Bill McKibben on the Number 350

The move to 350 ppm of CO2 comes from James Hansen who has been the loudest voice warning about the dangers of increasing CO2. There are a couple problems. For example his own data shows that global temperature dropped between his first congressional address in June 1988 and his second last month.

More importantly, CO2 blocks nearly all the infrared light that it can now. While it was extremely potent for its first 100 ppm, and quite a bit less so for its second 100 ppm, a doubling of current CO2 levels will have surprisingly little impact.

Joe D'Aleo, a Certified Consultant Meteorologist from Hudson NH, has found there is a much better correlation between ocean currents and global temperatures than between CO2 and global temperatures. There is a good article on the subject at http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/01/25/warming-trend-pdo-and-so...

Here are some other links I've collected that are pertinent to today's show. The bottom line is that CO2 levels are nowhere near as important as Bill McKibben and James Hansen say they are.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but it's contributed about all it can:

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

There is a recent story about the Arctic having a 50/50 chance of melting this year, but this year's ice cover is well above last year's level. The tipping point hasn't tipped!:

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png

Warming appears to have peaked around 1998, and serious cooling started in 2007. This is data from one of outfits that tracks global temperatures from satellite data:

http://www.holtlane.plus.com/images/uah_anomaly.jpg

It would be nice to have a few more years' data, but that would spoil the journey. In closing, NASA's James Hansen brought the risks of runaway global warming to the US Congress in June 1988. His data reported that the Earth was some 0.39 degrees Celcius above the longterm average that month. He came back in June 2008 saying the same things. His June 2008 anomaly was 0.26 degrees Celcius.

Great show!

Taking action on global warming makes sense even if you don't believe in global warming (and some smart people don't, according to what I've read). It certainly makes sense to give less of our money to Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. It makes sense to improve energy efficiency in ways that are cost effective (many proposals are NOT cost effective). Bill mentioned weatherization for existing buildings and homes. This is an example of a measure that pays for itself very quickly, and makes sense regardless of one's belief in global warming.

Is anybody proposing passage of a law requiring that all new construction be LEEDs certified (see http://www.nrdc.org/buildinggreen/leed.asp for more info on LEEDs)? Or perhaps a bill to provide significant governmental incentives for building LEEDs certified houses and buildings? Perhaps one such program might be government-provided low cost financing that would allow the owner to spread out the extra cost of LEEDs compliance such that the owner can pay for that extra cost with the monthly energy cost savings.

Matt T.