clean air act

Recently I wrote a diary discussing global warming, indicating the overwhelming evidence that it is happening and suggesting that we can do something about it. Many of the comments I got were negative and, looking over the various sites I posted it, include a.) global warming is a scam; b.) we are not technically advanced enough to make any real changes; c.) our society won't do anything, so we have to act as individuals and forget about societal action; and, worst of all, d.) fine, you can do what you want about global warming as long as it doesn't inconvenience me.

I want to address these negative comments because, quite simply, they are all wrong and all of them interfere with our ability to mitigate global warming.

Who am I to discuss global warming? Well, my wife and I are scientists. Although I am a biologist, I keep up with the scientific literature in a variety of fields and I understand scientific thinking and the scientific process. My wife is actually an atmospheric scientist, studying climate dynamics, and works at GISS, the institute run by Jim Hansen, the man who came out on 60 minutes exposing the Bush administration's censorship of global warming science (which lead to a diary I wrote that was top of Daily Kos rec. list!). I hear from my wife aspects of the global warming debate that few outside of the field would hear. I hear what the experts are saying and how their discussions have shifted. It is also a subject I have been aware of and keeping up on for more than 25 years.

The global warming "debate" is not what the right wing portrays it as. Long ago a solid, overwhelming consensus was reached among scientists that a.) global warming is happening, b.) that humans are contributing to warming, and c.) warming will seriously impact our civilization in the near future...maybe already is.

The debate among scientists has shifted to details. Will there be localized cooling in the North Atlantic? Where will there be droughts and where flooding? How rapidly and how bumpy will the changes be? But the main question for all of society is whether it is too late to do anything. THAT is the new global warming debate. I have two answers to this: we sure had BETTER be able to do something about it and YES, WE CAN!

I have been aware of global warming science for at least 25 years. The science goes back even further, to the 1960's when measuring carbon dioxide levels and the observation that carbon dioxide was increasing were first done by Roger Revelle. Way back then, Revelle noticed changes and predicted that temperatures would rise as a result. When I became aware of global warming some 25 years ago, many predictions were made: increased storminess, Northward migration of tropical diseases, increased variability of temperature extremes, etc. What has astonished me as I read about current global warming science is just how many of the predictions of 25 years ago are coming true. In science the value of a theory is in its predictive value. From what I can tell as an informed, though not professional, observer is that the predictive value of the global warming models has been good. Details may be inacurate, but the general predictions have come true.