Global Warming: How History Is Being Manipulated to Undermine Calls for Action
By Spencer Weart
Mr. Weart is Director of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics.
Informed people now understand that global warming is perhaps the most severe challenge facing the well-being of human society in the coming century. Only a dwindling minority of Americans now denies this (an even smaller fraction believe that we are regularly visited by space aliens). But those who deny it include powerful people, whose interests or ideology are threatened by government regulation of the fossil fuels that are the main source of the danger we face.
History is often used in these arguments. Its role can be direct, as when global-warming denialists assert that not long ago scientists were “spectacularly wrong” in claiming that not warming but a new Ice Age threatened us. So writes, for example, the columnist George Will, quoting from news magazines of the early 1970s. However, when people checked the history they found that Will, following a practice common among denialists, “cherry-picked” a few items that served his purpose from a much larger body of evidence.1 Here’s the real history. In the 1970s scientists discovered that climate can be catastrophically variable; they didn’t agree on what would come next; but they all agreed that they knew too little at the time to make a confident prediction. Any resemblance to the current strong scientific consensus is a fantasy.
http://www.hnn.us/articles/30148.html
Introduction:
A Hyperlinked History of Climate Change Science
"To a patient scientist, the unfolding greenhouse mystery is far more exciting than the plot of the best mystery novel. But it is slow reading, with new clues sometimes not appearing for several years. Impatience increases when one realizes that it is not the fate of some fictional character, but of our planet and species, which hangs in the balance as the great carbon mystery unfolds at a seemingly glacial pace."
— D. Schindler(1)
It is an epic story: the struggle of thousands of men and women over the course of a century for very high stakes. For some, the work required actual physical courage, a risk to life and limb in icy wastes or on the high seas. The rest needed more subtle forms of courage. They gambled decades of arduous effort on the chance of a useful discovery, and staked their reputations on what they claimed to have found. Even as they stretched their minds to the limit on intellectual problems that often proved insoluble, their attention was diverted into grueling administrative struggles to win minimal support for the great work. A few took the battle into the public arena, often getting more blame than praise; most labored to the end of their lives in obscurity. In the end they did win their goal, which was simply knowledge.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/summary.htm
VIEWPOINT: The cold reality about global warming
By: Lou Smyrlis
Global warming and what we should do about it, is definitely, pardon the pun, a hot issue. Our August issue feature about forward-thinking shippers and carriers who are already taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated several calls and e-mails.
Many, while conceding transportation's role as significant contributor to greenhouse gases, expressed the same concerns: How can we possibly make a logical decision, one way or the other, given the complexity surrounding climate change -- we can't even get our weekly weather forecasts right half the time, how can we predict what's going to happen in 50 years?
Others pointed to the conflicting information that's out there -- some consider global warming a grave problem requiring immediate attention, while others, including some scientists, agree with James Inhofe, chairman of the American Senate's environment and public works committee, when he calls the threat of catastrophic global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated."
http://www.ctl.ca/issues/ISArticle.asp?id=60994&issue=10062006
STORM 2006: Cleanup efforts under way
http://www.lockportjournal.com/storm2006
STORM AFTERMATH: Carbon monoxide poisoning, clogged admissions causing problems
By Mark Lindsay/lindsaym@gnnewspaper.co
One of the dangers of being without power is the measures people take to get their power back on.
Some hospitals in the area are reporting a spike in carbon monoxide poisoning due to people using alternative methods of power and heat.
At Kenmore Mercy Hospital, spokesman Dennis McCarthy said they have seen five cases of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Other Catholic Health hospitals, including Mercy Hospital in South Buffalo and Sisters Hospital, were also reporting several cases of it. At Sisters, an entire family was taken in with effects of carbon monoxide poisoning.
At DeGraff Memorial Hospital in North Tonawanda, emergency room director Dr. Martin Barron said they have seen about 15 cases since the storm hit.
http://www.lockportjournal.com/storm2006/local_story_288160758.html
FLOODING: Farmers concerned with crop
By Bill Wolcott/wolcottb@gnnewspaper.com
Crops in Niagara County may have survived the October storm shocker, but may not make it to the market.
Mindy and Oscar Vizcarra of Becker Farms of Gasport can’t get to acres of apples and pumpkins because of mud and standing water. The Red Creek flood plain is flooded, blocking tractors and u-pick customers from thousands of apples and pumpkins across Quaker Road.
At the Donald Walck farm on Lockport Road near Comstock, there are acres of soy beans and corn ready to be harvested. However, the mud and wet fields won’t let the farmer get to the crop.
“We don’t know how bad it is yet,” said Walck, who has been farming the large farm since 1951. “I have never seen this much rain from August through October. We need a week of good weather to start harvesting. We have a good crop.”
The soy beans have not been affected yet, but some of the corn has mold. Soy beans must be at a certain moisture at harvest.
“This is one of the worst months,” Walck said of the rain. “What we need is some dry weather. You can’t do anything in the rain.”
Walck may also lose the second and third cutting of the hay. He hopes to be able to begin some harvesting on Monday.
http://www.lockportjournal.com/storm2006/local_story_288155650.html
STORM 2006: Thousands of residents flock to hotels for shelter
BY RICK FORGIONE AND JILL TERRERI
forgioner@gnnewspaper.com
The snow started falling and the lights went out at the Buffalo home of David and Amanda Johnson.
It was the perfect time to go on their honeymoon.
“We got married a month ago and didn’t have a chance to go on one,” Mrs. Johnson said, “but we’ve been meaning to come to Niagara Falls for a weekend. The storm gave us the perfect excuse.”
Thousands of vacant hotel rooms north of Erie County filled up fast as a result of the season’s first winter storm. The loss of power sent families scrambling for shelter as early as Thursday night. By Saturday, most of the hotels still operating were at full capacity.
The storm boosted business at hotels throughout Niagara County and Tonawanda.
But it also caused some serious trials for at least two couples on Friday, when they were forced to reschedule their wedding receptions after the Holiday Inn on Grand Island lost power.
The 261-bed hotel lost power in the early evening on Thursday and regained it Friday night.
The two couples were married during ceremonies on Friday and left on their honeymoons, but will reschedule their receptions for a later date. Meanwhile, the receptions of two other couples scheduled for Saturday were to go on as planned, according to Dale VanAlstien, director of catering for the hotel.
http://www.lockportjournal.com/storm2006/gnnlocalnews_story_288113311.html
STORM 2006: Power out for nearly 400,000
EMERGENCY SHELTERS
Niagara County residents who are without heat and power can seek shelter at these locations:
n The Salvation Army, Cottage Street, Lockport
n North Tonawanda High School, Meadow Drive in North Tonawanda
n Wolcottsville Fire Company, Town of Royalton
BY RICK PFEIFFER
pfeifferr@gnnewspaper.com
A winter storm that the National Weather Service called “of historic proportions” slammed into the Niagara Region on Thursday with a fury fueled by brilliant flashes of lightning and window rattling bursts of thunder.
The devastating storm is being blamed for three deaths, including one in Niagara County. By mid-day Friday, it had also left an estimated 390,000 residential and business customers of National Grid and New York State Electric and Gas without electrical power.
Officials with National Grid were warning on Friday evening that restoring power to affected businesses and customers could take until sometime next weekend.
“We have pretty much completed our field surveys of the damage,” said National Grid spokesman Steve Brady. “It is pretty clear that we have a level of damage that is unprecedented in Western New York.”
http://www.lockportjournal.com/storm2006/gnnlocalnews_story_286201542.html
STORM 2006: Media image sticks, even if snow doesn’t
By KEVIN PURDY
purdyk@gnnewspaper.com
On Friday night and through much of Saturday, anyone in Western New York who could find working television or computer could see that their story was the big news item.
Each of the network newscasts led off with images of broken trees, furious shoveling and orange-jacketed line crews hard at work Friday night. Cable channels kept the images in rotation all day.
Front pages in newspapers in upstate New York and Ontario, national sections from Boston to Houston and Web news sites carried headlines describing a “paralyzed” or “crippled” region that had been “clobbered,” “blasted” and “buried” by “record-breaking” or just “bizarre” snow.
By Sunday afternoon, most of the national media had moved on — or back, rather — to the war in Iraq, the latest in the Amish school killings and the upcoming elections. But they’ve done their best to ensure that the image of a region doomed to suffer whenever the wind changes sticks in people’s heads long after power has been restored and roads have been cleared.
Associated Press stories continually updated throughout Friday and Saturday described Buffalo as being “world-famous for its wintry weather,” setting up a description of the unexpected storm’s power to leave the city “all but paralyzed” on Friday.
The New York Times devoted a story on Saturday to describing the troubles that gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer encountered Thursday night at Buffalo Niagara International Airport after his final debate against Republican opponent John Faso.
The article described Spitzer as optimistic early in the night that he’d be able to board a plane by 1:30 a.m., but ends up describing an all-night effort to escape the region and get back to New York.
“We’ll be fine. Buffalo is good at weather,” reporter Eric Konigsberg quoted Spitzer as saying early in the night. Konigsberg later describes Spitzer’s crew as having to push his SUV back onto a local road during a three-hour drive.
Albany’s NBC affiliate carried a story Sunday telling how some area residents have been heading as far as the Capital Region to find portable generators in stock. Stephanie Wolf of Buffalo described her hometown to one of the reporters.
“Awful, awful. It looks like a bomb hit,” she said. “Trees are snapped off at the top parts and the lines are just crossing the roads.”
By Sunday afternoon, the story had moved off the New York Times’ “Most E-Mailed” list — it had held as high as ninth place on Friday — and was missing altogether from CNN.com’s index page. But anyone wanting to follow up on the story need look no further than the local Web log community for updates on how the area is building itself up again.
Bloggers around the region posted throughout the weekend about their trials and recovery efforts. The blog tracking site Technorati counted more than 600 posts made on Saturday with the words “Buffalo” and “snow” in them, up from a typical number around 100 on Thursday.
One blogger who describes himself as a “23-year-old computer nerd” on his MySpace page wrote about sharing (or unintentionally sharing) his family’s generator with neighbors, as well as the quest to find a working gas station near his father’s workplace in Lockport.
“I dunno what the national headlines said about us, but we are a tough town and got through,” he wrote on his blog. “There was a professional hockey game this evening downtown and it was a near sell-out, which just shows that Buffalonians are tough and just want to enjoy watching the game.”
Another Web log, dubbed “Grandpa’s Thoughts,” told a similar story.
“Please don’t think a little snow will stop Buffalo,” a post Saturday morning read. “We know what to do with it, and recover real fast.”
http://www.lockportjournal.com/local/gnnlocalnews_story_288150232.html
