Climate Wars

[David Sunfellow]

Here's an outstanding 3-part, 3-hour CBC Radio series that describes the complicated and extremely dangerous dynamics of climate change. It is one of the best, most current and comprehensive reports on climate change I have come across. Along with including interviews with experts from all over the world, this report pulls no punches: we, as a species, along with most of the planet's plants, animals, and eco-systems, are in serious trouble. If you aren't concerned about climate change -- or are, but are unsure how the many different forces that are being unleashed by climate change interact with one another, this is the report to listen to. It deftly explains how big the problem is, how colossal the forces are that have been turned loose (or are about to be turned loose), how feedback loops, of enormous depth, breadth, and power, could (if they aren't prevented) push everything out of control, and what kind of solutions are currently being pondered. Bottom line: we have the technology to turn the tide, but do we have the social maturity and political will? Can humankind, in other words, do something we have never been able to do before: bring together all the divergent voices on the planet to deal with a potentially catastrophic problem in record breaking time?

Since this is a subject that will likely affect all of us in dramatic ways, I wanted to be sure all of us had the opportunity to listen to some of the best reporting available on this important topic.

David Sunfellow

............

CBC CLIMATE WAR PODCASTS

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/podcast.html

Global warming is moving much more quickly than scientists thought it would. Even if the biggest current and prospective emitters -- the United States, China and India -- were to slam on the brakes today, the earth would continue to heat up for decades. At best, we may be able to slow things down and deal with the consequences, without social and political breakdown. Gwynne Dyer examines several radical short- and medium-term measures now being considered -- all of them controversial.

Climate Wars - Part One (MP3)

Climate Wars - Part Two (MP3)

Climate Wars - Part Three (MP3)

............

NHNE's Climate Change Resource Page

NHNE's 1000 Most Recent Climate Change Articles

[David Sunfellow]

Kulu Sadira Writes:

Hi David,

As fellow Integralists, we know that all of the serious issues facing humanity have complex, nuanced and multi-leveled dimensions that require multiple perspectives, since any one perspective -- including this one -- is always "true but partial". 

I am by no means a global warming debunker. That said, I do notice a familiar absolutist edge in your words here. I bring this up, not to dismiss the (again partial) truths that you wisely offer, but to gently point out that it is easy to occasionally fall into a "Dark-Green", doomsday worldview when addressing this scary, intense and often contentious issue. This CBC program will receive the usual developmentally stratified reception... ie, Green loves it; Orange critiques it; Blue denies it; Red doesn't care.

For me, as an Integralist, the question then becomes, how do I embrace the most healthy and noble aspects of all these responses in a dynamic, systems oriented, complexity embracing approach to possible solutions... that's a tall order and definitely transcends and includes the simplistic urgency of most typical Green prescriptions.

Again, this is not a rebuttal to your warnings, most of which I align with. Just a call to a larger, more complex, more second tier way of thinking about all of this. Just for the interesting exercise of perspective building, I've included a another CBC documentary on climate change with a decidedly different viewpoint.


With appreciation and respect,
Kulu

[Larry Kiehl]

As Integralists we, optimally, want to hear all voices, all data, and such. Personally, I really appreciate having seen this video with the information it contains. Not because I'm a Republican or a contrarian to the global warming issue, but simply because this information not only seems valid, or at least worth considering, it contains data generated from perspectives that aren't included in the latest popular reports embodied by the "Pro Green" reporting.

All this is of practical importantance, it seems to me, because of the state of the world economy, to be as clear as possible as to where to our spend money and human resources, e.g., stimulating the world economies or investing in the prevention of global warming. Perhaps the ideal solution would be spending money that did both at the same time, on the chance that we might, after all, actually be contributing to global warming. After all, who can ultimately, truly, know?!

That said, I am a bit perplexed by the reasoning in this video/report compared to those, for example, presented by Al Gore and similar "camps" of thinking, not to suggest one is right and the other wrong. That is, if the oceans are evaporating, e.g., as apparently evidenced in the scene of a tree on one of the Maldive Islands, say, from a natural warming of the planet, and this evaporation is supposedly going into the atmosphere as moisture to then become snow at the poles of our planet, then this snow will prevent the oceans from getting too low. But according to this video the oceans are getting lower.

Also, if the atmosphere is getting warmer, even if just naturally, not necessarily being man-made, causing the oceans to evaporate and get lower, why isn't the increase in snow at the poles keeping the oceans from getting lower? I'm not a scientist or claiming to be one to understand the implications of all the data coming in from these various sources, but there are apparent contradictions that aren't making sense to me. Perhaps, I didn't watch it closely enough. A certain possibility.

That there is global warming seems to explain in my mind how there can be simultaneously the polar ice cap getting smaller (per Al Gore and others) while the oceans are simultaneously getting lower (per this film). That is, evaporation of the oceans doesn't actually become eventual snow for the ice caps as this video suggests it should, but it evaporates more than it melts to become water in the oceans. Likewise, the ice caps getting smaller isn't causing the oceans to rise as Al Gore and all says it should. I don't know who's right, or if anyone is, or if everyone is simply "partial" as Integral Theory suggests. Certainly we need to put as much attention on how any of us might be wrong as we do on how we're believing we're right.

So, the oceans seem to be shrinking as well as the polar ice caps, per the various kinds of evidence for each. This shrinking might be caused by natural global warming that has little or nothing to do with human existence. Therefore, maybe, instead of trying to put money into stopping global warming, that money would be better spent simply learning how humans can functionally adapt to the warming that's occuring, trusting that the earth will do it's own adapting as it has for hundreds of thousands of years.

In case it needs saying, this last thought is the opposite of what I thought up until an hour ago, which was this: if we don't know if global warming is caused by humans or not, that we then should spend money on stopping global warming just in case humans are contributing to it...better safe than sorry and all that. But now I'm thinking that though the earth can adapt to this warming trend, based on historical records of much warmer conditions than we now have, we humans might not be as resiliant as the earth so the money should be spent on learning adaptive measures.

The human experience...what an adventure.

[Jim Torson]

As with many other subjects, when discussing global warming it is very important to be discerning. There can be merit in considering different viewpoints, but various different viewpoints are not necessarily equally valid.

The Earth's climate is obviously complex and there are clearly some aspects that nobody understands with certainty. However, the basic idea of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) problem can be stated as follows: Global warming is occurring, it is largely caused by human activities, this is a very serious problem, and we should take actions to attempt to solve the problem. Thus, the basic question that requires discernment is this: Is there still any legitimate scientific debate about the correctness of the basic AGW problem as I have just stated it?

The perception that there continues to be a legitimate scientific debate about the basics of AGW is incorrect. This is a result of the success of the disinformation campaign that has been using the same tactics as was used by the tobacco industry in trying to convince people that there was scientific uncertainty about the health hazards of smoking. In fact, the global warming disinformation has involved some of the same people who were involved with the tobacco disinformation, e.g., S. Fred Singer, etc. A good discussion of the history of global warming disinformation is contained in the following 58-minute video of a lecture by Naomi Oreskes:

The American Denial of Global Warming
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/oreskes_le...

This video begins with a good summary of how the science of AGW has been clearly established by decades of study and debate by the scientific community.  If you suspect that the skeptics have been improperly excluded from this scientific debate, I encourage you to read the following:

Climate Science: Sceptical about bias
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7092614.stm

The documentary posted by Kulu contains a great deal of nonsense. I first saw this video several months ago when it was being passed around as if it were "new" information. I could post a long comment refuting many aspects of this video, but I won't do that because it would contribute to the idea that there continues to be a legitimate scientific debate about the issue. However, I'll comment on just a couple aspects of it.

Part of the video was John Christy talking about his claim that the satellite measurements do not agree with the computer models.  I kept thinking, "What!?  Is this an old interview with Christy, or is he just lying?"  I knew that Christy's claims had been shown to be incorrect and that he had admitted his error. The following is perhaps much more than you want to read on the subject, but if you are interested, see:

Tropical tropospheric trends again (again)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/10/tropical-trop...

At the very end of the video it very briefly said Copyright 2004, so this is apparently a four year old video.  It's interesting that it was on the screen for just a fraction of a second at the very end of the video.  Maybe someone is trying to pass this off as "new" information?

Larry discussed being perplexed about the discussion of sea levels in the video. Briefly, the suggestion that the overall sea level is not rising (or that it is even falling) is total nonsense. Here are just a couple references on this:

Sea Level Change
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
 
The Rising Sea Level
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img...

Another important aspect of the AGW discussion is the question of how we should determine the truth about what is going on in the physical world so that we can discuss policy actions. Should we use science to try to seek this truth, or should we reject science and use political ideology? Here is a good discussion of ideology:

Why Climate Denialists are Blind to Facts and Reason: The Role of Ideology
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/12/143145/743/173/513430

The arguments of the skeptics against the reality of the AGW problem tend to largely consist of many of the same arguments over and over again. There are several websites that have good summaries of these along with refutations of them. I won't list these websites here because, as I indicated, concentrating on these technical details reinforces the incorrect notion that there is still a legitimate scientific debate. However, I would be glad to post these later if people would like to see these details after watching the video of the Oreskes lecture.

I thought the Climate Wars program was very well done and very consistent with what I have learned about the AGW problem over a number of years of closely following the discussions. However, there was an important aspect of geoengineering that Dyer failed to make clear. Based on the observed effects of volcanoes, we can be reasonably confidant that putting sulfur high into the atmosphere could help reduce rising temperatures. (There are of course questions about costs, feasibility, and possible undesirable side-effects.) However, one of the effects of increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere is to make the oceans more acidic, which can be very bad for life in the ocean. If we use geoengineering to hold down the temperature but continue to increase the acidity of the oceans, then we will still have a very very big problem.

In the Climate Wars program Dyer indicated that he was pessimistic about whether humanity would be able to find the wisdom to attempt to solve the AGW problem. I have to say that I agree with him. The discussions here are further indications of how easy it is for the disinformation to fool people into incorrectly thinking that there is still a legitimate scientific debate about the problem.

[David Sunfellow]

Jim, thanks for taking the time to post this information. I'll be sure the rest of the folks on Integral NHNE hear about it.

Having tracked this situation for years, often with your expert and extremely well-connected help, I obviously agree with everything you have to say. Just so you know, while I appreciated Kulu's comments and forwarded links to the video he recommended, I didn't watch the video before I did so. When I finally got around to watching it, I could only watch the first few minutes for the reasons you cited -- first, because it was obviously dated; and second, because it was championing positions that have been repeatedly debunked and discredited.

When all is said and done, I'm as pessimistic as you are. I'm also frustrated at how slowly current, credible information is getting out to and being assimilated by our brightest, most well-connected people and communities, let alone the population at large. To be perfectly honest, while I believe it is important for all of us to do everything in our power to reverse or, more practically, slow down the current trends, I personally think our only hope now lies in the miraculous -- an unexpected, possibly catastrophic event -- something like a massive volcanic eruption or asteroid strike -- that sets forces in motion that can cool the planet; a technological breakthrough of some kind; or perhaps the awakening of some kind of global consciousness.

Amazing to be alive now, witnessing an event of such colossal force, gaining momentum on all fronts while most of humanity goes about its business as if nothing much is happening...

[Larry Kiehl]

Hi Jim and David,

I'm hoping that my previous post made it evident that I'm not interested in "taking sides" in this or any debate. That kind of mental activity or approach to extremely complex considerations isn't one of Integral consciousness, if I may say so here (this is an Integralist site, right?). In my experience, 1st tier consciousness is all too quick to jump to conclusions in its thinking process (for various reasons I won't go into here), not staying sufficiently open to all the signs that planetary reality has to offer us regarding global warming, not to suggest we have the capabilities at any point in time to make sense of it all since we can never know it all and are limited by the instruments we "measure" with. I prefer having "all the data", but that's unrealistic and certainly impractical, so we have to settle for at least as much as possible. This includes even considering the so-called bogus science. Why? So we can weigh it, measure it, discern it all for ourselves; and also have "the experts" point out how bogus science is bogus so we can see it for ourselves, not having to be told how to think by proponents of partist 1st tier thinking. Seems reasonable, at least to Integralists.

I have to admit, although I'm quite comfortable in my abilities to reason-out most information and data (assuming I have the technical knowledge for the particular area of reasearch), I'm not necessarily trusting of the info/data itself since there is so much bias inherent in 1st tier scientist's perspectives, by design/nature, even in the use of statistics, graphs, "data", and whatnot, all oriented to "make a point". For example, in the video the tree near the water in the Maldives "appeared" as evidence that the water level around it is going down. But how much is this appearance a result of the video being taken at the hour of a low tide? Whereas, a few hours earlier or later half the tree might have been under water, thus making it appear that the ocean is rising (not sure this is a valid example of what I'm saying here, but hopefully my point about the possibility for bogus science is communicated). My sense is they should have brought tidal affects into the conversation, but the video was more about "making a point" about global warming than about communicating science to us, it seems to me.

Regardless, let's say for discussion sake here that the oceans are in fact rising (also, I have no reason to hold that they're not, I just want to know the facts). My question is this. Given the data from the various sampling techniques in this video (e.g., ice core samples that go back a couple hundred thousand years, or whatever the number was), were there in fact periods of time on earth where it was some 6 degress Centigrade warmer than up until, say, 50 yrs ago (where such level of warmth reasonably couldn't have been caused by humans, right?)? That is, couldn't this recent warming trend, last 50 years, be "natural", not man-made (again, I'm willing to accept that it could be man-made, if that's the fact of it)? Or is their graph, produced from the ice samples, a product of bogus science, biased science, sloppy research design and thinking? I don't know, these aren't bodies of knowledge that I study or know much about, and haven't been inclined to, so far. But I do have some sense of it being not only bogus science, but of biased communication about "data" as well. I could be wrong about that, just my quick take.

It seems to me that if we had fewer "experts" telling us how to believe and more of them showing us how they gathered their data, why they interpreted it the way they did, and what some alternative interpretations might be, including why, the easier it would be for many of us to better determine "what's really going on" regarding global warming. Isn't that want we want to know, ultimately, what's really going on, and not which "side" is going to win an argument about what's really going on? Especially if the "winning side" is mistaken about what's really going on, and we then pump crucial amounts of money into areas that don't really serve the planet, but serve personal/special interests about such?

I don't know if there is a "legitimate" debate still going on about global warming or if there's just the appearance of legitimacy. I'd like to determine that for myself. But one thing I do know is that if these two opposing "camps" got together to delve into each other's scientific process about determining whether there's global warming or not, they'd either be able to point out each other's errors and respectively "get off it" regarding unwittingly "bad science", or they might discover that what's happening is that they're, metaphorically speaking, blindly on different parts of the elephant and missing large areas of data thus "causing" their results/findings to appear contradictory, or some such.

Anyhow, those are some of my thoughts. I don't care who's right about global warming, I just want to know "what is". I don't even care if I'm right about how to look at this issue (per the foregoing), I just want to know whether global warming is happening, whether it's something caused by humans or not, and what to do about any of it. What's the truth? Inquiring Integralist minds want to know, as one might put it, to recoin an old phrase.

[Kulu Sadira]

I'm sure that Jim Torson's credentials are impeccable and his research equally so when it comes to the issue of AGW, and I can see that he has an important contribution to make. Again, my initial post was not as a global warming debunker with a hard position or unshakable stance.

I must say however, that if Jim's intent was to end the conversation right here and now, his claim that there is "no legitimate scientific debate about the problem" (made a few times in his post), has had the desired effect on me. In that my approach to AGW is a bit more Integral (inherently multi-perspectival) and therefore somewhat less absolutist than Jim's, I found the tone of his post uninviting of any curiosity, exchange, inquisitiveness, etc.

I admire Jim fully "owning" his position and I can feel the passionate stake that he has in it. That said, I don't perceive any opening for having an AQAL exploration of this matter with him. And, that's where the complex, out-of-the-box, holistic, and sustainable solutions are more likely to emerge, in my opinion. Plus, it's just more juicy for me (and probably for many Integralists).

PS-- I love both the spirit and content of Larry Kiehl's previous post. Now, that's an attitude that I can get down and interact with... bravo LK!

Kulu Sadira

[David Sunfellow]

Hi There Kulu and Brother Larry,

I've been monitoring the global warming situation for years, gathering, reading, and sharing with my NHNE mailing list literally thousands of articles, reports, videos, documentaries, and other materials on global warming and climate change. You can find a page on NHNE's Mother Ship that is exclusively dedicated to this topic here.

There is a large amount of information here. But all the research I have done is insignificant compared to the research that Jim has done. Moreover, as a real scientist, Jim is plugged directly into the community of scientists around the world who are researching, debating, and pondering this extremely complicated topic.

When I first began reporting on global warming, which was YEARS before the mainstream press had a clue that anything serious was happening, I kept yo-yoing back and forth between voices that were saying we've got a serious problem and voices that were saying we didn't have a problem at all. Some of these voices were legitimate scientists, while others were reporters, researchers, journalists. As time went on, all the voices that said there wasn't a problem disappeared. Everyone, finally, agreed there was a problem. Then it was a question of whether the problem was human caused, or caused by nature. Again, there were different voices. Some said it was primarily human caused, others were certain it was caused exclusively by nature. Eventually, however, this discussion changed. Everyone agreed that humans were contributing. And now it is a question of how much humans are contributing and how serious the problem is.

Like the two of you, I have been anxious to hear all sides of the argument. I'm also acutely aware of the human tendency to cherry pick research and spin things to support our particular biases. That said, my sense of what's happening in this discussion is that you just need to learn more about this topic. If you knew more, you would see how this situation is different from others where you have two voices, each with equally valid perspectives, that must be honored and included. Instead, you have one voice that consists of a vast legion of scientists that have spent decades meticulously researching this subject and another voice that has been given a megaphone by vested interests to challenge legitimate research with bogus research. Yes, the second voice has some valid points. We do not understand, for example, how every single component of the Earth's climate system works, or interacts with other systems. That acknowledged, these two voices are in no way equal. An integral comparison might be something akin to George Bush arguing with Ken Wilber about philosophy. Bush might score one or two small points, but he simply does not possess the intelligence, depth, or big picture capabilities that Wilber has. A wise person, therefore, would pay much more attention to what Wilber has to say than Bush. Wilber, in this example, represents the thousands of diverse scientists around the world, while Bush represents the exceedingly small minority of pseudo scientists and/or legitimate scientists that have been largely funded by oil companies. Jim provided links to back up these accusations in his piece. You can find more on NHNE's climate change page.

Here's how I imagine an integrally-informed person handling this situation:

1. You gather the facts from as many different people and perspectives as you can and come up with some kind of solid, comprehensive, well-researched overview concerning what's happening. If you do this with global warming, I believe you will discover as I have that global warming is a fact, humans are largely responsible, we have reached (or are very close to reaching) a tipping point that will set forces in motion that will be exceedingly difficult to stop, and something dramatic must be done now to avoid the worst. Yes, there is a possibility that some elements of the above scenario are incomplete, or in error. But when all the ducks are lined up, the percentage is exceedingly small. It's kind of like a damn that has developed massive cracks, and each day develops more. By thoroughly studying what's happening, you can make a very strong case for the fact that the damn is going to break if something dramatic is not done to repair it. People who are not looking at the cracks, or perhaps only looking at one crack, may argue that the damn is not in any great danger. There's time to study the situation more carefully. This, in my view, is an uninformed and exceedingly dangerous position. People need to get educated about how many cracks there are, how widespread they are, how often new ones are appearing, how much time we likely have before the thing breaks, and, very important, remember that we don't need to know everything to know we need to do something about this dire situation now. It is also very instructive to find out more about who, exactly, is saying we need to study this situation more carefully and what their motivations are.

Which leads to 2. What are we going to do about this? And this is where I think integral people and perspectives should be engaged, looking for comprehensive, multi-faceted solutions to a problem that literally threatens the existence of our species (and many others). The time, in other words, is over for educated, well-informed people to be discussing if global warming is a serious problem. If you are informed, you know it is. Now is the time for figuring out what to do about it, gathering together as many diverse tools and informed perspectives as we can.

[Larry Kiehl]

In case it's not clear from my previous post, I'm willing to say that there is global warming. There seems to be lots of evidence for that, which I don't have any need to doubt. We're on the same page there, so far. Right?

Oh, and thanks for the link to "nhne's climate page" with the great little video on the risk-managing" approach to global warming, about better being safe than sorry. That has been my position all along regarding global warming, at least up until this thread, as I also said in my prior post.

But, what isn't clear to me, and the bigger issue, is whether or how much of global warming is "man-made" and how much is "mostly natural". If the former, we should do something about it and do so sooner rather than later, putting lots of money and human resources into "doing something about it". If the latter, we're wasting money to try to reduce it, and, therefore, that money should be put into how to humanly adapt to any warming. If I was solely about being "safe rather than sorry" I wouldn't consider anything else and dump gobs of money and resources into stopping global warming. However, being the Integralist that I am, terminology aside, I find myself looking at other contextual considerations.

David, correct me if I'm misunderstanding you. You make a statement ("I believe you will discover as I have that global warming is a fact, humans are largely responsible, we have reached (or are very close to reaching) a tipping point…") that seems to be conflating the "fact" of global warming with the interpretive conclusion (in my present understanding) of it being man-made, or at least mostly man-made without any statements about how much of it might be natural. It would help me to see some evidence about how much is man-made and how much is natural, assuming (which I don't) that kind of evidence can even sufficiently be distinguished. Regardless, and even so, I'm a largely a fan of better-safe-than-sorry thinking regarding global warming. However, that said, if we aren't really clear as to its actual causes we'll all be "wasting" lots of money and resources that is sorely needed for dealing with the consequences of our current global economic condition, and the obviously human causes of THAT condition.

Again, all this is relevant, at least in my thinking about it, because the global economy is very strained right now (actually that's just a symptom, IMO, of various personal and interpersonal contractions caused by lack of trust, inauthentic communication, greed, and such, playing out as economic/exchange contraction), so it seems very important as to where we put capital and human resources in the next few years. Ideally we could "kill two birds with one stone", allocating money and resources that would help both conditions. Is anyone talking about that?

Also, I want to caution any of us against utilizing metaphors (i.e., cracks in dams) that might not adequately capture and communicate a very serious situation (e.g., causes of global warming), causing us to mis-conceptualize the reality of a situation (e.g., the dynamics of global warming), and therefore provide inappropriate "solutions", because of the implications and messages of any metaphor, that will further strain other "global crises" (e.g., the global economy).

Again, to me this is not an argument or a debate, something to be won or lost, or me trying to be right, or getting "my way". As an Integralist I'm wanting to be collaborative with everyone else (not utilizing my 1st tier's propensity for dualistic, adversarial debate approaches) as feasible at any moment. Part of that approach for me, and this is crucial to "being Integral", in my Integralist opinion, is to be meta to my interpersonal processes regarding "solving complex problems" that affect us all; to look at and be honest about what stage of consciousness I am coming from in how I engage others in this mega-inquiry about global-scale issues. Am I really being Integralist, or dualistic, in my "stand"; and with white-knuckled clutching, or with a loose mental grip? That seems, to me, to be an extremely relevant consideration for any Integralist, and especially so for Indigo or above. And since we all have some degree of our lines, and whatnot, still being influenced by 1st tier's adversarial and contracted ways and means within us, the part of us that has opened into 2nd tier needs to be doing some overseeing of our process.

Also, in case it's useful to say as some context to my statements, "being an Integralist", as I've conveyed myself here, for me isn't about "coming from being a good member" of some club called Integral. It's not a role we take on. It's who we are, at least idealistically speaking regarding consciousness expressing itself. Consciousness is life, our being, and we have generated various "tags" or mental constructs to identify it within the domain of language with each other, for talking "about" it, for communicative convenience and convention. 1st tier won't/can't get this understanding and distinction (not a bad thing, just the nature of our 1st tier capacities). Anyhow...

Just some thoughts. Hope they're useful to our Integralist process regarding "global warming", and whatnot.

[David Sunfellow]

Hi Larry,

Concerning how much of global warming is man-made versus natural, here's a quick summary from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

"The scientific consensus is that the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases due to human activity has caused most of the warming observed since the start of the industrial era, and the observed warming cannot be satisfactorily explained by natural causes alone. This attribution is clearest for the most recent 50 years, which is the period when most of the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations took place and for which the most complete measurements exist..."

"Human activity since the industrial revolution has increased the atmospheric concentration of various greenhouse gases, leading to increased radiative forcing from CO2, methane, tropospheric ozone, CFCs and nitrous oxide. The atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and methane have increased by 36% and 148% respectively since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the mid-1700s. These levels are considerably higher than at any time during the last 650,000 years, the period for which reliable data has been extracted from ice cores. From less direct geological evidence it is believed that CO2 values this high were last seen approximately 20 million years ago. Fossil fuel burning has produced approximately three-quarters of the increase in CO2 from human activity over the past 20 years. Most of the rest is due to land-use change, in particular deforestation."

As far as I know, no one knows exactly how much of the Earth's current warming can be attributed to humans. Jim can perhaps provide some precise estimates. What I'm aware of is that global warming has spiked since the industrial revolution and that all known natural causes, including such things as solar cycles, have been repeatedly ruled out. Realclimate.org regularly wrestles with a wide range of theories pertaining to all aspects of global warming, including man's contribution to it. Again, Jim can dissect and amplify this better than I can.

Concerning my metaphors, yes, they are lame. I was searching for a way to express my frustration on this topic. So forget the metaphors. I'll address my concerns more directly. When all is said and done, global warming raises three issues in me:

1. For some reason, most of the human beings on planet Earth, including folks like us who are educated, intelligent, well-connected, and relatively conscious are not aware of how serious global warming is. Worse, most of us are not doing the personal research necessary to bring us up to speed with what is actually happening. If this were a run-of-the-mill issue, it wouldn't be a big deal. There would be lots of room to breathe and allow people to ignore or minimize it if they wanted to. But the survival of our race, and many other species and eco-systems is at stake here. And, yes, there are numerous other potentially catastrophic problems that are also breathing down our neck. So why give global warming the lion's share of attention? Because it has the potential to make planet Earth uninhabitable for human beings (and many other species) -- and prior to that, also make it a very miserable place to live. The point here is that if we loose the ability to live on planet Earth, we also loose the ability to address all the other potentially catastrophic events that are rushing our way. That's why global warming, in my mind anyway, should be close to the top of humankind's "To Do" list.

2. The general lack of awareness of the seriousness of this situation, awakens a sense of doom in me. Human beings are about to be brutally swept off the Earth because we're too narrow-minded, self-absorbed, and unaware to make the changes we need to survive.

3. Global warming reminds me of all the other potential species-ending problems that have appeared on our radar screen in recent years. And when I add them all up, part of me thinks that that human beings, in our current form, haven't got a chance in hell of surviving the coming storms, including the big one, global warming. So why get so upset about it? Our run on planet Earth is over. Either a new, more resilient species (perhaps a robosapien of some kind) is going to rise from our ashes, or we're going to join the dinosaurs. At the end of the day, we simply don't possess the depth, awareness, consciousness, versatility, or simple ability to get along with one another to effectively meet challenges knocking on our personal and collective door.

I could, of course, be wrong about this, but that's how it looks and feels to me right now.

In the big picture -- the canvas where stars and planets are born and die all the time -- this is no big deal. The disappearance of an ape-like species on a tiny blue planet tucked away in one small galaxy among billions of others would scarcely be noticed. It's probably not that big a deal on the level of consciousness either. The universe, both seen and unseen, is a big place. If we mess things up here, on planet Earth, there are probably other places we can go to play, learn, continue our journey.

But part of me feels a deep allegiance to this planet, and my children and fellow human beings. I don't want any of us to suffer anymore than is necessary and I see an awful lot of suffering headed our way right now -- and very little evidence to support the idea we, as a race, are up for the challenge.

My point here is that I am not as wild-eyed about global warming as I may seem. But the topic does awaken a feeling of doom and a desire to do something to turn the tide. In other words, global warming is a symbol for me of all the dangerous storms I see headed our way. If we can manage it, we have a shot at managing all the other ones. Thus, I tend to harp on it more than I do other dire topics.

One last thought -- and this is probably something all of us who are integral theory and practice can agree on.

In recent years, I have noticed that I am feeling increasing stretched. My efforts to "be integral" have encouraged me to view everyone and everything from as many different perspectives as I can -- and everyone and everything I encounter feels endlessly nuanced, deep, complicated. And the more I grow, the more people and things I become aware of and the more stretched I feel.

How do I/we effectively process, integrate, embody all the information that is coming at us? It seems to me that one way we cope with the continual onslaught is to shut down, especially when big topics like global warming come at us. Most of us are already on overwhelm, struggling to make money, raise families, live healthy lives, learn things that part of our particular life path, that we simply don't have the time, interest, or life force necessary to effectively understand and do something about things like global warming.

When I put all of this together in a big bowl, and shake it up, one of humankind's most famous phrases rushes to mind:

"Houston, we've got a problem."

[David Sunfellow]

SCIENTISTS PLAN EMERGENCY SUMMIT ON CLIMATE CHANGE
By David Adam
The Guardian
February 9, 2009

Original Link

Scientists are to hold an emergency summit to warn the world's politicians they are being too timid in their response to global warming.

Climate experts from across the world will gather in Copenhagen next month to agree a stark message to policy makers, which they hope will break the political deadlock on efforts to curb rising temperatures. The meeting follows "disturbing" studies that suggest global warming could strike harder and faster than expected.

It comes ahead of a year of high-level political discussions on climate change, which climax with international negotiations in Copenhagen in December, where officials will try to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto protocol.

Katherine Richardson, a marine biologist at the University of Copenhagen, who is organising next month's event, said: "This is not a regular scientific conference. This is a deliberate attempt to influence policy."

The meeting will publish an update to the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Richardson said the IPCC report was "wishy-washy" on issues such as sea level rise. "The IPCC talks of a 40cm sea rise this century. Well, if the consensus now is a rise of a metre or more then they need to know that."

A number of studies published since the IPCC report was prepared show that carbon emissions are rising faster than expected and that existing greenhouse gas targets may not be enough to prevent catastrophic temperature rise. Climate experts, including Jim Hansen, of Nasa, have warned about so-called "tipping points" that could lead to runaway warming and rapid sea level rise.

Bob Watson, a former head of the IPCC and chief scientist in the environment department, Defra, said: "Certainly in Defra they're aware of the situation. Whether all governments are aware of it is another matter. Even without the new information there was enough to make most policy makers think that urgent action was absolutely essential. The new information only strengthens that and pushes it even harder."

One issue to be addressed next month is whether it is still possible to limit average global temperature rise to 2C, which the EU defines as dangerous. Richardson said a key question for politicians is the balance between efforts to limit warming and steps to adapt to the likely consequences. Watson has warned that nations should prepare for an average rise of 4C. The IPCC said temperatures could soar by up to 6C by 2100 if current rates of carbon pollution continue.

Martin Parry, a British scientist who jointly chaired the IPCC working group on impacts for the 2007 report, and will attend next month's meeting, said: "I think it's a good idea. I would have thought most of this stuff is out there already but it deserves to be brought together and hammered home in a credible way."

A number of "disturbing" trends seem to have accelerated since the IPCC report was published, he said, such as a decrease in the amount of carbon pollution absorbed in the oceans, and an increase in Greenland ice melt. But he denied that the new findings made the IPCC report obsolete. "They are not so radical as to undermine the report. They reinforce it."

............

NHNE's Climate Change Resource Page:
http://www.nhne.org/tabid/490/Default.aspx

NHNE's 1000 Most Recent Climate Change Articles:
http://www.nhne.org/tabid/1050/Default.aspx

[Jim Torson]

In the past I have had these sorts of discussions about global warming with other groups of people, and I have found that they often end up being a total waste of time and effort because many people find reasons to ignore the science. For example, on one email discussion list people would raise objections to AGW from the skeptical side of the "debate" and I would respond by pointing out the scientific evidence that refutes these skeptical arguments. However, a couple years ago it became clear that most of the people on the list simply rejected the science. They are completely convinced that the scientists who are trying to raise concerns about AGW are doing this only to hype the issue so that they can continue to get research funding. In short, they believe that the scientists are lying about global warming for their own personal gain. It became obvious that discussing the issue with these people was a total waste of time. I suspect that my observation of this that I posted on another maillist was part of what prompted one of the scientists there to start a blog entitled "Only In It For The Gold." See this recent post:

What this blog is about
http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-this-blog-is-about....

In my previous post, I raised the question of how people here would seek the truth of physical reality. Will science be used, or will science be rejected and something else such as political ideology be used? I hope you can understand why I consider this to be a fundamentally important question. The discussion here has included references to things such as the "bias inherent in 1st tier scientist's perspectives." If viewpoints such as this are used to reject science, then it would clearly be a waste of time to try to discuss any aspects of global warming. For the remainder of this post, I will assume that the people here are willing to at least consider the possibility that science has something valid to say about the physical reality of what's going on with global warming.

I have spent most of my life working at scientific research organizations, so it should be obvious that I consider science to be useful to society. However, I recognize that the conventional scientific consensus is not always right about things. We all know that in the past there have been times when the consensus has been spectacularly wrong, e.g., the Earth is flat, the sun goes around the Earth. But with further study of a subject, science tends to end up getting it right. However, twenty-five years ago I started to realize that even now science is dreadfully wrong about some things, e.g., psychic phenomena, UFOs, low energy nuclear reactions (a.k.a., "cold fusion"). The reason that science gets it wrong about these subjects is that it refuses to actually study these subjects and seriously look at the data.

On the other hand, global warming is a subject that has been studied more intensely than probably any other subject in human history. I don't think there is any chance that the scientific consensus is wrong about the basics of global warming. The chance is zero that new evidence and further study will show that it is mostly natural rather than caused by human activity or that it is not a serious problem.

I think it is important to recognize that the vast majority of what you hear about the skeptical side of the AGW "debate" is not science. It is propaganda and public relations. As described in the Naomi Oreskes talk that I referred to, the real debate about global warming has been going on in the scientific community for a long time. The skeptics have had decades to make their case, and they have failed to do so. They are now using tobacco-style disinformation to attempt to confuse the public and to prevent or delay taking action to address the problem.

Larry said that he would like to have the "experts" "showing us how they gathered their data, why they interpreted it the way they did, and what some alternative interpretations might be." This is a reasonable request, and the scientists have done this. It is in the form of the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (The previous Third Assessment Report is referred to as the TAR.) The report of Working Group I (The Physical Science Basis) is available here:

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html

There are two other working groups that addressed "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability" and "Mitigation of Climate Change." This WGI final report incorporates responses to 30,000 comments received on drafts of the report, including comments from any skeptics who cared to comment. If you are not familiar with what the IPCC is and what it does, I would recommend that you read a few pages in the "Front Matter" document, including the very first page, the Foreword, and the Preface. Also, here is a good discussion of the IPCC and the significance of this report:

The scoop on the new IPCC climate-change report
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2007/02/02/dessler/index.html

The WGI AR4 report contains several levels of detail to address different audiences and needs. The 18-page Summary for Policymakers (SPM) is written to be understandable by politicians, so anybody here should have no difficulty understanding it. The SPM should be considered required reading for anybody who wants to understand something about global warming. Also, I would recommend taking a look at the 35-page Frequently Asked Questions document. In particular, question 2.1 is "How do Human Activities Contribute to Climate Change and How do They Compare with Natural Influences?" Bottom line: "The human impact on climate during this era greatly exceeds that due to known changes in natural processes, such as solar changes and volcanic eruptions." This also includes a nice chart that shows the sizes of the various things that affect the climate.

Additional detail is contained in the 74-page WGI AR4 Technical Summary. And, the individual chapters contain even more detail, including references to the scientific literature on which the report is based. Thus, it's all there to be examined by anyone who is interested. The scientists are not being absolutist and demanding that people just take their word for it.

Of course much new research has been done in the two years since AR4 was published. As far as I know, there has been nothing that would cast any substantial doubt on the basic AGW idea. On the other hand, there have been a number of things indicating that global warming is happening faster than anticipated in AR4 and that it will be a bigger problem that indicated in AR4.

As I have indicated, it would be counterproductive to spend time refuting the arguments from the global warming skeptics because it would reinforce the incorrect notion that they are part of a legitimate scientific debate rather than being propaganda and public relations. Also, many of their talking points have been collected and refuted in a number of websites, e.g.:

How to talk to a climate skeptic
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how_to_talk_to_a_scep...

New Scientist - Climate change: A guide for the perplexed
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462

The Royal Society - Facts and fictions about climate change
http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=4761

Skeptical Science - Examining the science of global
warming skepticism
http://www.skepticalscience.com/

Climate scepticism: The top 10
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/7074601.stm

If you go through these websites, you will be well on the way to being able to spot the bovine excrement when it occurs in things like op-ed pieces and videos from the skeptics.

As another indication of the lack of valid arguments from the skeptics, consider the following:

Climate Change Denial: Nothing but Lies and Frauds
http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/climate-change-denial-not...

This begins with:
"I have a little challenge … I’m looking for anything from the climate change Deniers that is not a lie, distortion, misrepresentation, or out and out fraud. I am trying to find something, anything, anything at all pertaining to the climate change that we are currently experiencing that: Alleges that it refutes a significant aspect of climate change science, not details (eg quibbling over whether storms get more frequent or not is detail that in no way affects the general facts of climate science). I’m looking for anything that alleges to refute climate change itself, that climate change is anthropocentric, or that it is not a clear and present danger, etc, and Has not already been debunked as total nonsense."

After four months, the skeptics have provided no valid response to this challenge.

Larry has discussed sea level rise and the potential of tides to complicate this issue. The following is a 25-minute video of a NOW program that was on PBS a couple months ago:

Paradise Lost
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/449/index.html

This is about people who are becoming climate refugees and are beginning the process of migrating from their island nation due to rising sea level. I think we can assume that these people have a thorough understanding of tides.

Global warming is not just a theory about what might happen a hundred years in the future. There are many example of how its effects are happening now. One that is currently in the news is the drought and wildfires in Australia:

Australian bushfires: when two degrees is the difference between life and death
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/10/australia-bush-fires

Fire Down Below
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/fire-down-below/

I find it useful to see a variety of viewpoints on global warming, so I regularly monitor about twenty sources of information and commentary. And yes, this includes stuff from the skeptics. I have an email mailbox where I have been saving articles and discussions by and about the skeptics for more than five years. This currently has about 250 entries.

There are many good sources, but I will recommend just two here. First is Dr. James Hansen. Here is his website:

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/

You can send him an email to be added to his maillist to receive notices when he posts a new commentary, which is about once a month or so. Hansen is the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and is considered by many people (including me) to be one of the top climate scientists in the U.S. Hansen has been warning about the global warming problem since he presented testimony to congress twenty years ago. You might encounter a bogus claim that what he told congress has proven to be incorrect. This is basically a lie and a fraud. See "How to talk to a climate skeptic" for details. One of the things posted on his website is the set of slides used for his talk at the American Geophysical Union meeting a couple months ago. The title of this is "Climate Threat to the Planet: Implications for Energy Policy and Intergenerational Justice." If you look at the comments for the slides (page 24 in the PDF file), you will find this: "In my opinion, if we burn all the coal, there is a good chance that we will initiate the runaway greenhouse effect. If we burn the tar sands and tar shale (a.k.a. oil shale), I think it is a dead certainty." The runaway greenhouse effect that he refers to is what we have on Venus, where the surface temperatures are 460 degrees C (more than 800 degrees F), i.e., hot enough to melt lead. Is this something we should be worried about? Or, should we just assume that future generations of humans and other life on the planet will adapt to this if necessary?

The second source I would recommend is Joe Romm's Climate Progress blog:

http://climateprogress.org/

I have found Romm's blog to be the single best source of news and commentary on global warming and energy issues. He frequently posts new items - often several times each day.

Larry asked if anyone is talking about killing two birds with one stone (addressing both global warming and economic problems). The answer is yes, of course. There is actually a third related "bird" that needs to be "killed:" peak oil. There are indications that we are now (or soon will be) at peak oil where it will be physically impossible to further increase oil production and production will begin to decline. You can find discussions of these issues on Joe Romm's blog. Also, here's another example:

Fighting economic decline and climate change simultaneously
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/2/8/172126/0424

One last thing... I would suggest that people not concentrate too much on Al Gore. It's not a question of what Al Gore says verses what the global warming skeptics say. Gore is not a scientist. He is a politician who is trying to convince people to pay attention to what the climate scientists have been trying to tell us for decades.

In my opinion, the debate is over about whether global warming is caused by humans and about whether it is a serious problem. The debate now should be about what we do to address the problem. It's not a question about personal development. It's a question about the survival of life on the planet.

[Larry Kiehl]

Jim and David,

I've been busy doing my own research (ain't Googling a handy?) on global warming (GW) all day, and will get back to you with more later. GW reading is all new to me as of the last week, other than a "subscribed" belief about it I had adopted, like most people I'm guessing. Up to this point I was a "blind believer" in GW. Less sure now, though I wouldn't put myself in the "Skeptic" camp (I'm more for being campless about this). My sense so far is that there is GW. But I'm not sure that the evidence proves that it's solely man-made (AGW), regardless of the jump in CO2 levels the last few years. Cases can be made for "natural forcing". And cases for this being the onset of the next ice age, where it gets warmer before getting cold quickly. Really complex stuff. Hard to imagine people would take a stand on anything so complex. In any case, I'm not interested in debating the points so much as putting more light on how we're all looking at it, which causes how we approach the matter of "what's really happening" with the environment.

As such, I'm not interested in being right about global warming and how to deal with it at this point. Just wanting to see "what is", at least per the available research/writings so far. There's such complex and amazing quantities of opinions and conclusions that it's difficult to wade through and understand quickly. As, or more, fascinating to me about this issue is the prolific orientation of dualistic/adversarial mindsets out there on the issue, it's very disturbing to me given what they're arguing about. I'm more interested in the truth of it, the integrality of it, than the binary-ness of it or "who's right" about it. I'm guessing both "sides" think they are for the truth, too. But, as we know, 1st tier isn't Integral, so it's not interested in truth so much as "its side" being right, and some "other side" being wrong. So far it seems to me that both "camps" would be better served by taking more of a collaborating approach to climatic reality and spend less time being competitive about it like it's some game to win. I'll give a longer response tomorrow when I get some time. Smiles....-Larry