Change is Coming

Change is Coming

  We Don't Need Barack Obama to Guarantee Things Will Change

The impact of methane on climate change may much greater than any previous
estimates.  Methane is 20 times more effective at causing global warming
than other human causes, i.e. burning fossil fuels. Greenhouse gases
(GHGs) are not simply the fault of humans, but we can by our activities
slow the effects. I doubt we can stop them. As a matter of fact, the
tremendous growth of the economies of India, Russia, China and other
countries would indicate we are not going to be able to do anything and it
the influence of humans on GHGs will increase in spite of anything we try
to do individually or collectively with other developed countries.
It is like pissing in the wind. But if that is what we want to do, be my
guest. The thing of it is, the way we have become accustomed to living
will have to change and some of us may not be prepared for those kinds of
changes nor be happy with them while the rest of the world rushes to catch
up.

And, it gets a whole lot more complicated than that. Drew Shindell, a
climatologist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY,
as reported in DailyScience, says we have to look at what happens to GHGs
after they undergo chemical changes in the atmosphere, not just how much
of it is being emitted from the Earth. Otherwise, we really do not have an
accurate measurement which may require new computer models because they
don't now provide an accurate picture. Shindell says,

"For example, the amount of methane in the atmosphere is affected by
pollutants that change methane's chemistry, and it doesn't reflect the
effects of methane on other greenhouse gases," said Shindell, "so it's not
directly related to emissions, which are what we set policies for."

Anotherwords, we don't really know what we're talking about yet unless we
look at the reaction of all these chemicals on each other.

The major reports on global warming and the dire predictions have been
mostly the purview of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) Assessment and include reports from hundreds of scientists. BUT,
the reports reply on measurements of existing GHGs in the atmosphere after
they have been mixed with all the other gases. They don't accurately
reflect quantities of these different gases actually emitted from the
Earth.

Shindell ascertained from his research that there is an error, as much as
10%, by measuring everyting together and not separately.

Here is what was reported by Science Daily (http://www.sciencedaily.com/)
on Shindell's work, who isolated the chemicals and calculated their impact
separately:

"Molecule for molecule, Methane is 20 times more potent than carbon
dioxide as a greenhouse gas, but CO2 is much more abundant than methane
and the predicted growth rate is far greater. Since 1750, methane
concentrations in the atmosphere have more than doubled, though the rate
of increase has slowed during the 1980-90s, and researchers don't
understand why. Controlling methane could reap a big bang for the buck.
Another bonus of this perspective is that in order to manage greenhouse
gases, policy decisions must focus on cutting emissions, because that's
where humans have some control."

Shindell said: "If we control methane, which the U.S. is already starting
to do, then we are likely to mitigate global warming more than one would
have thought, so that's a very positive outcome...Control of methane
emissions turns out to be a more powerful lever to control global warming
than would be anticipated."

And back to Science Daily: "Sources of methane include natural sources
like wetlands, gas hydrates in the ocean floor, permafrost, termites,
oceans, freshwater bodies, and non-wetland soils. Fossil fuels, cattle,
landfills and rice paddies are the main human-related sources. Previous
studies have shown that new rice harvesting techniques can significantly
reduce methane emissions and increase yields."

NOT fossil fuels and not necessarily human activity.  It definitely
presents a different picture, one which needs to be explored more
intensively - as you may remember was Sarah Palin's suggestion also. She
never denies human activity as a cause, but she has always believed there
should be more study of the problem and has even appointed a panel to do
that as governor of the State of Alaska. (Not something Joe Biden should
have tried to poke fun at or denegrate. It seems Biden was wrong and Palin
was right)

Neither am I minimizing the effects of human activity. That would be
foolish and human activities have a causal effect on much but how much we
can do since we don't own the rest of the developing world seems pretty
doubtful. We can reduce our own activities and ask others to respect the
science. We can't do much more except have more wars, which would also
adversely affect the atmosphere.

Human activity has a significant role in the observed results of climate
by human dispoilation of our biosphere. The latest IPCC convention
emphasized those facts and their science to back it up.

What was particularly alarming was the warning from their meeting:

    "We are now seeing, not merely predicting, effects of greenhouse
    warming on a scale and in ways that were not observable before..."
    (Gabriele Hegerl, associate research professor at Duke's Nicholas
    School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, who also co-authored a
    summary of the report for policymakers)

She also said,
    "When you look at the changes in temperature, circulation, ocean
    warming, arctic sea ice reduction and glacial retreat together, it
    paints a much clearer picture that external drivers, particularly
    greenhouse gases, are playing a key role...As a result, we
    can be much more confident that 20th century climate changes were not
    just linked to natural variability."

Not just linked to natural variability, but also linked significantly to
human activity. Change is not something we need to elect an untried,
unproved, unqualified, unvetted candidate to be America's leader for.
We're getting change anyway, because we always do. Nothing stays the same.

Hank Roth
POINTER: http://inyourface.info/ or http://pnews.org/
  follow links from there......