Bishop Hill Lack of historical perspective
Jan 2, 2011 Climate: Surface Two excerpts from posts at Haunting the Library.
First, Michael Oppenheimer, the enviroscientist:
‘I bought a sled in ’96 for my daughter,” said Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, a scientist at the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. ”It’s been sitting in the stairwell, and hasn’t been used. I used to go sledding all the time. It’s one of my most vivid and pleasant memories as a kid, hauling the sled out to Cunningham Park in Queens.”
Next Edward Gibbon, from the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:
The great rivers which covered the Roman provinces, the Rhine and the Danube, were frequently frozen over, and capable of supporting the most enormous weights. The barbarians, who often chose that severe season for their inroads, transported, without apprehension or danger, their numerous armies, their cavalry, and their heavy wagons, over a vast and solid bridge of ice. Modern ages have not presented an instance of a like phenomenon.
Reader Comments (27)
Oddly enough my memories of weather as a kid are winters full of snow and red hot summers. The reality is that I only experienced snow a couple of winters as a kid and the summers where generally miserable apart from the odd week of sunshine (pretty much like now).
The problem is that you only remember the memorable occasions so your childhood memories are going to full of snow and you wont remember the miserable Saturdays spent indoors looking out at the rain.
I think Michael Oppenheimer is neglecting his daughter. There has been enough snow in central park in New York every year since he bought the sled. See here
Indeed, selective memory is a significant factor in perpetuating the notion that current weather events are more or less frequent than x decades ago. What really concerns me about this is that it is not just Joe public and Joe journalists who succumb to it, but also trained environmental scientists who should know better. For example, after the River Tay flooded large areas of Perth in 1993, SEPA (Scottish Environmental Protection Agency) was quick to suggest that the '93 flood (and the lesser event in 1990) were confirmation of global warming. This was despite the good historical evidence of just as significant flood events having been recorded as far back as the 13th century. Part of the reasoning for this was that most of the river gauges on the Tay system were installed in the 1950s and 1960s, so they only had 30 years of 'scientific' data to base their flood return period calculations. Had they asked the local Hydro-Electric engineers who had first hand knowledge of river levels from the Tay and Tummel schemes, they would have been informed that the 60s and 70s and 80s were comparatively dry decades, and not the best to base return period calculations.
Belated New Year wishes to all - I've been lurking the last few days so this is my first post of 2011. Still some snow on the ground from the November and December falls -
Incidentally, some stats from the northern regions of the Bish's diocese:
Day 39 with snow on the ground. Average day max in Dec was 0.3 C and min was -8 C. An amazing 17 ice days! - http://www.aberfeldyweather.com/
The temperature anomaly for December was approximately -6C in neighbouring Pitlochry, the coldest ever recorded:
DECEMBER 2010-----A truly remarkable month, the sort of conditions experienced, perhaps only occuring once a century. The max.temp. was 5.4 down on normal, the min. temp.an incredible 6.9 degrees down (anomalies of this sort are very rare indeed) Snow fell on 12 days & lay on the ground for 27, with the maximum depth 21cms. There were 27 air frosts & 30 ground frosts. However, as pointed out before, we need only go back to 1995 to find a colder individual day & night than in 2010. Nevertheless for persistent cold, December 2010 will stick in the memory for decades to come.
See Barry Gratton's weather site for full summary - http://pitlochryweather.blogspot.com/
Oh, I didn't make clear that the Aberfeldy Weather site is run by Brian Blair (not me).
In 2030 my daughter will be telling her children "this snow is nothing compared to the snow we used to have". And then "this fog is nothing to the fogs we used to get". And then "You think this is hot? You should've seen the scorchers we used to have ..."
So now 2010 is properly over, will the Met tell us where it came in the Hot-Year Hit Parade?
O'Geary: On the BBC long range (5 day) forecast from the MO just now, it was stated that (for the UK) December 2010 was the coldest December in 100 years and 2010 was the coldest year since 1986.
"mean CET ranked coldest to warmest from 1659 to 2011 - sorted on 2/1/2011"
Has Dec 2010 at -0.7C ranked No 2 behind 1890 at -0.8C
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/mly_cet_mean_sort.txt
Lots of other data at:-
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/data/download.html
But strangely still no official announcement of their global series HadCrut3 for November, never mind December.
There is a number of +0.431C being banded about, but nothing official. HadSST2, which I understand is the sea surface element of HadCrut3 was posted at +0.237C on 5th Dec.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadsst2gl.txt
For anyone unfmiliar with Edward Gibbon, he was writing Decline and Fall in the 18th century - a bit before the Industrial Revolution began pumping out large quantities of CO2.
Thw words;
"I am dreaming of a white Christmas, JUST LIKE THE ONES WE USED TO KNOW...."
When was THAT written?
Sais all you need to know really.
Ah selective memory.
I'm an Earth Science graduate with a BSc and a MSc and have studied Oceanography and Climatolgy at post-grad and then moved away from this area.Prior to ready this ( www.john-daly.com/stations/suzuki.htm) in 2003 I was probably a luke warmer, not for long. Suzuki's dribble is what got me back to questioning the establishment - thanks David /sarc off.
Bis thanks for the great site from a very warm Perth Aus ( normal for this time of year)
Alan
Thanks Phil and Green Sand.
So the pre-Cancun announcements
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/2010-set-to-be-among-three-warmest-years-ever-un-experts-2150617.html
were the usual complete piffle?
The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States: We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are. And it is important to the rest of the world to make sure that they don’t suffer economically by virtue of our stopping them.
Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund
wilbert
Too late. According to my friends back from China, Beijing has traffic jams that make LA look like a race track. One friend took nearly three hours to go 10 kilometers in a taxi. Shanghai is as bad, I am told.
Me, I am happy up in the Sierra or out on the Ring of Kerry (except during tourist season)
wilbert, you provide no link but is that a quote attributed to Oppenheimer?
Because if it is, it is astonishing:
Let's all just stop. And think. About the implications of the above.
Yes, it is the most ludicrous non-sequiteur imaginable. And yes, it is a direct call for intervention in the sovereign affairs of other nations.
Yes, Oppenheimer is a dangerous buffoon.
One wonders what the powers that be in Beijing make of such talk.
More of an hysterical perspective than an historical one, methinks.
The Oppenheimer quote is widespread across the Internet. It allegedly was said during an Earth Day convocation:
"...And that is what Earth Day has become. A stolen day, usurped by the watermelons. Here’s some more quotes from back in the 70’s:... 'The only hope for the world...[alleged Oppenheimer quote]' "
Source: http://www.nerepublican.com/index.php/tag/enviro-nazis/
Oppenheimer, on the other hand, denies that he said it:
"I never said it. The only true part is the spelling of my name and my association with EDF, first as a staff scientist, now as a science advisor. Nevertheless, the attribution to me of what is a fabricated quotation has proliferated around the web, fodder for all manner of anti-environmental websites.
"The statement seems to be a perversion of something I said in either my 1990 book, Dead Heat (coauthored with Robert H. Boyle), or to George Will on the ABC News program This Week with David Brinkley on May 31, 1992, around the time of the Rio “Earth Summit”. Both comments refer to the challenge of reining in global warming in the face of projected growth in developing countries. Below are excerpts from the book and the transcript of the TV show, respectively:
'The biggest challenge is posed by the continued economic and population expansion of such Third World countries as China and India. Even if the developed countries shift away from fossil fuels, Third World growth could continue to be based on coal and oil, in which case there would be little hope of restraining global warming short of calamity...'
'...If China, where there's one car for every 500 people, gets the same kind of cars and the same ratio of cars to people that the United States does, where there's one car for every two people, the world is essentially going to go through the roof environmentally. We can't let that happen'."
Source: http://www.princeton.edu/step/people/faculty/michael-oppenheimer/in-the-news/Correcting-Glenn-Beck-.pdf
Did Oppenheimer make the statement attributed to him in a careless moment at an Earth Day event in the 70's? If so, he may easily have forgotten having said it. I surely would. He does admit above to having said something slightly similar as recently as the 90's. Was there an earlier, more candid version of the latter quotes? Further research might or might not uncover anything.
Sorry for the long comment, but I think this is warranted by the thread. Oppenheimer says it's not so.
Re. the Michael Oppenheimer quote - I can help there.
The statement is from his 1990 book "Dead Heat: The Race Against the Greenhouse Effect" which included lurid scenarios where most of America was desert by 2010, millions of deaths, yada, yada, yada.
Link to book on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Heat-Against-Greenhouse-Effect/dp/0465098088
It's worth getting from the library. I may dig out a copy of it and select a few quotes.
Cheers,
HtL
If someone does get their hands on the 1990 book, it would be good to have the relevant page numbers and the exact words used by the authors that most closely correspond to Wilbert's quotation. From a very different blogospheric domain, here's a cautionary tale about primary sources, together with the happy ending.
Here's the full quotation from the book as given by Oppenheimer in the link I provided above:
"The biggest challenge is posed by the continued economic and population expansion of such Third World countries as China and India. Even if the developed countries shift away from fossil fuels, Third World growth could continue to be based on coal and oil, in which case there would be little hope of restraining global warming short of calamity. Limiting economic growth is not an option, for this would only succeed in trapping the Third World in a cycle of poverty that would eventually disrupt the international order just as surely as an environmental disaster. The resolution of this conflict is to be found in the free transfer of new, solar technologies to the less developed world, as well as the intensified encouragement of programs that would lead to the ultimate stabilization of their populations. If this leapfrog over heavy industry can be achieved, the Third World could actually benefit from the greenhouse quandary: with sun to spare, many could export stored solar energy the way some now export oil.
.... M. Oppenheimer and Robert H. Boyle, Dead Heat, New Republic Books, 1990, p.5"
I very much doubt that this is in any way the source of the putative quotation. Save for some elliptically related references to the problem of Third World CO2 sources, the content and bookish tone differ widely from the quotation. Perhaps there are other sections in the book that come closer, but I doubt it very much. The alleged quotation has the tone of an off-the cuff remark delivered to an entirely sympathetic audience, perhaps a gathering of gullible sophomores or somewhere outside the US. Is it accurate? It's impossible to say without further study, which, again, may uncover exactly nothing.
This is from Wikipedia, would you believe
In his 1990 book, Dead Heat, Opphenheimer predicted that "[By] 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots . . . [By 1996] The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers."[1] Despite the fact that "[d]ata from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center shows that precipitation-rain and snow-has increased slightly over the century," Oppenheimer has said: "[o]n the whole I would stand by these predictions-not predictions, sorry, scenarios-as having at least in a general way actually come true."[1]
and foot ref (1) is this
http://reason.com/blog/2010/12/30/cracked-crystal-ball-environme
XX One wonders what the powers that be in Beijing make of such talk.
Jan 2, 2011 at 5:14 PM | Unregistered CommenterBBD XX
Probably laugh it off as the dip shit totaly insignificant fiction writter he is.
Only Britain starts screaming "Ohhhh Mavies don't say that, you will cause ALLL kinds of offence, and even maybe a WAR!"
The REST of the world live in REALITY.
O'Geary
The results should be out soon - I think the first ones will be the satellite records. The Met Office have this from 2nd December:
"Global temperature has warmed to near record levels in 2010 say climate scientists from the Met Office and the University of East Anglia. Provisional figures for the three main global temperature datasets put 2010 on track to become first or second warmest in the instrumental record."
jorgekafkazar
Many thanks for your clarifications and links above.
Dominic
Furor
I know you are only living up to your name, but calm down dear chap or something will go pop.
Opphenheimer shows not only lack of historical perspective, but lack of present and future perspective.
Could we just call it lack of perspective?
Opphenheimer predicted that "[By] 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots . . . [By 1996] The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Oppenheimer
I guess that prediction has resulted in him being awarded the 2010, 16th Annual Heinz Awards (with special focus on global change).
There have been no topsoil blizzards but a few conventional ones with snow.