E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Mike Groll / AP file
In this aerial photo, people walk amid the destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, on Oct. 31 in Seaside Heights, N.J.
The federal government is facing significant financial risks related to extreme weather events, and states and cities can no longer depend on it for extra help after such events occur, the Republican chairman of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said Friday.
The warning from Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., came at a press conference about the release of a new report by the Government Accountability Office, which identified “climate change” on its 2013 list of items presenting high risk to the federal government.
The report said the federal government faces financial challenges from climate change, including the costs of weather-related damage to property it owns, losses through flood insurance and crop support programs, and costs of emergency aid in disasters.
“These events are primarily the responsibilities of the cities and states,” Issa said at the news conference. “And I will point out that we can no longer assume that the federal government will come in with an emergency supplemental [funding] every time there is an [extreme weather] occurrence. We have a responsibility to be proactive: Proactive in asking the states and the cities to be prepared to meet more of these requirements. Proactive in making sure that we withhold the funds, either through insurance funds or through actual appropriations, that are appropriate for the real anticipated events.”
The GAO noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is on the hook for more than $80 billion in aid for disasters declared during the 2004-2011 fiscal years -- and the White House asked for more than $60 billion in aid to help the East Coast recover from Hurricane Sandy.
Read the GAO report in PDF form
And yet, the report says, the government has not been coordinating a response to climate change among its agencies --- partly a problem of the complexity of the issue. The report advises that a strategic plan be developed, directed at common goals for all federal agencies.
The report is a biennial assessment of government operations it deems at high risk for fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement or as otherwise "needing broad-based transformation." Some of its other recommendations:
- Develop a better understanding of how a changing climate will affect the large federal flood and crop insurance programs. For instance, the report said, sea-level rise and long-term erosion should be considered when flood maps are updated.
- Develop a federal approach to providing climate data to state and local governments so they can make better decisions.
- Develop better criteria for FEMA to assess a jurisdiction's ability to recover on its own after a disaster.
In a related issue, the report also says looming gaps in coverage by polar-orbiting weather satellites could affect forecasts and "warnings of extreme events."
The satellites provide a global perspective each morning and afternoon. The report said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has acknowledged there could be a gap of 17 to 53 months between the time the current afternoon satellite fails and the time a new one can be launched to replace it.
The report also noted that the risk of a gap exists in coverage by the satellite in the morning orbit -- if the Department of Defense's next satellites don't work as intended.
The report said NOAA officials believe these gaps "would result in less accurate and timely weather forecasts and warnings of extreme events, such as hurricanes, storm surges and floods."
After the report’s release, members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a news conference at which both Democrats and Republicans acknowledged the government’s significant fiscal exposure as a result of weather related disasters.
Issa called it a “nonpartisan” issue, while ranking Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., labeled the GAO report “a wake-up call” for Congress to start paying attention to impacts of climate change.
In total, the GAO report listed 30 federal programs and operations on its high-risk list. Climate change risk and the weather satellite gap were both new additions. Management of interagency contracting and IRS business systems modernization both were removed from the list because the GAO decided that sufficient progress had been made to address past vulnerabilities.
More from Open Channel:
- Koch-funded charity passes money to free-market think tanks in states
- The faces behind the numbers: Six victims of long weekend's violence
- Death takes no holiday: Tracking gun violence over one long January weekend
Follow Open Channel from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook
Leave a Comment:
The greatest threats to national finances related to “climate change” are to spend any more money on trying to slow or arrest it and to pass more laws and budgets that retard/diminish the wealth creation needed to deal with its effects. It is the height of arrogance and conceit to believe that anything humans could do would have any measureable effect on climate change, especially when all of the proposed measures retard or diminish wealth creation. The forces causing climate change are orders of magnitude greater than anything humans could produce – have been and always will be.
tech, you simply couldn't be more wrong. The science on this is very clear - I can assume you've spent little to no time studying it.
The hypocrisy of Issa is jaw-dropping. For more than 2 decades now, climate scientists have been warning of the threat we faced from human-caused climate change. And Republicans have increasingly ignored the warnings, going so far as to call it a hoax, and persecute the scientists in court.
Now that the bill is coming due, human-caused climate change is 'real' - and we're all on our own.
I don't have strong enough words for these people.
I'm glad the government is thinking beyond the end of next week. And Tech let me share this piece of wisdom with you, "Just Because everyone else is wrong doesn't mean you're right."
techgm: Our species may be facing an event that would at the least derail our civilization and at worst cause the extinction of over 90% of species on this planet.
There is no greater threat.
And for you to cry about money or politics, there is no greater shame.
You can always tell when the people have little knowledge of climate mechanics when they spout two things: 1) human activity couldn't possibly have an effect on climate and 2) how mitigating the changes would hurt the economy.
The only explanation for the first is willful ignorance and for the second willful ignorance. It's really time to put the mewling of these obvious industry hacks behind us and put their clamoring on ignore.
Physicist, you simply couldn't be more wrong. The science is anything but clear- I assume you've spent little to no time confirming facts related to the climate. I also assume Issa isn't concerned as much with the climate myth as he is with the Nations finances. It's clear as a cloudless day that the Fed's ability to fund any programs due to weather events will be compromised in the future. Apparently Obama insists on a legacy of out of control spending.
Exactly, culheath.
Look, for example, at tech's comment above:
Actually, that 'force' is much smaller than a human. It's a CO2 molecule, and it's greenhouse gas properties were discovered in a lab nearly 200 years ago - long before politics entered into this discussion.
As for the 'we can't afford to fix it' meme, guess what? We're all already paying for it. Your tax dollars funding FEMA, Crop Subsidies during historic droughts, repairs from extreme flooding - $126 billion last year alone. $420.00 for every man woman and child in the country.
That's the real Carbon Tax. We're already paying it.
Steadfast denial of what is both manifestly apparent (climate change) and already demonstrated (that human activities are (at least) partly to blame) is CERTAINLY NOT consistent with a CONSERVATIVE perspective. On the contrary, it is reckless.
It is past time for the great sensible American majority to disregard the ignorant, the selfish, and the stubborn and proceed according to what the vast majority of our experts tell us to be the case.
We will NEVER convince the vitriolic naysayers. We can only save them....and our civilization.
Bring it, Salgal. I helped to build some of the earliest atmospheric models for the Air Force - probably before you were born.
Bring your facts that refute AGW. Bring a scientific refutation. Not one single scientific organization in the world agrees with you. Not the American Petroleum Institute.
Not even Exxon or BP.
Bring it. I'm ready.
You are right. The science is clear only to anyone who is not an idiot, either by accident, or through willful and stubborn ignorance.
Never assume.
This conservative left the Republican party when it became obvious they had gone off the deep end. Most rational conservatives are now voting Democrat or not voting at all.
monkey @ the keyboard... Excellent! If we can't prove our point debating climate myth, then we can SHAME the unbelievers into submission.
Salgal: This isn't a political issue.
The tripping point has always been the amount of warmth that will warm frozen methane, in the oceans, lakes and poles. We have already hit that. Naturally stored methane is a much more potent global warming gas. It's very possibly that we cannot go back as a civilization, but we might be able to slow it for our species.
Your post reminds me of those people trying to get out of Vietnam as Saigon fell. They scream for a seat to safety with handfuls of cash when money stopped being a ticket long ago.
Physicist-retired: As Tim DeChristopher said right before he was sent to jail for disrupting oil sales, peaceful resistance against the monied and anti-climate change groups is revolutionary and what is needed.
"With countless lives on the line, this is what love looks like, and it will only grow. The choice you are making today is what side are you on."
So glad you're on the right side.
Read more: http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/151670-new-abolitionists-global-warming-is-the-great/#ixzz2KumApOKw
The amusing thing is that the deniers actually believe the issue will go away if only they could deny for long enough. Boy, are they going to be surprised!
Welcome to the new financial paradigm. The one in which your taxes increase every year and services decrease. Just ask any Medicaid or Medicare health care provider.
But was there any other logical outcome after 80 + years of Keynesianism?
Without this "imminent threat" of "climate catastrophe", climate scientists would not get their federal grants to continue their "research" ie, they would be out of jobs.
How do these climate alarmists explain the various ice ages and recessions over the years? Surely they can't blame humans and their automobiles.....
ToxicChemist: When your failing every class, is it really up to the professor to explain the basics?
You can obviously read to educate yourself, that is if you care to be educated.
Monkey,
I've been working on this for many years now, and haven't given up the fight.
And we're only just starting. I'll be in Washington this Sunday, with tens of thousands of others, for the largest climate rally in history.
Join us if you can. Washington Monument, 12:00 p.m.
Toxic,
mini ice ages are the result of the Earth's own natural defenses against warming. The problem is that if enough methane is released from the sea ice it was trapped in the natural defenses against warming may not make much difference. This is known, in the environmental science field, as a positive feed back loop.
Here is an image to help illustrate the point:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://sitemaker.umich.edu/section2_group1/files/secondfeedback.jpg&imgrefurl=http://sitemaker.umich.edu/section2_group1/arctic_issues__permafrost&h=600&w=800&sz=66&tbnid=4u6gcXhEh_u8IM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=120&zoom=1&usg=__RskUVRPiVsvfj7H2OGvF8iwkYyU=&docid=Hjap-JomGQg14M&sa=X&ei=uWQdUcv0BI-byAGlaQ&ved=0CE8Q9QEwAg&dur=176
As the temp rises permafrost melts. This releases more CO2 and methane into the atmosphere, much more than any car can produce over its lifetime of use, which triggers more temperature increases. This thaws more permafrost and more gasses are released. This continues until all of the trapped gasses have been released and then the Earth goes through a hot period where storms that make super storm sandy look like a small thunderstorm appear. These drastically decrease the temperatures through rain, cloud cover, and other forms of precipitation and then a new ice age starts to reset the balance.
Long before that happens most life on this planet will have died out because the temperatures will be outside of most species habitable zones.
Except that my taxes have gone down under Obama.
Physicist-retired: GRRR. I was due in DC to travel with my daughter for a competition she won, but got voted down because of work. I truly wish I could be there. If I knew about this, I would be there.
Raise your banner high, my friend! I'll look for you on the news.
Physicist, I hope we don’t have to debate the virtue of data related to hockey stick graphs and e-mail scandals. Anyway, last October Britain's Met Office reported the world's natural post-Ice Age warming trend stopped about 16 years ago. From the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures. Marc Morano documents at Climate Depot, all of the world's most devastating floods occurred before 1976. Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder, States: "The U.S. is currently experiencing the longest-ever recorded period with no strikes of a Category 3 or stronger hurricane." , Pielke also reports: "Over the past six decades, tornado damage has declined after accounting for development that has put more property into harm's way." The fossil record seems to suggest a period of time when the climate was most beneficial to species. The atmospheric CO2 was double then what the CO2 concentration is today. So now answer this, Why is global warming now refered to as climate change, why is any change always a bad thing and why should we assume that the climate should be a static phenomenon.
Physicist-retired,
So you are a climatologist and you think you are a real scientist. hahahahahaha
Mr. Burns: So you're a conservative, and you think you are a real American.
ToxicChemist: "How do these climate alarmists explain the various ice ages.."
If you understood the science behind the debate you would know that. You would know that humans are not the only ones that affect CO2 levels, and CO2 levels are not the only factors that affect climate. You would know that the fact climate has changed naturally many times does not affect whether humans can affect it ALSO.
Nope not a conservative. Just have studied it enough to know that we know nothing. Good try though.
Salgal: "Why is global warming now refered to as climate change"
No such switch has occurred, despite the lies of the denial industry. Scientists have always preferred the term climate change to emphasize the complexity of the changes around the planet, and the public has always used the terms interchangeably.
"why is any change always a bad thing"
It isn't necessarily, but the rapidity of change means that many ecosystems and human populations will have trouble adapting, and drought and heat have already started to decrease crop yields in many tropical areas.
"why should we assume that the climate should be a static phenomenon"
Nobody ever said it was. No scientist ever made such a silly assumption.
Sal, I see you have all the Talking Points. If only you had some science to back them up with.
But there isn't any.
Click on my icon to see my NewsVine column. I've been writing on this topic for NBC for years now. Please just click on it. The information there will be quite an eye-opener, I promise.
Monkey,
I'll carry a sign for you, my friend. Will this do? Or would you prefer this? Or this?
Geowil, Why are we still here? Surly we have had plenty of ice ages to prove your point.
Physicist, talking points or a different data set. I thought I was going to be enlightened. Maybe you should concentrate on controlling the fate of the Sun, as you know at some point it's destine to become a white dwarf.
So every scientific study that proves climate change is real and man-made is just "liberal bias".
Ok... let's see what Republicans have to say about it.
The two men that own the Republican party, the Koch brothers, spent millions of dollars on a scientific study with the sole intention to disprove climate change. Let me reiterate. The owners of the Republican party spent MILLIONS of their own money, to fund a study with the goal of proving climate change does NOT exist, and that man has no impact on it.
This Republican study found that climate change IS REAL, and humans are responsible for contributing to it. Fox News spent a total of 5 seconds reporting on the results before moving on and changing the subject.
So now "liberal biased" studies prove it is real... AND the Republican study has proved it is real.
Yet, Republicans still don't believe in it. They don't believe "liberal" studies, and they don't believe their own Republican study. What does this tell you?
Physicist: The first is my favorite, but then, a picture does tell a thousand words:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT6EbVXofqGFU0fliww2_8m84TCgxA0pmMHhdZE6OU8xsVbqSjK
myname, the science of climate change has nothing to do with liberal or conservative. We have known that CO2 is a greenhouse gas for over 150 years. If you want to understand the facts on the issue, there are many good scientific reviews on the subject.
There are many good solutions being pursued, but that has nothing to do with the science. AGW will happen whether we can think of solutions or not, let alone actually agreeing on something. I am not being a "fanboy" of anything here. I am a fan of science, yes, and that is mostly what I'm defending.
No, I want to discuss science. You obviously do not.
Salgal, that 16 year report from the Met that you're talking about was not from the Met Office . It was written by a conservative blogger. The Met Office put out a press release disavowing the report as blatant misrepresentaton. Anyone smart enough to use Google can find out the truth, which apparently leaves you out. Come on Salgal, try a response, you'll fail because you are spreading a lie. You won't answer me just like you won't answer PR.
Where I currently reside is eight hours from the nearest coast. Yet, there are oceanic fossils and actual shells all around. Fifty miles to the north, there are glacial landforms. So, it is obvious that the climate has changed...continuously... for millions of years, and will continue to do so. Humans have had nothing to do with it.
Salgal,
mini ice ages are noting compared to an actual ice age. During an ice age most of the planet freezes over. A mini ice age is a response to gradual warming, a stop gap measure to prevent an full blown one from occurring.
To me knowledge I know of five major ice ages. The first two happened during the Precambrian when Earth was still volcanically active. The first occurred during the Huronian era and the second during the Proterozoic era. There were two more in the Paleozoic era during the Carboniferous and Permian periods. The last one to have occurred was during the Pleistocene epoch during the Quaternary period in the Cenozoic era.
Technically we are in that last ice age right now but have been in a warming period for the last three decades or so.
Oh the Humanities !!!
The climater changes of its own accord, its been doing it since the earth was created.
The climate is going to change, can't stop it and sure can't legislate it.
I fear global cooling much more than global warming!!!! (its not getting colder because of global warming)
Next October, the month of super storm Sandy, if there has not been a "super storm" does this "confirm" global cooling?
Typical denier. "It's cycles"
I've read how some Liberals actuallly blame BP for that NOPE we had in the GUlf a couple years ago. (Naturallly Occurring Petropleum Emissiont) THey actually suggested that the oil emissionwas caused bu the drillling rig, when as anyone who is noit a Liberal knows it was a Naturallly occcurring emisssion, the kind that has gone on for millennia. SO, instead of being thankful to BP for being there to clean it up, they make up a story that BP was responsible so they can show up witht their Liberal handds out!!!!
Greg-2438150:
I never denied anything. I said that the weather changes and that I would prefer warming to cooling.
Guess your a "typical" lib who thinks the govt. has the power to legislate the weather.
Ignorant denier.
I see you have nothing to contribute so you resort to childish name calling.
More typical lib tactics. If you can't answer a question or contribute, call people names.
So Greg-2438150, which do you want, warming or cooling?
The climate is going to change one way or the other.
The greatest threats to national finances related to “climate change” are to spend any more money on trying to slow or arrest it and to pass more laws and budgets that retard/diminish the wealth creation needed to deal with its effects. It is the height of arrogance and conceit to believe that anything humans could do would have any measureable effect on the direction or magnitude of climate change, especially when all of the proposed measures retard or diminish wealth creation. The forces causing climate change are orders of magnitude greater than anything humans could produce – have been and always will be.
(And the federal government has no business or authority to fund the repair or restoration of any property other than that owned by the federal government.)
What is the purpose of wealth creation if you have no world or economy left to spend it in?
Not to mention the whole garbage of wealth creation being harmed by climate change mitigation being absurd considering the generation of business and economic growth that will occur via inventing and producing environmentally sound methods and practices to replace the current damaging ones.
Go have a Koch and butt out if you don't want to help. Your denial tactics are not only transparent and harmful, they have also graduated to simply annoying.
techgm is on send.
The #1 job of the government is to protect its citizens.
Denying science doesn't change science, just like denying facts -even very scary facts - doesn't change the facts.
Climate-change is science-based FACT, ie, facts that have been determined by scientists. Humans contribute to it, even if they don't cause 100% of it.
Science-denying may make you feel better (somehow) but it just continues to put our students/inventors/researchers/and economy at a huge disadvantage in the global economy. We cannot deny & ignore math & science and continue to be competitive.
Fact-denying Daryl Issa should be fired. If ReThuglicans don't want to govern then they shouldn't run for office. They have drained states of $$, then assert that citizens of those states are on their own when disasters happen?
This is TOTALLY UN-American! this country has always been about all of us helping one another.
.
FORWARD! :-)
When we are presented with any scientific evidence besides libbies like Culheath crying about a hot day we'll listen. I took classes on it at UCLA. It is far from proven. Far.
MrBurns, what is this "IT" that is far from proven. The fact that human industrial emissions are causing climate change is well accepted, if not "100% proven." Exaclty what this change will encompass and what the consequences will be is intensively being investigated. To say we "know nothing" is an empty and rather silly statement.
Mr Burns, I call BS.
Our climate reacts to whatever is forcing it. Period. What is forcing our climate now, besides human-caused CO2 emissions?
And please be specific. A W/m2 calculation would be sufficient.
so we still have summers ..right?????? lol
Yawn, no one is denying climate change is occuring but you are a fool to think that humans are the sole cause of this. Do you even know what percentage of GHG's humans produce compared to the rest of the sources? 5% if you account for water vapor and 28% if you don't. That means that 72%-95% of GHG's ARE BEYOND OUR CONTROL.
Provide any proof its CO2. You made the claim its fact. Provide proof.
MrBurns
Your masters... the Koch brothers... funded a study to disprove climate change. Their own study proved that it does exist and is man-made.
You obviously DO NOT listen to scientific evidence, regardless of the source. So you ignore "libbie" studies, non-partisan studies, AND Republican studies.
Why don't you just say that you ignore ALL science, because that is basically what you are doing.
MrBurns, we have known that CO2 is a greenhouse gas for over 150 years.
Carbon when burned is powerful. Carbon burned the most powerful reaction that we see every day. Carbon burned moves large buses, cars and trains as well it powers the great airplanes and mighty ships. The modern economy would grind to a halt in three days without carbon burning. Carbon is in every form of life we know, and provides food for all of the planets creatures. Take carbon from everything you see around you and it dies.
Now how, is possible that people can see how powerful Carbon is, but cannot believe that Carbon is powerful?
No sence. nobody ever claimed that humans are the sole cause of climate change... your argument is ridiculous.
besides sunlight do you know what else plants NEED? CO2….the very thing you ignorant libs falsely claim causes global warming.
Here’s an easy observation to determine if it’s sunlight or CO2 that causes global warming:
CO2 levels are relatively consistent in any given location day or night…..yet it gets cooler at night …why? because the sun (which is the real source of global warming) goes down at night.
Liberals and scam artists can’t blame global warming on the sun however, why because there’s nobody to collect a ‘sun tax’ from, so they blame it on CO2….which has little or nothing to do with ‘global warming’
mike, that is the most ignorant argument I have ever heard from deniers. If you don't understand the science any better than that, give up now.
The number of University of Trailer Trash graduates here today is an embarrassment to our country. My Name, it's idiots like you that need to STFU. You bring nothing but ignorance to the table, go away. It's bad enough that you come here to let the world know of your stupidity, but then name calling everyone that has a third grade or above education takes the cake. You're stupid OK? we get that. The rest of the world rolls on the ground laughing at the deniers in our country, and assumes half our population never got past grade school. Sadly, they have a point.
This is just another bogus attempt at fear mongering to justify the tax hikes.
Welcome to the nanny government.
The fact is, over 95% of people who actually know what they are talking about when it comes to climate change, ie. climate scientists, say global warming is happening and is man-made. As much as I would love to believe that it's not happening, and we can all keep on living the same way, I believe the experts over the professional (and amateur) noisemakers who deny or muddy the issue. If you still doubt it's really happening, you're either a shill for big oil, or you are gullible enough to believe them.
If 19 firemen told you your house was burning, and one said it was just the sun warming it up a little, you'd be advised to take it seriously.
But they won't. Because they are True Believers in service of the extant polluting industries. The science is in and it puts the lie to their propaganda.
And we should all listen to insurance salesmen when they say we need insurance too.
95% of GHG's are naturally occuring. Just thought you would like to know that little factoid
Do you have a point, no sence? We are not talking abuot the natural cycles. We are talking about what we are changing.
no sence ... another idiotic argument. GHG emissions are accelerating climate change. 98% of scientists agree, and a bunch of conservative republicans with no education in science disagree.
Climatologists don't actually have a lot to gain by proving global warming, but big oil, and coal etc, certainly have a lot to lose, and have been willing to spend a lot of money to influence opinion. The fact is over 95% of climate scientists say global warming is happening, and is man-made. Anybody else's opinion isn't worth a whole lot. There are a lot of professional and amateur noismakers trying to hide the truth. If you still don't think it's happening, maybe you're one of them, or you're gullible enough to believe them.
If 19 firemen told you your house was on fire, and 1 says it's just a little warm because of the sun, you'd be advised to take it seriously.
I disagree. Big oil and big coal don't have a lot to lose by acknowledging climate science and working to mitigate climate affects. That is speaking from a economic perspective, of course.
The stubbornness is due to sheer contrariness. They just hate the idea that men inferior to them, as they see the world, can get them to do anything. It's not economics. It's pride.
Byron, you are completely wrong. Say we prove humans are creating a faster pace global warming and the entire world agrees to start the process of ending fossil fuel use including natural gas in favor of nuclear and renewable energies like solar and wind. Unless these energy companies go all in on these new energy sources they stand to lose tens of billions of dollars every single year.
Collectively the oil industry made over 100 billion last year. But yeah, they do not have much to lose (/s).
Climatologists are not actual scientists.
"Climatologists are not actual scientists."
Are you trying to play games with semantics or just make some kind of general slander? Of course climate scientists are scientists.
And what, pray tell, are you, Mr. Burns?
Are you some great sage we should rally behind, who knows all the answers? College professor in physics? Industrial engineer? Company president?
IMHO, it's the people who know nothing who complain about those who try to know.
Oh, and a class as UCLA does not an expert make, but it may lead a person to make believe.
Have a great day.
95% of GHG's are naturally occuring. Should we plug up volcanoes and find a way to break the water cycle?
I never said I was an expert. I said there was no proof. And I have asked, but no one has provided any for me.
no sence, we are not talking about the natural carbon cycle. We are talking about what we are changing.
MrBurns, where would you like to start? There have been thousands of scientific papers over decades. Every major scientific academy on the planet says the evidence is unequivocal. It is not my job to "prove" complex scientific phenomenon to you in a news chatroom.
jock, Burns is not smart enough to understand a scientific report. He only understands what people on the radio say.
Mr burn,
You would not change your mind even when presented with the most irrefutable evidence the world could ever conceive.
see here:
http://www.jamespowell.org/PieChart/piechart.html
You do know what a peer-reviewed paper is do you ?
Let me resume it for you :
Powell reviewed 13,950 peer-reviewed scientific articles published between January 1991 and November 9, 2012 that mentioned "global warming" or "global climate change." The grand total of articles that questioned global warming or whether rising emissions are the cause: 24. That's 0.17 percent of all the literature on the topic.
The evidence IS in your face and it's very clear, yet you keep asking for it.
So obviously no evidence in the world could convince you.
Earth is heating up lately, but so are Mars, Pluto and other worlds in our solar system, leading some scientists to speculate that a change in the sun’s activity is the common thread linking all these baking events.
Nope. It isn't just increase in overall heat that is going, it's a myriad of interconnected environmental effects like desalination of oceans and changes in rainfall patterns. It's bleaching of coral reefs and clear cutting of rain forests. It's a host of things interacting.
Yes but that is not the case.
Greg,
pssst...you are correct, but they can't hear you...fingers in ears syndrome. :)
Could you give us the numbers? How much is Pluto warming? How much is Mars warming?
Because 1 minute of googling leads me to http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-other-planets-solar-system.htm, which says about Mars:
About Pluto:
In general:
Byron,
I see a fellow SkS reader - welcome! Nice to see a person with a scientific bent here.
Go to their homepage for this article today. A very interesting analysis.
Physicist-retired---With all due respect what makes your analysis greater or better than the physicist that may disagree with you. Scientific aside you claim to be able to predict the future weather, excuse me, climate change and completely ignore the fact that it is all in theory. Since we have made many changes and reduced elements that were present many years ago we still hear about how critical it is, does this mean there has been no reduction with the efforts we have already paid for? The other part of the story is we will not be able to stop the upcoming catastrophe but we may be able to slow it down. How incredulous is that if in theory we can only slow it down. Simply stated it is a natural occurring event that has happened before and will happen again.
To attempt to tie single events to climate change then very well, the drought of the thirties, the hurricane on the East coast in 1938 and one in the 1800s, the great blizzard in 1908. Just a few but as far as signifying drastic climate change, maybe not so much. But the real evidence that climate change has occurred before and to what extent, climate researchers need to develop models that are based on past events to formulate conclusions and understand these current events. In this case models must represent realistically the past before we can predict the future. I think that escapes us and therefore must conclude these events are part of the normal process of change and are indeed not affected by human intervention. To impose on typical current events as indicators of cause negates all the indicators of the past which we have yet to fully understand so we might make these predictions with accuracy. Until then it is all about getting money to control forces we as yet do not fully understand. So how can we predict them? The claim it is real or not real is of no consequence since we know it is real, but to claims to understand the cause is where we part ways. But is that not what science is dissent?
Irvmani: "But is that not what science is dissent?"
Not dissent just to be doing it, no. The only way to properly dissent in science is to have better science - better logic and evidence. Do you honestly think you have figured something out that all of the best climate scientists in the world have not seen in decades of working on this?
Irv,
Name one. Cite their peer-reviewed work. With links.
Culheath - you picked up on the Deniers secret - Willful ignorance - which is differnt from just not knowing. It's a decision tostop accepting new input or re-processsing the old.
In the future i hope i don't hear millions sent to "this" country or "that" country to rebuild because of weather conditions!
Well Kiribati already has plan to relocate it's population in Fiji due to rising oceans level.
"GAO: Climate change poses big financial risk to US government"
Looks like the people in government are looking for another way to increase their spending spree.
Still, the report does manage to a few opinions on the state of the U.S. government’s big-picture fiscal outlook. The GAO notes that its report is designed to help both policymakers and the public get a sense of both the trajectory of the fiscal situation and the urgency of any potential problems. On the question of trajectory, the report is quite clear: “The projections in this report indicate that current policy is not sustainable.” No surprise there: That’s the same word that the Congressional Budget Office uses to describe the country’s fiscal outlook.
But you won't see this on NBC!
Over 95% of actual climate scientists agree global-warming is happening, and that human activity caused it. If 19 firemen told you your house was on fire, and 1 shifty-looking one said maybe it wasn't, you'd be pretty stupid to ignore the 19 and believe the 1. Unless they are secretly investing in wind and solar power companies, climate-scientists don't have a lot to gain by lying about it. On the other hand, oil and coal industries potentially have a LOT to lose if we actually take the steps we need to do to assure a decent world for our grandchildren and beyond.
The denial in these comments is astounding. While the talk radio pundits blowhard, and the dittoheads parrot, politicians argue, and lobbyists spin .. the climate scientists sit back and say, "We told you so." The truth is humans are too stubborn and selfish and stupid to do anything about it. And now we're going to go down this road. And while the cost of all this going to threaten the very survival of this nation, we're still arguing about whether we should raise taxes and close offshore loopholes for the 1%. What madness, this greed.
The lack of science education in the U.S. is really showing. The height of arrogance is to believe that you know more about climate than thousands of highly-trained scientists working in countries all over the world. You can't get scientists from countries as different as the U.S., China, Iran, and Russia to conspire. Scientists love to debunk the findings of other scientists. There are over 11,000 published studies on climate change, where scientists have used every technique imaginable to determine whether it is occurring. When 97% of scientists agree on anything, you'd be wise to listen. Almost every other country is taking it seriously. We are the laughing stock. Go ahead, hand onto your ignorance if it comforts you. It won't stop the effects of climate change from knocking on your door.
Gee Fox News and conservatives say it's a myth!
NASA says it's not.
OIC The Feds are in your face if it means something to restrict or tax but when you need help it's the State's job to cover you.
Vote some more remorons in office,stupid,greedy, ignorant,subhumans,that are more concerned with money than they are with their own health or morality,or their own children's saftey! Just keep on saying there is no such thing as global warming,over and over again and it will go away! Maybe after them and their children are purged from the global gene pool things will begin to progress to an intellegent humanity. I doubt it but there is always hope!
You know what they say Dan, put Hope in one hand and sh!t in the other and see which one is full first.
People knew about it over 50 years ago and didn't do anything, why start now?
Well, I'm a computer programmer and know NOTHING about climate science, so I have to choose someone to believe.
If I have to choose between scientists and "conservatives", I'll take the scientists every time. "Conservatives" have told me that the earth is 6,000 years old and was created in 6 days, and that dinasaurs and humans co-existed.
For some reason, I don't trust conservative, Republican, "born again", "science".
Call me crazy.
sam-298381: Call you reasonable.
competence and accountability,.....it just ain't there, here or in the United States Government,.......obviously you can make the media believe anything
This guy was funded by the Koch brothers to prove that global warming was a myth.
Guess what he found out? It's real.
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/purple-wisconsin/164449466.html
No amount of proof will change the mind of the deniers.
They are stuck on Al Gore hockey stick and his plane.
The only people that don't believe the mounting body of scientific evidence and data on climate change are Dumb FUX NEWS opinion entertainers...
Of course they don't get the science!!!.....they're dumb FUX!!,
The government needs to make Climate change, and preparing for its effects, a priority. Its time to put the denying morons on ignore. They see nothing but their wallets, and care for nothing else. Probably the same fools who have destroyed whole eco-systems for profit.
If anything we should relieve them of ALL their cash, and put it into fixing this mess.
We just need to spend more money.
Speaking of Fox "News" (A.K.A. Bull $#!+ Mountain) they buried the story on their web site and wrote it in some kind of code to throw a common reader off.
Fox cannot acknowledge that a Republican admitted the threat of Global Warming, and that should show us all who their REAL masters are:
RICH
OIL
COMPANIES
When Exxon (crude in more ways than one) tops Apple (ultimate creativity) as the # 1 profit in the world; something smells.
Get the Government out of the insurance business. If private companies won't insure it, maybe you shouldn't build there.
I'll do you one better Mr. Issa. We do have a responsibility to be proactive. We need to be proactive in stemming climate change to begin with. Californians, please get this guy out of Congress.