Re: [asa] Creation Care

In looking at the website for Gore's film, I came across an interesting link
concerning evangelicals and the environment:
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/10/17/dewitt/

Also there was this link to the "Academy of Christian Scientists and
Ethicists":
http://www.evangelicalscientistsandethicists.org/Site/Welcome.html

Anyone heard of this organization?

On 1/22/07, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Rich, I think it's important to distinguish the facts Gore asserts from
> the images he displays. While it may be true, as the Real Climate Blog
> asserts, that Gore states most of the facts correctly, I can't see how any
> sober-minded person could view the string of images presented in that
> trailer and consider it a fair and balanced discussion of the problem. The
> impression I get upon viewing that trailer is that Florida will be
> underwater in short order and millions of starving refugees will soon be
> streaming into the U.S. interior. The actual science doesn't support that
> imagery by a longshot.
>
> BTW, I note that the Real Climate Blog also praises Gore's earlier book,
> Earth in the Balance. I read that book years ago. In it, Gore asserts that
> most of the major turning points in human history were attributable to
> environmental changes -- even pinpointing the outcomes of specific wars to
> particular environmental events. How anyone could consider that
> scientifically sound is beyond me.
>
>
> On 1/22/07, Rich Blinne <rich.blinne@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On 1/22/07, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com > wrote:
> >
> > > Take a look at this trailer for Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth,"
> > > and tell me if you think it properly represents the science. In particular,
> > > focus on the images he employs, and on the centrality of hurricane Katrina
> > > to the narrative: http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_classics/aninconvenienttruth/trailer/
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > Here's what real climate blog says about Katrina:
> >
> >
> > > The correct answer--the one we have indeed provided in previous posts
> > > ( Storms & Global Warming II<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=173>,
> > > Some recent updates <http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=162> and Storms
> > > and Climate Change <http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=140>) --is
> > > that there is no way to prove that Katrina either was, or was not, affected
> > > by global warming. For a single event, regardless of how extreme, such
> > > attribution is fundamentally impossible. We only have one Earth, and it will
> > > follow only one of an infinite number of possible weather sequences. It is
> > > impossible to know whether or not this event would have taken place if we
> > > had not increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as
> > > much as we have. Weather events will always result from a combination of
> > > deterministic factors (including greenhouse gas forcing or slow natural
> > > climate cycles) and stochastic factors (pure chance).
> > >
> >
> > As for the accuracy of the movie in general:
> >
> >
> > > How well does the film handle the science? Admirably, I thought. It is
> > > remarkably up to date, with reference to some of the very latest research.
> > > Discussion of recent changes in Antarctica and Greenland are expertly laid
> > > out. He also does a very good job in talking about the relationship between
> > > sea surface temperature and hurricane intensity. As one might expect, he
> > > uses the Katrina disaster to underscore the point that climate change may
> > > have serious impacts on society, but he doesn't highlight the connection any
> > > more than is appropriate (see our post on this, here<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/09/hurricanes-and-global-warming/>
> > > ).
> > >
> > > There are a few scientific errors that are important in the film. At
> > > one point Gore claims that you can see the aerosol concentrations in
> > > Antarctic ice cores change "in just two years", due to the U.S. Clean
> > > Air Act. You can't see dust and aerosols at all in Antarctic cores -- not
> > > with the naked eye -- and I'm skeptical you can definitively point to the
> > > influence of the Clean Air Act. I was left wondering whether Gore got this
> > > notion, and I hope he'll correct it in future versions of his slideshow.
> > > Another complaint is the juxtaposition of an image relating to CO 2emissions and an image illustrating invasive plant species. This is
> > > misleading; the problem of invasive species is predominantly due to land use
> > > change and importation, not to "global warming". Still, these are rather
> > > minor errors. It is true that the effect of reduced leaded gasoline use in
> > > the U.S. does clearly show up in Greenland ice cores; and it is also
> > > certainly true that climate change could exacerbate the problem of invasive
> > > species.
> > >
> > > Several of my colleagues complained that a more significant error is
> > > Gore's use of the long ice core records of CO2 and temperature (from
> > > oxygen isotope measurements) in Antarctic ice cores to illustrate the
> > > correlation between the two. The complaint is that the correlation is
> > > somewhat misleading, because a number of other climate forcings besides CO
> > > 2 contribute to the change in Antarctic temperature between glacial
> > > and interglacial climate. Simply extrapolating this correlation forward in
> > > time puts the temperature in 2100 A.D. somewhere upwards of 10 C
> > > warmer than present -- rather at the extreme end of the vast majority of
> > > projections (as we have discussed here<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/03/climate-sensitivity-plus-a-change/>).
> > > However, I don't really agree with my colleagues' criticism on this point.
> > > Gore is careful not to state what the temperature/CO 2 scaling is. He
> > > is making a qualitative point, which is entirely accurate. The fact is that
> > > it would be difficult or impossible to explain past changes in temperature
> > > during the ice age cycles without CO2 changes (as we have discussed
> > > here
> > > <http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/>).
> > > In that sense, the ice core CO2-temperature correlation<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/650000-years-of-greenhouse-gas-concentrations/>remains an appropriate demonstration of the influence of CO
> > > 2 on climate.
> > >
> > > For the most part, I think Gore gets the science right, just as he did
> > > in *Earth in the Balance*. The small errors don't detract from Gore's
> > > main point, which is that we in the United States have the technological and
> > > institutional ability to have a significant impact on the future trajectory
> > > of climate change. This is not entirely a scientific issue -- indeed, Gore
> > > repeatedly makes the point that it is a moral issue -- but Gore draws
> > > heavily on Pacala and Socolow's recent work to show that the technology is
> > > there (see Science 305, p. 968 Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate
> > > Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies).
> > >
> > [RDB Note: The referenced paper is excellent and can be found here:
> > http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/305/5686/968
> >
> > Here's the approaches outline in the paper:
> >
> > *Table 1.* *Potential wedges: Strategies available to reduce the carbon
> > emission rate in 2054 by 1 GtC/year or to reduce carbon emissions from 2004
> > to 2054 by 25 GtC.* *Option* *Effort by 2054 for one wedge, relative
> > to 14 GtC/year BAU* *Comments, issues*
> > ------------------------------
> > *Energy efficiency and conservation*
> > ------------------------------
> > Economy-wide carbon-intensity reduction (emissions/$GDP) Increase
> > reduction by additional 0.15% per year (e.g., increase U.S. goal of
> > 1.96% reduction per year to 2.11% per year) Can be tuned by carbon
> > policy 1. Efficient vehicles Increase fuel economy for 2 billion
> > cars from 30 to 60 mpg Car size, power 2. Reduced use of vehicles Decrease
> > car travel for 2 billion 30-mpg cars from 10,000 to 5000 miles per year Urban
> > design, mass transit, telecommuting 3. Efficient buildings Cut
> > carbon emissions by one-fourth in buildings and appliances projected for
> > 2054 Weak incentives 4. Efficient baseload coal plants Produce
> > twice today's coal power output at 60% instead of 40% efficiency (compared
> > with 32% today) Advanced high-temperature materials *Fuel shift*
> > ------------------------------
> > 5. Gas baseload power for coal baseload power Replace 1400 GW
> > 50%-efficient coal plants with gas plants (four times the current production
> > of gas-based power) Competing demands for natural gas *CO2 Capture and
> > Storage (CCS)*
> > ------------------------------
> > 6. Capture CO2 at baseload power plant Introduce CCS at 800 GW coal
> > or 1600 GW natural gas (compared with 1060 GW coal in 1999) Technology
> > already in use for H2 production 7. Capture CO2 at H2 plant Introduce
> > CCS at plants producing 250 MtH2/year from coal or 500 MtH2/year from
> > natural gas (compared with 40 MtH2/year today from all sources) H2safety, infrastructure 8.
> > Capture CO2 at coal-to-synfuels plant Introduce CCS at synfuels plants
> > producing 30 million barrels a day from coal (200 times Sasol), if half of
> > feedstock carbon is available for capture Increased CO2 emissions, if
> > synfuels are produced without CCS Geological storage Create 3500
> > Sleipners Durable storage, successful permitting *Nuclear fission*
> > ------------------------------
> > 9. Nuclear power for coal power Add 700 GW (twice the current
> > capacity) Nuclear proliferation, terrorism, waste *Renewable
> > electricity and fuels*
> > ------------------------------
> > 10. Wind power for coal power Add 2 million 1-MW-peak windmills (50
> > times the current capacity) "occupying" 30 x 106 ha, on land or offshore
> > Multiple uses of land because windmills are widely spaced 11. PV
> > power for coal power Add 2000 GW-peak PV (700 times the current
> > capacity) on 2 x 106 ha PV production cost 12. Wind H2 in fuel-cell
> > car for gasoline in hybrid car Add 4 million 1-MW-peak windmills (100
> > times the current capacity) H2 safety, infrastructure 13. Biomass
> > fuel for fossil fuel Add 100 times the current Brazil or U.S. ethanol
> > production, with the use of 250 x 106 ha (one-sixth of world cropland) Biodiversity,
> > competing land use *Forests and agricultural soils*
> > ------------------------------
> > 14. Reduced deforestation, plus reforestation, afforestation, and
> > new plantations. Decrease tropical deforestation to zero instead of 0.5GtC/year, and establish 300 Mha of new tree plantations (twice the current
> > rate) Land demands of agriculture, benefits to biodiversity from reduced
> > deforestation 15. Conservation tillage
> > ------------------------------
> > Apply to all cropland (10 times the current usage)
> > ------------------------------
> > Reversibility, verification
> > ------------------------------
> >
>
>
>
> --
> David W. Opderbeck
> Web: http://www.davidopderbeck.com
> Blog: http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html
> MySpace (Music): http://www.myspace.com/davidbecke
>

-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Web:  http://www.davidopderbeck.com
Blog:  http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html
MySpace (Music):  http://www.myspace.com/davidbecke
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