Dire warming reports
New dire warming reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tell of collapsing Arctic ice, new storms and heat waves, rapid sea level rise, dying coral reefs, and more. And the problem is not of the "distant future but is happening now," one report says.
A check with the National Snow and Ice Data Center today shows that Arctic ice-sheet coverage is below the 30-year average, but it is near average for the past 3 years. And the Antarctic, with most of the world's ice, is at its greatest ice levels since radar coverage began in 1979.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data on world sea levels indicate that sea level rise since the last glacier melted has slowed to about 1 in. every decade. That's a long-term concern for Venice and other low areas, but for most of us there is no immediate need for Noah and his ark, except in local movie theaters.
As to the frequency of extreme-weather events, we have a recent TV interview by Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, one of world's largest casualty insurers. Buffett noted on CNBC, "While the question of climate change deserves lots of attention, it has no effect on the prices we're charging this year versus 5 years ago. And I don't think it'll have an effect on what we're charging 3 years or 5 years from now. Hurricanes in recent years have been all profit. Future catastrophe forecasts appear to be no different than in the past."
Oceans are less alkaline than in the recent past, and this is a serious issue affecting coral reefs and other sea life. Whether they can evolve, as they did in past ages in response to ocean acidity, is not clear.
There are claims of a "97% science consensus" that most of the global warming observed since 1950 was man-made. However, as Legates et al. (2013) demonstrated in a review of 11,944 papers on climate published in the 21 years from 1991 to 2011, the largest such review ever published in the scientific literature, only 64 papers—or 0.5% of the sample—explicitly endorsed the proposition.
We are returning carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from which it once came, and it will be likely to cause some global warming—though the record amounts of carbon dioxide we have emitted recently have not caused any warming at all for up to 17 years.
Few of these alarmist reports suggest tough and effective measures like carbon taxes to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Neither do our legislators offer unpopular proposals. Those who endorse even a few cents more tax on gasoline tend to lose in the next election. Coal use worldwide is rising. Legislatures provide big money for renewables like wind and solar which lack scale and are too variable to replace base-load power supply. In 2012, wind and solar combined provided about 1% of the total US energy supply. They have a role in our energy future, but it will take more, such as carbonless nuclear, if we are really concerned about carbon emissions.
Rolf E. Westgard
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
University of Minnesota
St. Paul
Another Keystone delay
Despite growing support from his own party—i.e., 11 Democratic senators who have written letters of support and his former Sec. of Interior Ken Salazar—and in spite of the thousands of construction jobs and the increased energy security of supply, US President Barack Obama continues to delay the Keystone XL pipeline border crossing, an important energy supply project for all Americans
Lou Powers Apparently, when it comes to energy, he puts politics above what is good for the country, or maybe he just cannot make a decision.
Canadian oil will be produced whether it goes to America or China. Frankly, the latest delay makes US decision-making process look sillier by the year and is offensive to our good Canadian friends and neighbors.
Author, The World Energy Dilemma
