Listen to the climate deniers over the last several years and you will hear several endlessly repeated fables that putatively support their corporate and immensely well-financed position that climate change is just not a big deal; certainly not worth the cost to the economy which must and can grow without limits. Such a preposterous construct violates the laws of thermodynamics which really can't be transgressed without predictable and unpleasant consequences, but why worry about minor details. Frankly, skeptics and many economists are generally quite stupid. Finite and sustainable are not words ever used by these shills for Exxon-Mobil, the Koch brothers and an expansive cast of corporate sociopaths profiteering from the climate crisis. One of the oft repeated corporatist talking points is that climate is subject to periodic changes. There is no doubt about the veracity of this statement, but context is everything. The paleo-climate record shows that the rate of warming we have experienced in the last 50 years is unprecedented and that the human impact on global warming is unmistakable and mutes any natural background climate fluctuation. Furthermore, we are at a point in the earth's natural cycle that should be leading us into a period of significant cooling. This will not happen because the expected natural signal has been overwhelmed by anthropogenic inputs of greenhouse gasses.
Another denialist (corporate) equivocation is that carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring gas in the earth's atmosphere and is the essential "plant food". Therefore, more carbon dioxide is good. By "plant food" I assume the denialist crowd are referring to photosynthesis, a series of complex, enzymatic mediated chemical reactions that occur in green plants and are powered by the sun, resulting in the production of glucose and the release of oxygen as a by-product. Some plants, like poison-ivy do better when the availability of carbon dioxide is greater, most plants do not. This "more is better" philosophy is not only disingenuous, but it is suicidal. Suppose your physician puts you on one daily pill of the anti-depressant, Prozac, and you start to feel better. So you decide that by taking five doses each day your life will become magical and filled with uninterrupted joy. Obviously, such thinking lacks clarity and the necessary foresight of unintended consequences like death. The "more is more" argument for carbon dioxide is embarrassingly simplistic. I know that complexity is not something Americans embrace, but many issues require a good deal of knowledge before anyone can form a rational judgement. The photosynthetic reaction also requires water. As temperatures increase due to increasing levels of carbon dioxide and other, more potent greenhouse gases like methane, the frequency of drought will increase and expand desertification and arid regions throughout the world. Land suitable for agriculture will be irretrievably diminished or lost entirely. Much of the state of California is experiencing a third consecutive year of severe drought with no end in sight. California leads all other states in farm income. How will a warming climate and increased frequency of droughts affect agriculture in California and prices and food availability in the rest of the country?
With global population soaring past 7 billion, global destitution increasing, and the Catholic Church continuing its relentless harangue against any form of birth control , reduced availability of arable land is not a fortuitous prospect. Additionally, as plants grow faster (at least some), they will require more water due to evaporation and transpiration, even as many of the major aquifers that farmers around the world have historically depended on continue to become more depleted, some having already disappeared entirely. Studies have shown that many plants exhibit a decline in biomass and nutrient content as carbon dioxide levels increase and temperatures inexorably rise. As mentioned, photosynthesis relies on the optimal functioning of a plethora of essential enzymes. How will rising temperatures affect enzyme activity? Most enzymes function best within a narrow range of temperatures. It should also be mentioned that many plants, trees in particular, are experiencing significant mortality and devastation from drought related fire and insect and fungal infestations. Crop pests and diseases are moving to higher latitudes due to climate change. This raises many concerns about global food security. Still the glib simpletons, well compensated for their simplistic assertions, claim with the moral conviction and fervor of Elmer Gantry that more carbon dioxide belched into our atmosphere is not only harmless, but actually a desirable end game. They are partially correct. Failure to act now will seriously impair if not negate our planet's ability to restore itself and support life. It will be the end of a remarkable and perhaps singular flourish of biodiversity that is, as far as we can know, unique in the cosmos. Extinction caused by one species' greed is not a game. It is an unthinkable atrocity. If you believe this is "the sky is falling" bullshit, then acquaint yourself with the science, you owe your children, at the very least, that much.
There is growing concern that as planet warming accelerates beyond IPCC worst case scenarios ( this is happening) the rates of plant respiration will increase and reduce net productivity. It has even been posited that at some undetermined temperature photosynthetic productivity and catabolic respiration could result in a zero sum stalemate in which there is negligible net increase in biomass. This game over scenario will become a certainty without an immediate global response. Massive funding for research and development of more efficient green technologies and innovative mitigation solutions must be implemented without delay. Policies recognizing the catastrophic implications of present and future climate change that empower, without obstacles, a cooperative international emergency response must be agreed upon without delay. Sadly, no such response appears to be imminent.
I happened to find an old t-shirt of mine several days ago buried in a drawer that had the following catchphrase printed on it: "We still have time". Ten years ago, I would have agreed. In fact I would have probably felt some certainty and comfort from my witless belief that humanity would rise to the challenge given the unthinkable consequences of not doing so. I know longer believe we have more time. It is now or a harrowing future.
The "more is more" crowd have remained obstinately defiant and seemingly unconcerned despite the many unanswered questions regarding a rapidly a warming climate. They are equally unbothered about the unpredictability of climate change and its unforeseen consequences. They seem to think that the Earth can be cured of its fever by simply adjusting the global thermostat. The reality is that it will take many decades, even if we act immediately, to reverse the 2 degrees Celsius of warming we are already locked into with carbon dioxide levels currently exceeding 400 ppm.
Wall Street speculators treat our life-support system known as the biosphere like a casino. As we take more wealth for ourselves, indulge in more and more profit-taking, we compromise the resiliency of nature and its restorative capacities. In fact, Wall Street's solution to climate change is to profit from it. Speculators are buying water rights and arable land around the world in gleeful anticipation of the fortunes to be made as governments and infrastructures crumble. Investing in an approaching holocaust seems bizarrely naive, but to believe in the sustainability of "market solutions" is magical thinking tinctured with more than a little psychosis.
Since James Hansen announced to a Congressional hearing on climate in 1988 that the effects of climate change were already happening, politicians and their corporate benefactors have done virtually nothing to address the most dire threat facing humanity. If we continue to ignore the repeated and more ominous warnings of climate scientists, the severity and duration of heat waves will worsen and droughts will continue to expand and increase in frequency. The resulting devastation of food crops and much of the plant kingdom will jeopardize humanity, most ecosystems will be damaged beyond recovery, and the greatest mass extinction and loss of biodiversity will be the legacy of our species.
The pathogenesis of this unthinkable scenario is hubris. For the few, there can never be enough money and stuff. Capitalism exists to exploit capital, which includes people, and to keep "biggering and biggering". It is an economic system that is not sustainable or ethical. It relies on brute force, coercion, and mendacity to preserve its suicidal binge of behaviors that fecklessly attack the ecological integrity of our planet while exploiting, without remorse, its most vulnerable citizens. We the people can no longer allow the rhetorical pestilence of sociopathic profiteers to be disseminated without resistance. The American creed of individual dignity and reverence for life must be realized by transcending the specious mythological hoax it has become, and perhaps always has been. The culture of death and perpetual violence is rapidly becoming the end game for humanity.
An apparent hiatus in global warming?
Kevin E. Trenberth and John T. Fasullo
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Abstract Global warming first became evident beyond the bounds of natural variability in the 1970s,
but increases in global mean surface temperatures have stalled in the 2000s. Increases in atmospheric
greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, create an energy imbalance at the top-of-atmosphere (TOA)
even as the planet warms to adjust to this imbalance, which is estimated to be 0.5–1 W m−2 over the
2000s. Annual global fluctuations in TOA energy of up to 0.2 W m−2 occur from natural variations in clouds, aerosols, and changes in the Sun. At times of major volcanic eruptions the effects can be much larger. Yet global mean surface temperatures fluctuate much more than these can account for. An energy imbalance is manifested not just as surface atmospheric or ground warming but also as melting sea and land ice, and heating of the oceans. More than 90% of the heat goes into the oceans and, with melting land ice, causes sea level to rise. For the past decade, more than 30% of the heat has apparently penetrated below 700 m depth that is traceable to changes in surface winds mainly over the Pacific in association with a switch
to a negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) in 1999. Surface warming was much more in
evidence during the 1976–1998 positive phase of the PDO, suggesting that natural decadal variability
modulates the rate of change of global surface temperatures while sea-level rise is more relentless. Global
warming has not stopped; it is merely manifested in different ways.
Denialist Argument that Global Warming Has Stopped Proven Wrong
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