Noted Ohio State Climatologist Lonnie Thompson Publishes Blunt Climate Warning In Behavior Journal

[hatrack]

EDIT

Global warming is here and is already affecting our climate, so prevention is no longer an option. Three options remain for dealing with the crisis: mitigate, adapt, and suffer.

Mitigation is proactive, and in the case of anthropogenic climate change it involves doing things to reduce the pace and magnitude of the changes by altering the underlying causes. The obvious, and most hotly debated, remedies include those that reduce the volume of greenhouse gas emissions, especially CO2 and methane. Examples include not only using compact fluorescent lightbulbs, adding insulation to our homes, and driving less, but societal changes such as shutting down coal-fired power plants, establishing a federal carbon tax (as was recently recommended by the National Academy of Sciences), and substantially raising minimum mileage standards on cars (National Research Council, 2010). Another approach to mitigation that has received widespread attention recently
is to enhance the natural carbon sinks (storage systems) through expansion of forests. Some have suggested various geo-engineering procedures (e.g., Govindasamy & Caldeira, 2000; Wigley, 2006). One example is burying carbon in the ocean or under land surfaces (Brewer, Friederich, Peltzer, & Orr, 1999). Geoengineering ideas are intriguing, but some are considered radical and may lead to unintended negative consequences (Parkinson, 2010).

Adaptation is reactive. It involves reducing the potential adverse impacts resulting from the by-products of climate change. This might include constructing sea barriers such as dikes and tidal barriers (similar to those on the Thames River in London and in New Orleans), relocating coastal towns and cities inland, changing agricultural practices to counteract shifting weather patterns,
and strengthening human and animal immunity to climate-related diseases.

Our third option, suffering, means enduring the adverse impacts that cannot be staved off by mitigation or adaptation. Everyone will be affected by global warming, but those with the fewest resources for adapting will suffer most. It is a cruel irony that so
many of these people live in or near ecologically sensitive areas, such as grasslands (Outer Mongolia), dry lands (Sudan and Ethiopia), mountain glaciers (the Quechua of the Peruvian Andes), and coastal lowlands (Bangledesh and the South Sea island region). Humans will not be the only species to suffer. Clearly mitigation is our best option, but so far most societies around the world, including the United States and the other largest emitters of greenhouse gases, have done little more than talk about the importance of mitigation. Many Americans do not even accept the reality of global warming. The fossil fuel industry has spent millions of dollars on a disinformation campaign to delude the public about the threat, and the campaign has been amazingly
successful. (This effort is reminiscent of the tobacco industry’s effort to convince Americans that smoking poses no serious health hazards.) As the evidence for human-caused climate change has increased, the number of Americans who believe it has
decreased. The latest Pew Research Center (2010) poll in October, 2009, shows that only 57% of Americans believe global warming is real, down from 71% in April, 2008.

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http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/the-ice-man-warneth/

[madrchsod]

1. here`s a very interesting article from tom skilling

since 1871 4 of the top ten coldest decembers happened in the last 5 years...

http://blog.chicagoweathercenter.com/2010/12/decembers-frigid-open-among-the-citys-10-coldest-since-1871.html

next week is going to be.. cold.