Reading Nature’s Tea Leaves…
By Loren on Oct 16, 2008 in Uncategorized
Melting ice caps, stronger hurricanes, more frequent wildfires, aren’t these the things scientists warned about if we failed to address our contribution to climate change?
Here we are in Santa Ana season again and our hills and valleys are drier than ever. Brush fires are growing out of proportion to the wind pushing them along. Our first Santa Ana of the season is winding down without the devastating fires of 2003 and 2007 but the potential for firestorms is greater than ever. We’ve spent tens of millions of dollars for firefighters to respond more quickly and effectively but still we’re failing to address the real causes of the fires; climate change.
Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers have been studying wildfires and have learned there are four times as many wildfires as there were prior to the 1980s and the acreage burned is 6 times as great. The problem is that spring starts earlier and winter starts later.
In San Diego that translates to the rains ending earlier in the traditional rainy season and starting later in the fall and winter. The local vegetation has longer to dry out and remain dry when the winds of autumn arrive. For us it has meant thousands of our neighbors have lost homes and hundreds of people have lost loved ones.
The bigger fire threat is actually elsewhere in normally cool and damp mountain forests.
“I see this as one of the first big indicators of climate change impacts in the continental United States,” said research team member Thomas Swetnam, director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at The University of Arizona in Tucson. “We’re showing warming and earlier springs tying in with large forest fire frequencies. Lots of people think climate change and the ecological responses are 50 to 100 years away. But it’s not 50 to 100 years away–it’s happening now in forest ecosystems through fire.”
Despite the fact that the environment is behaving exactly as climate scientists have predicted it would, the campaign of disinformation by some radio talk shows and the fossil fuel industry continues to create doubt and in-action.
On the campaign trail the talk is of reducing our dependence on oil from “people who don’t like us very much”. That talk must turn to the importance of reducing our use of all oil, not just the foreign stuff. If we continue to drag our feet in developing alternatives, then folks in coastal towns will find their towns increasingly uninhabitable, and people like us will continue to be chased from our homes as wildfires lick at our eaves. Plant and animal species will be killed off and our economy will be wrecked by band aide approaches to fend off the disasters we’ve been warned would come.
So how much more evidence is needed before we stop debating climate change and join the world in addressing the things we need to do to reverse what’s happening?
Do you have a better explanation for the fires, the hurricanes and the melting ice? If so please share it and help me understand the flaws in my thinking.
Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.
Loren,
You’re a bright guy and I’ve admired you for years, but you’re buying into climate change thing too much. about 20 years or so ago, I remember a “The Planet is cooling” fiasco. I think the climate is changing, but it is most likely a natural cycle. The change in CO2 is so trivial compared to times in the past when fires burned for 100’s of years. The wildfire problem is more because we have been doing too good of job fighting fires for the last 80-100 years and the world is catching up. Anyway keep up the good work and keep people thinking.
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In response, on October 21, 2008, Gina said:
I am really trying to figure out what you meant by this.
“The wildfire problem is more because we have been doing too good of job fighting fires for the last 80-100 years and the world is catching up.”
Do you mean since the fire can be stopped, it isn’t getting rid of all the dry brush? I remember years ago, watching this documentary on aborigines, and how there was a tradition of setting fire to “clean out” the dead vegetation. That is what popped into my head when I read that. Just trying to understand what you were saying.
In response, on October 21, 2008, Rick Roberts said:
Hi Gina,
Yes that is what I mean. Fire fighting has been very effective for the last 100 years or so, and the resulting fires with the tremendous amount of dense underbrush have been amazingly hot and destuctive.
Thanks for asking.
Rick Roberts | Oct 16, 2008
One of the reasons for the forest fires is the fact that millions of trees were planted in the National forests back in the late sixties and early seventies as a part of the “plant a tree” movement the government was pressured into by environmentalists who wanted to green the world. Many of those trees were not even indigenous to the vegetation zones in which they were planted. These trees grew in unsustainably dense populations, which were protected from burning by fire fighting services and eventually succumbed to beetle infestations because of these unsound forestry management practices. Those dead trees make great fuel for fires started by arsonists who know when and where to light them for the greatest effect.
People will jump to conclusions when confronted with natural cycles having frequency oscilations that exceed that of the human lifespan or even historically recorded scientific observations. It can be alarming to observe something not seen in our lifetime or even in the span of many generations.
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Ron Oliver | Oct 16, 2008
The problem of greenhouse gas emissions, global warming, and climate change illustrates beautifully the ambiguity, uncertainty, and “religious” nature of our “all-too-human” (to use Nietszche’s wonderful phrase) earthly existence. First, this involves the data, analyses, and prognostications of scientists (who as the priests of modernity are the sole dispensers of public truth), which, because of the extreme complexity, probabilistic, and uncertain nature of these data,analyses, and prognostications, will generate controversy within our community of big-brained primates. This will be multiplied by our personal predispositions and the philosophical, religious, and quasi-religious preconceptions that we all hold.
Second, the predictions are apocalyptic. These modern day scientists-prophets-of-doom are telling us that if we do not repent and change our ways, catastrophe will overtake us. Wildfires and rising sea levels will swallow us alive and wreck our beloved Southern California megalopolis. As a Christian, on the one hand, I am all too familiar with such talk, and I am fascinated by the quasi-religious nature of the whole controversy. On the other hand, as a Christian, I am, perhaps, more inclined than others to ask, “What if it’s true?” or, “What must I do to be saved?” In any case, this apocalypticism again tends to promote controversy. It tends to polarize us big-brained primates into those, on the one hand, like Loren, who are fully convinced it is true and want us all to repent and change our ways right now, and those who, like Rick Roberts, on the other hand, are skeptical and will, perhaps, like the mockers of Noah, remain so to the very last – should the apocalyptic predictions prove true.
Darwinians argue that our hyperplastic frontal lobes have given us the unique capacity to learn from the world around us and to anticipate the future like no other species on earth. They also note that, along with our opposable thumbs, our frontal lobes have allowed us to develop very powerful technology, which, after all, is what got us into this mess. (Whether or not it is a “mess,” again, will depend on your particular genetics, conditioning, and in some cases, thoughtful choices.) So, according to the Darwinists, our big fat brains are a double-edged sword. But can we anticipate the future – this ambiguous, messy, probabilistic, complex, uncertain future of global warming, climate change, and ecological apocalypse? And can we do anything other than squabble about it?
For those of us who love our opulent Southern California lifestyle and don’t want to see our 5000 sq ft suburban houses and 3-car garages threatened with wildfires every 5 yrs, and who are not just drinking beer and watching the Chargers, wonder about this question of global warming and climate change. While we commute to work or play in our Escalades and Lexuses and jet off to the Orient or wherever for business or pleasure, our autonomic nervous systems will not give us rest. We are uncomfortable in our comfort. So we will continue to engage our interlocutors and squabble about this uncertain and apocalyptic question of climate change. “What if it’s true?” and “What must we do to be saved?”
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John Mustol | Oct 17, 2008
Hi Loren,
Not a peep about how quiet this hurricane season has been! Weren’t we supposed to have been hit by a bunch of cat 5 hurricanes by now?
Darn it! there just aren’t enough disasters to keep the media and the environmentalists happy.
Bill Lange
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Bill Lange | Oct 20, 2008
Well, when we can stop the sun from fluctuating its sun spot/solar flare patterns, we’ll fix this climate change issue. Too bad I can only receive the KGTV HD signal at my home, otherwise I’d be watching ANYTHING else.
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Sean in Carlsbad | Oct 20, 2008
Wow five people that are living in denial and posted back to back. There are of course natural climate changes. I remember that whole el nino thing, and from what I gathered it was a natural change. To say the CO2 being dumped into the atmosphere is trvial compared to a less technological time, is truly living in a bubble of denial. Why would it kill any of you to recycle that beer can instead of just tossing it in the trash? I just don’t understand the arrogant human mentality that nothing can be used up and destroyed because of them.
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In response, on October 21, 2008, Ron Oliver said:
Gina,
Who says I (or we) don’t recycle? I do. I also try to conserve fuel and energy and not be wasteful. I’m just trying to make the point that there are too many possible causes for warming trends other than man-made causes to say man is solely to blame. There are just too many ways to look at existing data and skew the prognosis for the planet based on personal fears and agendas. That’s why I make the earlier point–warming didn’t cause the bark beetle infestation–poor forestry management did. Forests are something that move in cycles which ebb and flow in terms of tens of human lifespans and thousands of years; fires can destroy them in a matter of days. How can scientists who have only been collecting (meaningful) empirical data about these forests for less than half a century definitively state anything about them with any degree of certainty? For every theory I’ve seen on manmade “Global Warming,” I can come up with a perfectly reasonable explanation or refutation based on natural phenomena and cycles. To me, that’s a problem. I can’t jump on the draconian bandwagon when I can easily understand there are multiple other natural causes for the phenomena we observe.
Gina | Oct 21, 2008
What I’m reading here are folks who take individual instances where the impacts of global warming may or may not be contributing to their severity using that as a way of saying, “Look, things really aren’t so bad.”
Some have talked about the cooling cycle we were supposed to have (Very true - we are SUPPOSED to be getting cooler, by historical cycle and sunspot inactivity). Others claim reforestation and better fire-fighting techniques means worse forest fires. (with the vast majority of the worst wildfires occurring outside of reforested lands notwithstanding.) Both are forgetting that no one thing stands out as prima facia evidence of global warming. Taken singly, they may be able to be explained away. Taken collectively, the evidence for global warming is obvious and terrifying.
Naysayers won’t be convinced until New York is under water once the glaciers have all melted. The fact the Northwest Passage has been clear twice this decade, in the last two years in a row, for the first time in recorded history, let alone that arctic is expected to be ice free for the first time in known history by as early as 2012 (by some estimates) should give folks a CLUE.
But the primary motivation for naysayers seems to be who’s at fault for it. Again, strong circumstantial evidence points to human activity. No one who denies global warming as the fact it is seems to be willing to acknowledge this possibility. The most they will admit to is that things may be warming up a little due to a natural cycle, despite the fact that natural cycle says we should be approaching another ice age.
But, there is one, small, bright spot in all of this: a slowed economy means less consumption, which translates to less pollution and less carbon being emitted. My prediction, depending on how long consumption stays down (and, more importantly for the environment, manufacturing), the trend in warming may actually slow down. I think we’ve gone beyond the tipping point and nothing we do can STOP it, or even reverse it. But we can mitigate the severity by going more green than we have - especially by reducing our consumption of oil and coal. The really interesting thing is that if we can put a lot of capital into green tech, we can revitalize OUR economy by creating new technologies, industries and products (as well as jobs, money and spending) for the rest of the world to benefit from and buy.
The irony is that those who economically need this kind of new technology the most are those who support the need to create it the least.
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Phill | Oct 21, 2008
I feel certain that the horse with its head stuck in the tree can be attributed to climate change.
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Dave | Oct 22, 2008
In the last analysis, and ignoring for the moment (even at our own peril) the scientific data, it is economics that drives most of the global warming debate, and in that context, there is little incentive to connect the profits that are promised in the next quarter to the global costs of something that may or is even likely to happen in 20 to 50 years.
Unless or until this big disconnect is addressed by policy makers, nothing substantiative beyond a few token measures will ever be taken to address the threat of global climate change. Doing so will require sustained, courageous leadership to accomplish, and courage is in far shorter supply than any fossil fuel you may happen to name.
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David L. Caster | Oct 22, 2008
And while we are on the subject of science and scientists, who are notoriously conservative by virtue of being driven by facts, they have now indeed switched gears and it’s a higher one. It turns out that climate change appears to be accelerating, at least at the poles, with the consequence that sea levels will rise more than twice earlier estimates. This means something greater than 40 inches in this century. That may not sound like a lot, but it will affect millions of coastal residents all over the world.
Oh, and let’s not forget food production which is also taking a hit according to the most recent data. Not that the people of the world, estimated to number somewhere around 9 Billion in 2050, will need to eat anything. But don’t expect to be farming domesticated forms of polar-dwelling species by then. They will probably all be gone, long extinct. That’s all right though, because not to far behind them will be most of the rest of the world’s animals, followed by us. We don’t need no stinking meteorite strike to put us out, we can do that for ourselves any number of other ways.
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David L. Caster | Oct 23, 2008
The enviornment is always changing but at this point it’s changing too fast for nature to adjust because of human intervention. You are very right on with your views. I’ve lived here all my life and I remember when we had fires in the “back country” and the farmers would go out and turn on the irrigation to save the crops — used to help friends do this when I was a child. But the fires were less and not so bad because we actually had rain during the winter, which was longer then. Now we have homes out in the back country. This area was never intended to support the dense population growth we have had but then the world is really not capable of supporting the growing population. With the growth of population we are raping our planet, which is causing “mother nature” to fight back with changing weather patterns and increasing storms, earthquakes, etc. Unless we start taking care of the beautful earth we have been given we are going to loose it and all the people who refuse to believe this are the problem. They are blind because they choose to be so — it would inconvenience them to open their eyes and do something constructive. Keep on speaking because there are people listening and maybe you can reach some of the blind and help them to see.
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Evelyn | Oct 23, 2008
There is little doubt that rainfall amounts over the southwestern United States have been below normal for several years, and that condition is likely to continue in the near-term. Fuel accumulated in the “good years” is now dry and ready to explode in the presence of the smallest source of ignition.
Accumulated fuels, increased development that brings people and their homes into closer proximity to wilderness areas, and increasingly chaotic weather patterns certainly make it appear as if there is an emerging pattern of more intense and destructive wildfires. Evidence continues to accumulate that prolonged fire seasons are a result of global climate change. The jury is still out as to whether these conditions are actually attributable to the activity of mankind, but in the final analysis, that might not matter.
What is clear is that most models predict that the southwestern United States will move into a prolonged period of reduced precipitation if global warming is a reality. Even if scientific evidence suggests that’s what’s happening, we are speaking of effects that may be driven by factors we are yet unaware of, or have insufficient historical evidence to prove, and while the debate continues to rage, we may someday wake up to discover that it is to late to do much of anything about it. In fact, the “why” might not matter at all.
If we put aside all of the arguments about “global warming” for a moment, and just concentrate on the question of what we should be doing, there is little doubt that the amount of carbon fuels available for consumption on this planet is limited: they will run out, and we need a plan for that eventuality.
The question of whether or not to take some action with respect to carbon emissions could be rephrased another way: when will we run out of fossil fuels, and if we consume all of those fuels, what are the consequences of doing so. It’s as if there were a race between the side-effects of consuming all available fossil fuels and actually running out of fossil fuels to consume. Both individually might be disastrous, but both together might be catastrophic.
It boils down to a balance between the forces of nature as modulated by human activity and our ability to manage a scarce resource carefully enough until we can move away from its consumption. We are subject to the dual constraints that we cannot run out carbon fuels before suitable replacements are found and we cannot disrupt the environment so severely by their consumption that we cannot live on this planet.
If the southwestern US dries up enough, there won’t be much fuel to consume by wildfires in the future. Perhaps we should start to really worry when wildfires become so uncommon as to provoke the opposite question raised here: why are there so few wildfires?
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David L. Caster | Oct 23, 2008
One doesn’t have to debate the theories of science but only to look closely at nature to see our lovely planet, a living organism, trying desperately to sustain itself with the burden of over population, over polluting, deforestation, the loss of hundreds of species, the decline of hundreds more and its natural resources being stripped away at lightening speed. Did we think she would not rebel?
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laura arehart | Oct 24, 2008
Loren,
“Carbon Footprint credits” are similar to how ” Detroit ” gets around the sale of gas guzzlers in an atmosphere of wanting to conserve on gas. So long as they have an overall gas mileage for their fleet, (CAFE) they can sell as many SUV’s and gigantic “Pick up” trucks as they want to.
Same with the silly notion that you can have less carbon in the air if you sell your “small” carbon footprint to some guy who has a large one, so he can keep on producing noxious gasses.– Once the carbon gets in the air, it doesn’t matter who made the smog. We all have to go right on breathing it.
On the other hand, Global Warming and Climate change: Hear to stay; not caused by human fires; it’s happened before — the ice ages, big and small have all been followed by a warm up period, and then, a cooling period. These periods are so long that generations forget the last one. Then, when a given generation gets on the cusp, it screams, “Oh dear, maybe we are causing the warming up period, or the cooling off period when, in reality, MANY expert scientists are saying its the activity of the sun which changes periodically, or, just changes in the earth’s wind patterns, which change periodically too.
I believe that global warming, this swing of the pendulum, may be helped along by man….maybe… about, 0.0000000001%s worth. IE, not enough to notice in geologic time.
“Now, for something entirely different”, as they used to say on the Monty Python show…
I moved into my house across the street from the rim of Penesquitos Canyon 36 years ago. The vegitation on the hill has been let to grow for 36 yrs longer than it had in the natural state for centuries before. I am beginning to wory about any spark. I may have a fire in my front yard any time now. Not because we have 2 cars, but because that brush has not burned in, I don’t know… 50 or 100 yrs or so???
“Us” vs. “Them” IE, those already in San Diego, and the rest of the “Zonies” and others who crave being in “The world’s finest climate, but who haven’t gotten here yet, but shall come as long as Big Business and Bigger Government believe Bigger and More is better.
Have you ever heard of “carrying capacity? — too many people on the frozen pond will soon go swimming in ice cold water — Too many people in the life boat was the cause of death by drowning… Too many people rushing out the only door of a burning building was the cause of death by suffication — not smoke inhilation — they died by being smuthered by the paniced crowd.
Well, like it or not, there is a carrying capacity to every desert too, and, we live in one.
As long as the cities and counties in So. Cal. issue more building permits, more people will come; they will dirnk and bathe in our water and force water rationing.
Simple solution: send about a third of the all-ready-here-late-commers home and tear down as many houses and don’t issue any more building permits. Use the agricultural check points at the state borders to screen people for either tourism or that they already live here and keep the new house-hunters out.
Then we can get back to basking in the lovely sun on our clean and not over crowded beaches, driving to LA in 2 hours instead of 3 or 4, taking long hot showers without feeling guilty — of course, I don’t feel guilty anyway, because, I feel it is my God Given Right to take long hot showers… I can’t afford much more pleasure… I am on $485 a month social security.
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Bill Ascherfeld | Oct 24, 2008
I started my remarks on this topic by pointing out the fundamental economic disincentives to pay attention to the effects man may be having on the climate. Interestingly, today’s mail delivered a notice that the home I own in the North County city where I live is in a “Very High Fire Hazard Zone”. Yup, capital letters and all. City Council is going to have a public hearing, and all residents that have one of those properties within that zone are invited. I guess it won’t do much good to bring up global climate change at that meeting. Something tells me the hearing is not going to be about that. Even if I did, some Councilman would probably just declare me to be out of order anyway.
It is ironic, at least in the context of this discussion, that whatever causes this new designation to attach itself to the immediate surrounds of my home almost certainly translates to an economic impact on my neighbors and myself. The handwriting (or printing in this case) appears ominously in the notice: “This designation may also affect homeowners insurance status”.
Leaders of industry testify before congress that it will cost them too much to reduce their carbon emissions, retool, or make products that produce less emissions. “We won’t be able to compete” or (equivalently) “It will make our products cost more”, or the ever popular “This is what consumers want”. In response, Congressional Leaders water down laws to favor these interests for decades, and eventually it starts to show. Maybe in little ways at first, the permafrost line pulls back north 25 miles, then there is no ice at the north pole in high summer, half of the trees die and turn to fuel in the intermountain west, and many thousands of wildland acres go up in smoke, taking homes and lives in the process. For a lot of people that have seen the values of their homes plummet and the price of energy spike, helping to push the US economy off a cliff, well, they must endure yet another economic burden now that they live in a “Very High Fire Hazard Zone”. Funny how many of the most vexing problems we face today all seem to be interconnected.
Oh, I’ll go to the Council’s hearing, to be sure. My home happens to have some of the features that firefighting professionals recommend to reduce the danger of loosing it to wildfire. Maybe I’ll advance my plans to replace those parts of the wooden fence that are closest to the house with masonry. And I’ll be sure to clean up the brush in the drainage easement in back of the house, hopefully with the cooperation of the 8 or 10 other neighbors that back up to it. Perhaps I’ll even speed up my plans to make the soffit and fascia around my roof fire resistant. I suppose it’s better than having the house burn down along with all my possessions. These are examples of costs too, and there are plenty of others which in one form or another, we are all paying.
We, The People, need to take a much closer look at ourselves and our leaders. Our stewardship of this planet must at some point trump or at least throttle the urges to profit. It is a mistake to believe that we can somehow make a deal with the devil to avoid taking responsibility for all our contributions to the harm being done to our environment. Leadership and Courage, so far in short supply, need to rebound if we are to return our world to the health it enjoyed before we started fouling and burning it in the name of a quick buck or blind competition to survive.
The debate needs to shift in the direction of restoring balance between the needs of industry and personal freedom to produce and consume products that harm our environment, and the sustainability of the ecological systems that gave birth to us all. It can’t just be about who is going to pay for it, because at the end of the day, we all do, no matter what side of the argument one finds themselves on.
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David L. Caster | Oct 25, 2008
Hi Loren,
You got my ire up with more Global Warming(you do mean man-made Global Warming) nonsense.
If the planet is warming, the climate will not be dry. The climate of “Baja California” will not be moved “30 miles” north. I think you guys are doing too many bong hits over in Olivenheim.
During warming events the ice caps melt and h2o is evaporated into the atmosphere. There is considerably more precipitation(snow and rain,clouds and more vegetation. If the planet is moving into a colder period, then the opposite will be true. Many of our great deserts are remnants of our last ice age.
But not to worry, your pal DR. Hanson over at NASA read the thermometer backwards and it turns out that this past October was the coldest October on record and not the hottest as he first proclaimed.
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Steve Kerckhoff | Nov 18, 2008