As I have mentioned on the Japan Talk podcast a number of times, it is unseasonably warm in the Tokyo area this year.
Now we get a report that the cherry trees in Tokyo’s Ueno Part have already started to bloom – about a month earlier than normal.
[O]fficials said five trees had already blossomed and that four more trees were expected to blossom by next weekend.
Wow, that is really early. I remember going to ohanami parties in Ueno Park in mid 1990s, first week of April. This is first week of February!!!!
Maybe global warming is for real? I dunno, but I sort of had a eureka moment a few weeks ago, about all this, or maybe as remora might say, it was a urine-ka moment, after too many beers, but anyway, I sat down and wrote this rather bleak and depressing screed about global warming and put on a blog for to get reader feedback worldwide. Reactions have been both pro and con. Read it late at night and forget about it in the morning. The author is a pen name, Charles C. Commons. Couldn’t think of anything better.
If the cherry trees are really blooming so early, they might be telling us something. How do you say OUCH in Japanese?
Don’t worry. I am really not as depressed as that blog might seem. But the words just came out and I wrote them down. What do you think?
Danny, I have drunk great quantities under the cherry trees, and seen a great many things (my favorite being a naked guy trying to stand on his head while all his co-workers stuck their used chopsticks in his butt - though I unfortunately wasn’t drunk when I saw that). I have never seen a cherry tree tell anybody anything, though, and for that I am thankful. Mailboxes and lampposts, yes, cherry trees, no.
I think global warming will go the way of tulip-mania, the Salem witch trials, and Eugenics (another “scientific” consensus of the day). Hopefully, the hysteria will cause fewer deaths than Eugenics.
So far as the human race ending - we are all going to die someday, but that doesn’t stop us from living now. Humans have been surviving end-of-the-world predictions for 1000s of years now. I suspect when the end does come, it will be from something completely unexpected.
So, in the meatime, eat more beef and stop those greenhouse gas cow farts. And, for god’s sake, cheer up!
ghoti, good post! but you know the funny thing is …I am a cheerful person, the eternal optimist, just this one issue hijacked my brain and made me write that stuff. I don’t even believe it myself, not in my everyday life, but in the back of my mind, I wonder: it could be that the faucet of CO2 emissions has been turned on too long already, and continues even today, and we are mucking up the atmosphere, which looks tough and clear and endless, but is in fact very fragile. A much smarter guy than me, James Lovelock, has said the same thing in his new book about how the Earth is in major major trouble due to Global Warming….. he says maybe 100,000 people will survive the year 2500, and they will then repopulate the Earth after they down from their Arctic and Antartica polar cities during the Big Melt or whatever it will be…..So there IS hope. I remain hopeful, and yes, pass the niku jagga and here’s a glass of hot sake to toast the future!:smile:
Danny, the thing about smart people is, while they may be wrong less often than us duller folk, they are more inclined to be spectacularly wrong. Maybe nature’s way of balancing things out.
500 years is an unimaginably long time from now, but I would be delighted to be residing in a tropical North Pole. If it weren’t for those 99,000 other a**holes, that is.
good article here too , from New York Times
The crazy thing is, we seem to be focusing on micro events that show “evidence” to fit the preconceived notion of the observer, where ever that person may be. Is the icecap on Greenland increasing or decreasing? I’ve heard arguments both ways. Both statements are probably true, from the relative position of the observer.
I remember when I was kid living in Tokyo(I now reside in Kamakura), there were times when the cherry blossoms bloomed in February, and when it snowed at my Jr. High graduation(end of March), and that there were ‘cold’ summers and the rice didn’t grow. What did these events foretell? Nothing. It was unseasonably cool, it was unseasonably warm, it was simply the earth working its system.
Localized events should not affect the overall system, and this is what our current consensus-ists fo by gathering ‘data’ and massage it any way they want. I can do that, too…
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm
Read this excellent article by a scientist with an extensive background in climatology “global warming threat”. Based on the evidence. Not politics or dogma.
I’d recommend that article Mike linked to. By coincidence I read it yesterday, goes a long way toward debunking some of the catastrophe scenarios.
Errr. . . By coincidence I linked to it in the original article. . .
Some see radical environmentalism as a new type of religion.
Oddly enough, the cherry blossom trees here in Washington DC started blooming a month ago because of the extremely warm weather that we were having then. Everyone figured that it must be global warming. Now we are having some of the coldest weather that we’ve had in several years (shivering by the fireplace while writing this). No talk of global warming this week!
It could go either way. Maybe all this is a fuss about nuttin’. Then again, maybe it’s for real. And maybe, even, God forbid, Lovelock is right.
It’s not about politics or religion, except for the politicos and the religious nuts. It’s about finding out the truth, and then THINKING about it. But I don’t know. I am still thinking about it. I enjoy reading all these links, esp the first one that JP linked to, from Canada.
Many people think there will be a magic pill to come along and make all this go away, that technology will solve the problem. That there is no such thing as global warming. A leftwing plot and all that; liberal stuff. But I don’t think it is so easily set in stone either way.
Anyway, it won’t impact us in this generation, so enjoy the enjoy. Maybe in fact, it’s all an illusion. I hope so.
RE: “Read this excellent article by a scientist with an extensive background in climatology “global warming threat”. Based on the evidence. Not politics or dogma.”
Hehe, “Based on the evidence. Not politics or dogma.”
The Canada Free Press is a conservative organization that has in the past proposed such gems as the 9/11 terrorist attack on the US was a mafia plot rather than a terrorist act.
The IPCC just announced that there is a 90 - 99% chance that human activity is contributing to global warming.
Maybe THAT’S a mafia plot too:roll:
What’s that Kudan, you have evidence the scientist’s credentials are not up to scratch? Data to counter his data. Experience to counter his experience? No…thought not. You just don’t like that website. Since you don’t agree with one thing they published, it must all be rubbish. By those standards, most any website or newspaper and magazine is nothing but trash.
Mike, first: don’t get all bent out of shape.
Second, the IPCC is a large group of internationally recognized and respected scientists that just made a major announcement regarding a. the link between human activity and global warming, and b. the harmful effects of global warming.
If you want to argue with someone, argue with all of them.
Mike: also, consider the following:
a. I didn’t say the scientist in your article has poor credentials. I said the site his article is published on is a well-known conservative organ. If I linked to an article written by a scientist with credentials up the wazoo that was on, say, Greenpeace’s website, you would probably remain unconvinced that the information was free of “politics and dogma.” Right?
If you are going to argue with me, at least argue with what I said. Don’t make stuff up and then argue with that:smile:
b. The fact that I personally am not an atmospheric or other relavent scientist (are you?) really doesn’t matter. The best that educated lay-people can do is take in the widest possible range of information and consider the source(s). Environmental information on both left-wing and right-wing sites, publications, etc is pretty fishy.
The IPCC is the best we got in terms of “based on the evidence and rather than politics or dogma.”
The head of the IPCC himself said “we don’t have the answers to everything, but we use our judgement,and that makes good policy.” The whole point of science is to study and observe, and specifically not to use judgement, which is often faulty.
In the other words, the head of the IPCC is a crackpot. He also said something about global warming doubters being morally equivalent to Hitler.
If the IPCC is the best we’ve got, we are in serious trouble.
Kudan,
You based your judgement of the article I posted (and by extention the author of said article) on what you perceive to be the stance of the organization that printed it, and in particular one of their past articles you strongly disagreed with. You unfairly and illogically linked the two. As I said, if any magazine or newspaper were to have to believe and agree wtih every story they printed, it would be an impossible standard. Further, the editoral staff and ownership of every publication has some sort of political stance. One must examine the actual date, the evidence, to make informed decisions. You appear to be a prime example of what Cricton labeled “a member of the new fundamental relgion…”. You may worship what you will.:roll:
Mike,
I tried to explain that, in my opinion, the best and only option for lay-people is to consider the widest possible range of information and consider the respective sources. I tried to explain that the IPCC is the best we have got since its members are the top atmospheric scientists in the world. I tried to explain that I find suspect the views of a scientist whose essay (not scientific paper, you will note) apparently is in agreement with the editorial staff of a well-known conservative organ that has published trash in the past.
If all those elements lead you to conclude that I exhibit the characteristics of a believer of a “new fundamental religion,” then I suppose there’s really nothing more to say.
Kudan,
Reread ghoti’s assessment of the IPCC.
“The head of the IPCC himself said “we don’t have the answers to everything, but we use our judgement,and that makes good policy.” The whole point of science is to study and observe, and specifically not to use judgement, which is often faulty.
In the other words, the head of the IPCC is a crackpot. He also said something about global warming doubters being morally equivalent to Hitler.
If the IPCC is the best we’ve got, we are in serious trouble.
Did that Hitler bit come from a scientfic paper?:roll: All sources have agendas and bias; a point that seems lost on you.
Here’s a good bit from Crichton’s latest book that lays it out for you.
“. . . First, in a media-saturated world, persisitent hype lends unwarranted credulity to the wildest claims. For years the media have touted stem cell research as the coming miracle. So when somebody announced that the miracle had arrived, he was believed. Does that imply there is a danger in media hype? You bet. Because not only does it raise cruel hopes among the ill, it affects scientiest, too. They start to believe the miracle is around the corner - even thought they shourld know better.
“What can we do about media hype? It would stop in a week, if scientific institutions want that. They don’t. They love the hype. They know it brings grants. So that won’t change. Yale, Stanfor, and Jons Hopkins promote hype just as much as Exxon or Ford. So whenever you hear a scientist claim that his statements have been exaggerated, or taken out of context, just ask him if he has written a letter of protest to the editor. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, he hasn’t.”
. . .
“Next lesson: Peer review. All of Hwang’s papers in Science were peer-reviewed. If we ever needed evidence that peer review is an empty ritual, this episode provides it. Whang made extraordianry claims. He did not provide extraordinary evidence. many studies have shown that peer review does not improve the quality of scientific papers. Scientists themselves know it doesn’t work. Yet the public still regards it as a sign of quality, and says, “This paper was peer-reviewed,’ or ‘This paper was not peer-reviewed,’ as if that meant something. It doesn’t.
“Next, the journals themselves. Where was the firm hand of the editor of Science? Remember that the journal Science is a big enterprise - 115 people work on that magazine. Yet gross fraud, including photographs altered with Adobe Photoshop, were not detected. And Photoshop is widely known as a major tool of scientific fraud. Yet the magazine had no way to detect it.”
. . .
“The ultimate lesson is that science isn’t special - at lest not anymore. Maybe back when Einstein talked to Niels Bohr, and there were only a few dozen important workers in every field. But there are now three million researchers in America. It’s no longer a calling, it’s a career. Science is as corruptible a human activity as any other. Its practitioners aren’t saints, they’re human beings, and they do what human beings do - lie, cheat, steal from one another, sue, hide data, fake data, overstate their own importance and denigrate opposing views unfairly. That’s human nature. It isn’t going to change.”
Just in case you were unaware, Hwang (Whang, however you’d like to transliterate it) is the disgraced Korean scientist who claimed in a paper published in Science (one of the two most famous & respected peer-reviewed scientific journals - the other is Nature) that he’d successfully cloned human embryonic stem cells.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-Suk
OK, let’s see … scientists (as a group, mind you) are as corrupt as anyone else.
This makes their scientific papers amount to so much politically motivated bunk.
So, if the conclusions of a large body of respected body of them don’t jibe with my political or whatever views regarding a given issue, then I’m within my rights to simply discount them all and side with the one, two or handfull of others who share my political views.
Good, Mike: that’s a constructive attitude.
Your argument is: science is a bunch of crap just like everything else, so I’ll believe whatever and whomever I want to. And since Michael Crichton weighs in on that side of things, you feel justified.
Like I said … there’s really little I can say or do once the discussion has been reduced to this level.
Kudan,
Yet again, you just don’t get it. I am as skeptical of the IPCC as I am of the Canadian Free Press as I am of the Weekly World News. They all have their pros and cons. You can’t take Michael Crichton’s word any more than you can Dr. Hwang’s. You need to look on the arguments based on evidence, not agenda. It doesn’t matter who does or does not endorse a particular view. Global warming, while massively popular and state sponsored, much like oh say Catholicism was in the Middle Ages, has little going for it other than opinion. That changes are occuring nobody is challenging, that humans are the main culprit is, however, being contested. Mr. Crichton merely points out, quite rightly, that we need to be more critical, not less.
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_020607_news_taylor_title.59f5d04a.html
http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070206/NEWS01/70206001/1002
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/21/michaels-state-climatologist/
3 Crackpots Oppose Global Warming Claims! Just who do you think you are?!
Oh My God! Another psycho!
http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759
While I was somewhat flippant in those last two comments, the links and ideas in them are good. The global warming issue is far from settled or conclusive. If you are really interested, go The Independent Institute homepage, and do some reading & research. They are about as apolitical as you can find these days.
http://www.googlesyndicatedsearch.com/u/independent?q=global+warming&sa.x=0&sa.y=0&sa=Google+Search
Here’s more from an MIT scientist. Is he a crackpot, too?