Entire Antarctic Shelf splitting away from Continent.

[BridgeTroll]

Another gem by George Will...

http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2009/02/16/the_law_of_doomsaying?page=1

The Law of Doomsaying

George Will
Monday, February 16, 2009

WASHINGTON -- A corollary of Murphy's Law ("If something can go wrong, it will") is: "Things are worse than they can possibly be." Energy Secretary Steven Chu, an atomic physicist, seems to embrace that corollary but ignores Gregg Easterbrook's "Law of Doomsaying": Predict catastrophe no sooner than five years hence but no later than 10 years away, soon enough to terrify but distant enough that people will forget if you are wrong.

Chu recently told the Los Angeles Times that global warming might melt 90 percent of California's snowpack, which stores much of the water needed for agriculture. This, Chu said, would mean "no more agriculture in California," the nation's leading food producer. Chu added: "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going."

No more lettuce or Los Angeles? Chu likes predictions, so here is another: Nine decades hence, our great-great-grandchildren will add the disappearance of California artichokes to the list of predicted planetary calamities that did not happen. Global cooling recently joined that lengthening list.

In the 1970s, "a major cooling of the planet" was "widely considered inevitable" because it was "well established" that the Northern Hemisphere's climate "has been getting cooler since about 1950" (The New York Times, May 21, 1975). Although some disputed that the "cooling trend" could result in "a return to another ice age" (the Times, Sept. 14, 1975), others anticipated "a full-blown 10,000-year ice age" involving "extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation" (Science News, March 1, 1975, and Science magazine, Dec. 10, 1976, respectively). The "continued rapid cooling of the Earth" (Global Ecology, 1971) meant that "a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery" (International Wildlife, July 1975). "The world's climatologists are agreed" that we must "prepare for the next ice age" (Science Digest, February 1973). Because of "ominous signs" that "the Earth's climate seems to be cooling down," meteorologists were "almost unanimous" that "the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century," perhaps triggering catastrophic famines (Newsweek cover story, "The Cooling World," April 28, 1975). Armadillos were fleeing south from Nebraska, heat-seeking snails were retreating from central European forests, the North Atlantic was "cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool," glaciers had "begun to advance" and "growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter" (Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 27, 1974).

Speaking of experts, in 1980 Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford scientist and environmental Cassandra who predicted calamitous food shortages by 1990, accepted a bet with economist Julian Simon. When Ehrlich predicted the imminent exhaustion of many nonrenewable natural resources, Simon challenged him: Pick a "basket" of any five such commodities, and I will wager that in a decade the price of the basket will decline, indicating decreased scarcity. Ehrlich picked five metals -- chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten -- that he predicted would become more expensive. Not only did the price of the basket decline, the price of all five declined.

An expert Ehrlich consulted in picking the five was John Holdren, who today is President Obama's science adviser. Credentialed intellectuals, too -- actually, especially -- illustrate Montaigne's axiom: "Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know."

As global levels of sea ice declined last year, many experts said this was evidence of man-made global warming. Since September, however, the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began. According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.

An unstated premise of eco-pessimism is that environmental conditions are, or recently were, optimal. The proclaimed faith of eco-pessimists is weirdly optimistic: These optimal conditions must and can be preserved or restored if government will make us minimize our carbon footprints, and if government will "remake" the economy.

Because of today's economy, another law -- call it the Law of Clarifying Calamities -- is being (redundantly) confirmed. On graphs tracking public opinion, two lines are moving in tandem and inversely: The sharply rising line charts public concern about the economy, the plunging line follows concern about the environment. A recent Pew Research Center poll asked which of 20 issues should be the government's top priorities. Climate change ranked 20th.

Real calamities take our minds off hypothetical ones. Besides, according to the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade, or one-third of the span since the global cooling scare.

[BridgeTroll]

This too, shall pass...

[BridgeTroll]

Thank you George... wherever you are!!

[NotNow]

But Stephhen, surely you will graciously admit that BT (and Mr. Schmitt) were right about post glacial rebound and that you had not ever heard of such a thing?  I am sure we could all learn quite a bit from Mr. Schmitt after all....

[kellypope]

I'm laughing, and crying, and punching babies over this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_VmMIbWKoo

Seriously, the name that popped up in the search bar after typing "Carbon Dioxide" was followed with "Is Our Friend."

[Doctor_K]

The article re: the Australian brush fires blames them on the head index and the drought.

Not the arsonist who started them, who was arrested?

Really? 

Surrealism at its best.

[BridgeTroll]

I presume his observations are very similar to those of our ancestors when they discovered the ice bridge between russia and alaska was slowly disappearing...

[jandar]

As if on cue:

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1460070.php/Researchers_spot_huge_split_in_Antartic_ice_shelf_

Madrid - Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf is rapidly disintegrating, Spanish scientists reported on Tuesday, with potentially ominous implications for climate change.

An ice sheet of 14,000 square kilometres has broken off from the Wilkins Shelf, and has itself broken into several large icebergs, according to a statement from Spain's National Research Council (CSIC).

CSIC scientists aboard the Hesperides maritime research vessel spotted the disintegration, about 1,600 kilometres south of the southern tip of South America.

If their observation is confirmed, only a small tip of the huge 16,000 square kilometre ice shelf would still be attached to Antarctica.

Pedro Luis de la Puente, the captain of the Hesperides, said 'We have seen huge icebergs, which have split off from the ice platform. Some of these icebergs are more than 200 metres high.'

The scientists pointed out that such a disintegration of an ice sheet would lead to rising sea levels.

You might want to know that this was proved as inaccurate. from icecap.us

News wires by the German news agency DPA report there was not a collapse observed in the Wilkins Ice Shelf. According to DPA, several German researchers assured today that pictures from the German satellite Terrasar and the European Envisat reveal no evidence of a break-up of the 14 thousand kilometers ice platform. The information was released by Professor Angelika Humbert from the University of Munster. Also, Professor Heinrich Miller from the Alfred-Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven dismissed a total collapse. Even the alarmist group Greenpeace said today there was no information on the alleged massive event reported by the Spanish in the South Pole.

[BridgeTroll]

Those wacky spaniards...

[gatorback]

The drought is the problem Dr. K.

It is.  And get ready for cheap beef too.  When it doesn't rain, farmers can't feed their stock and sell them off....

[kellypope]

It's not raining in a lot of places. http://informationclearinghouse.info/article21955.htm

Apparently there's going to be a global food crisis, seeing as mostly all of the world's greatest food-producing nations are having droughts.

Advice: Get your rain barrels and start growing your own. Get your neighbors to get rain barrels, get your other family members rain barrels and encourage everyone you know to grow their own staples and superfoods (blueberries, kale, etc.). Avoid GMOs if you can.

[downtownparks]

Several articles I have read actually indicated that a warming trend would lead to MORE agriculture, as it makes more areas able to better produce food more of the year. In fact, one article went on to state that a cooling trend would be FAR more of a threat to farming and agriculture than warming. I will see if I can find the stories.

As an aside, with all of these fires has there been a recorded increase in the Australian average temperatures?

[gatorback]

SACRAMENTO â€" Federal water managers say they may have to cut off all water to some of California's largest farms as a result of the deepening drought affecting the state.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials said Friday that parched reservoirs and patchy snow and rainfall this year would likely force them to completely cut surface water deliveries. It would be the first time in more than 15 years such a move was taken.
The move would be a blow to farmers, who say the price of some crops will likely rise if they have to rely only on well water. The state estimates it will cause $1 billion dollars in lost revenue and cost 40,000 jobs.
Federal officials say conditions could improve when they announce new projections factoring in recent storms.

[kellypope]

For real, people.

[kellypope]

EPA Expected to Regulate Carbon Dioxide and Other Heat-Trapping Gases

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/science/earth/19epa.html?ref=earth