Hi Mike,

I've taken the liberty to snip some of the previous text, in an effort
to keep things from becoming too unwieldy. Hopefully, I haven't made
our conversation too difficult to follow.

On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 22:26:37 -0600, Mike Hartigan
wrote:

I don't follow what you're saying here. What exactly did the "Left"
misinterpret and what lies did our [politicians?] tell us?

The article cites the faulty conclusions based on the evidence that
was (or was not) available at the time. The global cooling version
of 'the sky is falling' was the result. The 'lying' comment was a
reference to the reasons for our current foray into Iraq.

Researchers had not formulated a cohesive "voice" on global climate
change until quite recently; if there was one clear and unified voice
thirty or forty years ago I'm simply not aware of it. Now, with the
advent of better tools that allow us to collect and analyze more data,
with greater resources available to undertake this work and with the
collaborative efforts of many thousands of people in a wide range of
disciplines from all over the world, the evidence is becoming evermore
clear and some would argue irrefutable.

In any event, let's take a closer look at the reasons why this author
claims climate researchers may have mistakenly believed our climate
would be cooling, not warming as is now generally understood.

The first appears to be the most damning -- that a thirty-year cooling
period between the 1940s and 1970s served as a public canvas upon
which these discussions were sketched, and that in the absence of good
data, the resulting interpretations were generally less well refined
than they should have been. Fair enough.

His second argument is that the earth's natural temperature rhythms
had led many to believe we are about due to enter another cooling
phase and if you view the graphs, that doesn't seem unreasonable. But
as the author notes, we shouldn't consider the next ice age as
"predictable" nor "imminent" and since human activity also affects
global climate, these natural forces may no longer be sufficient, in
of themselves, to make global cooling a fate d'compli.

Thirdly, and I believe this to be the most crucial of all, air borne
pollution (largely sulphate aerosols and fine particulates) were
generally understood to have a cooling effect on our climate. Back
then, we were pumping ever increasing amounts of sulphur and fine
particulates into the air, which was reducing the amount of sunlight
reaching the earth's surface, i.e., "global dimming". Just a short
time later, two very important transformations occurred. One,
political and legislative measures, due in large part to public
concerns over acid rain and urban air quality, led to the introduction
of new technology that greatly lessened the amount of sulphur and
particulate we emitted (i.e., scrubbers and precipitators on coal
fired plants, the switch to natural gas and low-sulphur coal, the
reduction in sulphur in diesel and other petroleum-based fuels, etc.)
and, secondly, the remarkable and unprecedented slowing in the growth
of electricity demand. Electricity demand up until the late 70's was
growing at seven to ten per cent per year; today, it runs in the range
of one to two per cent. Electricity demand here in North America was
literally doubling every seven years and utility forecasters predicted
this rate of growth would continue indefinitely and, of course, that
much of it would be met by dirty, coal-fired generation. However,
after the energy shocks of the 70's and with the corresponding
structural changes to our economies, this new growth disappeared
almost overnight. It's therefore unfair to fault climate researchers
for either of these two unforeseen developments.

The last point is with regards to "interpretations of future changes
in the Earth's orbit" that have been undergone further revision and
refinement. As our understanding of this relationship has evolved,
the potential cooling effects have been scaled back. When new data
comes to light, we're sometimes forced to rethink or adjust these
connections. That's just how these things work out or, in other
words, crap happens.

There's a curious statement made in that article:

"[...] they recommended more research, not action. Which was entirely
appropriate to the state of the science at the time. In the last 30
years, of course, enormous progress has been made in the field of
climate science."

In other words, "Last time, were didn't know what we were talking
about. This time, we're really, really sure!"

(that doesn't sound just a little bit arrogant to you?)

Sorry, I disagree. I read this to be "there's a strong possibility
the earth is entering another cooling phase (perhaps not an
unreasonable assumption given what climate scientists then knew about
the earth's natural temperature cycles), but until we do more
research, we really don't know for sure". That really doesn't strike
me as arrogant at all; to the contrary, it strikes me as being humble,
truthful and prudently cautious.

The implication that 'this time we got it right' is where I see
arrogance. There's no need for more research - we've already nailed
it.

I don't think anyone is claiming we've finished the exam and can now
put our pencils down. To the contrary, I think it's safe to say
climate researchers want to dig deeper and continue collecting data so
that our understanding is further enhanced. As I said before, our
world is evolving, we're impacting our earth in many different ways;
nothing stays the same. I don't see any arrogance or smugness in this
whatsoever.

I think it's fair to say our understanding of global climate has
evolved considerably over the past thirty years and certainly the
tools available to scientists are far more rich and diverse. In terms
of computing power alone, my laptop is far more powerful than any
supercomputer available thirty years ago. And look at how information
is shared today; with the internet, it's immediate/real time. Thirty
years ago, this type of information would have been shared largely by
printed journals, with perhaps four to six months lead-time.

We've come a long way in thirty years, to be sure. That's what we
were saying back then, too. And we were just as confident (arrogant)
in our predictions then as we are today. We'll be saying the same
thirty years from now and we'll be smug because we'll finally know
everything. But the sophisticated computer models that are making
these dire predictions today still can't accurately 'predict' what's
happened in the past. Yet we're trying to set policy based on what
they're telling us about the future. Consider the most recent
hurricane season. We were told to prepare for a record season in
terms of both number and intensity. (oops!)

Scientists can't sit down at a computer, press a button and expect the
correct answer to spit out every time. Our understanding of weather
and climate, like most things in this world, is incomplete and will
likely remain so well into the future. The real question is, are we
getting any better at this? Personally, I think we are; others may
disagree. Will there be missteps along the way? Yes, but, on the
whole, I expect we'll continue to improve with every passing day.

The other question I have to ask is how long are we prepared to sit on
our hands and do nothing waiting for the proverbial smoking gun to
materialize, whatever it may be. Can you tell me exactly what it is
you want before you'd be willing to take some course of action? And
can you tell me how you would be able to determine the validity of
this smoking gun or the credibility of its presenters?

These are very different worlds. Back in 1977, I would be driving a
Plymouth Volarie. Do you think anyone would be driving a car like
that today?

I wouldn't have been caught driving one even then ;-)

Really? So what did you drive? A Pinto? A Vega? A Pacer?

Note, I'm not saying that global warming is a myth. Indeed, the
controversy is not over the warming, itself, rather it's over its
causes and what, if anything, we should do about it. I'm merely
pointing out that the skepticism is not without just cause.

Cheers,
Paul