A Warmist who doesn't even listen to himself

And he doesn't know the difference between "effect" and "affect" either.  Below are two of his paragraphs. In the first he properly notes many of  the doubts about global warming theory and in the second he assumes all that away and talks as if GW were a certainty.  The article is from a Maine outfit called "Unity College" which describes itself as:  "We Train Environmental Professionals in Sustainability Science".  So they would cut their own throats if they really looked at "the science".  What if everything we do is already "sustainable"?  I can think of no exceptions

In any discussion of the current and future impacts of climate change we must look at the science for what it actually says and avoid jumping to any conclusions about the outcome.  The most important thing to understand is that climate change scenarios are projections, they are not predictions.  A projection is a conditional prediction, and thus, it does not imply certainty.  For example, the current projections for end-of-century global average temperature rise range from 4˚ to 6˚C, but these are dependent on maintaining our current rate of increasing emissions, especially that of carbon dioxide.  There are many reasons why the rate of emissions might change, resulting in more or less warming as we move forward in time.   For example, changes in economic activity strongly affect the rate of carbon dioxide emissions. The recent recession resulted in a decrease in the growth rate of emissions from about 3.1% per year to -1.3% for 2009.  Thereafter, the world’s economic engine cranked up considerably, increasing the growth rate of emissions to 5.9% per year in 2011.  To be sure, such small changes in the growth rate of emissions have little potential to slow the rate of warming.   Another factor that is outside the conditional prediction of this scenario is the rate of positive feedback from natural sources of greenhouse gas such as the thawing permafrost, or the well documented process of worldwide forest decline.  These factors could considerably accelerate the rate of warming and take us well beyond 6˚C.  In all candor I must say that there are very few factors that will significantly slow the rate of human-caused emissions, short of concerted and intensive efforts at mitigation.  Wildcards that could change the future include unpredictable events like an asteroid strike or volcanism sufficient to put aerosols into the stratosphere and thus cool the planet.  Just how lucky do you feel?

The current generation of young adults in college will experience an increasingly dangerously disrupted climate during their lives.  We have only limited ability to affect this outcome because there is a 30-40 year time lag in the equilibration of ocean heat loading with the atmosphere.  About 93% of energy imbalance caused by the greenhouse gases goes into the oceans, and it takes time for this energy to be expressed in the climate system.  Evidence of massive ongoing change in the oceans is seen in the slowing of the Gulf Stream and widespread changes in salinity and surface temperatures.  The hydrologic cycle has sped up about 40% since the mid 20th century, and the rate of acidification of the oceans is faster now than at any time during the previous 300 million years.  Accordingly, this generation of students must prepare to adapt as the impacts of these changes ramify across the planet.  Even casual inspection of higher education shows that institutions are generally failing to prepare students to face these challenges.  As educators we have an ethical obligation to do so.

SOURCE


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).