Korea does not hear sound of global warming alarm

[jpak]

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/182338.html

Feature: Korea does not hear sound of global warming alarm

Gov’t policies do not reflect a worldwide realization of the need to act now

It is the summer of 2057. Ten years have passed since the once-annual jangma (summer rains) ceased in Korea. The soil is dessicated, and regular heat waves cause strings of deaths among city dwellers.

To make matters worse, the weatherman forecasts the onslaught of a colossal typhoon, more destructive than the 2005 hurricane Katrina. The news of dengue fever deaths on Jeju Island is no longer surprising. The Amazon Rainforest is turning into a desert. Half of the ice shelf once covering Greenland has melted. Environmental refugees from the beflooded lands of Bangladesh and the South Pacific search the world for shelter. As it is inordinately expensive to raise the levee gates, Korean public opinion has decided to leave the fate of the reclaimed plains of Saemangum to the behest of the waves.

Back to 2007. In a scenario drawn up by a U.N. committee of specialists, the scenes above may very well become a reality if global warming continues at the present pace. English Prime Minister Tony Blair warned that if the threat of global warming is not confronted now, future calamities are unavoidable. Perhaps our children will ask, "Why did our parents not do anything about global warming, despite knowing everything about it?"

On the 27th of last month, the South Korea Meteorological Research Institute’s carbon dioxide monitor located in the Yellow Sea read 392 ppm (parts per million). That number corresponds to a 30-percent increase from the 280 ppm carbon dioxide density present before the industrial revolution. Dr. Jo Jeon-ho of the institute explained that "once emitted, carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for 5 to 200 years, contributing to global warming over that period."

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[Possumpoint]

1. Okay, I Accept That It Is Getting Warmer, But

that generates two questions with multiple parts:

1. Is this cyclical warming or is man a contributor or at fault? The earth has gone through many warming/cooling cycles in the past. Many of the cooling cycles have been attributed to volcanism and meteor impacts throwing vast amounts of dust into the air. The cause of the past warming trends are less well known. There also is the question of what happens when vast amounts of fresh water are added to the seas and how will that affect the ocean currents.

2. What are we, especially in America, willing to do about it? Most of what we eat, wear, appliances used and vehicles driven are made with petroleum products. Vehicles driven are a large contributor to the CO2 load added to the atmosphere. Are we going to be willing to trade in our cars for bus rides? I doubt it. The switch to alternate fuel vehicles is going at a snail's pace. How much energy would be required to build an entire fleet of those vehicles which would be needed to replace our current gas guzzlers? Our houses are bigger then they need to be and cost a lot to heat/cool. However, are we going to be happy if the government steps in and restricts that? Are we willing to give up our fireplaces, wood stoves, pellet stoves, corn stoves, gas appliances, oil burners, heat pumps, etc.? Are we going to be happy if we have to walk away from unlimited supplies of hot water in each of our homes?

The above questions are more rhetorical then not so they don't really need replies. They are just something to think about. I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to energy use. I've started looking into underground housing to reduce my heating/cooling requirements. I'd love to own an electric car for local trips. I don't however want to give up my RV use unless the price of fuel becomes too high to bear.

[GliderGuider]

2. Rhetorical or not, they deserve answers

Your first question is standard denialist bullcrap, easily debunked by half an hour's reading on http://www.realclimate.org. The short answer is that virtually every legitimate climate scientist in the world agrees that the current climate changes are anthropogenic to a significant degree. The few who have any doubts couch them in carefully circumspect scientific language, complete with caveats. The spokesmen who promote the line of obfuscation you reiterate are almost universally apologists for fossil energy interests (either paid directly or indirectly, or else driven by ideology rather than science).

The answer to your second question is that the developed world will do little beyond a bit of hand-wringing until a major calamity strikes. Of course by then it will be too late, if it's not too late already. It's hardly surprising that it's unfolding like this. It's political suicide to ask people to voluntarily impoverish themselves in advance of a demonstrated necessity. As well, the hard truths revealed by the Prisoner's Dilemma show that people will not voluntarily put themselves in a situation where their altruism could permit someone else to win big by being self-interested.

[jpak]

3. Global warming is real and caused by human activities - and not by natural phenomena

That's the science - and it goes back 50 years...

Revelle, R. and H Seuss (1957) Carbon dioxide exchange between the atmosphere and ocean and the question of an increase in atmospheric CO2 during the past decade. Tellus. Vol.9 pp 18

Robert K. Kaufmann, David I. Stern (1997) Evidence for human influence on climate from hemispheric temperature relations. Nature. Vol. 388 pp 39-44

Simon F. B. Tett, Peter A. Stott, Myles R. Allen, William J. Ingram, John F. B. Mitchell (1999) Causes of twentieth-century temperature change near the Earth's surface. Nature. Vol. 399 pp. 569-572

T. M. L. Wigley, R. L. Smith, B. D. Santer (1998). Anthropogenic Influence on the Autocorrelation Structure of Hemispheric-Mean Temperatures. Science. Vol. 282 pp. 1676-1679.

Peter A. Stott, S. F. B. Tett, G. S. Jones, M. R. Allen, J. F. B. Mitchell, and G. J. Jenkins (2000) External Control of 20th Century Temperature by Natural and Anthropogenic Forcings. Science. Vol 290 pp 2133-2137.

Francis W. Zwiers and Andrew J. Weaver (2000) The Causes of 20th Century Warming. Science. Vol. 290 pp 2081-2083.

H. Jesse Smith (2000) Climate: Man-made and Natural Variation. Science Vol. 289: pp 217-219.

Richard A. Kerr (2001) It's Official: Humans Are Behind Most of Global Warming
Science 2001. 26; 291: 566

J. E. Harries, H. E. Brindley, P. J. Sagoo, R. J. Bantges (2001).
Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997. Nature. Vol. 410 pp 355-357

T. P. Barnett, D. W. Pierce, R. Schnur (2001). Detection of Anthropogenic Climate Change in the World's Oceans. Science. Vol. 292: pp 270-274.

S. Levitus, J. I. Antonov, J. Wang, T. L. Delworth, K. W. Dixon, and A. J. Broccoli (2001) Anthropogenic Warming of Earth's Climate System.
Science. Vol. 292: pp 267-270.

D. Rind (2002) The Sun's Role in Climate Variations. Science. 296: 673-677

B. Santer, C. Doutriaux, J. Boyle, S. Sengupta and K. Taylor. (2001) Accounting for the Effects of Volcanoes and ENSO in Comparisons of Modeled and Observed Temperature Trends. Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmosphere. Vol. 106 pp 28,033-28,060

D. J. Karoly, K. Braganza, P. A. Stott, J. M. Arblaster, G. A. Meehl, A. J. Broccoli, and K. W. Dixon (2003) Detection of a Human Influence on North American Climate. Science. Vol. 302 pp 1200-1203

P. A. Stott, D. A. Stone and M. R. Allen (2004) Human contribution to the European heatwave of 2003. Nature. Vol. 432 pp 610-614

B. D. Santer, M. F. Wehner, T. M. L. Wigley, R. Sausen, G. A. Meehl, K. E. Taylor, C. Ammann, J. Arblaster, W. M. Washington, J. S. Boyle, and W. Brüggemann (2003) Contributions of Anthropogenic and Natural Forcing to Recent Tropopause Height Changes. Science. Vol. 301 pp 479-483

J. Hansen, L. Nazarenko, R. Ruedy, M Sato, J. Willis, A. Del Genio, D. Koch, A. Lacis, K. Lo, S. Menon, T. Novakov, J. Perlwitz, G. Russell, G. A. Schmidt N. Tausnev (2005) Earth's Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications. Science. Vol. 308: 1431 – 1435

B. J. Soden, D. L. Jackson, V. Ramaswamy, M. D. Schwarzkopf, and X. Huang (2005) The Radiative Signature of Upper Tropospheric Moistening Science. Vol. 310 pp 841-844

T. P. Barnett, D. W. Pierce, K. M. AchutaRao, P. J. Gleckler, B. D. Santer, J. M. Gregory, and W. M. Washington (2005) Penetration of Human-Induced Warming into the World's Oceans. Science. Vol. 309 pp 284-287

V. Ramaswamy, M. D. Schwarzkopf, W. J. Randel, B. D. Santer, B. J. Soden, and G. L. Stenchikov (2006) Anthropogenic and Natural Influences in the Evolution of Lower Stratospheric Cooling. Science. Vol. 311 pp 1138-1141

"Will Americans trade in cars for bus rides? I doubt it"

I don't - Peak Oil will take care of that - and force Americans to switch to fuel efficient vehicles - and reduce travel distances - whether they like it or not.

Is trading in the Escalade for a Prius such a Bad Thing? Not in my humble opinion.

And I can guarantee when gas hits $6 a gasllon, all those folks that swore they would never be caught dead on a bus will be screaming for public transit in their neighborhoods.

"Are we willing to give up our fireplaces, wood stoves, pellet stoves, corn stoves, gas appliances, oil burners, heat pumps, etc.? Are we going to be happy if we have to walk away from unlimited supplies of hot water in each of our homes?"

This is nonsense - wood and corn stoves/furnaces are carbon neutral. Electric heat pumps can be powered by renewable carbon neutral electricity. Solar hot water heaters CAN produce unlimited hot water for homes.

A close relative of mine recently replaced all his appliances and light bulbs for Energy Star models and compact fluorescents.

He reduced his electric bill by more than 2/3.

Did he sacrifice anything (except outrageous electric bills)????

Nope.

He also upgraded his oil burner (30% reduction in fuel oil consumption by this alone) and installed 2 wood stoves in his home. He reduced his fuel oil consumption by more than half (and could do more if he had a pellet stove to heat his house during the day when everyone is a work or school).

Is he now "freezing to death in the dark"???

Nope.

Another relative traded in his Suburban for a Honda Civic hybrid and cut his gasoline consumption by more than 75% - was he forced to ride the Dreaded Bus when he did this????

Nope.

The reality is that 'Mericans don't have to "sacrifice" to fight global warming and can reap major economic benefits by taking relatively inexpensive measures to improve energy efficiency.

Nice try though...

[Possumpoint]

4. Glad You're Covinced

I'm not so sure. I think the truth falls somewhere between Man is a contributor and is wholely at fault. Believe what you want. I won't be trying to criticise you. These are all theroies. By the time the proof comes in it may be too late. Bottom line is, we need to take action now. Will we?

[NickB79]

5. "These are all theroies"

Apparently you need to research what the word theory means as well, because you're using it incorrectly.

[jpak]

6. That's the peer reviewed scientific evidence - there is none to the contrary

and remember....

...Only YOU can prevent Global Warming.

:polar bear pointing finger:

:evilgrin:

[Dean Martin]

7. I'm willing to take the bus, BUT

where I live, and where I work, my poor excuse of a city (Indianapolis) has no bus routes. No bus comes close to where I work at all, and does not run at night time. In fact, the routes don't even run to my apartments at the times my fiance needs the bus to get to college, so we have to move as soon as our lease is up, so we can be near a bus route. I'd love to have buses, or a subway, or trains to get to work. I'd love to live someplace like Chicago to take the trains to work and not have to drive.

Then again, Indy recently rated dead last in the nation in public transportation.