A new study in the journal Science suggests that humanity is on the very of causing “a major extinction event” in our oceans while another study has found that 2014 was the hottest year in 135 years of record keeping. In the meantime, Pope Francis has again raised climate change and called environmental destruction a “sin” and affront to God.
Pope Francis has made it clear that in his view man-caused climate change is real and threatening humanity. In the Philippines, he called out to youth to rally behind environmental protection: “This is not only because this country, more than many others, is likely to be seriously affected by climate change. You are called to care for creation, not only as responsible citizens, but also as followers of Christ!”
His view is getting new support this month. In the ocean study by Douglas J. McCauley, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Malin L. Pinsky, a marine biologist at Rutgers University and their colleagues, the results show an accelerating level of damage but also found that it was possible to reverse this course.
They combines data from a wide range of sources from fossil records to fish catch rate to seabed mining. They found overwhelming evidence of over harvesting as well as habitat loss and coral reef destruction. While fishing and mining were found to be major threats, it was climate change was the major culprit in the long run. The 40 percent reduction in coral reefs were viewed as tied to climate change.
In the meantime, the data out of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA is not encouraging. The data show that 2014 was they hottest year in 135 years of record-keeping. This follows similar findings by the Japanese and an independent group out of University of California Berkeley.
The respected NOAA scientists reported 2014 averaged 58.24 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.24 degrees above the 20th-century average. (NASA only differs slightly in its finding of 58.42 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 1.22 degrees above their average).
NOAA also found that last month was the hottest December on record and that six months last year set marks for heat. Nine of the 10 hottest years in NOAA global records have occurred since 2000. According to University of South Carolina statistician John Grego, the odds of this happening at random are about 650 million to 1.
I wanted to add this. Many hunters and fishers, most of whom are considered “Red meat” Republicans, are pro conservation and environmentalism. That is because they live outside, know nature and have experienced the changes in a way city dwellers have not. Then there’s the suspicious farmers of Greensburg Kansas. Before the tornado it was heresy to talk about that green energy stuff. Now that people are saving/making money, these people are real backers and great proponents of alternative energy. Again, people who are considered red meat Republicans are open!
This isn’t about party.
Issac,
The only thing we disagree on is that this is a problem of Republicans. Democrats have not done the job on behalf of climate change either. I don’t think we can look to the political class for help of any kind.
I believe it will take a citizens’ movement to address global warming. For some citizens who do not think anything is wrong, the appeal of making a lot of money through free enterprise is a good enough to get moving.
For others, Christian stewardship may be a reason to act.
For others, of all political persuasions, clear water, air and earth for the children and all people are a motivation.
Still others care about all the plants and animals of this world as well as its people.
There are tons of reasons that many of us can get behind a very good goal. I think we should stay away from falsly dividing people by party and focus on what having a functioning planet can do for people, even when we are coming from many different motives.
Pogo
It’s always about power, the power of the idiots to rule or the power of those that have science, experience, and reality on their side. Power is always in the equation. What else ya got.
issac – if you believe the scientist-priests (who are lying to keep their grant money going) then by all means go with science power.
Jill
You are spot on. The trillions of dollars in wealth to be made and redistributed would dwarf that of the tech revolution. The problem is the status quo coupled with the ignorance of those who refuse to look beyond their own personal bent.
Decades ago the ozone layer was physically and noticeably eroding. Then the scientists stated that fluorocarbons were the cause. Those types, that are still refusing to accept mankind’s effect on the climate, that disagreed denounced, as they do today, the cause being man made. The world banned and thereby reduced significantly the use of the chemicals in spray cans that were eroding the ozone layer. Now, decades after that move, physical evidence is surfacing to show that the ozone layer is rebuilding itself.
There will always be the fools that will state with the minimum of authority an argument against the evidence. These fools actually hold seats on committees formed to study the phenomenon. One Republican fool used as an example ice in a bowl of water. He stated, sneering at the camera, that whether the ice melts or not it is in the water and it melting simply cannot cause the sea levels to rise. The degree of absurdity was only matched by the degree of foolishness that this idiot was an elected official and sitting on the very committee that is supposed to intelligently delve into the problem. He was elected by fools. He was appointed by fools whose strings are being pulled by the fossil fuel oligarchs or the status quo.
Therein lies the problem. Every idiot in government that refuses to believe that seven billion humans on the earth, using fossil fuels, pumping chemicals into the sea, etc can’t be having an effect on climate change is elected by thousands more.
When I visited Paris in 1967 the smell of exhaust was strong and offensive. Then later when I returned in 1976, after almost a decade of technological efforts to reduce emissions, the air seemed clean and fresh, same time of year. I visited Paris often over the years and spoke with residents who remarked on the same phenomenon. Yet there are still people who discount this and refuse to link it to the world’s climate.
It is one thing to encounter these types on blogs and in real life. The really scary thing is that they get elected and actually get involved in the process that can do good for the earth and its inhabitants but take the money from the likes of the Koch brothers and do what they’re told.
issac – I want to thank you for sending the cost of my asthma medication from $5/unit to $75/unit. Is the ozone layer any better? Not really. But I am paying a lot more for my medication and the best spider killer on the market is not longer available. Thank you, again.
“…humanity will act like the US Congress does–wait until a crisis is at hand before anything substantive is done.”
Not all of humanity. There are several societies who have seriously dedicated their efforts toward combating climate change and living in a way that decreases the human destruction of the environment. These societies just would not be considered civilized by many on this blog.
There is a win-win here, whether a person thinks anything is going amiss or not. We need jobs. Solar, wind, geothermal, etc. –innovation in energy technology, this benefits everyone by creating jobs. We have so many people who need jobs. Private enterprise is making money. These are all things conservatives should value: innovation, making money, jobs.
To me, all I have to do is walk outside to know that things with the ecosystem are very wrong. One thing we do know is there isn’t another planet to experiment on, so why take any chances.
People can get rich as they innovate and create jobs in the private sector through alternative forms of energy. Environmental clean up pays well. Clean air, water and earth are good goals as well as money makers. So if the issue is making money, why not make money doing something that benefits everyone?
Jill, everybody wants to use solar, wind, and geothermal energy. The problem is that the technology is in its infancy and so nobody can make money on it. Obama spent billions of dollars of our money to fund these companies, and even with all that free taxpayer money, more than 20 of them have gone bankrupt. Remember Solyndra, Abound Solar, A123 Systems, or Spectra Watt?
Go ahead and try to buy a Tesla car, and buy solar panels to put on the roof of your home to charge that car. You will soon see what the price tag is and you might just change your mind and buy something more conventional. I have a cousin who has done this, but then her dad was a millionaire. Yeah, like many rich kids who inherit money, she is a die-hard liberal progressive. She travelled in that Tesla from Los Angeles to Denver to attend a wedding of a family member, but arrived late because the car did not have the range a normal car does, so they had to stay unexpectedly overnight while the car was charging.
Would you rather be speeding toward another ICEAGE?
Bruce – we seem to be in stasis.
The sky is falling the sky is falling and no one believes it. There is enough evidence that we are hurting the plant to make changes. People having to walk around with masks because of smog and pollutants, Fracking that has more and more evidence coming out seems almost daily about the damage it is doing, corporations are people so the politicians kowtow to them but corporations don’t get cancer, emphysema, other diseases where the environment can have a causative impact.
I don’t have children or grandchildren but maybe if we coulkd stop thinking about money and instead about the world and environment these next generations will inherit we could let go of our selfishness that, hey we don’t need to change anything. Let’s instead deny the science that is indisputable as to what is happening to the environment, like ozone layers disappearing (causing epidemic of skin cancer which raises medical costs and on and on and on.
leejcaroll – there was an article in the last week or so that at least one half of all science is unreliable and unsupportable. Don’t put your money on science. The fraud in science is rampant.
I have not read enough about this issue to speak to it, but I do have questions that I have not heard answered in the publications I have seen.
How does the changing of the magnetic poles affect the climate?
How does the sun’s cycles affect the climate?
How does the destruction of wetlands affect the climate?
Can man-made fertilizers and pesticides affect the climate by how they affect the soil microbiome?
Can our economic policy affect the climate (e.g., overseas production allowing pollution to occur)?
What are some of the proposals for dealing with climate change? All I’ve really heard is “legislation” and signing the Kyoto Treaty. Reducing CO2 emissions by factories, etc does not really address the systemic problem.
Science does not seem to do so well addressing the real problems within extremely complex, and synergistic, systems.
From Nature OCT 2014, emphases mine:
How anyone can argue against the NEED to take care of the ONE EARTH we have???
No one here has argued that.
What’s in dispute is how to do this.
The alarmists are demanding progressive state control, which is what socialists are always demanding.
So pardon my skepticism regarding their true motive, which is power, not ‘taking care of the earth …for the children.’
How anyone can argue against the NEED to take care of the ONE EARTH we have…. for our Children’s Futures..???
Europe is doing it and it has been painless, because they have been doing it over time…..
The USA keeps dragging it’s feet…. So, the longer you wait, the more it will cost…. in MONEY and in having a Healthy Environment….
I am no Tree Hugger, by any stretch….
But…. How people can keep arguing about this, is beyond me
Repeat: “by much less than the margin of uncertainty.”
Meaning: No change.
How anyone can argue that laws are needed based on this kind if shifting sand science is unclear.
“GISS’s director Gavin Schmidt has now admitted NASA thinks the likelihood that 2014 was the warmest year since 1880 is just 38 per cent. However, when asked by this newspaper whether he regretted that the news release did not mention this, he did not respond. Another analysis, from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project, drawn from ten times as many measuring stations as GISS, concluded that if 2014 was a record year, it was by an even tinier amount. Its report said: ‘Numerically, our best estimate for the global temperature of 2014 puts it slightly above (by 0.01C) that of the next warmest year (2010) but by much less than the margin of uncertainty.“
Add I’ve said before, the science is settled and no more study is required. All funding for studying climate change should immediately be diverted for remedies and solutions to a problem we know exists beyond a shadow of a doubt. Every penny sent to researchers and government agencies to study the extent of the problem is a penny stolen from the earth.
We don’t need all this alarmist science to conclude like the Pope does that we need to take care of our environment. We can indeed spoil our world, so we need to act responsibly instead.
When will the climate scientists understand that correlation analysis does not establish a cause and effect relationship? Maybe when grant money is not offered for their conclusions? Take away the money, and then let’s see how the scientific analysis is done.
Zzzzzzzzzzzz
It appears that they are now only 38% sure of that data.
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/01/18/ooops-nasa-now-38-sure-2014-was-warmest-year-on-record/
And if it was warmist, it was warmist by 0.02 C, which is statistically insignificant.
My largest worry in this subject is that humanity will act like the US Congress does–wait until a crisis is at hand before anything substantive is done. But in this case it is not a simple statute that can be amended or repealed, which is the kind problem they only know. By the time it is fully accepted the inertia of the change will be to great to stop in its tracks and a serious reconfiguration of the environment will occur.
Eventually the world will return to an effective homeostasis in the system. But it might not necessarily be conducive toward the environment we prefer.