fiasco is very similar. Lending used to be based on a linear risk approach to person's salary. Then we got cute with a variable interest loan on predicted income and a policy of subprime lending which turned the entire prediction process into a nonlinear risk but using linear methods to evaluate. Nonlinear equations have short foresight horizons and should never be used to predict beyond their level of uncertainty. Such is the case with the subprime chaos and we can only hope we don't make the same mistake with global warming or climate control or whatever state of fear we call it today.

Question: how do we know for a certainty that the effects will be negative? After all, the past 12,000 years (at least) of human history have occurred during the present perhaps on-going period of global warming. During that time, Central Europe and Canada and the United States deep down into the Ohio Valley and below, not to mention the Great Lakes, have become unburdened of a layer of ice a mile or more thick, and the lakes filled with fresh water. Has this been bad? Remember, for instance, that in relatively recent history the warming trend was interrupted by the Little Ice Age, a period in which millions perished of famine as growing seasons shortened and crops were lost. Why would continued warming, opening up vast areas of habitable farmland in northern Canada and central Asia be negative for mankind as a whole? One of the other portraits held up for horror is the allegation that the north polar sea may be sufficiently ice-free in coming summers to allow trans-polar shipping through the long-sought Northwest Passage. Presuming that were to be the case, this is bad? Some polar bears might have to adapt, but that's sufficient reason to spend trillions in the hope we can preserve their environment? Shouldn't the question be whether the people already 'suffering' in the warmer climates of Florida and Texas and California have lower incomes than those in cooler Minnesota. In fact, hasn't the major story of American life for several generations now been the migration to the Sun Belt? Would residents of Minnesota really suffer if they didn't have to move south in order to keep from literally dying of the cold in the winter? How much of America's energy cost is actually expended in keeping people in the northern states warm enough in the winter to stay alive? Air conditioning, after all, is primarily a matter of comfort, not survival, because mankind has not even had air conditioning for that long. Most unbiased earth scientists are well aware that the earth's history clearly reveals numerous repeated cycles of global cooling and glaciation interspersed with periods of global warming, many of them, but industrial man has been present for only the most infinitesimal slice of geologic history. But man is the most egotistical animal ever produced by either evolution or intelligent design, it makes no matter which, and he's convinced that this time, THIS time out of all the many others, HE has to be the one causing things to happen. Look at me, he boasts, I tamed fire! I am the biggest, the bravest, the brightest, the pinnacle of the planet, look at my works, ye mighty, and despair! "Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away." www.blogitoergosum.net

TO red_tory No disrespect intended, but your facts are incorrect. “Ice Caps” (plural) are not melting. Antarctica has been gaining ice for decades, and it’s maybe 20 times the size of the Arctic in ice tonnage. U.S. hurricanes are not getting more frequent. Atlantic hurricanes were more frequent prior to 1961 than after 1961 (see http://www.junkscience.com/Hurricanes/decadal_hurricanes.png). Temperature rates of increase have not been accelerating. Lower tropospheric temperature has been declining for 8-10 years (satellite data). The rate of temperature increase in the 1930-1940’s was similar to the end of the 20th century, even though 80% of post-industrial CO2 was made after 1940 (refer to various temp databases). CO2 is not the main driver of the greenhouse effect. Water vapor is. Some folks estimate that water vapor is the cause of upwards of 95% of the greenhouse effect. NASA data shows that atmospheric humidity has been declining since 1948 (http://icecap.us/images/uploads/GlobalRelativeHumidity300_700mb.jpg), which means that the greenhouse effect is getting weaker, not stronger. Energy may be more expensive, but it’s not becoming more rare. Mankind has gone through about 20% of recoverable oil reserves. Current energy expense is due to market manipulation, not declining reserves. The U.S has 240 yr of recoverable coal (which can be converted to fuels more cheaply than oil), 118 yr of natural gas, 146 yr of shale oil, 120 billion barrels of recoverable oil, and over 300 yr of nuclear power, all of which are lowball numbers because explorers always find more than what is thought to be there. Nuclear fusion will probably be perfected in this century, and it is virtually a limitless supply of energy. There is no shortage of U.S. energy, only a Congress that won’t let us get at it.