Monday, November 26, 2007

More Deadline Nonsense

Atop James Hansen's claim that if we don't act on climate change within 10 years, made about 2 years ago now, comes the pronouncement by IPCC head Rajendra Pachaur that actually it's only five years, starting....NOW!
“If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”
Joseph Romm, ever gullible, says
In short — time’s up! America — we better pick the right President in 2008.
Oh my god, kiddies, here it is -- the entire future of the planet revolves on the 2008 election!

-=-=-

This just keeps getting more and more absurd, and I wish Hansen, Pachaur, and Romm would just stop the nonsense. A few years this way or that isn't going to make much, if any, difference. Even a decade or so. When we get around to cutting greenhouse gases -- and you can bet it sure won't be by 2012 -- we'll start to make some difference. Until then, we won't. The problem only gets about 1% worse each year, not 10% or something like that. How much worse will the problem be if we delay action by a decade? About 0.3°C, more or less. Not really that much, in the grand scheme of things.

So please, enough with the scare tactics. The real facts are bad enough.

3 comments:

Dano said...

I'd like to see Pacauri's evidence that many ecosystems will flip by 2012, or our societal momentum will be irreversible by 2012 leading to a flip, or whatever. Certainly we need to start moving, but I disagree with this tactic.

Best,

D

skanky said...

As I said on MT's site, I do think he's talking about the need to set-up a replacement to Kyoto as that runs out in 2012. As I also said on there however, we won't know for sure because we've got a couple of sentences (out of a whole presentation) taken out of context by the press. Never a good formula for judgement, I think.

EliRabett said...

Amusing, you obviously have been on sabbatical the last eight years.