The Wall Street Journal Online - Extra
FROM THE OPINIONJOURNAL ARCHIVES
BE NOT AFRAID
Global Warming Delusions
The popular imagination has been captured by beliefs that have little scientific basis.
by DANIEL B. BOTKIN
Sunday, October 21, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Global warming doesn't matter except to the extent that it will affect life--ours and that of all living things on Earth. And contrary to the latest news, the evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin. Most evidence suggests the contrary.
Case in point: This year's United Nations report on climate change and other documents say that 20% to 30% of plant and animal species will be threatened with extinction in this century due to global warming--a truly terrifying thought. Yet, during the past 2.5 million years, a period that scientists now know experienced climatic changes as rapid and as warm as modern climatological models suggest will happen to us, almost none of the millions of species on Earth went extinct. The exceptions were about 20 species of large mammals (the famous megafauna of the last ice age--saber-tooth tigers, hairy mammoths and the like), which went extinct about 10,000 to 5,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, and many dominant trees and shrubs of northwestern Europe. But elsewhere, including North America, few plant species went extinct, and few mammals.
We're also warned that tropical diseases are going to spread, and that we can expect malaria and encephalitis epidemics. But scientific papers by Prof. Sarah Randolph of Oxford University show that temperature changes do not correlate well with changes in the distribution or frequency of these diseases; warming has not broadened their distribution and is highly unlikely to do so in the future, global warming or not.
The key point here is that living things respond to many factors in addition to temperature and rainfall. In most cases, however, climate-modeling-based forecasts look primarily at temperature alone, or temperature and precipitation only. You might ask, “Isn't this enough to forecast changes in the distribution of species?“ Ask a mockingbird. The New York Times recently published an answer to a query about why mockingbirds were becoming common in Manhattan. The expert answer was: food--an exotic plant species that mockingbirds like to eat had spread to New York City. It was this, not temperature or rainfall, the expert said, that caused the change in mockingbird geography.
You might think I must be one of those know-nothing naysayers who believes global warming is a liberal plot. On the contrary, I am a biologist and ecologist who has worked on global warming, and been concerned about its effects, since 1968. I've developed the computer model of forest growth that has been used widely to forecast possible effects of global warming on life--I've used the model for that purpose myself, and to forecast likely effects on specific endangered species.
I'm not a naysayer. I'm a scientist who believes in the scientific method and in what facts tell us. I have worked for 40 years to try to improve our environment and improve human life as well. I believe we can do this only from a basis in reality, and that is not what I see happening now. Instead, like fashions that took hold in the past and are eloquently analyzed in the classic 19th century book “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,“ the popular imagination today appears to have been captured by beliefs that have little scientific basis.
Some colleagues who share some of my doubts argue that the only way to get our society to change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe, and that therefore it is all right and even necessary for scientists to exaggerate. They tell me that my belief in open and honest assessment is naïve. “Wolves deceive their prey, don't they?“ one said to me recently. Therefore, biologically, he said, we are justified in exaggerating to get society to change.
The climate modelers who developed the computer programs that are being used to forecast climate change used to readily admit that the models were crude and not very realistic, but were the best that could be done with available computers and programming methods. They said our options were to either believe those crude models or believe the opinions of experienced, data-focused scientists. Having done a great deal of computer modeling myself, I appreciated their acknowledgment of the limits of their methods. But I hear no such statements today. Oddly, the forecasts of computer models have become our new reality, while facts such as the few extinctions of the past 2.5 million years are pushed aside, as if they were not our reality.
A recent article in the well-respected journal American Scientist explained why the glacier on Mt. Kilimanjaro could not be melting from global warming. Simply from an intellectual point of view it was fascinating--especially the author's Sherlock Holmes approach to figuring out what was causing the glacier to melt. That it couldn't be global warming directly (i.e., the result of air around the glacier warming) was made clear by the fact that the air temperature at the altitude of the glacier is below freezing. This means that only direct radiant heat from sunlight could be warming and melting the glacier. The author also studied the shape of the glacier and deduced that its melting pattern was consistent with radiant heat but not air temperature. Although acknowledged by many scientists, the paper is scorned by the true believers in global warming.
We are told that the melting of the arctic ice will be a disaster. But during the famous medieval warming period--A.D. 750 to 1230 or so--the Vikings found the warmer northern climate to their advantage. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie addressed this in his book “Times of Feast, Times of Famine: A History of Climate Since the Year 1000,“ perhaps the greatest book about climate change before the onset of modern concerns with global warming. He wrote that Erik the Red “took advantage of a sea relatively free of ice to sail due west from Iceland to reach Greenland. . . . Two and a half centuries later, at the height of the climatic and demographic fortunes of the northern settlers, a bishopric of Greenland was founded at Gardar in 1126.“
Ladurie pointed out that “it is reasonable to think of the Vikings as unconsciously taking advantage of this [referring to the warming of the Middle Ages] to colonize the most northern and inclement of their conquests, Iceland and Greenland.“ Good thing that Erik the Red didn't have Al Gore or his climatologists as his advisers.
Should we therefore dismiss global warming? Of course not. But we should make a realistic assessment, as rationally as possible, about its cultural, economic and environmental effects. As Erik the Red might have told you, not everything due to a climatic warming is bad, nor is everything that is bad due to a climatic warming.
We should approach the problem the way we decide whether to buy insurance and take precautions against other catastrophes--wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes. And as I have written elsewhere, many of the actions we would take to reduce greenhouse-gas production and mitigate global-warming effects are beneficial anyway, most particularly a movement away from fossil fuels to alternative solar and wind energy.
My concern is that we may be moving away from an irrational lack of concern about climate change to an equally irrational panic about it.
Many of my colleagues ask, “What's the problem? Hasn't it been a good thing to raise public concern?“ The problem is that in this panic we are going to spend our money unwisely, we will take actions that are counterproductive, and we will fail to do many of those things that will benefit the environment and ourselves.
For example, right now the clearest threat to many species is habitat destruction. Take the orangutans, for instance, one of those charismatic species that people are often fascinated by and concerned about. They are endangered because of deforestation. In our fear of global warming, it would be sad if we fail to find funds to purchase those forests before they are destroyed, and thus let this species go extinct.
At the heart of the matter is how much faith we decide to put in science--even how much faith scientists put in science. Our times have benefited from clear-thinking, science-based rationality. I hope this prevails as we try to deal with our changing climate.
Mr. Botkin, president of the Center for the Study of the Environment and professor emeritus in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the author of “Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-First Century“ (Replica Books, 2001).
lundi 28 juillet 2008
mardi 3 juin 2008
Chanteracoise biscotterie
La Chanteracoise
nord de la gare de Neuvic vers Saint-Germain-du-Salembre
http://www.la-chanteracoise.com/default.htm
nord de la gare de Neuvic vers Saint-Germain-du-Salembre
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samedi 8 mars 2008
2003 Introducing equity: The multidimensional environmental justice movement is transforming mainstream environmentalism in the US
Introducing equity: The multidimensional environmental justice movement is transforming mainstream environmentalism in the US.
by Peter Montague
http://www.questia.com/read/5001916276
Questia Media America, Inc. www.questia.com
Publication Information: Article Title: Introducing Equity: The Multidimensional Environmental Justice Movement Is Transforming Mainstream Environmentalism in the US. Contributors: Peter Montague - author. Magazine Title: Alternatives Journal. Volume: 29. Issue: 1. Publication Date: Winter 2003. Page Number: 19+. COPYRIGHT 2003 Alternatives, Inc.; COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group
2003 - An article about the origins, characteristics (neighborhood movement) and rising impact of Environmental justice
SINCE 1980, an alternative to the traditional environmental movement has been slowly forming in the US, though so far it has gained little national visibility. It is called the "environmental justice" movement, and though it has some problems of its own, it represents a different approach to environmental protection, one that speaks to people about protecting the places where they live, work and play.
As Daniel Faber and Deborah McCarthy have documented, the fabric of the US environmental justice movement is woven from six strands: (1)
The civil rights movement. Apartheid officially ended in the US in 1964, but environmental racism is still all too common. The environmental regulatory system created during the 1970s and 1980s had the unintended effect of funneling pollutants into communities of color. Well-off white people can usually buy their way out of polluted neighborhoods, but people of colour and the poor often cannot. Pollution trading schemes, being promoted by some traditional environmentalists, may be economically efficient but they tend to heap additional burdens and injustices on the poor and people of colour.
The occupational safety and health movement. The US passed its first national job safety law in 1970, but since then enforcement has been lax or nonexistent.
Furthermore, the law excludes tens of millions of workers, such as farm workers. At least 60,000 workers die each year as a result of injuries and illnesses related to dangerous working conditions. Another 850,000 are made sick. (2) At least 35 million non-union workers say they would join a union if they could, to protect themselves, but US laws violate international human rights standards by making unionization an uphill battle. Added to existing unions, those 35 million would create the largest union movement the US has ever known, effectively shifting the balance of power between the corporate elite and wage earners.
The indigenous peoples' and native land rights movements, made up of Native Americans, Chicanos, African Americans, and other marginalized indigenous communities struggling to retain and protect their traditional lands. Partly these groups are fighting to control land resources, and partly they are trying to retain cultural lifeways that are threatened with extinction by the dominant society.
The toxics movement (also known as the environmental health movement) has been fighting for the clean-up of thousands of contaminated waste sites across the country since 1978. The toxics movement has also taken the initiative in discouraging toxic technologies such as municipal garbage incinerators, pesticides, so-called "low-level" radioactive waste dumps, coal-burning power plants, buried gasoline tanks, toxicants dumped by the military and more.
Solidarity movements, human rights movements, and environmental activists in the Third World are providing powerful allies and examples of extraordinary, fearless activism. In South Africa, Mexico, Burma, Indonesia, Nigeria, Central America, the former Soviet Union and elsewhere, local groups are fighting the same battles being fought in the US but with fewer resources and against greater odds - sometimes sacrificing their lives in their persistent demand for environmental protection, sustainability, self-determination and justice.
Community-based activists working for social and economic justice have traditionally focused on issues of housing, public transportation, crime and police conduct, access to jobs, a living wage, redlining and lender practices, affordable daycare, deteriorating schools and dozens of other neighborhood issues. They have not traditionally viewed their work as "environmental" but now when they work on lead poisoning, cleaning up abandoned toxic sites ("brownfields"), poor air quality, childhood asthma and other issues with an environmental component, they are indisputably a part of the "environmental justice" movement.
In addition to these six strands, we see a powerful, burgeoning seventh - people whose health has been affected by multiple chemical sensitivities, birth defects, breast cancer, endometriosis, lymphoma, diabetes, chronic fatigue, veterans affected by Agent Orange and Gulf War Syndrome and many others.
An eighth strand includes the international "zero waste" and "clean production" movements, which are quietly revolutionizing the material basis of the industrial enterprise.
This powerful environmental justice movement-which clearly has the potential to become a new political mass movement - is still in its infancy To grow to its potential it will need to be fed, nurtured, cared for. It will need resources. In their report, "Green Of Another Color," Faber and McCarthy show that, of all funds available for environmental work during the period 1996 to 1999, some 96 percent went to the lawyers and scientists of the traditional environmental movement, and only four percent went to all the thousands of groups working to build the "environmental justice" movement. (3) To really protect the environment (and overcome the political power of the anti-environment "conservatives"), these funding priorities would have to change substantially.
Follow up
The Environmental justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University maintains an active site on US environmental justice news, events and resources: www.ejrc.cau.edu/
Notes
(1.) D. R. Faber and D. McCarthy, Green Of Another color (Boston, Mass.: Northeastern University. 2001), p. 2. Available on-line at: .
(2.) See Rachel's Environment & Health News #578.
(3.) Faber and McCarthy, ibid.. pi.
Peter Montague is editor of Rachel's Environment & Health News and director of Environmental Research Foundation, Annapolis, Maryland. This article first appeared in Rachel's Environment & Health News #744 (Feb. 14, 2002). Back issues are available at.
by Peter Montague
http://www.questia.com/read/5001916276
Questia Media America, Inc. www.questia.com
Publication Information: Article Title: Introducing Equity: The Multidimensional Environmental Justice Movement Is Transforming Mainstream Environmentalism in the US. Contributors: Peter Montague - author. Magazine Title: Alternatives Journal. Volume: 29. Issue: 1. Publication Date: Winter 2003. Page Number: 19+. COPYRIGHT 2003 Alternatives, Inc.; COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group
2003 - An article about the origins, characteristics (neighborhood movement) and rising impact of Environmental justice
SINCE 1980, an alternative to the traditional environmental movement has been slowly forming in the US, though so far it has gained little national visibility. It is called the "environmental justice" movement, and though it has some problems of its own, it represents a different approach to environmental protection, one that speaks to people about protecting the places where they live, work and play.
As Daniel Faber and Deborah McCarthy have documented, the fabric of the US environmental justice movement is woven from six strands: (1)
The civil rights movement. Apartheid officially ended in the US in 1964, but environmental racism is still all too common. The environmental regulatory system created during the 1970s and 1980s had the unintended effect of funneling pollutants into communities of color. Well-off white people can usually buy their way out of polluted neighborhoods, but people of colour and the poor often cannot. Pollution trading schemes, being promoted by some traditional environmentalists, may be economically efficient but they tend to heap additional burdens and injustices on the poor and people of colour.
The occupational safety and health movement. The US passed its first national job safety law in 1970, but since then enforcement has been lax or nonexistent.
Furthermore, the law excludes tens of millions of workers, such as farm workers. At least 60,000 workers die each year as a result of injuries and illnesses related to dangerous working conditions. Another 850,000 are made sick. (2) At least 35 million non-union workers say they would join a union if they could, to protect themselves, but US laws violate international human rights standards by making unionization an uphill battle. Added to existing unions, those 35 million would create the largest union movement the US has ever known, effectively shifting the balance of power between the corporate elite and wage earners.
The indigenous peoples' and native land rights movements, made up of Native Americans, Chicanos, African Americans, and other marginalized indigenous communities struggling to retain and protect their traditional lands. Partly these groups are fighting to control land resources, and partly they are trying to retain cultural lifeways that are threatened with extinction by the dominant society.
The toxics movement (also known as the environmental health movement) has been fighting for the clean-up of thousands of contaminated waste sites across the country since 1978. The toxics movement has also taken the initiative in discouraging toxic technologies such as municipal garbage incinerators, pesticides, so-called "low-level" radioactive waste dumps, coal-burning power plants, buried gasoline tanks, toxicants dumped by the military and more.
Solidarity movements, human rights movements, and environmental activists in the Third World are providing powerful allies and examples of extraordinary, fearless activism. In South Africa, Mexico, Burma, Indonesia, Nigeria, Central America, the former Soviet Union and elsewhere, local groups are fighting the same battles being fought in the US but with fewer resources and against greater odds - sometimes sacrificing their lives in their persistent demand for environmental protection, sustainability, self-determination and justice.
Community-based activists working for social and economic justice have traditionally focused on issues of housing, public transportation, crime and police conduct, access to jobs, a living wage, redlining and lender practices, affordable daycare, deteriorating schools and dozens of other neighborhood issues. They have not traditionally viewed their work as "environmental" but now when they work on lead poisoning, cleaning up abandoned toxic sites ("brownfields"), poor air quality, childhood asthma and other issues with an environmental component, they are indisputably a part of the "environmental justice" movement.
In addition to these six strands, we see a powerful, burgeoning seventh - people whose health has been affected by multiple chemical sensitivities, birth defects, breast cancer, endometriosis, lymphoma, diabetes, chronic fatigue, veterans affected by Agent Orange and Gulf War Syndrome and many others.
An eighth strand includes the international "zero waste" and "clean production" movements, which are quietly revolutionizing the material basis of the industrial enterprise.
This powerful environmental justice movement-which clearly has the potential to become a new political mass movement - is still in its infancy To grow to its potential it will need to be fed, nurtured, cared for. It will need resources. In their report, "Green Of Another Color," Faber and McCarthy show that, of all funds available for environmental work during the period 1996 to 1999, some 96 percent went to the lawyers and scientists of the traditional environmental movement, and only four percent went to all the thousands of groups working to build the "environmental justice" movement. (3) To really protect the environment (and overcome the political power of the anti-environment "conservatives"), these funding priorities would have to change substantially.
Follow up
The Environmental justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University maintains an active site on US environmental justice news, events and resources: www.ejrc.cau.edu/
Notes
(1.) D. R. Faber and D. McCarthy, Green Of Another color (Boston, Mass.: Northeastern University. 2001), p. 2. Available on-line at: .
(2.) See Rachel's Environment & Health News #578.
(3.) Faber and McCarthy, ibid.. pi.
Peter Montague is editor of Rachel's Environment & Health News and director of Environmental Research Foundation, Annapolis, Maryland. This article first appeared in Rachel's Environment & Health News #744 (Feb. 14, 2002). Back issues are available at.
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