Climate Change Predictions

[ceeboo]

I have seen many people (and more importantly in my opinion, politicians) speak about the existential threat we face.

While much of this is way over my head, I can't help noticing how political much of it seems to be (I am not suggesting that the claimed actual existential threat is political, I don't know, I am suggesting that much of the talks around it seem to be political).

I recently watched the below linked video. In addition to not knowing about this huge clock in NY (until now) that is counting down the time we all have left on earth, the walk down memory lane concerning the historic news headlines and predictions, over time, is quite interesting to see.

Anyway, if you're interested, the video is about 17 minutes.

Inconvenient Truth: 32 Climate Predictions Proven False | Facts Matter

https://youtu.be/E1e5HAZo4iw?si=Jh4_9R7n3xsDG68G

[Manetho]

Climate change was a scientific and bipartisan issue when it first came to public attention, in James Hansen's testimony about it to Congress in 1988. But then, as described here, it was made into a political issue.

After Hansen's hearing, there are these high-level conversations at the American Petroleum Institute and at Exxon about, essentially, what do we do about this? It seems clear that regulation is coming, George Bush is talking about it, and so on. And they reach the same conclusions, Exxon and API. They say, we need to be an active participant in any kind of policy discussion; we need to burnish our credentials as scientific experts on the subject, so we have credibility in it; we need to make sure that the policy doesn't extend beyond what science says; emphasize uncertainty in the science where it exists—that would become crucial later on—and perhaps most important, don't accept any policy that would hurt the bottom line. That's the beginning of it.

And then, as almost an afterthought at the time, API through its press office, which is coordinating the press for this industry group, Global Climate Coalition, starts to reach out to a couple of scientists who are friendly with the industry who have expressed some doubt about either the ozone or CO2, and they start encouraging them to speak to the press. Sometimes that encouragement takes the form of payouts — the head of the API program told me they gave $2,000 to a scientist whenever he wrote an op-ed for a national publication.

And that is almost an afterthought at the time, it's pretty low on the totem pole of what they're doing. They're also meeting with congressmen and so on. But it pays enormous dividends, because all of a sudden, national news publications start quoting these scientists — and it's really a handful of people, four or five people — over and over again. And an issue that to this point has been a story about fear of what's going to happen all of a sudden has two sides. And of course that's like catnip for journalists, and all of a sudden you have these pieces that start to appear that say, maybe there's not scientific consensus about this problem.

It starts almost tentatively, it starts with saying, well, it's not as certain as people say it is, as James Hansen says it is, there's problems with the climate models, the computer models, that Hansen uses. And then it goes into, we really don't know what the regional effects will be. And it grows and grows. It's almost like they're encouraged by their success and they become more and more brazen.

And then ultimately you get, after a number of years, into the '90s, you get into this bizarro universe where all of a sudden they're questioning the basic fundamental science itself, and of course that science goes back not just to 1979 but to the late 19th century, about what's the effect of pumping a bunch of CO2 into the atmosphere and what warming will that cause.

And so we've entered this weird funhouse realm where now, if you jump ahead to the present day, you have a political party, the only major political party in the world that endorses a position that's essentially to the right, even, of what the industry now says in their public statements. Exxon publicly today doesn't deny climate change, but you have a party that does. And so I think it's something that future historians will spend a lot of time piecing out, is how this little lie grew into a big lie and overwhelmed our politics.

The denial movement can cherry-pick specific predictions by specific scientists that haven't panned out, but over the past 35 years, the evidence and the scientific consensus about the overall trend have only gotten stronger. The climate is destabilizing because of the increased heat trapped by the additional carbon in the atmosphere, and it will not re-stabilize until humans stop digging hundreds of billions of tons of carbon out of the ground and setting them on fire.

But when one political faction is committed to lying about a problem, it becomes a point of political dispute, and then people can dismiss it by saying "It's politicized!"

[huckelberry]

There have been past incorrect proposals and magazines sell with sensational stories.

Maybe that mean its best not to think about the future, just close eyes and hope for the best.

Or maybe not.

On thing is for sure is that global warming will not be the end of the earth. It could make serious problems however.

[ceeboo]

denial movement can cherry-pick specific predictions by specific scientists that haven't panned out, but over the past 35 years, the evidence and the scientific consensus about the overall trend have only gotten stronger. The climate is destabilizing because of the increased heat trapped by the additional carbon in the atmosphere, and it will not re-stabilize until humans stop digging hundreds of billions of tons of carbon out of the ground and setting them on fire.

But when one political faction is committed to lying about a problem, it becomes a point of political dispute, and then people can dismiss it by saying "It's politicized!"

Nothing in the OP or the 17-minute video mentioned anything about denying anything - Nothing in the OP or the 17-minute video even hinted at politics (including political factions lying).

But - Your reply is entirely political.

Did you watch the video? If so, what did you think about all of the predictions?

[ceeboo]

Maybe that mean its best not to think about the future, just close eyes and hope for the best.

Heavens no! But, given all the wildly wrong predictions, spanning decades, I think a little bit of skepticism might be worth considering. YMMV.

[huckelberry]

Maybe that mean its best not to think about the future, just close eyes and hope for the best.

Heavens no! But, given all the wildly wrong predictions, spanning decades, I think a little bit of skepticism might be worth considering. YMMV.

Ceeboo, Ok. I find a couple of things come to mind. You might not remember but the 1970s was a time when a lot of smoke got cleared from the air due to environmental efforts. Smoke in the air was what was causing fear of too much cooling. Positive efforts to change were put into place. I think the result of that has been a good thing whether or not ice fears were overblown and sensational. People did not like breathing the smoke with or without ice.

There has been Ignorance about climate effects and predictions but ignorance is not a steady state. It can be reduced by further study and learning. I think current climate projections are based upon better understanding than they were in1970 but I hardly imagine they are now perfect.

I see a parallel to the problem of smoke reduction. Carbon fuels are limited and it is very important for our human future to develop substitute power sources. That needs to be done with or without climate change problems. It may not be clear how much global warming is in the future but reducing it is necessary for an ongoing healthy society.

[ceeboo]

There has been Ignorance about climate effects and predictions but ignorance is not a steady state. It can be reduced by further study and learning. I think current climate projections are based upon better understanding than they were in1970

1970? Did you watch the video?
The video provides a range of years - some very recent climate experts predictions that were wildly wrong - Like fantastically wrong. It's almost funny to see what they predicted (almost) and given that, I can't imagine why there isn't widespread skepticism across the board. Not 1970 - we are talking 2008, 2009, 2018, 2019, 2021 predictions.

but I hardly imagine they are now perfect.

Perfect? Of all of the adjectives I might choose to describe all of the predictions, perfect never even crossed my mind.

Anyway, thanks for engaging.

[Doctor Steuss]

Taking the arctic ice thing from the video as an example, I think this is a really good demonstration of why it's important to go to primary sources and not rely on the media which doesn't always have the best science editors/journalists on staff (combined with the need to "pull" in readers with sensation)... or people "paraphrasing" climate scientists. The guy who "paraphrased" in the clip didn't even accurately portray what the scientists he purported to be paraphrasing said in their report.

Incidentally, the worst summer on record as far as actual data goes for summer ice coverage in the Arctic Sea was in 2012. Previous decades it was dropping fast (crazy fast), and then kind of started averaging out to a decrease of about 12% each decade. For now, it's fortunately holding relatively steady at the massively reduced levels from 30+ years ago, and only trending down slightly (but still trending down).

NASA Fun

On a purely anecdotal note, both my dad and I lost our African Sumac trees this last summer. In an interview with UNLV's horticulturist, he said that landscaping companies will likely not be able to use it anymore in the valley. Any that survive will likely never fully recover enough to weather next summer if it's anywhere as hot. It's crazy what a difference just a few degrees can make to plants that have thrived in an environment for decades. It's definitely making me rethink staying here in the coming decades, just for no other reason that power bills in the summer (this last summer was brutal).

[canpakes]

Ceeboo,

Out of curiosity I checked out the video, but didn’t get more than a minute or two into it before noticing that there’s either some bad information or dishonest intent at play.

The Climate Clock is not counting down to Worldwide Doomsday. You can read what it’s all about at this link:

https://climateclock.world/science#:~:t ... %20impacts.

The Climate Clock was not started because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made a flippant comment about climate change the day before. It was quite a while in the making, which you can read about here:

https://climateclock.world/story

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s comment was sarcastic, but that didn’t stop some right-leaning folks from trying to claim that she was a literal believer in a 12-years-left doomsday where the Earth apparently explodes and we all die. As she later said:

“'This is a technique of the GOP, to take dry humor + sarcasm literally and ''fact check'' it. Like the ''world ending in 12 years'' thing, you'd have to have the social intelligence of a sea sponge to think it's literal. But the GOP is basically Dwight from ''The Office'' so who knows.'”

Seeing as how this video has gotten off to such a bad start in the first minute or so, I have little faith that it won’t continue to make a disingenuous case for whatever it’s presenting, which ends up wasting the time of serious viewers. Maybe you can instead pull some specific points out of it for discussion?

[canpakes]

On a purely anecdotal note, both my dad and I lost our African Sumac trees this last summer. In an interview with UNLV's horticulturist, he said that landscaping companies will likely not be able to use it anymore in the valley. Any that survive will likely never fully recover enough to weather next summer if it's anywhere as hot. It's crazy what a difference just a few degrees can make to plants that have thrived in an environment for decades.

That’s crazy. African Sumac is an incredibly tough and drought-tolerant tree. If they’re having a tough time due to an increase in average temperatures, then the yearly trend is having a much more severe impact on desert-adapted plants than I imagined it would.

We left behind an AS in Phoenix, but here in Utah, we’re watching the viability range of aspens tighten up due to increased warming. They used to grow comfortably down to around 4,500 - 5,000 ft altitude, but a lot of the established trees in the area are starting to stress and decline from the rising heat and drought trends.