Arguments
2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #43B
Posted on 25 October 2014 by John Hartz
Recently discovered microbe is key player in climate change
As permafrost soils thaw under the influence of global warming, communities of soil microbes act as potent amplifiers of global climate change, an international study has shown.
Tiny soil microbes are among the world's biggest potential amplifiers of human-caused climate change, but whether microbial communities are mere slaves to their environment or influential actors in their own right is an open question. Now, research by an international team of scientists from the U.S., Sweden and Australia, led by University of Arizona scientists, shows that a single species of microbe, discovered only very recently, is an unexpected key player in climate change.
The findings, published in the journal Nature, should help scientists improve their simulations of future climate by replacing assumptions about the different greenhouse gases emitted from thawing permafrost with new understanding of how different communities of microbes control the release of these gases.
Recently discovered microbe is key player in climate change, Phys.org, Oct 22, 2014
Researchers resolve the Karakoram glacier anomaly
Researchers from Princeton University and other institutions may have hit upon an answer to a climate-change puzzle that has eluded scientists for years, and that could help understand the future availability of water for hundreds of millions of people.
In a phenomenon known as the "Karakoram anomaly," glaciers in the Karakoram mountains, a range within the Himalayas, have remained stable and even increased in mass while many glaciers nearby—and worldwide—have receded during the past 150 years, particularly in recent decades. Himalayan glaciers provide freshwater to a densely populated area that includes China, Pakistan and India, and are the source of the Ganges and Indus rivers, two of the world's major waterways.
While there have been many attempts to explain the stability of the Karakoram glaciers, the researchers report in the journal Nature Geoscience that the ice is sustained by a unique and localized seasonal pattern that keeps the mountain range relatively cold and dry during the summer. Other Himalayan ranges and the Tibetan Plateau—where glaciers have increasingly receded as Earth's climate has warmed—receive most of their precipitation from heavy summer monsoons out of hot South and Southeast Asian nations such as India. The main precipitation season in the Karakoram, however, occurs during the winter and is influenced by cold winds coming from Central Asian countries such as Afghanistan to the west, while the main Himalayan range blocks the warmer air from the southeast throughout the year.
Researchers resolve the Karakoram glacier anomaly, a cold case of climate science, Phys.org, Oct 22, 2014
@ Tom Curtis (#44 and #46)
Thank you for the pretty comprehensive attribution of the "science is settled " quote/misquote/non-quote debacle.
This is yet another classic example from the plethora of accidental or disingenuous "quotes" that so many are prepared to accept without the slightest hint of genuine scepticism. (There is, of course, nothing new under the sun. Carl Sagan had to deal with this sort of thing billions and billions of times.)
Sort of gives more emphasis and support to the comment "I do wish people would please read what is actually written ", doesn't it?
Cheers Bill F
nigelj,
My reply to your comment @49 has led me to come up with a different way of presenting my current best understanding of what is going.
Science and other fields of investigation into improved understanding of what is going constantly question what has been done before to improve on previous investigations. That constant challenging of what has already been studied and developed, and the conclusions made based on what was studied, is a miracle of humanity.
Nature does a similar thing through the random creation of new types of organisms that may find a 'niche' in the overall diversity of life on the planet. Organisms that try to dominate but do not limit their impacts ultimately fail to 'find a niche they can be sustained in' because they consume the finite resources for their way of living. However, such organisms typically only meet their inevitable failure after causing massive damage to the diversity of life in the locations they affect.
Humans have a rather unique ability to evaluate a current situation and try to determine what is likely to happen in the future. That ability could be used to strive to develop the best understanding of how to develop humanity to be a sustainable part of the diversity of life on this amazing planet, a planet on which the developed diversity of life is the reason for each human's amazing opportunity. That ability could be used to identify and curtail human development that is not going to be sustainable before too much damage is done.
The ability to try to understand what is likely to happen in the future could also lead people who have decided to strive to thrive through unsustainable and damaging ways to realise their pursuits and interests are threatened by any expanded better understanding of the unacceptability of what they are doing among the rest of the population. They will then fight to protect themselves with a shield of created but ultimately usustainable popularity. And the higher profitability of the ways they are willing to pursue profit, their competetive advantage over more considerate people, can result in them having more resources to significantly delay the development of the spread of better understanding among the population of the planet.
Ultimately those who are not interested in the development of better understanding to more rapidly develop a sustainable better future for all humanity, humanity adapting to become a sustainable part of the robust diversity of life on this amazing planet, have no future and will produce no sustainable good thing. Those type of people being successful is therefore a significant threat to the future of humanity.
That is all just a theory and would be difficult to examine parts of it analytically and consolidate the understanding of the isolated parts into an integrated whole, but I believe it best explains the extensive observed behaviour of people related to climate science, global warming, and climate change and the policy changes that the science is clearly indicating are required for humanity to adapt to develop to become a sustainable part of this planet, to deveop a better future.
One Planet Only @ 50, 52.
Thanks for your comment. Regarding my comment "It undermines Gores book". I was just referring to his (alleged) speech "on the science being settled" as being too general and this undermines the quality of his books or their credibility, in the eyes of the general public. I can’t recall any of his books specifically claiming the science was settled, they are more nuanced. Perhaps I wasn't clear.
Regarding your comments in your post no 52, on how we fit into the planet etc. I see it much the same way. Obviously we only have one planet and better take care of it. Obviously organisms can push environments beyond the limits and successful ones fit in.
Humans do have a unique attribute of looking ahead, or it is more developed than in animals. However it is very variable, Im thinking of Jared Diamonds book "Collapse", where various civilisations didn't see the consequences of their actions on the environment. Easter Island is the classic example, but I think we are getting better, with better awareness and ability to calculate. There are still big limitations. We are good at responding to short term risks, but less so with longer term risks, yet we are aware of our own inadequacies. It is like a constantly developing consciousness, which is maybe your point.
I think you are onto something in differentiating how different people respond. Some think very selfishly and short term. Others seem almost programmed to think longer term, and we need to listen to each other. I wouldn’t want to say thinking short term is somehow entirely wrong though, we need both. This is hard for me to explain, and this is where internet missundertandings occur. But anyway I generally concur with your ideas, and hope I have added something.
Nigelj,
You mentioned you had read many of Al Gore's books. Are there a couple you felt were more effective presentations of his thoughts?
You have prompted me to evaluate and clarify my thoughts about short-term vs. long-term. I prefer to keep the focus on activities that would develop a sustainable better future for all life.
Investigations to better understand anything are helpful by default. They identify things that would be beneficial. And they identify things to be avoided or already developed activity that is to be curtailed. Leadership of societies and economies needs to focus on using the constantly improved best understanding of what is going on to ensure that short term actions, the things policy and investment decisions can affect, constantly evolve to best support the development of the ultimate long term objective.
I would consider any short term activity that does not deliver a benefit in the distant future to be entertainment for a current generation or sub-group of a current generation. Entertainment is not a bad thing unless everyone cannot develop to be as 'entertained', if the most entertained have to fight off others who want to be as enetrtained as they are.
Also, if the 'entertainment' would delay the development of a sustainable better future it would be a bad thing. Economies and societies that stick to relying on unsustainable activity rather than evolving and adapting their activity to be sustainable are destined to fail in spite of their potential short term appearance of affluence.
And I would consider any activity that deliberately increases the difficulty of developing a sustainable better future, such as promoting and protecting a damaging ultimately unsustainable activity just for short term 'entertainment' of one group to the detriment of other groups, particularly to the detriment of future generations, to be almost criminal.
p.s. I use the term sustainable in the sense of a perpetual motion machine, but knowing the sun's input is what keeps the machine going. I dislike the many cases where people use the term 'sustainable' when they are talking about prolonging popular support for a harmful and ultimately unsustainable activity.
One Planet Only Forever @ 54.
I think Al Gores “The Assault on Reason” was very good and convincingly put. It was well “reasoned”.
I think The Inconvenient Truth was very good, and a good summary of the science in simple terms, but it made a couple of claims that stretched things slightly about rates of possible ice melt. This gave the sceptics ammunition and they then attack one small element to discredit the whole.However I personally think we are at risk of very significant sea level rise. But that is my view, and beside the point.
I think Gores book on alternative energy is pretty good. I would have a few minor criticisms though, but any book like that will never be perfect. I have another of his books on "The Future" on the pile of books to read.
I agree ideally humanity works on considering long term goals ( based on sustainability) and then sets short term measures consistent with those goals. Just like your own life or running a business. My point was we have to consider both short term and long term survival issues in a constant state of flux, but if humanity has a decent long term framework everything becomes easier. Selfish damaging short term goals are a problem.
One problem is current economic thinking stresses market mechanisms and opposes longer term planning especially by government. Not that I favour massive government planning or oppose the market, but perhaps it requires a balance of both market and some government goals as well.
I think that in the past damaging environmental activities, including entertainment of certain types, has not been an issue, but we are now pushing the boundaries. This is uncomfortable and challenging especially if your personal interests are threatened. However there is always a reasonable compromise, or clever solution and ultimately I’m sure we will deal with climate change that way.
Alternative energy sources will improve and life will go on without massive compromise. Alternatively maybe we need a more radical adjustment, and a less materialistic lifestyle, but the policy goal should be to "have the best of all worlds" and see where that gets us.