National Review Article Scare of The Century Text

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The cover story of the latest issue of the national review calls global warming the scare of the century. Jason lee steorts takes time magazine to task for declaiming that: in the past five years or so, the serious debate has quietly ended. Global warming, even most skeptics have concluded, is the real deal, and human activity has been causing it. The national revie article is subscriber only so here are some key points: it's land ice, stupid. The world has two major ice sheets, one covering most of greenland and the other covering most of antarctica. While melting sea ice has captured its share of attention, its the land sheets that matter. Time wants you to be very worried about this: by some estimates, the entire greenland ice sheet would be enough to raise global sea levels 23 ft.

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He explains that there has been a cooling trend over most of antarctica for decades. At the same time, one tiny portion of the continent the antarctic peninsula has been warming, and its ice has been melting. The peninsula constitutes only about 2 percent of antarcticas total area, but almost every study of melting antarctic ice youve heard of focuses on it.

In 2002, nature published a study by peter doran that looked at antarctic temperature trends from 1966 to 20. What it found was that about two thirds of antarctica got colder over that period. At the same time, antarctica has gotten snowier, and as the snow has accumulated the ice sheet has grown. Snowfall is probably rising because water temperatures around antarctica have gotten slightly repeat, slightly warmer. As a result, there is more surface evaporation, making for higher humidity and more precipitation. And greenland? various studies show that warmer temperatures are causing the ice sheet there to lose mass at the margins.

But, as in antarctica, higher sea temperatures are also causing greater snowfall and building up ice in the interior. As richard lindzen of mit observes, if youre just going to look at whats falling off the sides and ignore whats collecting on top, thats not exactly kosher. Part of a cycle? what we know is that the global average temperature has risen by about 1 degree celsius or less since the late 1800s. We also know that industrial activity has raised atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, and that this increase should make things warmer. But there is wide disagreement about the extent to which carbon dioxide emissions are responsible for the warming weve seen so far, and how much warming they will cause in the future. Fred singer of george mason university points out that we have historic temperature records in europe going back a thousand years. And data from ice cores suggest that previous interglacial periods were warmer than the one were going through now.

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Research bias? richard lindzen of mit thinks that, while most scientists were originally agnostic on the question whether human activity was causing global warming, environmentalists and the media would exaggerate. That eventually built up a public concern, and politicians responded by throwing research dollars at scientists. Better to keep us worried: youve developed a scientific community that will do whatever it needs to do to make sure the answer isnt obtained. Why should taxpayers pay for people not to find an answer? kyoto is a p ss in the wind of course, even if man made global warming is the primary cause of the mild temperature and sea level rises being observed, this doesnt settle the question of what to do about it.

Bushs environmental record dismal and specifically citing his abandonment of kyoto. Energy information administration estimates that the treaty would cost the american economy $300 billion to $400 billion a year. Any decision about whether to pay such a price should be based on cost benefit analysis. Kyoto wouldnt stop whatever warming is caused by greenhouse gas emissions it would just slow it.

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Tom wigley of the national center for atmospheric research calculated that the full global implementation of kyoto would prevent 0.07 degrees celsius of global warming by 2050, an outcome that is all but undetectable. To put a dent in co2 levels, youd need much greater emissions reductions than kyoto calls for. Jerry mahlman of the national center for atmospheric research, for example, has called kyoto a first step and said that 30 kyotos might do the job.

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