Repeat Photography & Global Warming

Repeat photography is pretty straight-forward: multiple pictures taken from the same spot years apart.   The technique is useful to determine and document changes in climate and human impact on the environment.   Wired Magazine has a fascinating series of repeat photos taken by the US Geologic Survey that show restored archeological sites, rivers that have moved, and glaciers that have all but vanished.   

Global warming anyone?  

Climate Change Links

Added some new links to climate change articles. One is from the BBC and consists of a slideshow on how residents are adapting to climate changes (flooding) in Vietnam. Another is an article from Discover Magazine investigating whether the core of the Antarctic icepack is melting.

Climate Change Links

I have run into an annoying number of people lately who still don't "believe" that global warming is happening, or that humans are largely responsible for it. I doubt that there's any way to convince them to read the research, since they've apparently already passed up that opportunity numerous times. The information is out there; for some reason, some people would rather dismiss it as some sort of "liberal conspiracy" or a disguised attack on "our liberties."

Regardless of whether you accept that the human dependency on fossil fuels since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution is the culprit, it seems to me that denying that there is a problem is just plain nonsense. Whatever is causing the temperature increase, it's effecting us and our world, and in some very scary ways. Doing nothing would not seem to be an option. Science tells us that there have been at least 5 major extinctions in the past. The difference now is that humans are aware (allegedly) of their surroundings, their impact on the environment, and have some ability to change how they interact with the environment. The dinosaurs weren't and didn't.

I've decided to start collecting links to various online resources that cover the subject of global warming, climate change, or whatever other label may apply. I'm putting the links in a section at the bottom of the blog titled "Links About Climate Change - Especially For Those Who Don't "Believe" In Global Warming." Hopefully, it may be useful to those who are interested enough to read up on the topic. I don't plan to include any technical articles, because they tend to be pretty obtuse and hard to follow. I'd welcome comments as well as other links you may come across.

The first few links are from some Marketplace.org radio broadcasts and Discover Magazine. They present specific examples of how fossil fuels have raised temperatures with unexpected results and how CO2 (from fossil fuels) may be damaging our oceans more than anyone foresaw.

Politics and Global Warming

I'm not sure what to make of the fact that there seems to be a vocal minority in the US that still doesn't believe than humans created the world's pollution levels and that the pollution has caused global temperatures to rise over the years and that this temperature rise is a threat to us. If you use the commentary section on newspaper web sites as an indicator, it would appear that there are an awful lot of these folks out there; more on that later.

In a recent news report on the current Governor's race in Illinois, the Daily Herald reported that five of the seven candidates for the Republican nomination don't "believe" that humans have caused global warming. One candidate allowed that humans "contribute" to global warming, but wasn't sure how much. The seventh candidate hedged his bets and stated he believes global warming research is "still evolving." I'm surprised he was brave enough to use the word "evolve."

The question was raised to elicit comment from the candidates on their views of "cap and trade" legislation at the Federal level. As such, it's really of small importance to the potential Governor of Illinois, but these candidates felt the need to explain their opposition to cap and trade. Rather than simply stating that they felt that a cap and trade approach to reducing pollution would have an unacceptable detrimental impact on business and employment (presumably because they think cap and trade will add costs to doing business), these politicians felt that they needed to attack the very notion that humans caused the climate changes scientists are observing. The public comments these people made are positively stunning in the depth of ignorance they displayed:

"I don't accept the premise that man is the cause of global warming, if global warming even exists," Kirk Dillard, a state senator from Hinsdale, said at a candidate forum last week.

"Global warming is not created by man and anybody who says that, it's just bad science. It's not true," said Bob Schillerstrom, chairman of the DuPage County Board.

Dan Proft, a Chicago-area public relations consultant, said Al Gore and other global warming activists are "kind of enviro-terrorists."

The State of Illinois is staggering under huge budget deficits, a regressive state income tax that hasn't been changed in a generation, more corrupt politicians than you can shake a stick at, and a public education system that is going bankrupt due to its reliance on property taxes. One could argue that the position of a potential Illinois Governor on global warming, climate change, and whether humans or polar bears caused these problems is of little relevance to the Chief Executive of the State. One would probably be mostly correct.

On the other hand, the fact that five candidates for statewide office had no compunction making such patently ridiculous statements in a public forum is disturbing for another reason. These politicians are so busy pandering to the "GOP base," that they can't accept what every middle school student knows is true; there's no explanation for global warming and its impact on climate besides humans and the pollution we have generated.

Now back to the online comments made by newspaper readers. This article generated the same kind of vitriolic and ignorant rants that cause me to generally avoid reading such commentary. Virtually all of these comments are posted by people using pseudonyms and their anonymity empowers them to make broad assertions as if they were facts. While they lambaste other commenters for making unsubstantiated or false "liberal" or "left-wing" statements about global warming, these posters make just as unsubstantiated claims masquerading as fact. Some of them make simple blanket statements about how well wildlife is faring in the Arctic, as if to settle the fallacy of global warming for everyone.

The ignorant comments of the public after news articles (about ignorant comments of politicians) are even more worrisome than the politicians' statements. The anonymous public vitriol tends to discourage rational discussion, and is little more than online bullying. For an excellent post on what's wrong with the public comment sections of news related web sites, read Steve Dahl's excellent 11/11/09 article "Everybody is a know-it-all these days."

In the end, it's impossible to debate with these folks and expect that they will ever be able to modify their viewpoint. If they don't "believe" in global warming by now, they never will.