Midnight Fugue

Updates

May 3, 2013: it looks like Yahoo!News will be re-printing this story in many different guises.  At least we have a date now for doomsday: May 14, 2013. That will be the date greenhouse gases will surpass 400 parts per million, coming during one of the coldest springs on record.

Original Post

This is probably one of the funniest press releases I've been sent this past year, and even die-hard activists are probably wishing the writer could have toned it down a bit. It was probably meant to be published April 1, but you know how deadlines are missed.

I have no problem that it was published at TakePart.com but Yahoo!News needs to be more selective in what it posts if it wants to be taken seriously. [I assume The Dickinson Press will be reprinting this story in the not-too-distant future.]

The author suggests that Australia's coal reserves are a speculative bubble; worse than that, "Australia’s coal reserves will become worthless if governments throughout the world follow through on their promises to limit carbon emissions."

Yes, I suppose they would become worthless. But the chance of "governments following through on their promises" with regard to coal is, to quote that great investigative reporter, is slim to none, and slim just left town.

Not one credible source has suggested the world will be using much less coal than it is now 50 years from now.

The writer doesn't know when to stop. I knew it was joke when he wrote:

“With greenhouse gases in the atmosphere about to breach the 400 parts-per-million level for the first time in three million years, it is important to step back from the politics and remind ourselves of the basic physics at the core of the climate challenge,” Connor tells TakePart.

The author conveniently forgets to add that water vapor accounts for about 90% of greenhouse gases. The increase in atmospheric CO2, from 2010 to 2011, is measured at "nearly two parts per million"; the annual variability of atmospheric CO2 is 3 - 9 parts per million -- if green-house gases are about to breach -- repeat, breach -- the 400 parts-per-million level, the 2 parts per million that CO2 will add is hardly newsworthy. 

Most folks don't know what they had for breakfast two days ago; learning that greenhouse gases are about to breach 400 parts-per-million level is unlikely to register with anyone. The author conveniently goes back only 3 million years. The dinosaurs were thriving 175 million years ago (weren't they?).

However, in all seriousness (LOL), we are again reminded of the dire prospects of global warming: 1.5 degrees over 100 years.

“Australia, China, the U.S. and over 170 countries have committed internationally to avoid warming of more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels—indeed even to see if it can be kept to 1.5°C,” notes Connor.

The author conveniently chooses to ignore Canada which has pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol. And, of course, he doesn't even mention Great Britain or Germany, the latter, if not both, will be returning to using more coal.

Of the three countries he does mention -- Australia, China, and the US -- he also conveniently forgets to mention that CO2 emissions have decreased significantly in the US and are now at the lowest levels since, oh, I don't remember, but let's say back to 1990. You can find the answer at Carpe Diem if you've read this far. 

Oh, back to the 1.5°C. It's been stated often: over 100 years, 1.5°C is statistically irrelevant and not reproducible.

So, far, the only downside to a rise in temperature is a rise in ocean levels and the country at risk is Maldives. Sam Kinison, if he were alive, would give this advice, the same advice he gave to the folks who live in the Saharan Desert: move.

The British Meteorological Office has come around to the fact that the earth has quit warming now for 17 years; the quote is always 16 years, but the quote was first quoted a year ago. [Memo to self: next year it will be 18 years since the earth stopped warming.]

The one thing the writer at the linked article did not mention that is usually found in these boiler plate press releases on global warming: polar bears. That's because polar bears are doing just fine, thank you.