This kind of thing is coming in so frequently, we may have to go to Porn-of-the-Day. Just in from The Sun:
VICTORIA – All Vancouver Island glaciers, including the iconic Comox glacier, will be gone within 25 years due to climate change, says University of Victoria geography professor Dan Smith.
“There are not many glaciers left,” Smith said Wednesday.
“In the 1970s, they did an inventory on Vancouver Island and they counted about 170 glaciers, and I’d say there are five of what you could call glaciers left.” …
Glaciers on the Island aren’t seen as a significant source of water. “They’re really more icons than anything else,” said Smith. …
“The significance of what’s going on now is it’s going on on a global scale and seems to be happening more rapidly than in the past,” Smith said.
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Happening now, happening faster, and over in a generation. That’s not the way we used to think about climate change – something of consequence for future generations, but with slow incremental change that will allow us to adapt.
Of course, even that’s not a sufficient rationalization in some places: Alabama’s Climate Change Deniers Refuse to Save the State – as Bloomberg reports today:
Even as the federal government’s new National Climate Assessment cautions that storm surges may one day leave coastal communities such as Mobile under as much as 25 feet of water, state leaders persist in saying global warming is a sham and resist spending money to prepare for it.
Trip Pittman, a Republican state senator who represents Baldwin County on the east side of Mobile Bay, calls federal research on climate change “bad science” and “fear-mongering.” Spending millions based on such predictions doesn’t make sense, he says. “What are the costs of us going on these crusades, these environmental crusades?” says Pittman. “We’ve elevated environmentalism into some kind of religion.”
But they will spend on this:
As chairman of the state senate’s education budget committee, Pittman directed money to the University of Alabama in Huntsville to fund research by John Christy, a climate scientist who has testified before Congress denouncing claims of man-made climate change.
Not that it matters:
Alabama’s politicians can question the existence of climate change, but they won’t be able to avoid its effects, says Ben Raines, executive director of Weeks Bay Foundation, a conservation group in Baldwin County. “People here are already dealing with a more extreme climate and with sea levels that are on the rise inundating properties more and more frequently,” he says.
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In B.C. of course, there’s an urgency to matters here too: Russia-China gas deal puts heat on B.C.’s LNG sector.
Still room for exports from B.C. but must move quickly, proponents say.
People who prefer glaciers ought to move to Alberta or Iceland. There are plenty glaciers there.
Let’s have a balanced view please. Publish some articles on the benefits of global warming such as lower heating bills in the winter, longer golf season in Alberta, less death due to freezing, more ice free ports, lower clothing expenses or higher crop yields.
Every change in life has pro’s and con’s, or winners and losers. So, let’s look at both sides of this coin. It is black on one side and golden on the other. Which side is better ?
“Which side is better?”
…so you believe in global warming and simply disagree that it’s a bad thing?
Won’t be many glaciers in Alberta for long, either. And that poses serious problems for the water supply of cities like Calgary. But hey, pros and cons…
Of course, golf courses use water, too
Author
The gorilla plays golf.
There’s no question. The science is settled. If indeed the climate overall warms, then this will be of great benefit. We will see a marked reduction in the burning of fuel to sustain life in all northern regions of the world – particularly Canada and much of the United States.
Orange groves in Saskatchewan could be just one of the benefits!
The issue of “settled science” is settled to you perhaps, Eric. But not to many others, incl. me. Much of the “science” is biased because the funding is biased.
Rupert Darwall: ‘In their persecution of an aged colleague who stepped out of line and their call for scientists to be subject to a faith test, 21st-century climate scientists have shown less tolerance than a 16th-century monarch. There is something rotten in the state of climate science. –Rupert Darwall,
Judith Curry: ‘We have also seen a disgraceful display of Climate McCarthyism by climate scientists, which has the potential to do as much harm to climate science as did the Climategate emails.’
I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it. –Voltaire
http://business.financialpost.com/2014/05/15/eminent-swedish-scientist-latest-victim-of-climate-mccarthyism/
And yes, we ought to reduce the gorilla’s footprint in sensible ways. Burning less coal makes sense. Having more fuel efficient cars, and less of them, makes sense. Burning gas instead of coal or oil makes sense too. Having more hydro projects as opposed to more coal plants makes sense.
Tolling roads/bridges/tunnels makes sense.
Biking and walking makes sense.
What does not make sense to me is bigger governments taking a larger and larger share of my income under the disguise of “science” and giving me nothing in return besides more regulations and more overpaid bureaucrats like we see in Europe that is choking on its debts, deficits and regulations.
Your claim that the funding is biased is not supported by the observation that the IGPCC scientists are unpaid volunteers, while the denial and junk science organizations you frequently quote are funded by the fossil fuel industry and others with a direct stake in preserving the status quo.
That is untrue. Most scientists are not volunteers, They make a living as scientists that is government funded. Big government, incl. the UN, has its own agenda of even more government. I am ok with making oil use more expensive for consumers. Easy. However that is politically difficult or impractical. If Vancouver charged $3 for gas even more folks would buy it in Abbotsford or the US.
If the US actually believed in climate change seriously, they would increase gasoline to $10/liter. But they do not. Obama is a hypocrite, as is Al Gore or David Suzuki, living in big fat houses and flying all over the place. Talk is cheap.
Action is far harder.
We expect too much from politicians. Way too much.
I didn’t say most scientists, I said the work done by scientists for the IPCC. Unpaid.
Those same scientists may be surprised to learn that in their day jobs they are all employed by something called Big Government.
Except of course for the ones employed by Big Oil, a topic which you deflected.
Be careful Thomas. There’s word around that those that deny the “proved” science will be persecuted and forced to shut up. Remember the inquisitors.