While the consensus warns of gloom and doom, the WSJ points out that warming has its positive aspects as well. For example, Trees seem to be responding well to increased CO2. See: Forests in the Eastern United States are growing faster than they have in the past 225 years
The 1970’s worry of the “population bomb” may very well have been subdued by CO2 helping crop yields. WUWT readers may be familiar with Indur Goklany, a regular WUWT contributor. He figures significantly in this WSJ article.
From the Wall Street Journal:
It seems the U.N. IPCC only tabulates the benefits of climate change when they are outweighed by the costs.
By ANNE JOLIS
Could global warming actually be good for humanity? Certainly not, at least if we’re to believe the endless warnings of floods, droughts, and pestilences to which we are told climate change will inevitably give rise. But a closer look at the science tells a more complex story than unmitigated disaster. It also tell us something about the extent to which science has been manipulated to fit the preconceptions of warming alarmists.
According to a 2004 paper by British geographer and climatologist Nigel Arnell, global warming would likely reduce the world’s total number of people living in “water-stressed watersheds”—that is, areas with less than 1,000 cubic meters of water resources per capita, per year—even though many regions would see increased water shortages. Using multiple models, Mr. Arnell predicted that if temperatures rise, between 867 million and 4.5 billion people around the world could see increased “water stress” by 2085. But Mr. Arnell also found that “water stress” could decrease for between 1.7 billion and 6 billion people. Taking the average of the two ranges, that means that with global warming, nearly 2.7 billion people could see greater water shortages—but 3.85 billion could see fewer of them.
Mr. Arnell’s paper, funded by the U.K. government, was duly cited in the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s supposedly authoritative 2007 assessment report. But the IPCC uses Mr. Arnell’s research to give the opposite impression, by a form of single-entry book-keeping. While it dutifully tallies the numbers of people he predicts will be left with less water access, it largely ignores the greater number likely to see more water courtesy of climate change.
The IPCC’s much-shorter “Summary for Policy Makers” is even more one-sided. It is riddled with warnings of warming-induced drought and—while acknowledging that a hotter Earth would bring “increased water availability” in some areas—warns that rising temperatures would leave “hundreds of millions of people exposed to increased water stress.” Nowhere does it specify that even more people would probably have more water supplies.
The IPCC also neglects to mention Mr. Arnell’s baseline forecasts—that is, the number of people expected to experience greater “water stress” simply due to factors like population growth and resource use, regardless of what happens with temperatures. This leaves readers with the misleading impression that all, or nearly all, of the IPCC’s predicted “water stress” increases are attributable to climate change.
These omissions were no accident. In 2006, prior to the release of the IPCC’s report and the all-important policy makers’ summary, Indur Goklany—at the time with the U.S. Department of the Interior—alerted the summary’s authors that it was “disingenuous” to report on a warmer world’s newly “water-stressed” without mentioning that “as many, if not more, may no longer be water stressed (if Arnell’s analyses are to be trusted).” Mr. Goklany’s advice was dismissed.
Read the rest of the Article at the WSJ here
Re: R. Gates (Feb 4 16:54),
In poker parlance,
I’ll see all of your graphs, sattelite data and modelling, and raise you real observational data hence…
“It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated.
(This) affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.”
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November, 1817
What part of NATURAL VARIABILITY do you not understand?
Re: Smokey (Feb 4 17:35),
Touche Smokey. The LATE GREAT JOHN L DALY.
There are plenty of scientists who will do well to emulate the honesty and integrity of this good man R.I.P
It’s global temps over long periods that matter and make the climate in the first place. That’s why the global satellite data from the above referenced link are important…and 2010 still strongly on track to be the warmest global temps on record.
There were satellites during the MWP?
Who knew?
The arguments of the CAGW crowd get weaker wit each passing month. I blame the reduced solar magnetic field.
George E. Smith (15:02:16),
Very nice.
As an Expert reviewer for Ch19 of the IPCC Working Group II Report of AR4 I had a similar experience to Indur Goklany, described in a 2007 interview ‘The IPCC goes looking for bad news’ I gave here:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/3111/
I objected to the First Order Draft that, according to that text, while a warmer world would be a wetter world, it seemed that no rain would would fall anywhere it would be of any benefit. Rather, there would be either floods or droughts. The response: the Committee had decided not to focus on benefits and decided the chapter should be titled ‘Key Vulnerabilites’ – to which I responded that what they were presented with did not constitute a decent risk assessment, and should never be presented as such.
It is now clear from ‘Glaciergate’, ‘Amazongate’, ‘Hurricanegate’, ‘Dykegate’, etc that inconvenient truths were never allowed to get in the way of a good story.
Socrates would approve.
“To be ignorant of ones ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.” — Amos Bronson Alcott
Were those who, unlike him, ignorantly thought they knew it all, and TOLD THE WORLD, to be commended?
There is still today an actual flat earth society with a newsletter. Members are mostly Amish. That’s what the slur refers to — unscientific people.
a question for the big brains here, i am a tiny brain. i only understand a fraction of whats spoken. IF there was global warming, wouldnt that make places like siberia, and the cold frozen places in the norther hemisphere, warmer.
And it would open up the land now useless into arable areas. where we can grow a LOT more food. If there is more water in the air, couldnt the old deserts start to become green again, like the egypt area, which was very fertile but needs water? So IF there is GW from natural sources, like the sun, natural variations in billions of threads. would it really be that bad. More food, more land for use.
Re: mercurior (Feb 5 00:15),
ssshhhh don’t say it out loud, the alarmists will get upset.
Has anyone read Mr Arnell’s full paper? Did he, or anyone for that matter do an estimate on how much less water is needed worldwide, due to the fertilization effect of increased CO2?
This is a very serious question, and I have not found it quanatified within the IPCC, so would appreciate any direction.
Thanks in advance.
The smoke coming from the global warming skeptics is as thick as the smoke coming from vehicles and industries!
Could it be that warmists are beginning to suffer from Scepticemia?
Sorry – I should try and get out more.
I fail to see why it is a *good* thing for the oceans to freeze over, and areas of previously productive farmland (such as in Greenland), to be either permafrost or covered with sheets of ice.
I welcome warming, with its accompanying milder winters and longer growing seasons (should it continue).
John R. Judge (11:57:15) :
“More and more it seems that ALL alarmist “science” is tainted. We must demand that it be tossed out and an unbiased group or groups be commissioned to examine all the raw data and present to the world science that can be trusted. Right now, I don’t trust any of it.”
I will second that sentiment. AGW is very much akin to the belief in a flat earth. No that is not derogatory but an observation.
First nonbelievers are vilified. As Bernie Harrop wrote in the WSJ comments:
“…Climate change denial is a mental disorder, sceptics are mad as well as bad, John
Naish writes in The Ecologist.”
Second non-approved research is stifled. In the case of “flat earth” exploration beyond the known shorelines was not undertaken. In the middle ages Arab scholars made tremendous strides until stifled by religion. Today funding dollars are again diverted from true exploration of the unknown to support of dogma.
Skepticism and progress seem to be stifled by those with political agendas. Perhaps that is because skepticism requires independence of thought and no would be dictator wants independent thinkers.
Gail Combs (04:40:15) :
A little off topic but most of the ancients knew that the world was round;
Pythagoras
Plato
Aristotle
I think sceptics are more akin to those who don’t believe in evolution. There’s plenty of evidence out there, but because it can’t be touched or seen to happen in an expriment it’s denounced as lies.
@Aynsley Kellow
This is no bragging contest, but I made the same point when the outline for the WG2 report was discussed. Instead of tne neutral “impacts” the IPCC preferred the value-laden “vulnerabilities”.
John Trigge (13:18:59) :
In Australia we are told that AGW is bad as we are a dry continent and getting drier.
Maybe my communications to our ‘esteemed’ leaders should include the question “Which countries, that may benefit from more water resources, are you willing to deprive of this benefit so that Australia has more water?”.
That would be an unnerving question to ask, since the data illustrates that precipitation in the USA is increasing.
“A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
People just don’t have any patience. The more time they have on their hands the more radical they become.
Lemmings!
We’re like a big, big, big bunch of lemmings. Who’s up for a swim?
“SURF’S UP!”
Support for Pachauri:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8499702.stm
Richard Tol: Yes – I think we are finding that many of us made these points, but they were simply ignored. It is important to note that this is NOT peer review as we know it, where authors are required to respond to readers’ criticisms or they don’t get published. There was never any chance that AR4 would not be published, no matter how bad it is! We then simply get included in an exercise in argumentum ad populum, by being counted as part of the 2,500 scientists who supposedly support this nonsense. I know form discussion with people like John Zillman that this was not the intention of those who established the IPCC, but this is what it has become, and there are really only two options: disband it, or institutionalise critique and scepticism in a ‘B Team’, as David Henderson has suggested.
R. Gates (16:54:48) :
Assuming that this is correct you assume this is a bad thing, because…? Keep in mind that the polar bears have survived warmer and colder periods.
People assume that warming and CO2 are bad. There is zero evidence to support this, unless one assumes that any change is bad.
The Effects Of Global Warming (02:47:05) :
That’s a good point since neither emits smoke these days, at least in the US.
Here’s a curious thing: if additional CO2 warms the climate and makes trees grow faster, why did Briffa, Mann, Jones, et al. have to hide the alleged decline in tree growth rates since 1960?
Are trees growing faster or slower? Is that increase/decrease due to anthropogenic CO2, or not?
Maybe tree rings and alleged tree growth changes are completely fallacious proxies, up or down, and nobody knows from nothing about it.
So, not very thick then.
Come on… industrial smokestack scrubbers, catalytic converters, increasingly accurate fueling mixtures, the only things coming out of those vehicles and industries is water vapor and harmless CO2.