Waking Up to Climate Change

[KNOWTHIS]

www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=5739

LiveScience.com reports that these new poll results represent a dramatic shift from just three years ago, when climate change ranked only sixth out of 10 environmental problems. MIT political scientist Stephen Ansolabehere, who conducted the survey, says, "…There's been a remarkable increase in the American public's recognition of global warming and their willingness to do something about it." Almost ¾ of the respondents felt that the government should take more action to deal with global warming.

[halva]

Monckton
www.desmogblog.com/monckton-global-warming-ufos-and-time-travel#comment-17579

Gore and Lomborg
scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2007/01/at_the_wall_street_journal_bjo.php

Tim Ball
www.desmogblog.com/tim-ball-rewrites-the-truth-once-more

[halva]

The goal we have to set ourselves, in my opinion, is to build a new 'climate change' movement, because the present movement is hopeless. It needs a new leadership.

[altitudelou]

Halva / Wayne wrote,

"The goal we have to set ourselves, in my opinion, is to build a new 'climate change' movement, because the present movement is hopeless. It needs a new leadership."
______________________________________________

Wayne, just WHO in your opinion needs to be replaced at the leadership level of the climate change movement / issue?

I'm not even sure that I know WHO it is that you think represents the present leadership, think you could clarify your statement so we can all be clear as to just WHO it is that your talking about?

[halva]

Those comments were triggered by the story of how Al Gore was made a fool of by the climate change "sceptic" Lomborg.

scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2007/01/at_the_wall_street_journal_bjo.php

It is not just a question of a specific politician or party. Gore gets his input from the climate change movement as it now is.

It is not a question of saying: "replace Ross Gelbspan" or something like that, singling out individuals.

The point is that the things we talk about at this forum are not talked about within the climate change movement. That is why they are at the mercy of "sceptics".

[altitudelou]

Halva / Wayne,

Why are you giving any credence to these people like Bjorn Lomborg and Flemming Rose who make a living from stirring up controversy, they are both worthless opportunist who have about as much credibility in speaking to Global Warming / climate change as the liars that Exxon Mobil hires to ridicule any idea put forward of Global Warming.

I don't see how Al Gore was, as you say "made a fool of", he obviously saw at the last minute the setup being laid for him and simply ignored and avoided it, a wise decision on his part for sure, why should he be forced from his message into a debate with 'DEBUNKERS' troublemakers as you yourself so often are at DBS?

Al Gores decision to avoid such an obvious setup just shows how much more intelligent he is than the sleazy DEBUNKERS and how dedicated he is to bringing awareness to the true facts of Global Warming and climate change to the world public without engaging those that have self-serving agendas as Bjorn Lomborg and Flemming Rose obviously do.

I think that your whole approach with regard to this 'Matthew C. Nisbet' Scienceblog article borders on the sophomoric if not outright juvenile and I don't know how you can come here and present this kind of crap and expect anyone to believe that you sincerely want to debate it's content, I think the very idea is laughable.

Quote: Halva / Wayne Hall,

"The goal we have to set ourselves, in my opinion, is to build a new 'climate change' movement, because the present movement is hopeless. It needs a new leadership."
____________________________________________

Indeed, this from reading one hatchet job article by DEBUNKERS, how easily you seem to be swayed Wayne, no wonder your still laying in the mud at DBS.

Al Gore is in the forefront of Global Warming awareness, where are Bjorn Lomborg and Flemming Rose and who cares?

That's all for me on this worthless subject !

[halva]

Is this a breakthrough?

www.desmogblog.com/is-geo-engineering-the-answer

Is Geo-engineering the Answer?
26 Jan 07

Avid DeSmogBlog readers will have seen a conversation breaking out in the Comment section on whether humans have the stomach and discipline for "geo-engineering " - that is, whether we have what it takes to change the world's climate on purpose rather than merely screwing it up as an accidental side effect of burning fossil fuels.

Reader Wayne Hall has provided some interesting links, which I repeat here for convenience sake. A good general explanation of geo-engineering can be found here, and this is a terrific article by Gregory Benford, who some may recall from a DeSmogBlog podcast last May in which he was touting the notion of broadcasting reflective chaff into the atmosphere. Reader Eric Knight also nominated a whole set of links in this comment, the most interesting concerning Terra Preta .

Finally, Hall contributes a short discussion about some of the issues of aggressive, engineering-heavy climate change remediation in this article.

This whole discussion is a little unnerving. Many of the world's evils have arisen because of the unintended consequences of human activity; certainly, whenever government gets involved, it seems to be the stuff that happens by accident that gets us in the most trouble. So there is a serious risk that an "engineered cure" for climate change might turn out to be worse than the disease.

There is also what I might call the Lipitor Conundrum. Excess weight and high blood pressure are two huge risk factors for heart disease. Knowing this, humans are ill-inclined to diet and highly likely to gulp down blood pressure medication with their Big Macs. Now, we have Mr. Hall advocating that we jump straight into engineered remediation, when it would seem prudent, in the case of an overly carbonated earth, that we should reduce CO2 in the planetary diet as a first order of business.

That said, we have already broadcast a huge amnount of CO2 into the atmosphere and, given what President G.W. Bush calls our "addiction" to oil, we aren't going to stop soon. Some large-scale engineered remediation seems inevitable. Certainly, Hall is right about one thing: we should be talking about it.


Reply from Halva

I am pleased that Richard Littlemore has chosen to take the dynamic approach to the challenge I was issuing and truly hope that this can be the start of a new period of the climate change movement not being on the defensive against hypocritical or ill-informed 'sceptics'.
Indeed my hope is that they can be removed from the debate entirely so that the new debate can become the real debate: i.e. a debate between climate change activists and scientists and "conspiracy theorists" about whether geoengineering should be banned or legalized. The very existence of this terrible debate will be evidence of the delusionary thinking of the 'sceptics' and hopefully enough to awe them into silence.
.
But I am not too happy about Richard Littlemore choosing, perhaps as a form of revenge for the sharp tone I adopted with him, to represent me as an ADVOCATE of the geoengineering “solution”. What I advocate is an end to self-defeating hypocrisy and the opening up of a debate that should have been public from the beginning. Doubtless one of the reasons it has not been is because of the involvement of Cold War leftovers from the heyday of the superpower nuclear arms race, such as the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, themselves responsible for a huge proportion of the damage that these techniques are purportedly, among other things, meant to ‘rectify’. People with guilty consciences are not those to whom the ‘solutions’ to these problems, if they exist, should be left.