I know a couple of folks who are in the same camp, Andrew, and I suppose that I find it easier to take Cheney's "1% Doctrine" seriously in a situation like this. Mostly because we'll be improving things we know should be improved, rather than blowing stuff up; the price of being wrong is considerably less than launching a war.

Andrew, you're not a global warming denialist. You're a determined global warming agnostic by dint of very selective attention to conflicting bits of evidence.

There is, in fact, a scientific consensus on the big point: the planet is warming, and human activities are the single biggest cause. That does not mean that there are no contrary findings, or that the current climate models will persist unchanged as more results come in.

But to present that there is anything like the division you portray among the scientific community on the subject is misleading.

On many subjects, those with actual scientific expertise is vanishingly small. That does not entitle the rest of us to shrug off our responsibility to make as informed an evaluation as possible, based on what the preponderance of the evidence shows.

It's conceivable, though getting less so all the time, that enough evidence will emerge to overturn the current scientific consensus on global warming. If it does, your willed agnosticism will look like responsible skepticism. It's far more likely, however, that in ten years this post will look like thinly veiled denial.

Jeff,

That's not necessarily the case. If we were to take measures that handicapped our economy by 1% a year, that adds up to a pretty serious reduction in quality of life for all of us. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Nell,

Well, if you define agnostic as believing that global warming is occurring and that it is at least partly anthropogenic, then I guess I'll plead guilty.

I thought about reiterating my stance on global warming more firmly, but I held off because I figured I'd get something like this, and this is precisely what frustrates me about global warming. All I did was point to an article that notes that our current climate models didn't predict what's happening in Antarctica. I didn't say global warming isn't happening, nor did I suggest that it isn't anthropogenic. Yet global warming has now become more than just a scientific question for many people: it's a religious belief right up there with the most dedicated theists I know, and just as annoying.

We don't know everything about global warming != global warming isn't happening. Yet what happens when I bring up the rather innocuous fact the climate is so complicated that it will take a very long time before we understand everything about it? I get the 'you're not a denialist, but you are' argument.

Nor did I advocate people not make an informed decision. If you read what I wrote, you'll see that I simply observed that this happens to be why I personally don't get excited about global warming. Well, that and living in Colorado. (That's a joke.)

You look at my post and see 'willed agnosticism.' I suggest that says a lot more about you than it does about me, as I led off the last paragraph with my beliefs about global warming.

climate change denialist!

As an aside, before someone decides to declare me a 'climate change denialist'

Dang.

What bothers me about the global warming advocates* is that I don't see any considerations of solutions other than things that would, most likely, wreck the world economy in the short (and likely medium) term. Perhaps such solutions have been duly considered and found wanting, but I don't hear about them (e.g., "we considered alternatives Q through X that would not involve abandoning burning carbon based matter as a source of energy and found them lacking"). Such solutions also happen to line up nicely with other environmental issues (pollution, smog).

*advocates in the sense that they advocate that it's happening and caused by humans, not that they're big fans of global warming per se

"such solutions" being the ones that involve not burning carbon based matter.

That's not necessarily the case. If we were to take measures that handicapped our economy by 1% a year, that adds up to a pretty serious reduction in quality of life for all of us. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

I agree. If things were free, we'd simply do them for fun. That's why I compared it to the Cheney-articulated "1%" doctrine. Going to war in Iraq was (clearly!) not free, but the 1% risk factor was apparently great enough to justify it.

The "But what if it crippled the economy" question should certainly be considered. That depends, of course, on what course of action is taken. Adding a $5/gal tarrif on gasoline, for example? Monumentally bad idea. It would bring gas prices in line with their real national cost, and allow the market to work out the best solution to the problem, but it would still be a monumentally bad idea.

One of the reasons that many global warming 'believers' find the current climate so frustrating is that they believe the longer we wait, the fewer 'low impact' solutions we'll have at our disposal. Boondoggles like Ethanol burn through national attention and national funds with almost zero return.

Ugh, I'm a big advocate of nuclear power and the eventual conversion of the nation to an all-electrical transportation grid.

Would it take time? Would it be expensive? Sure. Would it cripple the economy? Depends on whether it's done over time, or as part of a panicked-yet-pork-filled crash course. Heck, the government had no problem declaring non-HDTV televisions obsolete as of tw years from now, and it's not like anything was riding on that other than Sony's profit margins...

Jeff,

I'm willing to hear reasonable proposals for how to abate carbon emissions. A moderate (and possibly progressively increasing) gas tax, for example, would not draw any objection from me. A dedicated program to replace coal-fired plants with nuclear plants would likewise be a good idea in my mind. I would even be willing to see the government spend some of the money it's currently using elsewhere to change current coal-fired power plans into nuclear or clean-coal plants.

I don't get as worked up about global warming as I used to. I'm a scientist myself (though a plant taxonomist, not a climatologist), so I've looked at the numbers, and they concern me. I'm 51 years old, and since I was born, the amout of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 25%. Probably more by now, as that was the number I learned in the early '90's. My old man and his may be partly responsible for this. They were both oilmen.

No, they aren't any more responsible than I am. But they were, and I am, energy consumers. Dad and PawPaw (revealing my Alabama roots) were merely feeding our energy needs. They made some nice money doing it, and lost almost as much. I hold overrides on some wells my grandfather drilled in the Permian Basin. Annually, the royalties pay me about half the money I need to run my Prius.

This woman is in a similar position. (Sorry, subscribers only. If you live in the west, you should subscribe. If not, I'll be glad to send you the full text - mail requests to sjones at igc dot org. No, I am not with the Iraq Governing Council.)

Last I read, we now produce 43% of our petroleum needs within the US. That number is falling. And it will from now on. Even if we open ANWR. Them's the facts. As long as we favor H2's and Escalades and such, that number will fall. But it will fall even more so as we depend on a far-flung global economy with heavy transportation costs. Think globally, but buy locally, if you want to help.

But that only helps at the edges. We will continue to emit greenhouse gases by burning wood, oil, gas, coal, paper, grass, ethanol, methanol, or any other carbon-based fuel. Never mind the methane emissions from our landfills and from cow farts - methane being a lesser, yet much more effective, greenhouse gas.

Now let's bring in soot. James Lovelock, who now regrets coining the term "Gaia", has a few words to say about soot.

And if you aren't reading Gwynne Dyer, you should be.

Before this turns into a 9-page screed, let me just note that whatever happens, happens. We humans will muddle on. Maybe we'll find a way to run our cars on garbage. Maybe not. But we will continue as far as we can - and may even leave this planet behind.

We'll do what we have to do. Because we have to.

One of the things we might do, and which I even hope we will do, is follow the bipolar (in my humble opinion) Thomas Friedman's advice and establish a 50-cent/gallon gasoline tax. Not so much to reduce our CO2 output, but to reduce our $8,931,887,767,329 and growing national debt.

I may be a professional tree-hugging envarnmentalist, but I'm still a fiscal conservative. God bless Teddy Roosevelt and Barry Goldwater.

Andrew, given that you believe that global warming is happening, and that human activity is the primary cause, perhaps the difference between you and those who are energized about the problem is that you aren't persuaded that the window for action that might make a difference is as short as the scientific consensus has it: i.e., within our lifetimes.

That's a reality that builds some urgency into the situation. Your choice of language, "getting too worked up" seems to equate (and dismiss equally) strong emotions and actions.

I gather you're a follower of the often-useful principle that the most trustworthy guides to action are people who are not "worked up" about things. But it's not an infallible guide. Some kinds of situations call for evangelism -- even if that's not the best approach to reach you.

Aspects of the problem that make that true here: the global scale, the quickening pace of the problem combined with the impossibility for most people of experiencing it directly, the fact that many of the possible remedies involve changes to entrenched ways of life, and/or are opposed by powerful actors, particularly in the case of the population most able to make a significant difference.

If you acknowledge that global warming is a real phenomena with humanity being a significant cause, then it seems fair to ask "do we try to do something or not?" It is odd to see you indicate at least a lukewarm acceptance of the problem, but indifference toward anything being done about it.

It seems to me that the biggest problem created by the still developing knowledge regarding climatology is that it makes it hard to evaluate the utility of various proposed responses to the problem. That makes it very hard to do any sort of meaningful cost benefit analysis.

Also, the fact that there is uncertainty about numerous details regarding global climate (such as the article you link) does not mean that there is uncertainty about its larger features. It's like a classic black box problem in which the behavior of the box is understood, but its inner working that result in that behavior remain a mystery.
______________

As for the specific article, its more about fine tuning the details of Antarctic weather rather than scepticism that warming is occurring in Antarctica. The same scientist featured in that article has confirmed that there has been significant warming in the Antarctic upper atmosphere. The air over Antarctica has warmed dramatically over the past 30 years, according to a new study of archived data collected by weather balloons floated over the icy continent. * * * David Bromwich, a meteorologist with the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University in Columbus, said there's "no doubt this [warming] is real."

Antarctica is a special case for climatology since it has so many unusual conditions. For example, Bromwich speculates in your linked article that ozone depletion (uniquely concentrated in Antarctica) may be working to cause cooling and offset CO2 warming. Antarctic weather is also isolated from the rest of the world due to the pattern of ocean and wind currents, and may react much more slowly to global patterns.

Nell,

Or perhaps I simply am more concerned by other things. Global warming might turn out to be a big problem. But I have plenty of things I need to worry about that I know are a big problem right now. Given that, I simply don't have the time or the inclination to also get worked up about issues that have a bit longer horizon.

I do not particularly believe that the less-excited are naturally more or less likely to be correct. But I do tend to be suspicious of people who act the way certain global warming evangelists do.

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