America's Climate Choices: missing an option

I’m providing these links for publications “America’s Climate Choices” issued today by the National Resource Council of the National Academy of Sciences without any comments other than this one: The option to “do nothing” is missing.

We’ll give everyone a chance to read through before doing any deconstruction.

Strong Evidence on Climate Change Underscores Need For Actions to Reduce Emissions and Begin Adapting to Impacts

Advancing the Science of Climate Change

Limiting the Magnitude of Climate Change

Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change

Stay tuned for more America’s Climate Choices…

The America’s Climate Choices suite of studies will include two additional reports that will be released later this year: Informing Effective Decisions and Actions Related to Climate Change will examine how to best provide decision makers information on climate change, and a final overarching report, America’s Climate Choices, will build on each of the previous reports to offer a scientific framework for shaping the policy choices underlying the nation’s efforts to confront climate change.

If your organization has an important forum or event where you’d like to hear more about the America’s Climate Choices studies from the reports’ authors, please contact Nancy Huddleston at 202-334-1260.

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Jimbo
May 19, 2010 5:25 pm

OT – interesting and current
Eyjafjallajokull Volcano

BBC – 19 May 2010
“But if the massed ranks of armchair pundits have been unable to offer a solution to the multi-million pound chaos, neither have the climatologists, volcanologists and aircraft technicians. “

Yet climatologists claim we can adjust the Earth’s thermostate by reducing the trace gas Co2 by reducing our trace output of Co2!!! As someone once commented on WUWT – paraphrase – When you can control a volcano, then come back to me about controlling the Earth’s climate.

INGSOC
May 19, 2010 5:25 pm

Also absent; firing boneless chickens at the sun. (Hey! It would help as much as eliminating CO2 altogether…)

Tangeng
May 19, 2010 5:26 pm

What do you expect from an organization that is essentially a lobby for scientific R&D expenditures? If there was the option to do nothing, the NRCNAS would be out of a job. Of course there would be no option to do nothing.

Dave N
May 19, 2010 5:29 pm

“America’s” climate choices? That kind of attitude reminds me of this:
http://notalwaysright.com/one-nation-under-god-period/5354

Wren
May 19, 2010 5:29 pm

An option to do nothing would be based on a forecast that nothing worth doing anything about will happen. That may be a hard forecast to sell.

May 19, 2010 5:32 pm

There needs to be two more choices:
1) Laugh because of the stupidity of the masses who believe something based on such scant evidence.
2) Cry because of the stupidity of the masses who believe something based on such scant evidence.

P Walker
May 19, 2010 5:43 pm

This is frightening . The Limiting section is a roadmap to economic suicide , while the Adaption section is egregiously alarmist . At the moment , I lack the time to delve further into this and don’t care to pay for the full report but I look forward to a true deconstruction of this . Hint – Fox news reported that the NAS recommends an eighty percent reduction of co2 by 2050 .

May 19, 2010 5:46 pm

OT: In the last few weeks the bashing of Anthony has started again (or did it never stop?), so I did a little experiment on Tamino and Anthony (apologies Anthony!) without their knowledge to test their commitment to openness and free discussion. Anthony passed and Tamino didn”t. See the results here:
http://peacelegacy.org/articles/testing-openness-tamino-wattsupwiththat
REPLY: Thanks Ron. I don’t worry much about this anymore as the traffic there is so low, and mostly circular. -Anthony

Dave Wendt
May 19, 2010 5:49 pm

Wren says:
May 19, 2010 at 5:29 pm
An option to do nothing would be based on a forecast that nothing worth doing anything about will happen. That may be a hard forecast to sell.
It would be a better deal than what they’re charging to download these compilations of hogwash.

David L
May 19, 2010 5:49 pm

Wouldn’t the option of “do nothing” be essentially what we’ll end up doing by following “Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change”. No climate change means no need to adapt to anything.

Curiousgeorge
May 19, 2010 5:59 pm

I didn’t even bother to read the “Options”, but I can say without a doubt that every single one will cause buckets of money to be funneled from the subjects to the kings.

Dave Springer
May 19, 2010 6:05 pm

I don’t think they understand that the “decision makers” are the voters where “Joe the Plumber” has as much say as “Mike the Professor”. They’re about to be reminded of that in no uncertain terms come November.

Henry chance
May 19, 2010 6:07 pm

Every day begins and I check the days weather. The weather doesn’t check with humans to decide how to change.

Brooks Bridges
May 19, 2010 6:08 pm

I love how you guys are always worried about the millions spent on research by scientists yet seem oblivious to the multi-billions of dollars profit being made by the fossil fuel companies and by their obvious interest in maintaining the status quo. You think they’re in business out of love for their fellow man? Follow the big money and who it’s paying to put out propaganda or stamp a big “Dupe” on your forehead.

Fitzy
May 19, 2010 6:13 pm

Isn’t “Adapting” technically the same as doing nothing?(In bureaucrat speak)
Ultimately the Politicians would steal our money, spend it on themselves and pretend to make sweeping changes for the better,…in the form of Bunkers, stockpiles of ammunition and fuel, really intense symposiums at a luxury resort, to discuss,….adapting to climate change.
In truth people attempt to improve their circumstances unprovoked by mean spirited politicians, its the
politicians who get in the way of people adapting!.
I can see it now…CNN (Communist Network News), Al Gore pronounces we must adapt!, but we must adapt according to this 200 page prescribed programme of peasant austerity, depopulation and military intervention.

James Sexton
May 19, 2010 6:13 pm

Thank goodness scientists aren’t advocates or anything of that nature, poor guys and gals just diligently looking for truth, unaffected by the desire for more grant money, (Advancing the Science of Climate Change) or the intoxicating allure of power and authority. (Limiting the Magnitude of Climate Change and Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change). Funny stuff, no, man never had to adapt to the impacts of climate change before, please mister scientist, please show us how we can!!!
Adapting to climate change…….so easy even a caveman has done it.

May 19, 2010 6:18 pm

They’re also missing the Dan Hughes option: verify and validate the climate models before committing to policy decisions based upon them. This has never been done, nor ever even suggested by any national science body. Can anyone imagine the protests of the NAS or the NAE, should a nuclear plant be built using an unverified model?
The silence on this option is studied, in my opinion, and more than anything else shows the complete dereliction of duty by the National Academies.
Their mission is purportedly to provide “independent, objective, and non-partisan advice about science. Instead, under the oversight of Ralph Cicerone, we get an obvious and professionally negligent partisan advocacy.
Another lesson implicit in the three offered options is the obvious determination to press strongly ahead, no matter any exposed weakness, with the undiluted message that human-produced CO2 is the prime cause of late 20th century climate warming, that reducing CO2 emissions is our only ethical choice, and that concerted human actions can actually influence the direction and magnitude of a change in climate. Given the widely known state of the physical understanding of climate (poor) and the equally widely known predictive coherence of climate models (non-existent), each of the three messages seems hardly distinguishable from a conscious lie.

Geoff Sherrington
May 19, 2010 6:35 pm

Of course there is value in the ‘do nothing’ option, provided it allows for a continuing term to study the climate with increasingly better instruments and methods (and to release the raw data).
Maybe we should compose a referenced list of information that has come available since (say) 2006 , info that did not make the last IPCC 2007 report. A few from the top of the head – we have custom designed satellites like AIRS for CO2, refinement of many software algorithms like extracting temperatures from older satellites (Christy et al), better ocean buoys (Triton data after 2005), someone must have updated some dendro records (apart from Starbucks), there was a paper on mullosc shell laminations Patterson). We have had more recent information on sunspot counts, solar wind intensity, solar flux variation, ocean heat content, global temperatures, deforestation, ice extent and so on. There are increasing calls to rejig the whole surface temperature record of countries like NZ. (It is vital to get a correct temp record because it is used to calibrate proxies; and without it, we can rely little on any proxy data except for unusual ones like Be isotopes for irradiance).
There is an opportunity, say at the end of the decade in 2010, to list those papers now plausibly discredited or lacking updating; and there is a possibility to report on the success or failure of amelioration measures for GHG, physical and political, if GHG are still held as an important part of the equation by then.
The 3 National Research Council reports shown above are ahead of their time. It’s bad so make decisions on scrappy data. It’s lemming-like, as the fable goes. One senses an attempt to galvanise action before the impact of recent findings is comprehended.

Paul Daniel Ash
May 19, 2010 6:37 pm

verify and validate the climate models
Sounds like an awesome idea, Pat… care to elucidate? Verify how and validate against what?

Henry chance
May 19, 2010 6:43 pm

Silent spring for Mongolians after winter kills herds
The long, cold winter killed an estimated 8 million animals, leaving impoverished herders struggling to survive.

What happens when we get false forecasts from warmists. The socialists are more worried about envy of companies tha show profits.

Brooks Bridges says:
May 19, 2010 at 6:08 pm
I love how you guys are always worried about the millions spent on research by scientists yet seem oblivious to the multi-billions of dollars profit being made by the fossil fuel companies and by their obvious interest in maintaining the status quo. You think they’re in business out of love for their fellow man? Follow the big money and who it’s paying to put out propaganda or stamp a big “Dupe” on your forehead.

The nasty massive taxes gathered and paid by oil companies are used to subsidize windturbines and outrag electricity costs. The eco weenies were hiding when oil was 8 dollars a barrel.

Dave Springer
May 19, 2010 6:43 pm

@Brookes Bridges
Do you have the number for the human resources department at teh fossil fuel companies? I haven’t been paid anything by them and according to you I should be on the payroll.

Doug in Seattle
May 19, 2010 7:02 pm

The window of opportunity for the alarmists is rapidly closing – and the know it. The trifecta of PDO, weak sun, and volcanism looks to be ready to force temperatures back to where they were 100 years ago.

Pompous Git
May 19, 2010 7:02 pm

Brooks Bridges says:
May 19, 2010 at 6:08 pm
“I love how you guys are always worried about the millions spent on research by scientists yet seem oblivious to the multi-billions of dollars profit being made by the fossil fuel companies and by their obvious interest in maintaining the status quo. You think they’re in business out of love for their fellow man? Follow the big money and who it’s paying to put out propaganda or stamp a big “Dupe” on your forehead.”
You don’t think that the reason the oil companies make so much money is because there’s a huge demand for their products? Of course you don’t own a car, you drive a bicycle made of timber (steel requires lotsa energy), uses a leather belt (rather than a steel chain lubricated with mineral oil), live in a house made of mud, or timber pegged (not nailed), with a roof of thatch (no steel, or tile). You must look gorgeous in sackcloth and ashes 😉

Zeke the Sneak
May 19, 2010 7:03 pm

Well, I chose Door Number One, and this is what I got:
PROBLEM: human activities
WHO RESPONDS: decision makers
HOW DO THEY RESPOND? action-oriented programs
IN WHAT INTENSITY AND DETAIL? at all levels
WHAT IS NEEDED? a single federal entity or program
IS IT ADVISORY? a single federal entity or program be given the authority
DOES IT HAVE RESOURCES? a single federal entity or program be given the authority and resources
WHAT IS THE SINGLE AUTHORITY’S PURPOSE?
a single federal entity or program be given the authority and resources aimed at..

responses to climate change/human activity

HOW DOES THE SINGLE AUTHORITY RESPOND TO HUMAN ACTIVITY/CLIMATE CHANGE? action-oriented programs
PS (stands for Post normal Science alert),
better linkages between research and decision making are also essential

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