Dr. Taury Smith is Acting State Geologist at the New York State Museum, and a SUNY adjunct professor. His topic: “Global Warming Isn’t Going Away.”

Dr. Smith acknowledged that he might be “preaching to the choir.” (However, this was probably not so when, during the question period, he argued that the case against hydrofracking is bunk.)

Dr. Smith saw the global warming debate turning into more of a political issue than a scientific one; a “manufactured controversy” in which deniers base their positions on what they’d like to be true, and are impervious to facts. Thus he observed that even as data comes in confirming that global temperatures are rising, public belief in this is falling. Dr. Smith noted the obvious parallels to the evolution “debate.”

The climate story in a nutshell: Sunlight hits the Earth. Some bounces back into space. Atmospheric factors can impede the bounceback and keep heat on the surface. That’s the “greenhouse effect;” without it, Earth would be an ice palace. Too much of it, and you get Venus, with surface temperatures that would crisp you nicely in seconds.

While it’s true that climate fluctuates naturally due to factors like cyclic changes in the planet’s orbit, a significant factor is atmospheric carbon dioxide, which boosts the greenhouse effect. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, we have been putting more carbon dioxide into the air, and it has already shot well past historical levels. Dr. Smith estimated that carbon dioxide is the cause for 72% of the observed temperature increase.

A particular concern is feedbacking – that more warming can cause more warming. For example, there’s the albedo effect – ice and snow reflect sunlight back into space. Less ice and snow means more heat retained down here. A lot of methane (a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide) is locked up in arctic permafrost; melting permafrost releases it. Dr. Smith deemed especially worrisome the fact that while the oceans act as carbon dioxide absorbers, their absorptive capacity declines as water temperature rises, and at some point warmed oceans can start returning carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

Dr. Smith did go over some of the data, and showed how global warming deniers often use a cherrypicking approach. For example, while data up to about 1980 might support a correlation between sunspots and global temperatures (as an alternative explanation to human causation), subsequent data is contrary; so warming deniers ignore post-1980 data.

He also reviewed some of the likely impacts of higher temperatures: rising sea levels, reduced drinking water, impacts on ecosystems and agriculture, spread of disease (more bugs), ocean acidification, mass migrations, etc.

So, what is to be done? Dr. Smith gave the usual litany of ways we can reduce our carbon footprint. He said there is no single more effective measure than substituting gas [FSR: or nuclear energy] for coal in power generation. Hence hydrofracking, which he said is just too good a thing to eschew. But Smith acknowledged that while such things will help, no conceivable extent of emissions reduction – even if we all drive Priuses -- will significantly curb global warming.

 

So we’d better party while we can [FSR].