Global warming “solutions” covered by the mainstream media keep getting more and more radical. But this time, there’s much more involved than using a different type of light bulb, taking the bus to work or using less toilet paper.
A front page story in the March 10 Washington Post cited two separate reports recently warning of “danger” if worldwide carbon output wasn’t reduced to “near zero.”
“The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades,” wrote the Post’s Juliet Eilperin.
Near-zero output is such a radical solution that even the author of one of those reports admitted as much.
“The question is, what if we don't want the Earth to warm anymore?” asked Carnegie Institution senior scientist Ken Caldeira, co-author of a paper published last week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the Post story said. “The answer implies a much more radical change to our energy system than people are thinking about.”
The other report in Eilperin’s story suggested the Earth could warm by more than seven degrees. That is a higher temperature than even worst-case scenario alarmist Mark Lynas said is unlikely, a scenario detailed in his recently released movie “Six Degrees.” Eilperin referred to a report by Oregon State University professor Andreas Schmittner.
“Schmittner, lead author of a Feb. 14 article in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, said his modeling indicates that if global emissions continue on a ‘business as usual’ path for the rest of the century, the Earth will warm by 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100,” Eilperin wrote.
There is cause for skepticism in some of these climate change models, according to hurricane forecaster William Gray. Gray told an audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 4 that a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures related to the salinity (the amount of salt) in ocean water was responsible for some global warming that has taken place, but he predicted the globe would eventually undergo a cooling in the next ten years.
Gray said the flaw with some of the doom-and-gloom models that forecast global warming to occur at alarming rates is the amount of water vapor, a greenhouse gas, included in the calculations.
“There’s 100 things wrong with these damn models,” Gray told the conference audience.
Related Links:
A New Special Report from BMI: Global Warming Censored
BMI’s Special Report “Fire & Ice: Journalists have warned of climate change for 100 years, but can't decide weather we face an ice or warming”
Climate of Bias: BMI’s page devoted entirely to global warming and climate change in the media.
