Saturday, January 17, 2009

Foreign Policy on Climate Change

Foreign Policy is pretty much the DC nomenklatura in magazine form, so when they feature an article on Climate Change by Bill McKibben, things are moving in the right direction. McKibben sums the situation up in a very straightforward manner

“Scientists Are Divided”

No, they’re not. In the early years of the global warming debate, there was great controversy over whether the planet was warming, whether humans were the cause, and whether it would be a significant problem. That debate is long since over. Although the details of future forecasts remain unclear, there’s no serious question about the general shape of what’s to come. . . .

“We Have Time”
Wrong. . . .

“Climate Change Will Help as Many Places as It Hurts”
Wishful thinking. . . .

“It’s China’s Fault”
Not so much. . . .

“Climate Change Is an Environmental Problem”
Not really. . .

“Solving It Will Be Painful”
It depends. . . .

“We Can Reverse Climate Change”
If only. . . .

That's the tease, the details are in the article. Follow the link, comment here. RTFR

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some German speaking media have picked up the article Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat by D. S. Battisti and R. L. Naylor in Science

Here is the accompanying press release of the University of Washington.

Reading of the projected scale of losses in crop yield is simply frightening.

Would make a nice follow-up.

blue

GZ said...

FP tends to be if anything slightly on the conservative side, but they certainly are on the DC inside track.

Douglas Watts said...

I like:

“Climate Change Will Help as Many Places as It Hurts”

Funny how nobody says this about a new Laurentian Ice Sheet.

Dano said...

That Battisti & Naylor paper is behind a free wall (as opposed to paywall at Science) here.

EliRabett said...

George Hoffmann has a good post on this if you read German. Eli might post a translation (first paragraph)

"Let's be honest. No one is going to go to war or emigrate because the biodiversity of their country is threatened by global warming. Most likely (although that is a bit less sure)no one would do so if portions of their coastal cities went under from increasing sea levels. So which of the possible consequences of climate change will really affect us. Clearly, what formerly was and will be in the future the greatest problem facing mankind: Hunger"

Anonymous said...

Anonymouse to the rescue with a Reality check: "Surface Temperature Anomalies: Almost outside 2 sigma confidence intervals." http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/surface-temperature-anomalies-almost-outside-2-sigma-confidence-intervals/