In history studies of the Great Global Warming Scare, people will ask, is this the bargaining stage or the start of acceptance?
Adapting to _ not just fighting _ climate change is taking the heat out of global warming talk
Seth Borenstein for The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Efforts to curb global warming have quietly shifted as greenhouse gases inexorably rise.
The conversation is no longer solely about how to save the planet by cutting carbon emissions. It’s becoming more about how to save ourselves from the warming planet’s wild weather. — Newsdaily
On the five stages of grief, this is partly acceptance, but mostly it’s bargaining. Fans of Man-Made Global Warming are realizing they can’t have Deity Status — where they manage global financial markets and play God with the weather. Instead they hope they can still play hero, and direct less financially lucrative projects. They just want to hold back the tides, that sort of stuff.
It was Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s announcement last week of an ambitious plan to stave off New York City’s rising seas with flood gates, levees and more that brought this transition into full focus.
After years of losing the fight against rising global emissions of heat-trapping gases, governments around the world are emphasizing what a U.N. Foundation scientific report calls “managing the unavoidable.” — Newsdaily
So we finally get the first hints of acceptance on the big economic aims — this is the first recognition from key players that reducing emissions, setting up markets and global deals might not work. Don’t underestimate how important this is, it’s a big step because this was where the money always was — the $176b carbon market, and the $257b renewables investment market. The mitigation barrell is large because it carries the renewables like wind and solar too. It’s global. Building levee’s is not.
Al Gore says “I was wrong” (a bit)
Adaption is very much a second-best option. It was never the main aim at all. Al Gore didn’t want us to go there. He saw it as a cop out. Now he says “I was wrong” — Adapting is just as important as mitigation.
In his 1992 book “Earth in the Balance,” Gore compared talk of adapting to climate change to laziness that would distract from necessary efforts.
But in his 2013 book “The Future,” Gore writes bluntly: “I was wrong.” He talks about how coping with rising seas and temperatures is just as important as trying to prevent global warming by cutting emissions.
This article coincidentally wins the prize for the silliest justification for a big money program I have ever seen. Mayor Bloomberg says we should spend $20b on any old problem: real, unreal, imaginary, ludicrous. Whatever.
“Whether you believe climate change is real or not is beside the point,” New York’s Bloomberg said in announcing his $20 billion adaptation plans. “The bottom line is: We can’t run the risk.”
The risk of what exactly? One day our sun will turn into a red giant and incinerate the planet. Whether you believe it is real or not, is “beside the point”. We need that solar deflection shield. (Spend now, spend later, give me your money.) The Bloomberg line neutralizes every excuse. Why count? The numbers — the time — the degrees — the cost, it’s all “beside the point”.
So this news article is the ra-ra small-shift-coming “nothing to see here” marketing view. Borenstein hopes we won’t notice their disguised admission that 225,000 windmills won’t make a jot of difference. It doesn’t admit that all the costly emission schemes were wasted money. It is still in denial about the science (still at stage one). Where is the evidence?
This approach is just trying to save face and salvage something from the ruins. But the global ambitions have come crashing back to Earth. Adapting is a “local” thing.
Now officials are merging efforts by emergency managers to prepare for natural disasters with those of officials focused on climate change. That greatly lessens the political debate about human-caused global warming, said University of Colorado science and disaster policy professor Roger Pielke Jr.
It also makes the issue more local than national or international.
“If you keep the discussion focused on impacts … I think it’s pretty easy to get people from all political persuasions,” said Pielke, who often has clashed with environmentalists over global warming. “It’s insurance. The good news is that we know insurance is going to pay off again.”
No Roger, bless you, but we don’t know the insurance will pay off. The climate models are broken, and we might as well spit green peas, blindfolded, at a map to figure out where the floods and droughts will occur. How does a sea-wall pay off if the sea keeps rising at next-to-nothing each year?
The insurance argument is the cop-out of those who don’t do the sums.
At least one scientist is preparing to ditch the “climate change” term.
Now the word is “resiliency”:
Describing these measures as resiliency and changing the way people talk about it make it more palatable than calling it climate change, said Hadi Dowlatabadi, a University of British Columbia climate scientist.
“It’s called a no-regrets strategy,” Dowlatabadi said. “It’s all branding.”
All that, experts say, is essentially taking some of the heat out of the global warming debate. — Newsdaily
In other words, the “climate change” brand is toxic. They admit they are losing the war “against emissions”. Basically, skeptics are winning.
Read it all at Newsdaily.