Environmental News, Articles & Information | Global Warming News | EcoWorld

According to the Global Footprint Network, humanity started “eating the planet” on October 9th of this year. Some background is in order. The Global Footprint Network’s stated mission is,

“To support a sustainable economy by advancing the Ecological Footprint, a measurement and management tool that makes the reality of planetary limits relevant to decision-makers throughout the world.”

What these researchers do is estimate the amount of resources the planet will generate in one full year, then compare that to the speed with which human civilization will consume these resources. And according to their findings, the renewable resources that our planet generated during the entire 12 months of 2006 were used up by humanity by October 9th.

The subjectivity of the assumptions underlying this assessment is certainly not in limited supply!

Why not consider the solar energy hitting the planet? Isn’t that something we’re always thinking about? In our own little study “How Much Solar Energy Hits the Earth” we calculate that in one year over 8.2 million quadrillion BTUs of solar energy hits the earth. Since the entire human race only consumes about 400 quadrillion BTUs of energy per year from all sources, we would have to increase our energy consumption by a factor of 20,000 before we could begin to “eat the earth.”

So what assumptions are these people making? They certainly aren’t anticipating the advances in technology that have confounded the malthusian naysayers of countless prior generations.

Do they consider that the world’s population is now predicted to level off at around 8.0 billion within 30 years, the lowest projection yet? Do they consider that next generation photovoltaic arrays will provide cheap abundant energy to everyone in the world within that same period of time? Do they consider that with such abundant energy even desalinization of seawater is cost effective? Have they seen the promise of electric cars that don’t pollute at all?

The global warming alarmists – such as the group “StopGlobalWarming.org” are also not thinking about these game changing and positive trends. Both the “eating the planet” malthusians and the global warming doomsayers should think carefully about the consequences of the alarm they spread. Should we deforest the planet to grow “carbon neutral” biofuel (also known as “deforestation diesel”), when deforestation could be more likely to warm the planet than the carbon?

There are obvious environmental challenges and examples of unsustainable practices. Our practice of strip mining the oceans for seafood is a perfect example. But while thoughtfully attempting to reform these practices, we shouldn’t forget that overall, technology has brought us to the brink of global prosperity and sustainability.

Let’s say we are experiencing global warming. Let’s say this phenomenon is not only real, it’s something we can change, and that our survival depends on it. Even if all of this is true, why wouldn’t the three to five percent anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions that are really creating the “tipping point” – whereby normal planetary temperature fluctuations may careen into full fledged icecap meltdown – be better credited and offset by simply planting more trees?

We have just posted an in-depth feature story entitled “Global Warming Facts” by the eminent and respected atmospheric scientist from MIT, Dr. Richard Lindzen. It is clear from the data presented in Lindzen’s tables that global surface temperatures have not increased in around ten years. What does this all mean?

One thing appears worth considering: Taking drastic action to dramatically curtail CO2 emissions comes at a great price in economic growth and individual freedoms. Is this as important as simply cleaning up pollutants? What if this emphasis on reducing the emissions of C02, which is not a pollutant, will de-emphasize reducing emissions of genuine toxic pollutants; lead, ozone, sulpher dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulates?

In the last 150 years the forests of the world have shrunk from over 30 million square miles to around 18 million square miles. Meanwhile the deserts of the world have grown from around 5 million square miles to over 8 million square miles. Changes in land status on this scale, on a planet where there are only 56 million square miles of land surface, undoubtedly change the weather. According to Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, most global warming models don’t even take into account farming methods. Furthermore, megopoli of tens of millions of people now sprawl, absorbing and radiating heat; urbanized areas easily consume 2% of the land surface of the planet. Of course it’s hotter! Reverse desertification, reforest, plant urban trees!

An extremely encouraging and relevant point in all this is that technology can’t be stopped. Technology is a river, one that will always flow free; no matter how many dams, eventually the river of innovation will flow. Inexpensive photovoltaic panels, cheap and durable batteries with energy densities approaching and exceeding 500 watt-hours per kilogram are coming soon. These solutions will prevail.

Meanwhile let us at least not cut down the last remnants of the Congo and Amazon rainforests so enterprising local biofuel entrepreneurs can plant “carbon neutral” sugar cane and cassava plantations.

While many people theorize whether or not global warming exists, we here at EcoWorld believe that global warming and climate change are not only real – but they are both topics we need to understand more about. With this in mind, our editors have worked on the following list of global warming facts…

Editor’s Note: Viewing the global temperature records shown on the tables and analysis to follow, one might immediately ask: Even if recent warming may be leveling off since temperature records are arguably flat for the last ten years – what if they aren’t? That is the classic, and not cavalierly dismissed, question from the global warming alarmists. Then again, what if we successfully cool the planet, avoiding climate catastrophe by banning spurious combustion, only to regret that in the process we never developed a fleet of passenger and cargo transport aerospaceplanes, and as a result were unable to spacelift the throw-weight necessary to stop an asteroid from hitting our planet and wiping us out?

Beware of how often you play the “we-do-this-or-we-all-perish” card while relying on the precautionary principle. How often must we transform and reorganize our entire industrial base, just to avoid a plausible, but somewhat (if not extremely) low probability of leaving ourselves vulnerable to certain slaughter? And should we shift our focus away from ridding the air of really noxious pollutants; micro-particulates, sulpher dioxide, carbon monoxide, lead, ozone, just to reduce C02 emissions?

Global Warming Data

The data in the following set of tables, compiled by Dr. Richard Lindzen, an atmospheric scientist from MIT, only goes back to the mid 19th century; there are only about 150 years of data. Per-WWI data could be skewed. Depending on whether or not that is true, or even so, there is only about a 0.5 (one-half degree) centigrade change in global temperature that is clearly indicated. But what if the recent 25 year rising trend doesn’t fall? What are the 500 year trends, year by year? Do we know? What are the 10,000 year trends?

What if the earth really is warming – what if the data takes another leap, then another, instead of settling back to the 150 year mean? Do we combat this by curtailing and controlling all burning?

Why instead don’t we simply replace more of the 40% of forests that have been lost in the last 150 years, and restore to life 30% of the deserts that have marched forward over the last 150 years? We can plant trees in the cities while we’re at it, to ameliorate the hugely significant additional effect of the urban heat islands of our world’s new mega-cities. Do we strip the last forests to grow biofuel, instead of simply constructing (usually on rooftops) photovoltaic and solar-thermal arrays that consume – by well over two orders of magnitude – far less space? Wouldn’t we rather replace desert with rangeland and farms, and rangeland and farms with forest, and put canopies of green across our cities, rather than regulate all burning?

Global Warming Statistics
There is broad agreement about the behavior of the global mean temperature.

While there is agreement regarding the historical data, that does not mean that the resulting observations are very solid. The point of the following tables is simply to render transparent the global temperature records underlying most global warming observations and predictions, and comment on what they may or may not indicate.

GLOBAL MEAN ANNUAL SURFACE TEMPERATURE Per Year from 1900 through 2005

Source: UK Meteorological Office

The tables above and below this paragraph are the records commonly displayed by the IPCC. Interestingly, the record is essentially flat since 1995. The modest spike in 1998 is commonly associated with an El Nino. The temperature records reflected in these two tables are completely consistent with a rapid rise from 1976 to 1986 and a leveling off since. This would be more like what is referred to as a regime change than a response to global greenhouse warming.

GLOBAL MEAN ANNUAL SURFACE TEMPERATURE Per Year from 1995 through 2005

Source: UK Meteorological Office

When considering global temperature trends it is important to take into account uncertainty bands. When this is done, as the table below indicates, there is no basis for claiming an significant global warming trend since 1986, though there might very well be one.

GLOBAL MEAN ANNUAL SURFACE TEMPERATURE WITH UNCERTAINTY BANDS Per Year from 1855 through 2005

It is sometimes claimed that the recent warming period involves much more rapid warming than the mean warming for the past century or so. This is, of course, true of any warming period in a record that includes periods of cooling as well as periods of relatively stationary temperature. For example, the rate of warming during 1910-1940 is somewhat more rapid than the recent rate. More over, if one looks for short periods, there is no difficulty in finding rates that are many times the rate over the last century.

There are only a few groups that compile records of the global mean temperature, and at least two of these groups are strongly committed to the popular view of global warming. On the three tables below, the planets yearly fluctuations in surface temperature are shown against the average measurements from 1961 to 1990 in the case of the first table, and 1951 to 1980 in the 2nd and 3rd tables. Each of these groups of researchers have used the same data, in a range of years which begins between 1851 and 1880, and ends in 2006.

GLOBAL ANNUAL SURFACE TEMPERATURE DEPARTURES FROM THE 1961 TO 1990 AVERAGE Per Year From 1850 through 2005

Note: The 95% confidence limits for the annual global estimate are shown (black error bars). Sources: NOAA/NCDC, HadCRUT, and NASA GISS

Of the three groups compiling each of the above graphs, at least two of these groups are strongly committed to the popular view of global warming. All the groups use the same data, but differ a bit in how they treat the data. Reassuringly, the records look pretty much the same. Two groups (Hansen’s at GISS and NOAA) claim that 2005 was a record breaker, but by a statistically insignificant amount, and clearly the difference between this result and the others is well within the uncertainty as displayed by the error bars. The table from NOAA shows a total warming of only .45C over the length of the record.

The matter of error bars is not without interest. Hansen doesn’t show any. However, the error bars in NCDC analysis are noticeably larger than those from the UK. As best I can tell, the NCDC uses stricter quality control, leading them to reject data from obviously suspect stations (like those in rapidly urbanizing regions). The UK, on the other hand, keeps these stations, and “corrects” them in a largely subjective manner. Thus, the UK has a larger number of points going into the mean, many of which have been “corrected” to look like the mean. This leads to an artificially small error bar.

In all cases, the error bar refers simply to the scatter of points going into the mean. In the next three tables, the late Stan Grotch of the Livermore Radiation Lab showed the nature and implications on the error bars of this scatter.

DEVIATIONS OF ANNUAL MEAN TEMPERATURE FROM LONG-TERM AVERAGE Per Year From 1851 to 1984

Data points averaged to obtain time record of global mean temperature. Note points range from less than -2C to more than +2C. Source: S.L. Grotch, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory)

Note that the error bars (below tables) are based solely on the scatter of the individual station data points (above table). They don’t include any information about other sources of uncertainty such as changes in land usage, changes in instrumentation, etc.

GLOBALLY AVERAGED DEVIATIONS FROM AVERAGE TEMPERATURE PLOTTED ON A SCALE RELEVANT TO THE INDIVIDUAL STATION DEVIATIONS Per Year from 1851 to 1984

Each value here is based on the average of all the points for each year in the previous figure. Source: S.L. Grotch, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory)

Another major problem in interpretation arises from the existence of natural internal variability. This is a frequently misunderstood issue. The point is that the earth’s global mean temperature varies even in the absense of any external forcing at all. This is an inevitable property of a turbulent fluid where the greenhouse effect (mostly due to water vapor and clouds) varies dramatically with location. Moreover, the ocean is continually moving in and out of equilibrium with the surface for a variety of reasons. An example of such behavior is El Nino. However, there are similar phenomena in other regions.

GLOBALLY AVERAGED DEVIATIONS FROM AVERAGE TEMPERATURE PLOTTED ON A SCALE STRETCHED TO FILL THE GRAPH Per Year from 1851 to 1984

Each value here is based on the curve in the previous figure stretched to fill the graph. Note that range is now about -0.6C to +.3C. Source: S.L. Grotch, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory

There is argument as to the significance of natural internal variability, but it is clear from the temperature record that changes of 0.5C over short periods are not particularly uncommon. Natural internal variability, or “noise” in systems such as the earth are generally reflected in temperature observations. Finally, it is characteristic of noise that it is random. Data indicates natural internal variability or “noise” should be represented by a horizontal band of width 0.4 – 0.5 centigrade. The below table shows that it is rare so far to find that the noise band and the sampling error bars don’t overlap.

OBSERVATIONS VS. INTERNAL VARIABILITY Per Year From 1851 to 2000

We have not given much attention, so far, to systematic errors due to instrument changes. Two warrant some mention. Over much of the world, traditional thermometers have been replaced by electronic thermometers, which have much shorter response times. This appears to have contributed a bit to recent warming. Perhaps more serious are problems with pre World War I ocean measurements. Note that 70% of the earth’s surface is ocean. Crudely speaking, before WWI, temperatures were measured by collecting sea water in a canvas bucket, and measuring the temperature. After that, the temperature was taken by measuring the temperature in the engine intake.

In the late ’80′s there was a cooperative program between the late Prof. Reginald Newell at MIT and the UK Meteorological Office to intercalibrate the two methods. The resulting paper showed ocean temperatures about 0.2 centigrade warmer (for the pre WWI period) than those given in the paper that finally appeared. Professor Newell was extremely upset with the change, since he could not find out what the basis for it was. Such a change accounts for about 0.14 centigrade of the century long term trend commonly cited.

The point of all this is not to claim that there has been no warming. After all, the system’s temperature is always varying. However, when dealing with small temperature changes in a turbulent system, there is little appropriateness to dogmatism. Perhaps the most important message one gets from the data is that the change in temperature has been on the order of 0.5 centigrade, and the main question should be whether we have any solid basis for considering such a change to be large or small, serious or inconsequential.

About the Author: Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Thank God – there are powerful God fearing folks who believe we must exercise stewardship over this earth. This earth is ours not just to use, but to nurture. A Christian environmentalism is emerging that is recognizable to secular environmentalists. But one must avoid jumping to conclusions as to the nature and nuances of rising environmentalist activism among evangelical Christians.

In his PBS blog, the well known journalist and commentator Bill Moyers has a favorable take on this in a recent post “Religion & Environmentalists” where he applauds a “nascent environmentalism in the evangelical community.” But Moyers might be missing the boat in his further observations on this phenomenon…

Moyers reports “In February 2006, a group of 86 respected evangelical Christian leaders from across the nation unveiled a campaign for environmental reform and put out a statement calling on all Christians to push for federal legislation that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions in an effort to stem global warming.”

If Bill Moyers believes that reducing carbon emissions to stop global warming is the biggest and most urgent environmental challenge of all time, then he is right to be pleased that some Christians have jumped on the stop-global-warming bandwagon.

If you think, however, that anthropogenic CO2 may not be the primary cause of global warming, and that global warming may not become as catastrophic as many currently claim, then what should one make of these evangelicals?

In his post Moyers all but equates environmentalism with fighting to regulate carbon emissions. He applauds this one manifestation of environmentalism within the evangelical Christian church, and says that up till now -

“evangelicals have been charging environmentalists – and those progressive Christians who support environmentalism – with idolatry for lavishing worship on ‘God’s creation’ rather than God. Moreover, they have been skeptical, if not downright hostile, toward government-mandated protection of the environment.”

Conscientious Christians search for the truth. They don’t care what the bandwagon hypothesis may be. When assessing the likely validity of prevailing climatological theories, Christians, perhaps ironically, may be more likely to rely solely on scientific reasoning than their secular environmentalist counterparts. Let’s hope so, anyway.

Being a Christian, an Environmentalist, or a Christian Environmentalist most certainly does not require one to be as certain as Moyers, Schwarzenegger, Blair or Gore seem to be on the subject of global warming and how severe it is, or what to do about it.

For three days in late September, California’s Air Resources Board hosted their annual “Zero Emission Vehicle” (ZEV) Symposium. It’s interesting to see how the agenda has evolved this year, to put more emphasis than ever on battery electric vehicle technology instead of hydrogen fuel cell technology.

If you review the presentation agenda you will see that the hydrogen lobby managed to dominate most of the conference. But if you view the various presentations, you may be struck by the difference in tone and content between these competing technologies. Basically, the hydrogen folks trotted out the same slides they delivered last year, with minor updates. On the battery electric sessions, however, there was an excitement and vitality that comes from knowing you are in the vanguard of an impending revolution.

Battery/electric automotive technology, you see, doesn’t require a government hand-out – or mandate – to survive. It’s venture financed instead of taxpayer financed. It’s nurtured by some of the most hard-headed, brilliant capitalists the Silicon Valley ever spawned, people who have made their fortunes by beating the competition in the free market, and who are willing to invest their winnings in another winner whose time has come – battery/electric cars.

The most revealing and illuminating comparison between hydrogen fuel cell technology and battery/electric technology came on page 21 of the electric car presentation delivered by Martin Eberhard, CEO of Tesla Motors. In this he poses the question “how many miles will one unit of electricity power a car?” and proceeds to prove that the battery powered car will travel about 3.5 times further than a hydrogen fuel cell car on the same amount of electrical input. We believe Mr. Eberhard, since we’ve quantitatively demonstrated similar results in our post “The Hydrogen Hoax” and in our pro-battery/electric vehicle feature story “The Battery Powered Car.”

Eberhard doesn’t quit there. He also demonstrates the advantage photovoltaic arrays hold over biofuel crops on pages 25 and 26 of his presentation. He demonstrates that one acre of land covered with photovoltaics will enable an electric car range 32 times further than the same acre of land used to produce a biofuel crop. We agree, as the calculations prove in our post “Biofuel vs. Photovoltaics.”

It is wonderful to see the truth beginning to come to light. It may be batteries, or it may be ultracapacitors (or a combination of the two), that power the electric motors of next generation ultra-green cars. One thing is certain: It won’t be hydrogen fuel cells. And while biofuel has potential, particularly if it is factory grown, the abundant green energy of tomorrow is going to come, overwhelmingly, from photovoltaic arrays.