UPDATE: Gore testimony below.
Nobelist Al Gore is testifying today in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on “The Road to Copenhagen.” You can watch the live video stream here.
We are having a snow and ice storm in DC today, so of course that leading science blog the Drudge Report went nuts with a banner headline:
GORE HEARING ON WARMING MAY BE PUT ON ICE
Drudge quotes an unnamed “Republican lawmaker” as emailing him, “I can’t imagine the Democrats would want to showcase Mr. Gore and his new findings on global warming as a winter storm rages outside.” Seriously, do GOP lawmakers have nothing better to do than email Matt Drudge about the local weather?
Salon’s response, “Breaking news: Despite global warming, snow still exists” put it well:
And to think some people are worried about the state of science education in this country.For the record, as people like Drudge should know, local weather and global climate are not the same things. And besides, no one’s predicting the end of snow as we know it anytime soon.
Plus, focusing on a single anecdotal data point in this way is a really, really bad way to do science, or to make any sort of generalized observation at all. If you’re playing Russian Roulette and on your first turn you happen not to die, this does not mean putting a loaded gun to your head and squeezing the trigger is a good idea. If you’re visiting Seattle for a week and on your first day there it happens to be sunny, you should not throw out your raincoat and umbrella. If you’re the Steinbrenner family and for the first time in ten seasons Joe Torre fails to lead the Yankees to the AL East title, you should not drive Torre away. (Admittedly, the Steinbrenners will almost certainly never grasp this concept.)
In fact, planetary warming continues unabated (see “Arctic sea ice drops below 2007 levels” and “Very warm 2008 makes this the hottest decade in recorded history by far*“).
The more interesting question to me about the hearing is whether Copenhagen and the UNFCCC process can — or should — be salvaged (”If there’s no U.S. climate bill in 2009, would U.N. climate talks collapse in Copenhagen?” and “Obama can’t get a global climate treaty ratified, so what should he do instead? Part 1“).
Gore’s prepared remarks follow:
We are here today to talk about how we as Americans and how the United States of America as part of the global community should address the dangerous and growing threat of the climate crisis.
We have arrived at a moment of decision. Our home — Earth — is in grave danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, of course, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings.
Moreover, we must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization at a time when our country must simultaneously solve two other worsening crises. Our economy is in its deepest recession since the 1930s. And our national security is endangered by a vicious terrorist network and the complex challenge of ending the war in Iraq honorably while winning the military and political struggle in Afghanistan.
As we search for solutions to all three of these challenges, it is becoming clearer that they are linked by a common thread — our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels.
As long as we continue to send hundreds of billions of dollars for foreign oil — year after year — to the most dangerous and unstable regions of the world, our national security will continue to be at risk.
As long as we continue to allow our economy to remain shackled to the OPEC rollercoaster of rising and falling oil prices, our jobs and our way of life will remain at risk.
Moreover, as the demand for oil worldwide grows rapidly over the longer term, even as the rate of new discoveries is falling, it is increasingly obvious that the roller coaster is headed for a crash. And we’re in the front car.
Most importantly, as long as we continue to depend on dirty fossil fuels like coal and oil to meet our energy needs, and dump 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, we move closer and closer to several dangerous tipping points which scientists have repeatedly warned — again just yesterday — will threaten to make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable destruction of the conditions that make human civilization possible on this planet We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.
For years our efforts to address the growing climate crisis have been undermined by the idea that we must choose between our planet and our way of life; between our moral duty and our economic well being. These are false choices. In fact, the solutions to the climate crisis are the very same solutions that will address our economic and national security crises as well.
In order to repower our economy, restore American economic and moral leadership in the world and regain control of our destiny, we must take bold action now.
The first step is already before us. I urge this Congress to quickly pass the entirety of President Obama’s Recovery package. The plan’s unprecedented and critical investments in four key areas — energy efficiency, renewables, a unified national energy grid and the move to clean cars — represent an important down payment and are long overdue. These crucial investments will create millions of new jobs and hasten our economic recovery — while strengthening our national security and beginning to solve the climate crisis.
Quickly building our capacity to generate clean electricity will lay the groundwork for the next major step needed: placing a price on carbon. If Congress acts right away to pass President Obama’s Recovery package and then takes decisive action this year to institute a cap-and-trade system for CO2 emissions — as many of our states and many other countries have already done — the United States will regain it scredibility and enter the Copenhagen treaty talks with a renewed authority to lead the world in shaping a fair and effective treaty. And this treaty must be negotiated
this year.
Not next year. This year.
[This emphasis was in the original.]
A fair, effective and balanced treaty will put in place the global architecture that will place the world — at long last and in the nick of time — on a path toward solving the climate crisis and securing the future of human civilization. I am hopeful that this can be achieved. Let me outline for you the basis for the hope and optimism that I feel.
The Obama Administration has already signaled a strong willingness to regain U.S. leadership on the global stage in the treaty talks, reversing years of inaction. This is critical to success in Copenhagen and is clearly a top priority of the administration.
Developing countries that were once reluctant to join in the first phases of a global response to the climate crisis have themselves now become leaders in demanding action and in taking bold steps on their own initiatives. Brazil has proposed an impressive new plan to halt the destructive deforestation in that nation. Indonesia has emerged as a new constructive force in the talks. And China’s leaders have gained a strong understanding of the need for action and have already begun important new initiatives.
Heads of state from around the world have begun to personally engage on this issue and forward-thinking corporate leaders have made this a top priority.
More and more Americans are paying attention to the new evidence and fresh warnings from scientists. There is a much broader consensus on the need for action than there was when President George H.W. Bush negotiated — and the Senate ratified — the Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 and much stronger support for action than when we completed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.
The elements that I believe are key to a successful agreement in Copenhagen include:
- Strong targets and timetables from industrialized countries and differentiated but binding commitments from developing countries that put the entire world under a system with one commitment: to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants that cause the climate crisis;
- The inclusion of deforestation, which alone accounts for twenty percent of the emissions that cause global warming;
- The addition of sinks including those from soils, principally from farmlands and grazing lands with appropriate methodologies and accounting. Farmers and ranchers in the U.S. and around the world need to know that they can be part of the solution;
- The assurance that developing countries will have access to mechanisms and resources that will help them adapt to the worst impacts of the climate crisis and technologies to solve the problem; and,
- A strong compliance and verification regime.
The road to Copenhagen is not easy, but we have traversed this ground before. We have negotiated the Montreal Protocol, a treaty to protect the ozone layer, and strengthened it to the point where we have banned most of the major substances that create the ozone hole over Antarctica. And we did it with bipartisan support. President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill joined hands to lead the way.
Let me now briefly discuss in more detail why we must do all of this within the next year, and with your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to show a few new pictures that illustrate the unprecedented need for bold and speedy action this year.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am eager to respond to any questions that you and the members of the committee have.
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I just want to submit that there is no way to know that it is warmer now than in the past. I refer to the article on this site that says warming is killing trees. If cold is bad for growth and now we see that warming is bad for growth, then using tree rings as proxies cannot tell the difference from warming and cool. Basically the temperature to growth curve for trees would then be an inverted u shape with max growth at the optimal temperature for the tree and reduced growth with either too much warmth or cold.
That sort of kicks the underpinnings out of the whole hot now than ever arguement.
[JR: Who cares what you "submit"? Trying submitting some actual scientific evidence. The article says that warming-related climate change is bad for trees. You can't separate the drought and the pests from the temperature effect alone.]
I’m not a denier, but I am curious to see what the response will be to the press release from Sen. Inhofe’s office: James Hansen’s former supervisor declares himself an AGW skeptic.
http://epw.senate.gov/ public/ index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=1a5e6e32-802a-23ad-40ed-ecd53cd3d320
All well and good to ding Drudge & Co., but this is at least the fourth time I can recall that Al has walked right into this one. He and his people should know better by now.
Next year, spend January, February and the first two weeks in March somethere in the Southern Hemisphere and stop giving these guys cheap ammo to launch yet another diversionary sideshow.
To Vernon,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology
(In areas where the climate is reasonably predictable, trees develop annual rings of different properties depending on weather, rain, temperature, etc. in different years. These variations may be used to infer past climate variations.)
And there are other sources of evidence of temperature besides endochronology.
Hundreds of science studies per year are coming in verifyiing AGW. Are you ignoring this information in favor of your wish for no global warming action?
Yes, we see the gullible army of the credulous is spreading Morano’s talking point. Not to the point of virus yet, but I suspect it’ll get there soon.
IOW: what one guy says is way better than empirical evidence, yessir!
Best,
D
To GreenPRGuy,
I disagree with you. Its a chance to show AGW and snow coexist. We run from it we loose.
The AGW case is both morally and intellectually bankrupt. The proponents also lack any sense of irony or humour. The ‘Gore Effect’ has much more evidence to support it than AGW, but in both case the possible mechanisms remain obscure. In the meantime, wherever Gore goes, close your wallets, put on your scarves, look for something else to do!
PS, Jeff you meant ‘lose’.
Jeff:
Please look at the proxies used in Mann98,2005,2007. The ones that give the nice hockey stick shape are stripe barked pines in the US South West. With out those proxies the nifty hockey stick goes away and your left with a proxy record and instrumented that do not come to gether. Which is why there is a divergence between the trees as temperature proxies and the instrumented now.
I totally agree with your statement “trees develop annual rings of different properties depending on weather, rain, temperature, etc. in different years. These variations may be used to infer past climate variations.”
But how do you pull temperature out without knowing rain, etc? The short answer is you cannot and even to do that, studies would have to be done to determine how the tree specie reacts to variation in rain fall, temperature, CO2 levels, etc. That has not been done over the life cycle of the trees used for proxies, some which live for 1000+ years.
The assumption is made that if every thing remains constant and only the temperature changed then the growth rate would indicate temperature. That is an unproven assumption.
Which is why if you got to studies that do not used tree rings, then then the Roman warming period, the MWP, the LIA all show up in the record. It takes tree rings to make them go away.
So that is why I say that the current studies that show higher temps are not good for growing indigious trees (old growth) of a region means that the use of tree rings as a proxy for temperature is not good. As a proxy for the climate for the tree yes, but not to pull one environments variable out of the mix.
Vernon,
Your arguments are far too narrow and you strain to find a grain of doubt while ignoring the mountain of evidence surrounding it.
As Naomi Oreskes said, “the consensus on anthropogenic global warming is based on multiple lines of evidence converging on a single coherent account.”
By some extreme fluke you could be entirely right in your rant against the hockeystick and tree ring data but that is only a minute part of the evidence upon which our understanding of AGW is based.
Good grief, why are all the idiots suddenly coming out of the woodwork just for this one post?
Clearly, there are people out there who are paid by the oil industries to search the web for Al Gore’s name, and submit their denialist crap anywhere they find it.
Vernon and Frank, I hope you find your blood money worth it. I’d laugh in your face if the consequences weren’t so serious.
Chris,
The fact that CO2 may or may not have the most impact on climate by man may or may not be true but no testing has been done that proves it is true. Personnally, I believe that land use has a much larger impact based on my reading but that is just me.
But that really does not matter, what matter is whether are not the current temperatures are hotter than ever before. The only thing that proves that are tree rings. The other proxies show that it has been both warmer and cooler than the present. So yes, that may be a narrow arguement, but the whole linch pin of why to worry now about the warming is based on it.
On, and if you want to research it, the PDO plus solar activity have twice as good a corralation with temperature trends .88 vs the .44 for CO2.
MikeB: did not take your meds today? I do not know about Frank but I have or ever expect to receive money from the oil or related industries. I am in computer science myself.
So one group of people want to make policy decisions based the CO2 AWG theory and those of us that do not want policy made until the theory has been proven are only out for blood money.
How about something better than adhom attacks.
These commenter arguments are silly. Since on one commenting here is an expert on climate, the only argument people can use is ‘argument from authority’. Then it just becomes which authority you choose to believe. I think the only rational choice in that case is to believe what the overwhelming majority of climate scientists say about AGW. To deny is just irrational, no matter what analysis Vernon or any other amateur says they have done.
Also please leave computer science out of this, lest someone think that we are all in denial.
MikeB: greatly are you troubled! I suggest you just relax, and stop worrying – the climate is overwhelmingly likely to show about as much variation in the next, say 500 years, as it has in the last 500. But now we have much better levels of wealth and insight to cope with those variations, which can be quite severe – notably in the so-called ‘Little Ice Age’.
Re being paid by the oil companies, I suspect they support the AGW hystericals whenever and wherever they can. I imagine the oil companies can see new markets in the various extravagances of wind and solar, as well as finding better uses for petroleum than merely burning it. The greenie lobby seems to be rolling in dough, not least c/o Mr Gore and his, now somewhat poorer, pals in Wall Street.
We poor ‘deniers’ deserve more of your money, and your sympathy, since we do not have the billions of the AGW-folks, and sometimes we even meet with personal abuse on web sites like this one.
Vernon,
You say that you believe land use has a larger impact on warming than CO2. Could you provide some links to your sources you’re basing this decision on?
Well said darth!
Well, I have read a lot and here are some that a quick check shows.
Kalnay, et al., (2004), Impact of urbanization and land-use change on climate.
‘Moreover, our estimate of 0.27 degrees C mean surface warming per century due to land-use changes is at least twice as high as previous estimates based on urbanization alone.’
Stohlgren, et al., (1998) Evidence that local land use practices influence regional climate, vegetation, and stream flow patterns in adjacent natural areas
‘[S]hort-term trends in regional temperatures, forest distribution changes, and hydrology data indicate that the effects of land use practices on regional climate may overshadow larger-scale temperature changes commonly associated with observed increases in CO2 and other greenhouse gases.’
Bonan (2000) Effects of Land Use on the Climate of the United States
‘The climate change caused by land use practices is comparable to other well known anthropogenic climate forcings. For example, it would take 100 to 175 years at the current, observed rate of summer warming over the United States to offset the cooling from deforestation. The summer sulfate aerosol forcing completely offsets the greenhouse forcing over the Eastern United States. Similarly, the climatic effect of North American deforestation, with extensive summer cooling, further offsets the greenhouse forcing.’
Betts (2001) Biogeophysical impacts of land use on present-day climate: near-surface temperature change and radiative forcing
‘The global mean radiative forcing by anthropogenic surface albedo change relative to the natural state is simulated to be -0.2 Wm2, which is comparable with the estimated forcings relative to pre-industrial times by changes in stratospheric and tropospheric ozone, N2O, halocarbons, and the direct effect of anthropogenic aerosols. Since over half of global deforestation has occurred since 1860, simulations of climate since that date should include the biogeophysical effects of land use.’
heres his article in the Huff…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ al-gore/ were-arrived-at-a-moment_b_161627.html
Chris asks:
” I’m not a denier, but I am curious to see what the response will be to the press release from Sen. Inhofe’s office: James Hansen’s former supervisor declares himself an AGW skeptic. ”
The answer is were you would expect it, In the Real Climate comments see January 27th posing.
“[Response: Dr. Theon appears to have retired from NASA in 1994, some 15 years ago. Until yesterday I had never heard of him (despite working with and for NASA for the last 13 years). His insights into both modelling and publicity appear to date from then, rather than any recent events. He was not Hansen’s ‘boss’ (the director of GISS reports to the director of GSFC, who reports to the NASA Administrator). His “some scientists” quote is simply a smear - which scientists? where? what did they do? what data? what manipulation? This kind of thing plays well with Inhofe et al because it appears to add something to the ‘debate’, but in actual fact there is nothing here. Just vague, unsubstantiated accusations. - gavin]
This is the year! We wont have a 2nd chance!
It is disappointing to see that our leaders are not getting it – look at all the money they have committed to try and kick start the old consumer base paradigm that got us in to this dilemma and which is relentlessly driving our CO2 upwards.(Climate change envoy calls for state aid to create low-carbon economy http://www.guardian.co.uk/ business/ 2009/ jan/ 25/ climate-change-summit-global-international)
You can see how it happens, with the mad panic that has engulfed us all as we stare over the cliff at the gaping depression sucking us in.
This year is it!
If we don’t switch our bail out packages and infrastructure spending towards obtaining the target for 100% CO2 reduction. then we are hosed for sure. There won’t be a second chance. We will have wasted the money, the political effort and the time (the oh so precious time) correcting the more urgent at the expense of the most essential.(Climate change in 2009: the defining issue http://www.opendemocracy.net/ article/ email/ climate-change-in-2009-the-defining-issue)
We won’t make it below 3degrees then! And that means we are looking at +5degrees eventually. (I think we are probably past the tipping point at this time, but lets not go there until we have to)
It must be fate that Obama arrived at this moment. If he is able to realize that this is the most crucial point in the history of mankind and is able to engage the international effort needed, then there is hope.
God bless America.
Thanks, Dan G.
I saw this story playing on various sites and blogs so I was hoping someone could comment on it rather quickly. I agree with the commenter above that one quote cannot, or at least should not, undo the mounting empirical data, but for some it will do just that.
To Vernon,
I find it strantge that you have recited land use as .27 degrees C warming per century.There isn’t enough warming in that statement to cover 2100 prediction. Yet it is clear now that co2 with tipping points gets us 2 degrees C now with more to come if we don’t stop emitting co2. Present farming methods outgas nitrogen and co2 with ever more demands made on farming in the future.
Your land use argument hasn’t disproven co2. So far it just reinforces what we have been talking about all along. The doubling of co2 still holds with tipping points plus land use exacerbating it even more.
Vernon seeks to obfuscate and purvey FUD. I call bullsh–.
Why?
Here is a chart quantifying forcing changes at the surface. Note the # for land use change.
Note how badly Vernon has it wrong. Huh. Imagine that: a denialist having it completely wrong. Golly. Whoda thunk it?
Best,
D
Somehow all the misinformed ‘denialists’ on this thread remind me of an infestation of bark beetles let loose in the lodgepole stand.
For Vernon, Matt Drudge and unnamed “Republican lawmakers” who probably make no disctinction between weather and climate, I’d like to point out that here in South Australia we’re having -yet another- blistering, record-breaking heat wave.
Jan 28 reached 45.5 C in Adelaide, with 46.2C recorded at Ceduna on the Eyre Peninsula. And this in a country in the throes of a record “1000 year drought” and severe water restrictions. Adelaide’s temp didn’t get under 35 degrees last night, after the hottest day in more than 70 years. Train tracks are already buckling in the heat and we have a week of 40+ temperatures to look forward to. 40+Celsius, not farenheit of course. And it’s only going to get worse if the world doesn’t act.
http://www.abc.net.au/ news/ stories/ 2009/ 01/ 28/ 2476483.htm?section=justin
Dano,
If Gore believes the BS he’s spreading, why does he fly around in private jets, ride around in limos, live in an energy guzzling house, and invest in beach front properties. Furthermore, why did he leave both the medieval warming period and the little ice age off of his graph in AIT. He refers to four, count them four, polar bears drowning as significant. He also implies that the Aral Sea has dried up because of Global Warming when it was actually drained for irrigation of cotton fields. Considering all of the deception, it’s not that big a surprise a bust of Abe Lincoln stolen from the white house showed up at Gores house. He’s a liar and a thief.
Dash RIPROCK III
sorry, I meant fahrenheit.
And to Dash RIPROCK 111, I thought it was well documented that Gore offsets his carbon emissions…?
Yo Vernon:
Is this little factoid,
“On, and if you want to research it, the PDO plus solar activity have twice as good a corralation with temperature trends .88 vs the .44 for CO2.”
anything like your 5-15 year factoid for the half-life of CO2? Your only source for that gave a range of 19-41. So, if we figure a standard 3x exaggeration (that’s a polite word for “lie”) rate for you, then I guess the PDO plus solar activity correlation is about, oh, 0.3 or so.
Cheers,
Martin
Fine, Gore! The criminal “deniers” are out in the darkness where they belong.
David B. Benson. You make a powerful case for believing AGW hysteria is being supported by over-emotional zealots. The word ‘denier’ is odd since there is nothing to ‘deny’ other than ill-founded speculation, and an astonishing lack of perspective on climate history. I think you would be better off saying ‘critic’, or ‘reasoner’, or even ’sceptic’. You see, ‘denier’ begs the question.
Shorter Dash RIPROCK III
Algoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeee!
Best,
D
Shorter Frank:
I don’t like “denialist”, so I’ll call myself skeptical, despite not being skeptical over the complete and utter lack of denialist testable hypotheses, data, models, equations, scholarship, formulae, scribbles on a napkin.
Best,
D
Dano, No need for all of that list, although some may be desirable. Fact is we don’t know how the climate works in the fine detail required for forecasts of climate. We do know that singling out one minor gas and giving it such prominence in such a horrendously complex system is absurd. We do know that Gore’s film was riddled with errors and that he was never a competent person to make it in the first place. I suspect you, and many like you, would do well to spend a few days in a darkened room with wet towels on your forehead, and hope that this disgraceful AGW hysteria bug will leave your system, and allow you to take part in discussions with your fellows without cheerleading for such a disappointing, dismal and dozy individual such as Mr Gore.
Fact is we don’t know how the climate works in the fine detail required for forecasts of climate.
Right. Which is why we don’t do it.
We do projections.
We do know that singling out one minor gas and giving it such prominence in such a horrendously complex system is absurd.
Ah. So you don’t know what you are talking about. Here, try this: Increase the dose of your Ritalin by 34%. Tell us how you do.
What, you say, Ritalin is a minor fraction of my total body mass and … and… um ….
uch a disappointing, dismal and dozy individual such as Mr Gore.
Shorter Frank:
Algoooooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!
Best,
D
I see you have not followed my calming advice, Dano. If anything, it has made you worse. Let me try another tack. Here is one of my favorite websites, Greenie Watch: http://antigreen.blogspot.com/. A mixture of extracts with links, and occasional inputs from JJ, the site owner. These will allow you access to a wider range of views than you have had so far, and may help you develop a more balanced, and less agitated, perspective.
These [links] will allow you access to a wider range of views than you have had so far,
Frank, I have pointed out how sites such as yours, and see-oh-too, John Daly, SEPP, etc cherry-pick, quote mine, mischaracterize and mislead for, oh, close to a decade now.
The only wider range of views I need – as opposed to comical “anti-greenie” sites – is to read more scientific papers. Not pre-chewed ideological status-quo denier sites that call widdle namie-names.
But hey – whatever it takes to keep the illusion that your self-identity is intact, eh?
Best,
D
I like that ‘widdle namie-names’ bit! There is hope for you yet.