IPCC report on Climate Change UPDATE
If you’re tired of politicians and pundits and would like to read what actual climate scientists say about climate change, you can download the IPCC report released today (.pdf)
I have only skimmed the report (have to go to that job). The article summary is pretty strong but I won’t say any more until I’ve read the report.
UPDATE: 03 February
No huge surprises (to me) it is pretty much the “smoking gun” I expected. The White House said the report was “valuable” but came out against either controls on CO2 emissions, any kind of carbon tax, or any tough carbon-trading schemes. (The European carbon-trading market was oversupplied at the beginning so it has resulted in little more than a windfall profit for some companies without any real incentive to lower carbon emissions).
I was disappointed by the dearth of data from after 1995, but scientific reports are often that way when relating information that is still under analysis. For example, the latest discoveries of meltwater lubrication of glaciers and ice caps (dubbed “dynamical ice loss” in Greenland and other places. And while they did predict the extent of permafrost reduction, it was still early for quantitative factoring of billions of tons of methane release from the Siberian and other permafrosts.
What everyone wants to know is the amount of sea level rise, and 3 feet by the end of the century doesn’t sound so bad. But is is bad (assuming it is that little – a dangerous assumption given the radiative forcing elements that could not be factored). The insurance industry is fully aware of what 3 feet will mean, and the economics of coastal flooding are beginning to soak into the financial community as well. Even discounting the economic cost of damage to agriculture, the cost of carbon remediation may turn out to be the greatest bargain in history if we can “git ‘er done”.
The White House also felt that if the US unilaterally pursued carbon reductions, it would put our economy at a disadvantage against the developing world and particularly China. But China is beginning to face up to global warming on its own, and in any case our economy has always been driven by innovation. If we can get the jump on other countries in developing low-carbon energy and transportation modalities, that “disadvantage” will turn out to be a very smart move as other countries will have to go lo-carb eventually, and buy the technology from us. Unfortunately given the “climate” of denial in our country, we’re not currently in a technological leadership position.
So: an important report, if only because it makes denial less tenable and provides the sheaf-waving evidence to prompt world leaders to quit stalling and move. And in particular, to help the evangelical environmentalism movement gain traction against the Second-Coming “Suck the Earth dry” whackos.
As Ann Druryan says; “We batter our planet as if we had someplace else to go.”
Notes:
- For an alternative framing of the problem, Mostly Cajun has this: OK, now what?
- And GUYK has a slightly less serious take :ahhh:
- I’ll add more links as they come up around the news and in my blogroll.
- Read the transcript or download mp3 of LivingOnEarth interview with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center director James Hansen, responding to the report.
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change