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Too Many Cheeseburgers vs. A Heart Attack
Apr. 5th, 2007 03:40 pmI read today on CNN.com that Mars is having a bit of global warming. I expect both sides of the debate will have "words" in this report. Personally, I think the global warming problem is analogous to another American problem, health.
Eating too many cheeseburgers is bad for you. It causes obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, all of which can kill you. But these are long-term problems. You have to have a bad diet for years for this to catch up. A heart attack, on the other hand, is an immediate crisis.
I think the Earth is getting warmer. I suspect that, as the new Martian data imply, that part of the warming is external to humans. The last 2,000 years of recorded history suggest several warmer and colder spells, and it looks like we're on the warm side. But assuming humans aren't contributing to the problem is dangerous. We are definitely increasing the amount of CO2 and sulfur dioxide (both greenhouse gasses) in the atmosphere.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says "we're getting warmer." Their "Summary for Policymakers" (here, 2 MB, PDF) says we'll be 1.5 to 2.7 degrees centigrade warmer by 2100 (half of which we've already seen), and sea levels will rise.
Here's the problem. The IPCC report calls for sea levels to rise 9 to 20 inches by 2100. I'd hold off on getting the gondola franchise for lower Manhattan. They state that it would take a millennium for the Greenland ice sheet to melt, assuming no cooling. In short, global warming is a serious, but manageable, long-term issue.
Unfortunately, this is not what Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth would have you believe. Many environmentalists are treating our cheeseburger addiction like a heart attack. This leads to counterclaims, of people saying the Earth isn't getting warmer, and generally a lot of hot air in lieu of action (pun intended). Calm decision-making is what's needed most, and what we're getting least.
Eating too many cheeseburgers is bad for you. It causes obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, all of which can kill you. But these are long-term problems. You have to have a bad diet for years for this to catch up. A heart attack, on the other hand, is an immediate crisis.
I think the Earth is getting warmer. I suspect that, as the new Martian data imply, that part of the warming is external to humans. The last 2,000 years of recorded history suggest several warmer and colder spells, and it looks like we're on the warm side. But assuming humans aren't contributing to the problem is dangerous. We are definitely increasing the amount of CO2 and sulfur dioxide (both greenhouse gasses) in the atmosphere.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says "we're getting warmer." Their "Summary for Policymakers" (here, 2 MB, PDF) says we'll be 1.5 to 2.7 degrees centigrade warmer by 2100 (half of which we've already seen), and sea levels will rise.
Here's the problem. The IPCC report calls for sea levels to rise 9 to 20 inches by 2100. I'd hold off on getting the gondola franchise for lower Manhattan. They state that it would take a millennium for the Greenland ice sheet to melt, assuming no cooling. In short, global warming is a serious, but manageable, long-term issue.
Unfortunately, this is not what Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth would have you believe. Many environmentalists are treating our cheeseburger addiction like a heart attack. This leads to counterclaims, of people saying the Earth isn't getting warmer, and generally a lot of hot air in lieu of action (pun intended). Calm decision-making is what's needed most, and what we're getting least.
