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April 14, 2007 - Art Bell
02:36:06
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Global Warming - Brenda Ekwurzel
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From the high desert and the great American Southwest, I bid you all good evening, good morning, good afternoon, as the case may be in the time zone you're located in.
Each and everyone covered like a blanket by this program, Coast to Coast AM.
Good evening, or whatever, from the high desert.
I'm Art Bell.
It's my honor and privilege to be with you throughout this weekend.
Now, it's going to be an interesting weekend.
Originally, I had invited Ed Deems to be here.
He may still be here in the first hour.
Let me tell you why.
This was the lead story a few days ago on unknowncountry.com.
That's Whitley Strieber's website.
It's bad enough that we've got missing bees.
We've got a coral reef die-off, big one.
That'll affect the fish population.
In fact, they say there may be no fish in 50 years.
No fish in the sea.
But now, we may have a mystery wheat blight.
In New Scientist, Deborah McKenzie quotes Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug, who's known, by the way, as the father of the Green Revolution, saying, quote, this thing has immense potential for social and human destruction because wheat feeds more people on Earth than any other plant.
This new blight is called UG-99.
It is a newly evolved version of the familiar wheat rust that farmers finally thought they might have conquered when rust-resistant strains of wheat were created.
UG99 has now learned how to invade rust-resistant wheat.
This new strain of the disease first discovered in Uganda, Africa, eight years ago, and the spores have been gradually spreading across East Africa into Yemen and Sudan.
Scientists who are tracking it say the spores will eventually blow into Egypt, Turkey, the Middle East, and India.
It's then only a matter of time until the fungus ends up in Europe and the Americas.
But scientists are racing the crop, trying to create new wheat-resistant varieties that are resistant to UG-99.
Now, it's worth noting that years and years and years ago, that's exactly what Ed Dame said.
That's precisely what Ed Dame said.
I thought I'd have him on and acknowledge, sadly, that he appears to be right, but we're not able to reach him at this hour, and there may be some mix-up about which day he agreed to be on.
He responded with some sort of email saying, yes, it's dire ahead indeed, or something like that.
The webcam photograph tonight, if you go to coast2coastam.com, Art Bell's webcam, you'll see a picture of our little Philippine immigrant, Kitty Kat, and Abby.
She's kind of peeking out of a little area that we've created especially for her.
Now, my appearance this night is tempered by the fact that I have the flu.
It began about two or three days ago with usual sniffles and that sort of thing.
Progressed into a night of shivering and temperature that reached about 102.
And I've fed it just about everything I can think of to feed it that you're supposed to.
You know, lots of water, lots of liquids, some antibiotic to prevent any further disturbance, and flu medicine.
I guess you know you have the flu when you have a temperature, so... I do have a little bit of a temperature tonight, but we will plow through nevertheless.
So if you're something a little untoward, that's my flu.
Storm Bla... Oh, by the way, Pete's Punch is shipping, and I'm going to be very, very curious.
I'm informed that it is shipping now.
So, I really want to hear from those of you who have acquired Pizza Punch and tried it on some pizza, and I would love to get some reviews from some of you.
Years in the thinking about and the doing.
It's finally out there.
It's ArtbelsPizzaPunch.com.
Now, we've been having storms here in the West.
Windy storms.
It's been almost all wind out here.
Just wind and wind and wind.
Virtually every day, wind.
These storms are now blowing east.
And they're gathering strength.
And as they go, they're killing.
There are now five dead as these storms head east.
At this hour, it's still blowing out here.
It has virtually been blowing all week long.
Anywhere between 30 And 55 miles an hour here in the desert.
Well, these storms, as they go east, are gathering strength, meeting other storms, and then meeting hot air coming from the north and causing all kinds of havoc in the southeast.
Five dead so far.
Now, let's see.
Oh, this is too bad.
A legendary crooner, Don Ho, is dead at age 76.
Very sad he died of heart failure at age 76.
Upstart China challenges the U.S.
by blasting a satellite out of orbit.
North Korea lobs a missile over Japan, prompting Tokyo to initiate a multi-billion dollar spy satellite program.
India is readying a lunar mission, while rival Pakistan makes headlines with new improved warheads.
The most heated space race since the Cold War is underway, not here, but in Asia, where countries are concluding that a space program is no longer just an expensive status symbol, but rather a matter of national security, and they are scrambling to keep abreast of each other.
Meanwhile, we're closing ours down, it seems, as quickly as we can.
There's a lot of news we could talk about, a lot of additional news we could talk about.
The IMAS situation, of course.
And I really don't know what to say about that.
A fellow broadcaster has been fired.
And he's just, he's gone.
On the one hand, what he said was incredibly stupid.
However, so many incredibly stupid things have been said on the air.
Then I'm not sure what to say about it.
Whether or not the death penalty was appropriate for what he said, I guess, has already been decided.
That was really decided by the sponsors.
He did do a lot of good.
Imus helped a lot of kids with cancer.
Whether that's going to be able to continue or not now that he's off the air is certainly in question.
It's kind of sad to see a career end in that way.
Whether he has any future on the air anywhere, I think, is, you know, pretty much up in the air.
I covered the pet poisoning for you some time ago, and here's a headline.
I told you it wasn't 6 or 15 pets.
Veterinary Hospital Chain reports 39,000 pets were sickened or killed by contaminated food.
Tattooed contamination with an industrial chemical may have sickened or killed 39,000 cats and dogs nationwide, mostly cats by the way, based on an extrapolation from data released Monday by one of the nation's largest chains of veterinary hospitals.
The Pet Hospital in Banfield said an analysis of its database, compiled with records collected by its more than 650 veterinary hospitals, suggests that 3 out of every 10,000 cats and dogs that ate pet food contaminated with melamine developed kidney failure.
There are an estimated 60 million dogs, 70 million cats in the U.S.
The hospital chain saw 1 million dogs and cats during the three months When the more than 100 brands of now recalled contaminated pet food were sold.
It saw 284 extra cases of kidney failure among cats during that period.
Or a roughly 30% increase when compared with background rates.
It has meaning when you see a peak like that.
We see so many pets here and it coincided with the recall period.
So there you go.
It was not 15, it was more like 39,000 and most of them were cats.
We are going to go to open lines, unscreened I might add, open lines in a moment.
In fact, let me give you the numbers for that.
That opportunity for you to get in on all of this.
West of the Rockies is 1-800-618-8255.
East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
First Time Callers, we love you.
Area code 818-501-4721.
The wildcard lines, any number of those, good chance to get in.
Area code 818-501-4109.
Finally, outside the country, all together, we love you.
We have a number, toll free, 800-893-0903.
That's 800-893-0903.
chance to get in. Area code 818-501-4109. Finally, outside the country, all together,
we love you. We have a number. Call free, 800-893-0903.
That's 800-893-0903. And we'll be right back. Well, all right. The honeybee colony
collapse disorder is now spreading to Europe.
And not only is it spreading to Europe, but it's getting worse here.
And there is now a suggestion that mobile phones, that's right cell phones, which I never really liked anyway, may be wiping out our bees.
Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for the mysterious colony collapse of bees.
It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film.
But, some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages as the world's harvests fail.
They're putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other high-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world, the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate our crops.
Late last week, some beekeepers claimed that the phenomena, which started in the US, spread to continental Europe, was beginning to hit Britain as well now.
The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigational systems, preventing the famously home-loving species from finding their way back to their hives.
Improbable as it may seem, there is some new evidence to back it up.
Colony Collapse Disorder occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, queen's eggs, and a few immature workers.
Like so many merry celests, the vanished bees are never found, but thought to die in a lonely way, singly, far from home.
The parasites, wildlife, and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.
The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but now has hit half of all the American states.
The West Coast is thought to have lost now 60% of its commercial bee population, with 70% missing on the East Coast.
When you put all that together with our current ecological woes, and they are many, and by the way, in the next hour, Brenda Ekwerzel, we'll get it straight, Ekwerzel I believe it is, Brenda Ekwerzel, actually Dr. Brenda Ekwerzel, is going to be with us and she's going to be talking about our climate, which very clearly now is changing.
I think there is a consensus among the world's scientists that no longer are we guessing about this.
Our climate clearly is changing and the number of woes that we're beginning to perceive are adding up day by day.
In fact, it's hard to keep up with the number of headlines in that area.
Alright, let's go to the phones.
Unscreened open lines, that means have something interesting to say, please.
Not only that, but once I answer the phone, please be very sure that your radio is turned off, or you will get confused by the time delay, and you will sound confused on the air, and I know you don't want that.
That said, let's go to the first time caller line.
It says here, let's try it again.
No, can't do that.
Yes, we did do it.
First time caller line, you're on the air.
Hello.
Hi.
Yes.
It's a privilege to talk to you, Mr. Bell.
Good to speak with you as well.
Thank you.
I'm the lady you've over the years called the fairy lady, because sometimes I talk about fairies.
But anyway, what you just said about maybe the cell phones and all that, It's interesting because just a few days ago I was thinking about before Saddam Hussein was executed a reporter was interviewing him and the reporter said to him he said well once you're gone he said you think we're going to have any more terrorism and Saddam Hussein oh yes he said oh yes oh yes you certainly are going to and I was thinking just a few days ago that
Maybe the terrorists found a way of electronically finding the frequency of the bees and sending in an electronic ray to the bees.
And I don't know.
I'm not a scientist.
I'm just telling you what I was thinking and I just wanted to share it with you.
Well, you've got a very good connection.
It does not sound like you're on a cell phone.
Is that correct?
No, I'm not.
I have my speaker phone on because I was doing something while I was waiting for you to answer.
Alright, well listen, thank you very much for the call.
It's obvious that you are not responsible for killing any bees.
I wonder if it really is cell phones.
And what if it was cell phones?
What if the scientists are correct and it actually is cell phones killing bees?
All right, well I'm going to have to have the cooperation for the moment of the people in California to get these calls on the air.
Let's go to our west of the Rockies line and say good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi.
Hi.
This is Barry in Thomas River, New Jersey.
Yes, Barry.
Welcome.
I was reading in Progressive Farmer magazine, I sort of get accidentally That the bee problem is due to a species of mite that has infected the bee population.
It's a possibility.
I mean they are virtually, they're speculating about everything my friend.
They honestly have no idea for sure what it is.
It might be some sort of mite, it might be cell phones, it might be a lot of things.
They really don't know for sure.
It's just a pleasure to talk to you.
I've been a fan since 1997.
I had a child born that year who was colicky, and I found you then.
I guess you were up late a lot at night, huh?
Yeah, and that's how I found you, and I haven't really slept much at night since then.
I see.
Well, it does become a habit.
Alright, thank you very much for the call, and take care.
Let's go to one of the wildcard lines, doesn't matter which one.
I'll say, hello, you're on the air.
Art.
Yes.
Hi, this is Mark.
I've got some information for you that's a little more explicit about the cell phone phenomena.
Yes, sir?
And I want to take it to humans first, because I don't know if this relates to bees, but I do know it relates to humans.
The information carrier wave of a cell phone is what is causing the problem in humans, because the frequency of that wave on the human cell causes the... You know Bruce Lipton?
I think you've interviewed him.
Yes.
Okay.
He's a preeminent cellular biologist, somebody I know.
And his understanding from his long-time research is the cell membrane is actually the brain of a cell.
And he's proven that with his extensive research.
So what happens with this information carrier wave frequency from cell phones?
Wait a minute.
I'm not clear on what you first said.
Say it again.
Okay, okay.
Bruce Lipton's longtime research has shown, his experiments and his research in cellular biology, shows that the cell membrane, the container, the membrane, is actually the brain of the cell.
Okay, I guess.
It's what gives the information.
It's not the DNA, it's not the RNA, it's the membrane that's actually the cell.
And the information carrier wave That happens with the wireless systems and cell phones causes that cell membrane to harden and shut down.
It cuts off what's called biologically intercellular communication.
So it doesn't have the right information to the other cells in the body to do what it's supposed to do.
So, it causes the body's immune system to deteriorate and it also causes the reproductive process of the cell to deteriorate.
So, you start getting aberrant cells in the body.
Now, I don't know if that does that with bees or not, but I know that there's a commonality with wireless radio, you know, like communications and cell phones and microwave systems and everything.
Every place that they're having, even in Australia, from where I'm from, every place that they're having this problem, there is a high amount of electronic connectivity, whether it's wireless, Wi-Fi, whether it's cell phones, whatever it is.
And humanity has never, ever been so saturated with different kinds of waves before.
And it's a real problem.
I have a connection with a couple of doctors who've done really good research on that, and I'll send you an email with their name on it.
All right, please do.
I'm going to have to cut it off here, but I am aware certainly of some effects of higher frequency RF, radio frequency.
A number of years ago they did a study on high-powered RF and how it affects amateur radio operators.
I was particularly interested in that since I'm one of those.
But they've pretty much proven that the lower frequency stuff isn't that much of a problem.
Now the higher frequency stuff, from one gigahertz on up, may be a problem.
It may be a problem to human beings.
It may be a problem to bees.
We're not sure yet.
But I guess we better be sure pretty soon, because if it is the bees, they're already going at a rate that we can't withstand.
I mean, this is our food, folks, the pollination of all this food that we eat from the high desert and the great American Southwest.
I'm Art Bell.
It seems so unfair for me to have caught the flu yet again.
Prior to leaving Manila, Knowing I'd be on a long flight, exposed to the flu and lots more, I took a flu shot sometime ahead of taking the flight.
And so I thought, haha, this year I definitely beat the flu.
Wrong.
How many of the rest of you took a flu shot and then suffered anyway?
It's just not fair.
Back in just a moment, All right, back to unscreened, open lines.
Let's see what we can do.
The controlling software here is having a bit of difficulty, but we'll give it a shot.
West of the Rockies, you are on the air.
Good morning.
Good morning, Art.
How are you doing today?
There goes another bee.
I was just thinking, with all our modern technology and the bees, I mean, why couldn't we track the bees?
Like, find a hive that's not affected by this virus or mite or whatever it is and like somehow track it
like with an RFD chip or or something like that I mean they're talking about
putting in and us and in money to track the cash who gets what cash and where and
where it goes why can't they do that with bees well I suppose they could and
I suppose they're probably thinking of exactly that sort of thing of doing
that sort of thing so I don't have a complete answer for you but it's a good idea
I had Somebody earlier sent me a very interesting picture of dead bees by his mailbox.
Actually dead and dying bees.
Their little legs up, just as I described a few weeks ago.
And I don't know what to make of it.
Other people have said the bees are gathering in San Diego.
There's an infestation of bees in the San Diego area.
I don't know if that's true, San Diego wide.
So I have no idea.
I just know that we certainly need bees.
Now, this is interesting.
I'm going to try and bring up a couple of lines that don't even show they're active.
Let's see if it works.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hello?
Apparently it does.
Hello there.
This is Bud.
Hi Bud, where are you?
I'm in Battle Creek, Michigan.
Welcome.
How are you?
I'm calling about a different subject.
Is that okay tonight?
It's open lines.
You can talk about anything you want.
Well, I want to talk to you about saucers.
I tried to get through to Mr. Norris several times and for some reason they ain't letting me through to him no more.
I got through once and asked a question to the person that asked me, the screener.
Yeah, well, you're through.
I don't have a screener.
You're through, so go ahead.
I've heard you say before that you believe the government might have something to do with, like, you know, know about saucers or even have their own saucers and stuff.
Is that true?
That's possible.
Okay.
I think I heard Mr. Noy too.
Well, I've always, I got thinking, if that's true, you know, our astronauts that we send up on the shuttles and that, when these astronauts got killed and everything, wouldn't that mean that the government let them die for nothing?
Yes, it would mean that.
If we have saucers, if we have alien technology, and we're still using old rocket propulsion, then yes, that's exactly what it would mean.
Now, I didn't say for sure that our government has saucers.
I didn't say for sure that we have alien bodies or that we have anything else, because I don't know it to be true.
It's something that a number of people on the show have said.
That doesn't make it so, and I want to be very clear about that.
Despite all the interesting testimony we've had here on the air from various people who believe this or believe that, we don't have the smoking saucer, as it were.
So there you have it.
I've got to be honest, while I believe this might be true, while I believe we have certain knowledge, I can't know it.
And I'm not going to say it's true if I don't know it.
I can tell you what I've seen, I can tell you what I think, but only if I certainly know it to be true would I say it is so.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hello.
Hi Art, this is, my name is Rory and I'm calling from San Diego.
Hi Rory.
And, you know, I just heard you talking about the bees in San Diego and I was talking to one of the people that I work with and she's seen a lot of bees around her home.
So there you are.
So apparently there are a lot of bees in San Diego.
Maybe they flew south from elsewhere.
Anything else?
Have you seen them?
I have not.
I have not recently.
But that isn't the reason why I was calling you.
I wanted to tell you something that happened to me when I was very, very young.
When I was very, very young, my mom was on the Price is Right and actually won a bunk bed.
And myself and my brother used to sleep in it.
And I had a vision.
I used to get really sick.
And I had fevers and I used to have nightmares all the time.
And I had this vision of these three blue faces on the ceiling of the bunk beds.
And I never really thought much of it.
It wasn't really scary.
And they were And the limited memory that I have of them, they were trying to communicate with me.
But I couldn't hear anything.
And they looked kind of like holograms.
Were they the famous Blue Men?
The famous Blue Men?
From the Vegas show?
You remember the, well, yes.
Yeah, no, no, no, no, no.
This happened in the early 1970s.
Well, yeah, but it sounds as though, look, I've had fevers too.
As a matter of fact, I've got one right now.
And you tend to have, obviously, a lot of visions when you have a fever.
So, I mean, you've got to kind of put that as the main possibility.
Right.
It doesn't mean something, but...
I think if you have a fever.
I can recall any number of problems and things that I saw.
I remember one time I went to the dentist and they gave me some gas to pull some teeth when I was very young.
And I had a vision of little men chopping up the world.
But that's all it was.
It was an effect of whatever it was they gave me.
Let's go to the international line and say hello there.
You're on the air.
Good evening Art.
It's good to talk to you.
I've been listening to you for years.
You know, this thing about the bees, there's so much work being done in nanotechnology, and it seems like the job that the bee does is a really basic one.
Couldn't we have research done into this and create an artificial bee?
An artificial bee?
I don't think, I really don't think we're up to that task just yet.
You'd have to have something that would go from flower to flower doing the job bees do.
And as far as we've come in nanotechnology, I don't think we're quite ready for that yet.
Okay, that was it.
Apparently he didn't wish any further discussion on the matter.
I really don't think we're ready for that yet.
We're still putting Very small things together, but not in a meaningful machine-like way yet.
Let's go to one of the wildcard lines and say good morning.
You're on the air.
Good morning, Art.
How are you doing?
I'm doing quite well, sir.
Oh, I was just listening in on this bee thing.
This is actually quite scary.
If they put little chips on them, I don't know.
Manufacture-wise, that fella just called in, how could they, how soon could they gear up with something like that and get some kind of tracking system going?
I don't think that quickly.
I don't think, well, to track a bee, I suppose we can do that.
I suppose we could find out where they're going.
Yeah, I would imagine they're working on that already.
I don't think we're ready for any artificial bees to be made and be working pollinating everything, but we can certainly track them and I suppose find out where they're going.
All right.
This is really freaky.
It's one of those things you never would have thought would ever happen.
Well, there's an awful lot going on in the world right now that you never thought would have happened, and yet it's happening.
I think it's all possibly traced back to either our hand one way or the other, or the climate changes we're going through.
But that's just my opinion.
Let's pick on one of the other wildcard lines and say, good morning.
You're on the air.
Hello there.
Going once.
Going twice.
Gone.
Let me give it a try myself.
Wild Card Line, you're on the air.
Good morning.
Hey Art, this is Eric.
I'm calling you from Bozeman, Montana.
Hello, Eric.
I've been listening to this Don Imus thing all week ever since this happened.
You know, really what gets me about this is they're calling it a racial comment, but really what it is is this what he made was a sexist comment.
Actually, it was both.
Well, yes, yes and no.
But what irritates me about this is Howard Stern says worse on the radio than Don Imus does.
And he got persecuted and fired.
Yeah, I know.
Of course, Howard is off on satellite now, as I'm sure you're well aware.
Oh, yeah.
I think, look, you know, what you're saying is worthy of some attention.
I mean, this is going to send a chill through the radio industry, certainly the shock radio industry.
Personally, I've never felt That it was necessary at all.
What's going on in the world right now is shocking enough without punctuating it with bad language or racist language or anything else that's really going to irritate people.
There's enough irritating stuff going on in the world right now.
So, there you have it.
I have very mixed feelings about what's happened.
On the one hand, what Ima said, I suppose, justified what happened.
And what happened really, I think, was that the sponsors pulled out.
When the money went away, look, radio is a business.
And that's it.
I mean, that says it all.
Radio is a business.
Ratings equal money.
Equal ratings, equal money.
It's a grand circle.
And when the money goes away, that's it.
And so if you remember at the beginning of the controversy, they were going to let it slide with a couple of weeks off, something like that, suspension.
But then the sponsors began to go away.
And when that happened, I suppose CBS made a decision that it just wasn't worth holding on without the money.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Good morning.
Hi, this is Stephanie in Seattle.
Hi Steph.
Hi, I would like your opinion on the global warming.
I know you've had a couple guests that have had their different views Well, I'm going to have a real expert on tonight, Brenda Eckwurzel.
I heard her on radio or on a TV program quite a number of months ago, and she's really an expert in this whole area, so you'll be hearing her tonight.
Do you believe in her view?
Because I keep hearing all the different views and everything, and I was just wondering what specific view do you believe in?
I think it's happening.
You think it's happening?
Though, I've heard the, you know, the icebergs are melting, the different, you know, the bees, which one, you know, the different, the volcanoes, the different, I'm not... The whole North Pole is melting, it's not... The North Pole is melting the... Are we doing it, or is it, is the Earth doing it?
You know, is it a combination of both?
Yeah, that would be my, that's what I think.
It's a combination of both.
I think there's something, look, the climate is always changing.
If you look back in the Earth's history, you know, the oceans have risen, they've fallen, we've had ice ages.
So yes, the world's climate changes.
Are we adding to what's going on right now in a way that is going to be deadly for us?
It's certainly a possibility.
So that's my view.
I think it's probably both.
Okay.
Is it, are we, is what we're doing that catastrophic though?
Or is this just the change of life?
Okay, is what we're doing that catastrophic?
I think that it's potentially so.
They talk about very small changes in temperature, going to be upside, having a very, very large effect, and of course in the northern latitudes, Uh, it's compounding upon itself.
In other words, as the ice melts...
You now have a non-reflective surface.
You have an absorbing surface that kind of compounds the process and more ice melts and so forth and so on.
Anyway, that's why we're having an expert on tonight.
She'll try and explain, I hope, in a way we can all understand exactly what's going on and what we've got to do to prevent it.
East of the Rockies, you are on the air.
Good morning.
Good morning, sir.
Congratulations on your Lifetime Achievement Award.
Thank you so much.
This is Roger calling you from London, Ontario, Canada.
Yes, sir.
I just wanted to comment a little bit about on a ways back, they said that they had found the tomb of the so-called tomb of Jesus.
And they were basically touting it as saying, wow, this is going to really jeopardize the whole belief of Christianity.
And myself, I said, well, where are the other religions in this whole Because, if it was true, if they did find them, sure, this would put some doubt in Christianity, but... Okay, well, I guess, first of all, I'm not up on having found the tomb of Jesus.
No, I don't believe it either.
Where did you hear that it was so?
Oh, you didn't hear the news about that?
No.
Oh, there was a big documentary on the Discovery Channel And George and Ian each had a guest on, and it was probably one of those folks that said that they think they had found the tomb, and that Jesus had a wife named Mary, and he had kids and whatnot, and they believed those to be his bones.
And so what I'm saying... Have they proven that it was so?
Well, to their Well, I think that if they had found the so-called tomb of Jesus, that would be news far beyond the Discovery Channel.
I think we'd all be talking about it.
Well, that just basically plays into the fact of how preposterous it was, and I was going to say as well, in addition to that, that it would also turn the other monotheistic religions, like Judaism and Islam, who would also have an impact on this.
Well, I would think so.
Look, I don't know what to say about that, except as far as I'm concerned, I've not heard a word and I peruse the news very carefully before I go on the air at any given time.
That includes not just major I'm sure I would have seen that if it had been proven beyond somebody's opinion.
On the wildcard line, or a wildcard line, you're on the air.
Good morning.
Hello?
Going once.
Going twice.
Gone.
Let's move to another wildcard line.
You're on the air.
Good morning.
On the wildcard line.
Going once.
Going twice.
All right.
Yes.
Yes, sir.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Um, the last caller, I just, um... Great, I got through.
My name's Bo.
I live in Bellingham, Washington.
And, uh, last caller for the actual documentary was James Cameron actually headed that up.
Oh, okay.
He's a Titanic producer.
And, uh, I have a take on the bees.
Um, you saw X-Files the movie, right?
Sure.
Remember when Mold and Scully were in the dome and the floor opened up and all the bees came out?
Yeah, I think the plan was that the bees were going to carry the virus around the world, right?
Varicella, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And, I don't know, it just might take, you know... In other words, you think the bees might be in one of those giant domes somewhere instead of where they ought to be in their hives?
Possibly, you know, the government has done, you know, I mean, they're all about conspiracy here and there, and it just feels right.
You know how your intuition kind of... You know, I hadn't thought about that, but you got a point.
Thank you very, very much for the call.
I suppose...
It's as likely a place for the bees as any other.
Yes, that was the theme of the X-Files movie.
Interesting, because I just happened to catch that.
You remember those giant white domes, and of course at the... Well, I guess I ought not relate the end of the movie.
West of the Rockies, you are on the air.
Good morning.
Good morning.
We have very little time before the top of the hour, so let her rip.
Well, I want to call about Step It Up.
Step It Up.
Hello?
Hello?
Yes, go ahead.
Step it up.
You know about Step It Up?
No.
Well, there were over 1,400 locations in the U.S.
today where people were marching to Step It Up on working for a solution to global warming and cutting emissions.
Oh.
Oh, okay, well that's going to be, thank you very much, that's going to be the topic coming up with Brenda Edwardsville after the break at the top of the hour.
Now again, she is a top climate person worldwide, so if you've been wondering what's really going on with our climate, I suggest to you that you stay tuned.
From the high desert, I'm Art Bell.
Alright, apparently there was something about the tomb of Jesus, which somehow or another I did miss, so I'll see what I can find out.
In the meantime, this is something I've waited a long time for.
Brenda Eckersall works on, actually Dr. Brenda Eckersall works on the National Climate Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, UCS.
She's leading UCS's climate science education work aimed at strengthening support for strong federal climate legislation and sound U.S.
climate policies.
Prior to joining UCS, Dr. Urquizal was on the faculty of the University of Arizona Department of Hydrology and Water Resources with a joint appointment in the Geosciences Department.
Her specialty is isotope geochemistry, a tool she's used to study climate variability in places as disparate as the Arctic Ocean and the desert southwest, my home.
She's also worked as a hydrologist with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, working with communities to protect groundwater sources.
So in a moment, an expert that I've been waiting quite a while to interview, and we'll find out what's going on with our climate.
Stay right where you are.
All right, maybe we can move from opinion to science.
Here is Dr. Brenna Ekborzul.
Doctor, welcome to the program.
Thank you.
I hope I'm pronouncing your last name correctly.
Ekborzul, is that correct?
Perfect.
All right.
Can we indeed move?
I had a call in the first hour, Doctor, which said, Art, what do you think?
Is it just a natural variability or is it man's hand?
And anything I would say, I have my own opinion, but that's all it is, is an opinion.
And hopefully you're here to give us a science.
And I suppose we ought to begin with, what is the difference between what we call weather and climate?
Weather is something that really is a short-term phenomenon that happens over a few days to weeks.
So, I mean, through history's lore, we've had incredible extremes in weather that nature can throw our way.
And in fact, it's kind of mundane, but climate scientists look at all those weather events and want to look at the little shifts in the averages, the long-term statistics, and say, wow, what is the average temperature over this Particular location, and has that changed.
So, in fact, climate change is looking at decades-long data and seeing if there are shifts in the weather pattern.
So that's really what climate science is, and that's a little bit different than a particular storm.
In fact, if someone says, oh my goodness, it's a blizzard today, that means global warming is not happening.
Or, this is a heat wave today, this means global warming is happening.
Both of those statements climate scientists will reject because we would never look at one particular storm.
When you talk about climate, Doctor, how long a period of time are you looking at?
We really focus on the changes that are happening over the past several decades and compare that with the entire century and then we go even further back in time with our most high-resolution data that ice cores Go back all the way down to 800,000 years ago, and in fact we've been studying climate since as far back as millions and millions of years to look at what type of big changes happened on our planet, to try to get a sense of how sensitive is our Earth to different changes that influence the climate.
Well, in recent years, there's been plenty of debate.
Is it a natural change that we're going through, or is it man's hand adding it to it, or is it just man?
In fact, a debate over whether it's even happening.
Now, I think the debate is over.
I'm not sure, but I think the debate is pretty much over.
It's happening.
Is that a fair statement?
Yes, the majority of scientists agree that that core statement you just mentioned, that Is global warming happening and are we having a hand in the Earth's climate is definitely a sound decision about.
We have unprecedented level of heat trapping gases in our atmosphere that have not been seen in over 650,000 years and that is having an impact on the ground and people are starting to notice the difference in their own life as well as the scientists who have been measuring it.
So, you would go so far as to say what we're in right now is not just a natural cycle?
Well, you never get rid of the natural cycles.
It's not as if we're doing this experiment changing the atmosphere's composition in a vacuum.
The natural cycles will go on, our ocean cycles will go on, our different cycles will go on, and we are adding to that.
So it's as if you have little squiggly lines Going up and down these natural cycles, and we've just, if you look at temperature, we've tilted that temperature curve, especially recently, it's really tilted up hot.
And so every year, it's hotter than it would be if you looked at that, if we weren't adding heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere at the pace that we are.
Well, I hate to be, oh, I don't know, ask you to comment on where I am, but I'm not very far, Doctor, from Death Valley.
Now, the kind of temperatures we get here in the summer Are really hot.
I mean, really hot here.
And it wouldn't take too many more degrees of heat in the summertime to make it virtually uninhabitable in this area.
I'm not very far from Las Vegas.
And so, I am concerned about the desert southwest.
Can you tell me anything about what lies ahead?
Well, in essence, you are sitting in one of the, I would say, one of the hot spots Around the world, where we're looking at very closely, because just last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report talking about what are the impacts on the ground, and they focused on that the Southwest United States is at risk of having increased water resource stresses, and that there are three things happening to the Southwest.
One, in the future, if we do not turn this around and we keep emitting heat-trapping gases, unabated, and we keep going at the pace we're going, That by the end of the century, you would have much higher risk of wildfires, because it's drying out.
One thing is that you're kind of turning the Southwest into a tinderbox.
The next thing is that you will have brutal heat waves.
When they do occur, they'll be longer and more severe, and more likely suffering from the droughts, which you already are in a long period of drought right now.
It's lasted multi-years, and you understand the resources that strain that takes upon all the water stored. So you'd have to, we have
to plan and have some adaptation
in our future to try to figure out how can we best save water resources
for the southwest because it is such a particularly vulnerable spot in the
United States.
All right.
Well, of course, a lot of the documentaries that are done on this subject focus on the effect here in the U.S.
Let's leave the U.S.
for just a moment.
What about the rest of the world?
How is, for example, the Pacific and some of the islands in the Pacific, how are they going to fare if this continues?
And it certainly seems as though it will.
Yes.
Well, again, one thing is important to remember, a lot of these projections of the future are Worst case scenarios in the fact that it's assuming we're going to keep emitting heat-trapping gases.
So what I'm talking about is assuming that.
And we do have the choice to stop and start turning this around.
So assuming that we keep at the pace we're going, we're unable to change our ways, sea level rise has already accelerated.
And when you heat the ocean, it expands.
And that causes global sea level rise.
Plus, we are melting our land-based glaciers, and they're adding fresh water to the ocean, also adding to sea level rise.
And that means that many of your coastal areas are more likely to experience storm surges when a storm comes in that are higher than before.
And as you say, these specific islands that are very close to sea level, they already
are at their personal tipping point in that some of them are going to have to be relocated
because sea level rise will overtake their small islands.
And so that is an immediate concern for those coastal residents.
And for the rest of us, places like Bangladesh is at a crossroads in that they're a very
highly populated region.
There are many regions in Asia that have this situation.
But Bangladesh, for example, has the threat of sea level rise from the ocean causing storms
and flooding that way.
But also they have accelerated melting of the Himalaya glaciers and the land side, the
flooding coming from the land side can also cause an immense amount of flooding.
There are billions of people within very close proximity to sea level rise.
So it's similar to our New Orleans where we have this huge river that can create land-based flooding.
If you protect against that, that made New Orleans very vulnerable to the ocean flooding from a coastal storm of a hurricane if it comes nearby.
Doctor, are you able to speak completely freely?
I hope so, to you!
Well, yes, to me, of course.
I would hope so as well, but there has been a lot of talk of climate science being muzzled or rewritten a little bit as the reports come out.
This is a concern of ours because what has happened We conducted a survey of climate scientists in different federal agencies, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, NASA, United States Geological Survey, Environmental Protection Agency, and so on.
And there were, as you say, these high-profile cases in the news where a couple scientists would report, hey, I wanted to write this report, I wanted to talk to the public about what your taxpayer dollars paid for these studies.
And in fact, I was not allowed to talk to the press about a certain scientist was talking about hurricanes and projections going forward in his models that with increasing heat trapping gases in the atmosphere that hurricanes would become more intense and have more rain associated with them when they came on land and other such muzzling of scientists.
So we conducted a survey and we found that it was widespread that they were allowed to publish Journal articles, but how many of us actually read those obscure science journal articles?
They were allowed to go to science conferences, but again, that's the public not really going to those conferences.
And the point of pressure was when they would want to talk to the public through the media and so on.
And so what we found is that, you know, several hundred scientists are complaining that, for example, they were not allowed in a press release to use the word global warming or climate change.
Things like that, to try to How was this imposed?
I mean, was there some sort of memo that went to all those who receive government money and their research?
about global warming. How was this imposed? I mean was there some sort of
memo that went to all those who receive government money and their research or
how is this done? They basically, for example, 52% of respondents said their
agency's public affairs officials would monitor scientists' communication which
is not a strange thing.
It's just that if you compare that with scientists that work at academia or work at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which is a different entity, that they do not have that level of monitoring by their public affairs officials.
And so the public affairs officials might be directly interfacing with the reporter and say, no, we don't want you to talk to this particular scientist.
We want you to talk to this other scientist.
And in fact, we feel that the media should be able to talk to all scientists in any agency at the cutting edge of research, letting the public know, even though it's the end of, for example, type of research that is At the edge of what we know, and there may be controversy, that's where the debate lies, not the core issues of whether climate change is happening or not.
It's just some of these impacts on the ground.
We still have a lot of room and science to work on those.
And so that was the disturbing thing, is we think that that number should be zero, and no one should be muzzled, and the public should be made allowed to know what the results are of their research.
Indeed.
Doctor, how do we measure...
The difference between what would be a normal cyclical change and how much these greenhouse gases emitted by man are making in what's going to happen.
What we do is we look at, we have very good records of how much, for example, the sun has emitted its energy coming to the earth.
We have lots of observatories, we're measuring that very carefully and we compare that data With data about volcanic eruptions, which also influence the climate.
They can cool the climate, reflect aspects of the sunlight.
And we compare that with all our measurements of different heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere over the last century.
And we look at the global average temperature, and we run models that look at ocean temperature, land temperature, everywhere around the Earth.
And we compare the results, compare that global average temperature that happens in our computer simulation, that adds all the factors that influence the climate and
compare that with the observed climate.
And when we look at that, we see that the natural variables do not show that the Earth would be cooler today than it is.
And when we add to the natural variables the factors that influence climate,
the heat-trapping gases that we've contributed, and also the pollution,
which we've contributed, those particles that come out of our smokestacks,
they reflect sunlight and cool.
They cool the climate.
We have to add that in, too.
And that, you compare natural factors plus our man-made factors, you see that that curve, if you look over the last century, absolutely is much closer matched to the observed temperatures than we see if you just use the natural factors alone.
And it's by a significant amount.
And that's why The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued, in its report, this very strong statement.
It basically said that it's very likely, which in their terms means greater than 90% probability, that emissions of heat-trapping gases from human activities have caused most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century.
That's a very strong statement from the international science community.
That is very strong.
And that is as they said it without any modification.
I know that in the report I think that came out last week, there were changes that were made in terms of the number of millions of people that would be affected and some other areas that were sort of politically affected and changed.
That's right.
And that is the part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the process.
There are scientists in the room who participate in the full report, and then there are also government representatives, including the United States government representative, in the room.
And I'll go through this short summary of the deeper full report, line by line, and that's where you were seeing those modifications.
And the reason they wanted to make it a short document, one of the reasons they changed some of the billions To softer numbers, shall we say, is that when you have these scenarios for the future, some of them include population estimates of what the future is, and they have different estimates.
So if you say one number, it's inaccurate.
If you don't say it was this particular scenario, the storyline about population, about how we use energy, would give this many billions of people that are vulnerable to, say, sea level rise.
Whereas if you lose this other scenario where we We have perhaps less population in certain areas of the planet that are, less of them would be vulnerable.
So, they chose to change a single number because they didn't have enough space to qualify these different scenarios.
So, it is a very tricky thing, but in general, anything that the IPCC says is kind of the lowest common denominator where everyone agrees.
This is without a doubt, and you'll find many science papers out there that may go beyond and have more Shall we say bolder predictions or projections of the future and some of the climate surprises we call them because it's in general as you say a kind of conservative process.
So it was I heard countries like our country the US and China and other emerging industrial nations that let's say had an effect on the report that resulted in the lower numbers being reported?
Yes, yes.
That is what happened.
But in general, certainly, it's a process and it shows that it's a policy-relevant document and I think that governments around the world are paying attention to this science.
And it's a very sensitive topic when you talk about the impact on the ground, in your backyard, who is most vulnerable.
And the general conclusion is that Basically, people who are in countries who may not have the ability to have the resources to adapt will perhaps be the most vulnerable, and people in wealthier countries, industrialized nations, who also may not have the resources individually.
For example, if you're elderly, or if you're someone who suffers from cardiopulmonary disease, you're going to have more vulnerability to a heat wave.
For example, in Chicago, or in the United States, when a heat wave comes through, And is sitting there for many days sitting over your head and you may not be able to afford air conditioning bills, then you are much more vulnerable in this country to heat wave stress and potential loss of life than someone who can't afford to protect themselves and acclimate their climate.
Interesting you would mention Chicago.
I think that's where the heat wave killed so many recently, right?
Yes, that was in 2005, and we also had in 2003 many people in Italy, France, and all different parts of Europe, the Netherlands, that it was an insufferable heat wave.
It's a part of the world where many people, you know, expect their summers to be mild and don't have the capacity to deal with this incredibly, you know, more likelihood.
Basically, people who studied that heat wave He says it's just basically more likely because we are having a warming climate.
In fact, when you look at, when we've been collecting statistics since about 1850, very widespread statistics of temperatures in the ocean and on land, we have enough statistics to say that 11 of the last 12 years rank among the 12 hottest on record.
All right, doctor, hold it right there.
We're at a break point.
Dr. Brenda Ekwerzel will be right back.
A real expert, Dr. Brenda Etwursel, and it's remarkable to me.
How angry people get about this topic.
I mean, we all know what's going on.
Some of us believe that it's a natural cycle.
Some of us believe that man's hand is involved.
Either way, the reaction of the listeners is astounding to me.
David in Florence, Kentucky asks, Art, if this bell curve that reflects the change to our climate is accurate, what percentage of temperature increase is due to man?
Also, with this percentage, what is our country's level of responsibility?
That's a good question, and we'll ask in a moment.
Let's give that a try.
David in Florence, Kentucky again is asking, if this bell curve that reflects the change in our climate is accurate, is there a way, doctor, to attach an actual percentage of increase due to man?
What we have is The statement from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that human activities have caused most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century, and so most is more than 50%.
So we're more than, at this point in time, we are, and it keeps growing each year, so every year, if you look at what the natural factors that influence climate, and you look at our contribution Uh, every decade or so, we are creeping further and further along this unfortunate curve where we're starting to drive the climate more than the natural cycles are.
And so now we dominate.
We are the major drivers of climate change.
We're more than half.
More than half, wow.
Yeah, so we've tipped the balance.
And of course, if you ask me in five years, then that will go more than, you know, will be at an even higher percentage, unless we choose to turn this around.
And as far as the United States portion, right now, if you look at the world's population, the U.S.
has about 4% of the world's population living within our boundary.
And we emit about a quarter of the heat-trapping gases each year.
compared to the rest of the world. So we are... That figure is changing though.
And what happens is China will probably, they're rapidly accelerating their emissions at an incredible pace and so
they are going to probably surpass us within the next couple years for annual emissions of
heat trapping gases.
What we see is that if you look at how long the industrialized nations have been emitting, if you look at the cumulative load to the atmosphere, the industrialized nations bear the brunt of the responsibility for the amount of climate change that we have seen, more than other nations around the world.
And as you say, China is rapidly catching up each year, and really it's going to have to be an international solution to this challenge. And you said they're going to
surpass us in a couple of years? Yes. Holy smokes, I knew they were moving quickly
but I didn't know that quickly. There is an International Energy Agency study
release that their projections based on the pace of the, they're building
power plants at the pace of, you know, every few weeks a new one is coming
online and so on and their energy demands are incredible and it's a huge economy on
the move and it's incredible pace of change that they projected maybe by the
year 2000.
And that's for annual emissions of heat-trapping gases.
We will no longer be the leader.
Right now, the world is looking towards us.
But what we see is that, in general, we aren't doing much to change our ways.
And so China says, well, why should we?
So in fact, many people believe that if we start showing leadership on a much bolder scale, because voluntary uh... cut have not changed every year united states keep
submitting more and more more heat-trapping gas so our voluntary measures have
not come up to meet our personal goals
uh... and and in general you know from the apollo project to the silicon chip
and so on i mean u s innovation has been something that the world has benefited
from and so it created a lot of prosperity here at home and created jobs
here at home and uh... this is something that we could turn around and
turn into an opportunity if we figure out ways to burn coal
and figure out how to capture that carbon dioxide before it gets into the
atmosphere figure out a way to
store it for a long time in geological repositories and so on
That would help all the nations of the world that have large coal reserves because we could be selling that technology and making a benefit as well as benefiting our own impacts here on the ground on sea level rise and heat waves that we may experience in our own country from All the world's emissions.
The atmosphere is a neutral arbiter.
It will register all of our actions in a very neutral way.
Doctor, I think about a year ago, there was a really interesting picture that showed the North Pole, I don't know, it was 30 or 40 or 50 years ago on the left, and then the North Pole Now, virtually now, on the right, and it looked as though 40 or 50 percent of the North Pole had melted.
Is that correct?
It's interesting you should mention that.
In fact, when I was in grad school, I had the opportunity, that was where I did my PhD research, and I went on several icebreaker expeditions, and twice I ended up being able to go to the pole, fortunately, the North Pole.
Right.
I must tell you that back in 1991, the day before we were steaming to the pole, the skies cleared up.
Usually it's very overcast.
And they said, wow, it's incredibly open water.
We're going to have an easy go of this.
And in fact, it's so clear, we're going to give you all a treat and you can ride up while we're doing helicopter reconnaissance to see what's the best routes we should take.
And let you go up and take some pictures.
And I was shocked that we were so close to the pole and there were vast tracts of open water.
And this was in the summer, the end of the summer, when you have the least amount.
But here we are at the top of the world and I expected it to be chock full of ice.
And so I didn't realize at the time, I was a young student, I didn't realize that Since, if you look at the ice extent up in the Arctic, and you look at the natural cycle up there, it bounces around the first part of the century.
Then around 1950, the summer sea ice extent starts taking this dramatic downturn, and it's been just on this downturn cycle.
It has little wiggles in it, but it's just going down and down and down.
So I was sitting there in the 90s when we were already melting the summer sea ice extent, and this means that the polar bears have to swim further In between the ice floes while they're hunting their food and the sea ice dependent animals and marine fauna, their habitat is shrinking in the summer.
And so this is, certain species on this planet, if they are, if they cannot adapt and figure out new ways to live, if their habitat may be shrinking and shrinking and shrinking.
For example, if you are migrating, species are already migrating northward, southward, so poleward.
And uphill.
They're basically going up the mountains as the temperatures keep cranking up down below.
Once you get to the top of the mountaintop as a species, and then it gets too hot for you to survive, you can't go any higher.
There is no more mountain to go to.
It's the same thing with people are very concerned about all the species that have adapted to living just in the Arctic sea ice.
It's a very special environment up there.
So it is that much gone?
The pictures are incredibly dramatic.
We've been fortunate to see satellites since the late 70s, and we've seen the sea ice extent basically decrease a huge amount in the summer.
It's on the order of 15%, and it just keeps going down.
And so, this is way beyond the natural variability.
We know a lot of what determines the sea ice extent.
And what's even worse is that the volume of ice Which is a very hard number to get at, and we're trying to get better data.
It looks like that is decreasing at a more rapid pace, and maybe as much as 40%, but we're still trying to work on that number since the last several decades.
Doctor, why is it so much worse in the North?
That is a really good question.
A lot of it has to do with, if you go out on a, if you go, in California, if you go up to the Sierras and you are out there skiing in the Sierra Mountains, You know just how fast you can get a sunburn on your face.
And you need the glasses.
And anywhere you have snow, the sunlight coming down, basically 90% of that sunlight is reflected back out to space.
When you melt back that snow, say in the Sierra Nevadas, or up in the Arctic, you have the sea ice that is very white.
You melt it back, and now you expose a dark ocean.
Or in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, you're exposing a dark soil.
Now the sunlight comes down, hits that dark soil or the dark ocean, and now you're absorbing most of the energy that before was reflected back into space.
And now what you've done is that's accelerating the warming because as soon as you melt back a little bit, you've changed from reflecting 90% of your energy to almost reflecting 90% to absorbing that energy.
Then you're now heating up the ocean and you're heating up the ground.
And then that hotter ground can in turn melt the adjacent ice or snow.
Alright, well, one question associated with that is, is there a kind of a, is there a switch point, Doctor, when it's going to be too late?
We see that some of the most dangerous consequences that we're worried about, we would like to not increase our temperature more than another, say, two degrees Fahrenheit, global average temperature.
And in order to do that, it means that we would have to start reducing our emissions, and all around the world, start really turning around the emissions curve within the next few years.
And if we don't turn this curve around in the next decade, it means that it will be much harder to catch up.
And so, in a way, you might hear some scientists say, oh, we have a decade.
What they mean is that when we build a power plant, In this decade, that will last 50 years, that locks in a certain type of climate, depending on how efficient that power plant is, and whether or not it's burning fossil fuels and releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
If there's a way you can build a power plant that would not release those fossil fuels to the atmosphere, or it's an energy-efficient alternative energy such as a wind farm or a solar source of energy or a biofuel that is renewable, then you have Change the balance and you're starting to reduce the heat-trapping emissions in the atmosphere.
And the aspect of why we look at carbon dioxide is it lingers for 50 to 100 several centuries.
And so that's why carbon dioxide gets a lot of attention and nitrous oxide lingers for another century.
So that's why the decisions we make today have long-term consequences.
That's why it gets harder and harder to turn it around.
Some people say if we can start reducing And get to, say, by mid-century, if we were, in the United States, emitting about 20% of what we emitted in the year 2000, we have a reasonable chance of turning this around.
But we have to get on that pathway.
otherwise it would be much harder more costly
plus because of adaptation start growing as well
because we have to adapt to less water resources in the west
or uh... more wildfires not threatening our are are
resources in the west or we have sea level rise threatening coastal communities all around the united
states and uh... more storm damage and heat waves and things like
this that we would have that that have cost associated with them in
both human costs societal costs as well as
dollar cost which insurance industries are are very aware of
they are watching climate change and trying to assess what are the risks
so insurance costs go up and so on uh... well alright i know there's a big argument uh...
going on right now about whether we adapt
or we uh... mitigate and i suppose you would say
That's right.
Well, the reason we have to, we have to learn how to cope with the changes we can't avoid because of this, as I said, there's the heat-trapping gases have If we were to stop emissions today, there's a certain lag in the Earth's system in that the ocean still has a lot of heat stored in it that we pumped into it from our past emissions.
And so, because of that, the heat-trapping emissions stay in the atmosphere for decades, a certain amount of warming is already inevitable, and we are going to have to adapt to that.
But, if you're not, you can't address everything by adapting.
For example, the species who are living in the Arctic sea ice, They may not be able to adapt as fast, and that's the pace of change really hampers whether or not we can adapt.
Or if you have economic resources, say, parts of the world where you don't have the resources to adapt as easily.
If you're depending on agriculture that's completely rain-fed, or you're depending on your local fishery source that may be changing because the corals are bleaching or things like that, it may be difficult for you to adapt locally.
So you have to have international aid with all of this. But if we reduce global warming
emissions today to avoid the prospect of leaving our children and grandchildren with these
daunting and costly impacts, then that's the mitigation part. We could hopefully reduce the
cost of what they have to deal with and ourselves later in our lives if we do the
mitigation part to make the impacts be less severe on the ground. And we could cope with a
slower pace of change and as well is not getting beyond too hot.
You know what it's like in Death Valley.
I do.
And some parts of the world, it would be a huge amount of adaptation to deal with some of the changes, and some of it we just may not be able to adapt to, and we'd have to really change the way we live.
Or, we can start reducing our emissions.
And perhaps avoid the worst consequences that are laid out in these reports.
I mean, if you go see these stories about all these things that might happen, always keep in mind that it does not have to play out this way because we are driving the climate.
Right now we're driving it more than 50% because that's what we've done in the past several decades of our long-term commitment to Living the way we live, and we figure that if we can live in a smarter way, in a more efficient way, and still keep our economy going, and still keep our standard of living and the way we live the way we like, it's just we've got to have more energy efficient ways of doing that.
Poor Doctor, I would like to say that I see the change going on.
I see a switching to renewable and all the rest of it, but I don't see it.
I don't see it happening.
I'm not saying it can't happen, but I'm saying the chances, I think, are very, very small.
And the way our government is presently reacting Doesn't give one a great deal of hope, so if we don't change, what are the worst possibilities?
Assuming that we don't change at all, assuming China doesn't, and that's almost a safe assumption, how bad is it going to be?
Okay, now you're talking about unmitigated climate change, which you're right, we do seem to be on that path.
Individuals are making Changes and so on, but it's not enough, as you say.
We just don't have the will to implement a lot of the solutions that we already know that are off the shelf.
So, assuming that we don't make these changes.
One of the scary things for me is that we have large bath stores of peat and frozen ground up in the northern and high polar regions in both poles.
But we have many more continental landmass up in the northern hemisphere and we have these soils.
But because it was so cold, when a piece of vegetation died, it was so cold that the bacteria would not be running for very short summer for them to be able to respire that and break that down and release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.
So it becomes these huge stores of peatlands that have been accumulating for thousands and thousands of years.
If we cross, right now we're already starting to melt those peatlands.
And that frozen ground, which we call permafrost.
In the past, when we've had deglaciation, usually the start of the deglaciation was a natural phenomenon, the change in the sun's energy, because of how we wobble and our little changes in our orbit around the sun.
That has long-term cycles.
And when the initiation of that starts, then we start melting things on the planet, the ice, and then we would melt the soil.
And this frozen ground, when that releases its huge store of carbon dioxide, or it would come out as methane, we suddenly would accelerate our warming to a level that would be very fast, and I just don't want to cross that tipping point of melting all the vast stores of carbon that are right now frozen up in our tundra regions where the Arctic Fox is running around and so on.
And so that's one tipping point I don't want to cross, and we hope we can avoid that by staying below, again, this 2 degrees Fahrenheit above today.
Okay, well that is what I was talking about, what you just called a tipping point, or a place I guess past which you don't want to contemplate going, but we really do, I guess, want to explain to the people, maybe after this break, because we're coming up on a break, what would happen if we did do that?
And what would happen if all of that was, if it melted and all of that was released?
So reflect on it for a moment, Doctor.
I know you really don't have to, but that's what I'm interested in.
I guess we might as well let everybody know what the worst case scenario, how it would play out.
It's not going to be a happy thing, and it's important, I think, that the general public, this audience knows a lot more than actually the general public, understand exactly what kind of world is ahead of us if we don't change.
From the high desert, the Great American Southwest, I'm Art Bell.
Here I am.
Good morning, everybody.
Listen, I'm experiencing a little of my own personal global warming, about 102 degrees of temperature right now.
Nevertheless, this is a very important program, and I'm going to ignore some of the angry fast blasts coming at me.
Actually, we're going to address them, but I want you to know you're not listening to just anybody.
Dr. Brenda Eckersall works on the National Climate Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, UCS.
She's leading UCS's climate science education work aimed at strengthening support for strong federal climate legislation and sound U.S.
climate policies.
Prior to joining UCS, she was on the faculty of the University of Arizona Department of Hydrology and Water Resources with a joint appointment in the Geosciences Department.
Her specialty is isotope geochemistry.
That's a tool she's used to study climate variability in places as disparate as the Arctic Ocean and here where I live in the desert southwest.
She's also worked as a hydrologist with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection working with communities to protect groundwater sources.
She knows what she's talking about and in a moment we're going to look ahead a little bit for you into the worst case scenario and it's not that far into the future so stay right where you are.
Doctor, let's say that we ignore all or most and that any of the renewable stuff remains at the margin and we arrive at this worst-case scenario, this tipping point when the big releases in the north and everything else that's going to happen actually begins to happen.
What kind of world are we going to be living in?
Okay, here we go.
We have to realize that When we look at these simulations, these calculations about what could happen, there's a range of where we could cross some of these thresholds where we think we would have crossed the point where we would have irreversible change.
And one of those is the large ice sheets, the Greenland ice sheet and the West Antarctic ice sheet of down south.
And what some of the simulations suggest, that if we had sustained global average temperature warming, Between 2 and 7 degrees Fahrenheit above today's global average temperature, that would initiate irreversible melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
And we could do what we did, like we did in the past.
We had the Greenland ice sheet melting and the West Antarctic ice sheet melting that raised sea level.
And the amount that the sea level would rise, we could cross that threshold before it would take the full time for the ice sheet to melt.
A significant amount to raise sea level on the order of 23 feet.
23 feet?
It's a combination of the perimeters of the Greenland ice sheet.
There'll be this root core that will stay there for a long time in the center, but there's a lot of ice around the edges that would melt back a significant amount.
And then the West Antarctic ice sheet, a lot of that is ice shelves that would be floated off and big chunks of ice that would directly contribute, as soon as you dislodge it from land, Melt it, have it run off as melt water, and go into the ocean, you directly raise sea level.
And that type of sea level rise is something that would be significant for some of the major cities, including New York City, the Bay Area of San Francisco, we would have Bangladesh, the small islands that are sprinkled throughout our ocean areas, that would be completely inundated Um, by some of this type of change.
And that would be something we'd have to adapt to if we cross that threshold.
And to give an idea of how close we are to the low end of that estimate, is that right now we know that we've stored so much heat in the ocean, that's excess, that would give heat back to the atmosphere and warm up our global average atmospheric temperature at the surface.
Another degree Fahrenheit.
So we're already halfway to the low end of that simulation.
So that's, it's kind of as if the scientists know that we're approaching, as if we're in a car driving towards the cliff edge, but it's a foggy night because we're not sure how fast that cliff edge is going to approach.
Because it depends on the choices we, you and I, and all the citizens of this planet, what we make.
How fast is that cliff edge going to approach?
But they know that it's out there, and that if we keep driving the car, then we risk driving over the cliff edge.
And the problem is, we just don't know how fast.
And we know that we could put on the brakes and stop it and just not drive over that cliff edge.
It's just, we know that the low-end estimate of where we think the edge of that cliff edge is rapidly approaching.
And we hope that it's the better estimate that it's much, much higher temperature before we cross that threshold.
But we're not sure.
We know from the past that when carbon dioxide was not even as high as today, 130,000 years ago, sea level rose much higher than today because of significant melting of the Greenland ice sheet and the West Antarctic ice sheet.
And so we know that the Earth is capable of doing this.
It responds very rapidly when carbon dioxide is at a high temperature.
It just takes centuries.
And in our time scale, that seems like a long time.
But we could cross that temperature.
For example, the risk of crossing this threshold is some of the estimates the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has for the end of this century.
So we could cross that if it was the low-end estimate.
of when we would cross that point where we would initiate long-term melting of significant portions of the Greenland ice sheet and contribution from the West Antarctic ice sheet.
What would New York City look like with a 23-foot change?
The lower Manhattan area, a lot of that would be compromised.
Maybe some people have seen some of the simulations in the movie Which Al Gore in Inconvenient Truth had these simulations, and that's taking a 20-foot sea elevation and just running that over Manhattan.
It would take, now mind you, and it was said in the movie in a voiceover, that it would take centuries for this to happen.
It's not going to happen overnight, but that would show you that you would have parts of lower Manhattan that would be flooded, parts of the Potomac Running into D.C.
would be flooded.
But more importantly, the worst cases of flooding would happen in Louisiana.
The huge portions of the area around New Orleans and to the left and right of that area, you could lose significant parts of southern Louisiana.
And Florida, all the Florida Keys would be inundated, big portions of southern Florida with that type of sea level rise.
Not the entire continent.
We'd have to move inland.
And this has happened in the past.
It's just that we didn't have a lot of people and a lot of high-dollar real estate sitting in the way of sea-level rise.
That's right.
All right.
There are those who are sending me messages and indeed we're seeing Mars is warming.
Other planets are warming as well and people are suggesting that that's the cause of warming here on Earth.
That all of the planets appear to be warming.
Certainly Mars is.
Do you have any comments on that?
Sure.
There's a very easy way we can check whether it's external, the Sun, driving this change.
And we have several ways of checking this.
First of all, we have measurements of the sun's energy on the ground over the past century, and we see that relative to the other climate drivers, it hasn't changed too much.
It's wiggled around, but it's not that much of a change compared to longer time in the past where it was the king.
It drove everything.
And so we have that.
The other aspect is that If you have sunlight coming in, and if it were getting warmer, say from the sun, say, you know, we had problems with our senses on the ground, and we have a lot of measurements in the stratosphere and the lower part of the atmosphere, that's the upper part of the atmosphere, and we have the lower part of the atmosphere where all the weather occurs, that's called the troposphere, and the entire atmosphere would warm up from this warming from the external warmth of the sun coming into our atmosphere, warming it up.
What we see is because we have heat-trapping gases that are trapping the longer-wave radiation of heat, that the planet warms up, it comes back as long-wave radiation, and these heat-trapping gases are transparent to the high-energy sunlight coming in.
It goes through, the heat warms up the Earth, sends it back as longer-wave radiation, and that's when these heat-trapping gases trap the heat.
What we see is that the stratosphere is cooling Because that heat that normally would go back out and warm both the troposphere, where the weather occurs, and then further up in the atmosphere, that is no longer, it's not happening as much because it's trapping so much heat.
So we have a cooler stratosphere than it would be if we weren't trapping so much heat.
And so that's how we know that it's not coming from the sun.
And you would see on Mars and these other planets, they have different types of atmospheric concentrations and so on.
And so we know that it's not the sun that is driving most of the recent changes that we've seen.
It's mostly driven by heat-trapping gases and some of our pollutants.
And whenever we have volcanic explosions that temporarily cool the Earth for a couple years and then it bounces back once those little particulate matters are washed out of our atmosphere.
Why is there, maybe you can answer this, I'm sure you run into it all the time, but there is so much anger out there when what you're suggesting is presented to people.
And I think it has to do with guilt, perhaps, because of the lifestyle we lead.
I'm not sure, but there's a lot of anger.
That's right.
I think that, for example, I don't want to change my ways.
I want to be able to live the way I've been living.
I just would hope that we could implement The technologies that are necessary to put us on the right path towards sea production.
Since I know that they already exist, I have hope.
It's just where I lose hope sometimes is when I see that we don't have the political will to make full use of them.
And I know that climate change sometimes can seem overwhelming, but for me, I have hope because if we weren't part of the problem, then we would only have nature driving this, and our only choice would be to be adapting.
Right.
And what gives me hope is because we're driving the climate so much, and we've had such dramatic change, and we're on the beginning part of this rising curve that I know can get much, much hotter, I know that if we stop it now, then we have a chance of changing this.
And in my mind, it's irresponsible to saddle our children with this problem.
So, if we turn it around, and we have the chance to turn it around, I understand that people may think that it's You have to change your behavior.
The reality is that we as individual consumers have not as many choices as I would like out there.
If we were to flip on the light switch and have it be a smart sensor switch that knows that when I walk in the room it turns on and when I walk out it automatically turns off, I don't even have to change my behavior.
This turning on and off the light switch, you know, sometimes I'm forgetful or whatever, with an automatic sensor, It does the work for you.
If we have more energy efficient appliances that engineers can design, then it takes, it gives us as consumers more choices.
If we have cars that are sporty, are attractive, can carry the number of people that we have for our personal, if we have, you know, a lot of people we cart around and we want a larger car that can still get further down the road on a gallon of whatever fuel that we have in the future that would be perhaps a renewable fuel.
Then we're not changing our lifestyle, it's just we have many more choices when we go out there to purchase our goods.
Because right now I would be angry too if I hear these potential changes happening and yet I don't have many ways as an individual, we cannot turn around as individuals because we only have what consumer energy, consumer choices that we have out there are limited because we have not implemented all the solutions that are out there.
and other countries are starting to
uh... take initiative and our country are starting to have business leaders
that are saying wow i need to change my way
and i'm investing money to reduce my heat trapping gases and then they're
reaping a lot of cost savings and making their businesses run more efficiently because in
fact we're so wealthy as a nation that we don't even notice how
much we're wasting Some people believe that science could pull a rabbit out of the hat.
and our electricity bills to run our businesses, we can afford it.
And so we don't even realize that there's more energy efficient ways.
And personally, I'd rather have that money in my pocket and spend it on other things.
All right.
Some people believe that science could pull a rabbit out of the hat.
There's some idea for reflective mirrors in the stratosphere that we could put up these
mirrors and reflect the sun's energy, therefore cooling the earth, not letting as much sun
Is there anything like that out there?
That's right.
Many people are trying to think of ways, how can we engineer our way out of this and still maybe pump out our heat-trapping gases?
So, it would be a good idea if sunlight was the only concern.
The fact that one of the major heat-trapping gases Perhaps the biggest culprit is carbon dioxide because it lingers in the atmosphere so long and it's the major contributor.
It is something that interacts with the ocean and becomes absorbed as a gas in the ocean and there's a couple reactions that go on, chemical reactions that make it change into a form that is available for marine shell-forming organisms at the base of the food chain.
Those floating plankton and those little organisms that form their shell material out of This carbon that's dissolved in the ocean.
And right now the ocean is very basic.
What we've done is we've changed it and made it slightly more acidic.
So the pH has changed about 0.1 unit, 0.01 unit over the recent time frame because of our excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
So basically we're acidifying the ocean.
So if you have these reflectors, Stopping the sunlight, you might be able to cool the temperature, but we would keep acidifying the ocean if we kept pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
And if you acidify the ocean to a certain point where these shells can no longer form their shells, then you really have ocean chaos, because you have eroded the base of the food chain.
And then we have the concomitant, or worsening effect, because we are also overfishing.
The top part and the predators.
Maybe you heard about the sharks recently.
We're losing some of our top predators and that's cascading effects down the food chain.
So this type of stress on the oceans is something that has oceanographers and marine biologists very alarmed because that type of fix wouldn't solve the ocean problem.
And we really wouldn't want to acidify the ocean to a point where The base of the food chain couldn't form their shelf.
Speaking of the ocean, of course we went through Katrina.
That's fresh in everybody's mind.
The ocean gets warmer and I understand what drives these hurricanes and typhoons.
I spent last year in Manila in the Philippines and boy, while Florida got off easy and the whole U.S.
got off easy in terms of hurricanes, A typhoon after typhoon after typhoon slammed into us in the Philippines where I was, and it was a rough, rough year for typhoons.
Now, what's going to happen if we get to this tipping point with regard to storms?
They're going to get larger, aren't they?
Well, what we see is that there is evidence that over the past, since we've had satellites, and you bring up a very good point, I think in the U.S.
Media did not cover as much those typhoons.
They might have been on the back page, right?
That's right.
Even though we had a calmer, an average year in the Atlantic for hurricanes, where you are, they're called, it's the same type of storm, they're just called a different name, typhoons.
The oceans, you know, worldwide, we have about the same number that happen, okay, each year.
It's about 90 plus or minus 10 that happen worldwide each year.
The disturbing trend is that we're seeing that over the last 30 years that we've seen an increasing in the intensity of those storms.
So the number hasn't really shifted.
It's just the intensity.
So we have more category, like maybe a tropical storm might now be a typhoon or a hurricane.
And so this is a double whammy for coastal residents because you have higher sea levels and now your storm surges are getting bigger and you may have Increasing intensity of these storms.
What we've seen in the Atlantic, if you just look at hurricane landfall, you'll see just kind of a random pattern.
Luckily, in the Atlantic Ocean, we have only, say, 12% of the world's storms occur in the Atlantic.
And then only a tiny fraction of those really make landfall.
So, we have the statistics on our side.
It's just, unfortunately, when it's a big storm, like we've experienced, that have hit Florida, or have hit the Gulf Coast, Um, a big, one big storm can have devastating consequences.
That's something to keep an eye for.
What I saw in the Pacific last year was absolutely amazing, and there was a little bit of it the prior year in the Atlantic.
And that was, what was one day a tropical storm or a tropical depression, you'd take a good night's sleep, get up the next day, and it would have gone from a tropical depression to a Category 4.
And then the next day, it was Category 5.
I saw some pretty strange things we all did in the Atlantic the prior year, but last year in the Pacific, trust me, there were, I can't tell you how many storms went from tropical storm to Category 4 and then 5 that fast.
And I wonder if that's what we're looking at times a few if we get to that tipping point.
From the high desert, I'm Art Bell.
It is, and I hope you're listening carefully.
Dr. Brenda Eckersill is my guest, and she's talking about global warming, what it's going to mean to us, and in a moment perhaps we'll talk a little about the human health consequences, possible consequences, perhaps emerging diseases, things that will begin to appear where they have not before, little things, just the little things, that we might start seeing very soon if this continues.
We'll be right back.
Doctor, in recent years there have been a lot of emerging diseases that have kind of surprised people.
If the earth continues to warm, is that going to be a problem that's going to be exacerbated?
What we do see is that with warming we're starting to see a change in how the diseases are spreading in different areas.
For example, we see that certain mosquitoes or ticks that carry Certain aspects of them that are harmful to humans, they extend their range.
And this includes, for example, agricultural pests.
For example, if you live in a northern climate, your winters, having that frost, that frozen temperature in the winter, really keeps some pests in check.
But if you start having milder winters and you start Having perhaps rodents that might carry the hentivirus, and you have perhaps some other disease vectors, these carriers of these diseases, lasting through that winter and then coming back as pests that plague a farmer.
Or the hentivirus, people with the mouse cleaning up in their barn or whatever or anywhere, there was an outbreak of hentivirus in the southwest that Was linked to milder winter temperatures and so on.
And when they're starting to see in other parts of the world that that is breaking out more.
Malaria is changing its distribution pattern in parts of Africa and other parts of the world.
We're starting to see that the aspects of smog formation, which when you have higher summer temperatures and you have the volatiles that are coming out of the tailpipes of your cars, It's this combination that creates this smog and that creates a lot of stress on people who have cardiopulmonary disease.
And so you have a lot more...we've...incredible increase in the incidence of asthma attacks driving people to the hospital during these hot summer days.
You see this...it's one of the leading reasons perhaps children may be going to the children's hospital, say, in the Oakland area.
Or other urban areas of our nation.
We see that.
And so these type of stresses, additional stresses, and one of the more just common irritants that we all are noticing is that the seasons, we have season creep.
And so that means that the spring may be coming earlier.
We have these things coming into bloom.
We have a longer spring.
There's more pollen loading.
And so the common allergies that people suffer from And the amount of pollen that is brought into our environment are becoming more and more of a problem that is perhaps just a minor irritant, but to some it's really, you know, a major... A very major... A major season, yes.
It really compromises your energy and everything.
It's not life-threatening, but it's just one of those, as you say, some of these health aspects that compromise our lives a little bit.
It sure did shock me how quickly West Nile moved across the country.
Yes, that's something that Had really spread very fast.
And what we're starting to see is that there are mosquitoes that are appearing for the first time up in Alaska and parts of Canada.
And so they're moving.
They're on the move.
And if it's warmer, we're seeing all the species are starting to shift and move and come out earlier in the spring and unroll their leaves, start their buds, lay their eggs.
The fish are migrating earlier.
We see cold water fish species being replaced by warmer water species.
This is affecting perhaps people who are sportsmen who like to fish, and they're seeing the change in the type of species that they're catching.
And also for the commercial fisheries, they're changing.
If you have your particular whole economic investment in fishing a certain type of fish that's off of your coast, and then now the species are changing, you might have to be changing all of your rigging and things like that.
It's just something that is undeniable.
No matter where you look, we have seen this rapid warming over the past several decades, and the species are responding.
They're trying to cope, and we also are noticing the changes in our own health, for example.
I suppose, Doctor, there's good news in this for somebody.
I mean, some colder climate is going to get warmer, and that's going to please some people somewhere.
That's right.
We are expected to have a longer growing season, and so parts of the northern parts of the United States, Canada, parts of northern Europe, parts of Russia and different places are going to be able to grow crops that they weren't able to grow before.
And agriculture can take advantage of this with a little bit of warming.
We see that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has projected that with, say, a little bit of warming, you might have increased growing seasons in parts of the world And crop productivity increasing, but dramatic declines in the tropics and subtropics.
And there are many, many people who live in those parts of the world and depend on their livelihood growing some of those crops.
And so that will decline.
And then if you get too hot, even those of us in the more northerly latitudes, mid-latitudes and higher, our crop productivity in some areas with some crops would start suffering as well.
So, you kind of don't want to get too hot before things get That all over the world.
If nothing changes, Doctor, how soon is it going to be apparently uncomfortable for a lot of people?
Well, what we see is that no matter what, we have another degree Fahrenheit of warming in the pipeline.
And that, to put that in perspective, this is global average temperature.
That means that that's the same amount of warming that we had happen over the last century.
And this will happen over the next few decades, so it's a little faster.
And when we say global average temperature, that means the oceans, the land, everything all added up.
That's just a small change.
We, who live in the Northern Hemisphere, and on land, and if you're in the interior of the continent, you have much higher local average temperatures going up.
And if you're in the Arctic, you are really, really warming up.
The polar bears and the ring seal and the people who are living up there will see dramatic changes.
And we, ourselves, where the United States is located, and especially Alaska, the Alaska residents will see more rapid warming than we will in the lower 48.
And so we're parts of the world that will see a lot of change.
and so when you see that type of heat you gotta up the local temperatures much more for the
average temperature well for example to try to see the area
okay go ahead I'm sorry we could get people from Alaska on here now and they
would tell you right now they're already seeing what they would describe as gigantic changes in their
climate Thank you.
That's right.
There are residents who live in Shishmaref, Alaska, a famous location now, in that they used to have sea ice offshore in the winter that would protect them from coastal storms that would whip up strong waves.
But they couldn't whip up waves.
The wind couldn't in the winter because there was ice covering the ocean off their shores.
Now, with the sea ice retreating, there are times of the year where these strong storms are coming through and they are creating these huge waves and creating storms that are eroding their shoreline at such a pace that people are going to have to relocate.
And there's talk about relocating the entire community of Shishmaref.
They're already at their own personal tipping point, so to say.
Is this a situation where people could ignore their government and the government's policies and make individual changes that would add up to something meaningful?
Fluorescence, if everybody were to change their bulbs and we all know they're out there and you can get them, they're still a little bit expensive compared to the average light bulb, would that be enough?
It would go a long way toward making a big difference, but it would not be enough.
We want to create more choices and so that's where we need perhaps national actions to give more choices across the board and to make it easier.
But for example, if every American household did replace just one incandescent light bulb, The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that that would reduce global warming emissions that would be equivalent to taking about 800,000 cars off the road.
It would be equivalent to what those guys in that sector emit.
And so that's a huge, huge impact.
So if you replace two, then that starts you down on the path.
For example, if we start meaningful reductions, if each of us could figure out, say, what we could cut back, say, 4% a year, Then that means that you replace a lightbulb one year, and the next year you replace another lightbulb, and then you figure out ways to drive your car a little differently, or one day a week carpool, and that immediately drops a significant amount what your personal footprint is.
And so it does add up.
But the unfortunate thing is that when you go and buy a car, I personally wouldn't want to have a lot more choices out there when I'm choosing my next car, because that's one of the big sectors of what we emit because for example if we were to have fuel-efficient
cars that can cut heat-trapping pollution by 40% in 10 years we have that off-the-shelf
technology that would really put us well down the road towards meaningful
reductions that could save create avoid some of the worst effects that we have
already talked about today. Why are we not doing it doctor?
I think we just don't have the political will to make full use of
these technologies.
For example, if you took all the available technologies, some of our engineers have said, OK, look at the cars out there, look at all the technologies that are available.
Let's combine them together and try to make a fuel-efficient car.
And it's possible.
You can basically create, you can add another gear to the car and make a much more fuel-efficient car.
You can have a unibody that would make the car stronger, but also lighter.
Lighter materials.
You can get a lot further down the road.
One of the things, a personal solution you could do is if you kept your tires properly inflated.
It's one of the easiest ways to improve mileage by up to 3%.
Because there's friction as you're rolling down the highway that the engine has to overcome when you have an under-inflated tire.
That's again a waste of energy.
Your engine's having to overcome that friction.
So if you keep your tires fully inflated, that reduces the friction and you have nice smooth rolling down the highways with less fuel being burned up.
Also, I just watched a program earlier today on wind energy, and it looks to be at least a partially viable solution.
I guess the down point is that it's not as reliable as you would want it to be, but if we had wind generators scattered all over the western U.S., for example, it seems to me as though the wind's always blowing someplace or another.
That's right.
I mean, that is something that we have that's free to us.
I mean, how we harness it isn't quite free, but instead of sending our dollars overseas for expensive oil that we do not have in our country at the same level of what we burn every year, we're importing so much, the wind and the sun are free to us.
And in fact, if you had Death Valley, we should harness some of that sun energy.
If you were to harness the energy of wind and sun in the United States That would meet all the projected energy demands that we have over the next coming decades, easily.
We have so much energy that we just aren't harnessing right now.
And some of the utility engineers are coming up with ways for wind energy.
If you orient the wind turbines in all the different directions to capture wind, whatever direction it's blowing in a certain field, you can harness wind for longer.
And then, at the nighttime, when there's less wind that tends to blow at night, during the day, if you were to pump up water up a hill, and then, at nighttime, let it run down through pipes and have it be a hydropower, that's a way that you could have energy from wind, basically, 24-7.
Because you use the excess wind from a very windy day, pump up water uphill, the excess energy that's not being demanded during the day, and then let that water run downhill, and you generate hydropower at night.
And that's a way of storing some of the excess energy generated during the day from the sun, you know, heating up the surface and wind blowing across our land.
And so wind energy is something that is something we can take more use of right now.
It's such a tiny, tiny percentage, just a few percent of our national energy is from wind.
But states, many states across the nation are increasing their renewable energy standard to try to, some say, Let's have 20% of our electricity, when we turn on the lights, come from renewable energy, whatever that may be.
Geothermal, wind energy, solar energy, as long as it's renewable.
That every year we can harness new energy from the sun or the wind or from geothermal.
Well, you take my state as an example.
Here in Nevada, about 90% of Nevada is federally owned land.
And rather remote, and I don't think people would object too much to wind generators and we get plenty of wind, or to a lot of land being covered with solar panels.
And we get, I don't know how many days of sun every year, but it's a lot.
And so this state could be turned into a wind generation and solar generation bonanza for the country.
I just can't understand why we're not doing it.
It's amazing because it creates so many jobs here at home because we really need to have people that would maintain these wind turbines.
You have to build the wind turbines and so on, and that creates jobs here at home.
We have so much outsourcing problems as it is, and that's homegrown energy, which is really a nice thing.
the other aspect of that andy's more remote areas where people may not
cd when turban so on or the solar panels that are generating all this energy
that create situation where one state can supply energy for other states that
may be had more densely populated may not want to have in their backyard
and for the became situation where if we have distributed energy
all throughout the nation that we have many many people are starting to
farmers are starting to take this is my retirement by the people put wind turbines i've seen and you've
unit to you i've seen cattle grazing on land where there's a wind turbine in such a
small footprint on the ground
and the cattle have really almost all the all the land to graze upon
It's just there's wind turbines above them and so it's a multi-use situation for people who have a lot of land.
So it boils down to political will really.
Our government certainly has the money.
Our nation has the wealth.
We can do this.
It's just a matter of the will.
That's right and I think that I think we have to move beyond the science of global warming and really unleash the engineers who can figure out the science of solving this problem and be like the Manhattan Project and figure out how are we going to figure out some of the really new, neat, fun ways of figuring out energy in the future.
I just was reading an article people are harnessing sugars to maybe create energy that we might be able to just... enough energy in a In a carbonated beverage that could recharge our cell phones.
I mean, they're coming up with all sorts of things.
It's just amazing what types of smart gadgets we're going to have in the future.
And we could go hiking in the desert and be able to recharge our, perhaps some of our aspects of what we would need just with some simple chemical fuel cells that we'd be bringing with us.
Well, the science on global warming seems settled.
It really does seem almost like a settled science now.
It's really happening.
But it's not settled among the general public.
I mean, as I look at some of the messages I'm getting on my computer, it's obvious that a lot of people, and I think again it has to do with this guilt factor, that's all I can figure, but an awful lot of the general public is not settled about this at all.
Why do you think that is?
Well, I think there's several factors.
One is it's It is sort of a strange thing, and a lot of the more scary impacts are further off, so we don't tend to plan for the future often.
We like to think about the here and now, so that's a little challenging.
But the other aspect is that I think the public has been given mixed messages about the science, and so we can talk about that, but if you have government scientists who aren't able to talk freely to the public about their new findings, and that the science has become very clear over the past five to ten years, Um, and then you have also companies, um, perhaps other people who are in fair and balanced reporting, reporting both sides of the science and obscuring the truth.
Then the public is understandably confused, and I would be too if I didn't study this.
All right, doctor.
Hold it right there.
When we come back, we'll find out what some of the public actually thinks about all this, and I think you'll be quite surprised.
Dr. Brenda Ekwerzel is my guest.
She is a scientist.
She says it's happening.
I believe it's happening.
In a moment, you'll have your say.
Well, it's true.
Our scientists have to be able to tell the truth to the people, directly to the people.
Certainly, if our government is not going to absorb and disseminate the information, then the people have got to get it directly from the scientists, as you're hearing this morning.
Otherwise, you're going to end up with a whole lot of misinformation and disinformation out there.
So I hope you're listening very closely this morning.
Dr. Brenda Ekwerzel is my guest.
She knows what she's talking about.
If you've got a good question for her, that's coming right up.
Alright, Doctor, just before we go to the lines, By Computer Mike in Rochester, New York asks, subjectively, how accurate do you believe Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, which I just saw because it's now on the pay channels, how accurate do you feel it was?
I would say it's like going to a global warming class, and I'd say about 90% of it is accurate.
Some of the impressions that people are left with is, for example, the sea level rise, as if that might happen rapidly, and that would happen over centuries.
And so there's that impression, and many people miss, that Al Gore's voiceover is saying it would take a very long time, centuries, for the sea level rise.
But so people might walk out with a wrong impression, given the visual of sea level rise coming over Manhattan.
Um, that type of thing, or showing polar bears swimming.
It's still the, the, the science of that is not completely in what the polar bear situation is.
There are some initial studies that are looking quite dire.
So some of the impressions, um, might be off by maybe 10% when you leave the movie.
But, uh, in general, all the science was he worked with the scientists and the, at that time, the available science, when that movie was made, the graphs and everything, they're all accurate.
Okay, let's do it then.
Here we go.
Michael in Sacramento, California.
You're on the air.
Good morning, Art, and good morning, Dr. Equisol.
Good to talk to you.
Art, I have a couple of questions for the doctor.
Fire away.
But before I go, I want to tell you that I've been listening to Art Bell since he first came over the hill and went national.
In my opinion, you are the best interviewer on the radio.
Very kind, thank you.
Lastly though, I have never heard a softball interview from Art Bell the way I heard tonight.
Well, it may be because I agree with the doctor and I'm sure since you've been listening that long you're fully aware that I agree with her.
Absolutely, 100% and you're entitled to do that, but I do have a couple of questions that I'd like to put forward here.
Fire away!
Okay, Dr. Equisole, we have talked a couple of times about the I'd like to know what she has to say about Dr. Chris Lancey, the Hurricane Research Division Atlantic Oceanic and Meteorological Laboratory from NOAA, who resigned from the IPCC because he personally could not, in good faith, continue to contribute to the process that was motivated by preconceived agendas and was scientifically unsound.
Yeah.
Does the doctor have a response to his comment?
Yes.
Well, Chris Landese does incredible work on hurricane research, especially in the United States, their history.
He's reconstructing historic records of hurricanes, and his research is really wonderful research.
And the IPCC has the benefit of all scientists that want to participate in the process.
I can participate and he can submit his complaints.
It's all transparent.
And the review of all the scientists going through this process, everyone who wants to be able to see the record, it's on record with the international body in Switzerland.
And what we see is that if you wanted to see what his comments were and so on and what he had and what his concerns were, You can see all that.
And I don't know the exact details.
I do know that at the time that that happened, that was when some of the early papers were coming out that were talking about some of the links between historical observations of hurricane trends.
And he said that some of the historical data, without going beyond, if you don't include
trends that were before the satellite era, which we have the best data since the satellites
were aloft worldwide, that he said you couldn't make these long-term statements or say that
if you only have 30 years of data, you can't say any statements.
And many of the statements that came out in the final IPCC limit themselves to the 30
years do not make a long-term statement, so I think he did have an impact.
And so it's at the edge of our understanding, the hurricane research, and so that's science
Well, okay, with regard to the hurricane research, your comments regarding the Al Gore movie was that they were basically sound.
Dr. William Gray, who is an emeritus professor from Colorado State, argues against the idea that heat-trapping gases are causing the world to warm And that Gore is a gross alarmist with regards to the hurricane processes.
Do you have a comment on that?
Right, and that's in that 10% that I told you about, in that the hurricane research is at the... We're watching this unfold, and the media is paying attention to the journals as they're published.
Every new paper on the hurricanes, we pay attention to, and that's the process over the long term.
We want to have much longer term data to pronounce That maybe this is something that's for the textbooks.
This is at the edge of our knowledge.
It's still a debate on the hurricane research.
And going forward, we don't know if, for example, a strong El Nino, which is Will Gray's specialty, talking about wind shear, when, for example, in the Atlantic, you have a hurricane starting off of the coast of Africa and then ready to go heading westward.
You could have wind shear just nip these in the bud during the years, several months following a strong El Nino year in the Pacific.
And what we see is that if you have conditions that nip these in the bud, then you wouldn't have a hurricane growing.
If the wind shear is not happening up on high and you have much warmer oceans from heat-trapping gases, then those are the conditions that favor hurricane growth and intensification.
Or, if you have warm seas in the Pacific and you have typhoons growing, as Art Bell was saying, very rapidly because it's a fuel to the hurricane.
is warm moist airs and so on.
And so we have to wait for the scientific process on hurricane research to decide whether
or not going forward it will continue what happened in the last 30 years.
Well, it's pretty clear that there are a lot of parameters available to be perturbed in
order to make that model work.
That's right.
And global climate models cannot model a hurricane.
They have to go to smaller scale models.
And so this is at the cutting edge of research.
And we have to wait to see how this develops.
And the IPCC is the process saying, we saw some of these studies, it's not completely, if you look at the language for the Atlantic, it's very softened compared to what the individual studies say, and it doesn't say anything about the Pacific, and so on.
So I think that the influence of scientists such as The ones you mentioned have had an influence on how confident the statements that ended up in the final IPCC, and I encourage everyone to look at those and see that it's not as strong as what some of the individual journal articles are publishing because that's still at the cutting edge of research.
Well, Doctor, if you would help me with this.
Based on your comments just now, it seems to me that in 2005 we were predicting a disastrous hurricane season in 2006, which really didn't happen.
What I'm saying is that it seems like we had a one-year forward prediction that was totally inaccurate, yet we are really putting all of our eggs in a basket on a climate model that predicts 50 years into the future.
Okay, that's a good one.
I'm gonna have to ask you to hold it there, but I hope you feel you had your say.
I do, Art, and thank you very much, and we'll continue to listen even if you go back over to Vegas.
He's right.
They got it totally wrong for that year, Doctor.
Yes.
Well, this is the difference between making projections.
Climate models would never make a projection for the next year like the NOAA forecasters are.
That's a different level of projection.
The climate models are saying, worldwide, we're seeing this trend over the period of 30 years.
We're seeing this increase.
And the climate scientists would never make a year-ahead projection.
Now, the meteorologists have the unfortunate task of trying to figure out what type of season it might be, and I wouldn't want to be in that business, but they are very good when storms are projecting.
They can track it and know exactly where it's going to land pretty close, very, very close.
And they're trying to improve the models on getting the intensity of the storms.
They're much further off on the intensity and trying to revise the model so it includes the ocean temperatures more incorporated into those type of models.
So, it's a very different goal.
Protecting citizens when a storm is forming.
And so what we did see is that worldwide the Atlantic was calmer, but the Pacific was, there were typhoons that were pummeling into parts of Asia that were devastating.
Absolutely unbelievable.
We didn't pay attention to it in the U.S.
We are U.S.
centric with looking at hurricanes.
You're absolutely right.
All right, John in Palm Springs, California, you're on the air.
Boy, are you kind to take my call?
And, Doctor, I survived Katrina with it over my head in New Orleans, in mid-city New Orleans, Louisiana, and then Rita followed me to Houston, and there I survived Rita with it over my head.
I have a follow-up there, if you will allow me, but let me get more quickly to my question, and that is, Doctor, maybe I'm misunderstood, but I only heard quickly last hour You mentioned, I heard a fragment about some area or city, you know, considering relocation.
And what was that?
That was a city that is up in Alaska that is being pummeled by storms that they normally, in the wintertime, they have sea ice protecting them from ocean storms that are stronger in the wintertime, you know, the fall and the spring and stuff like that.
Moving back further away from shore, those winter storms can kick up waves that would hit them.
Unfortunately, you living in a lower latitude where your ocean would never freeze over, you're exposed to storms whenever they would be coming through.
Funny enough, yeah, good point.
But at least, you know, even if I was wrong thinking you may have been speaking about New Orleans, which would have been absurd, but I'm on a learning curve here.
You just informed me and enlightened me of the true area that you were speaking of, and I'm glad I called and asked that question.
May I say this?
It's funny, if you'll allow me, but surviving both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, I claim that makes me an evacuee-wee.
Okay, well, congratulations.
Sarah in New York, you're on the air.
Hi Art.
Hi Doctor.
You mentioned that scientists were not allowed to talk to the public.
She said that's tempered a little bit.
She said that some of what the scientists are saying is being tempered.
Right.
And I saw a Senate or a Congressional hearing on C-SPAN not two months ago about that very issue.
And testifying was that scientist from NASA, I believe his name was Dr. Hansen.
But anyway, he was testifying, and the consensus was that this current Bush administration was ordering that he be silent.
And I was wondering if the good doctor saw that hearing?
Heard of it?
Is she aware of it?
Yes, there have been several hearings on Congress ever since the 110th Congress came into starting
its session in January.
There have been several hearings on this very issue of scientific integrity in the federal
agencies and James Hansen is a respected climate scientist at NASA and he was concerned because
some of his public statements were starting to be scrutinized by the public affairs official.
In response to the public outcry because of this and people calling attention to it, most
of all James Hansen, Dr. Hansen's situation has improved because NASA has changed their
media policy and they are working to improve their scientists' ability to be able to talk
So calling attention to this problem, which was unfortunate, is starting to change and I think that more people are going to be aware of the good science that is happening in our federal agencies more and more.
The websites will be updated and the words global warming might appear and climate change more frequently than perhaps they were perhaps edited out a little bit earlier.
And so the change, it is improving.
And it's not just climate science.
There were FDA scientists, Fish and Wildlife Service scientists, many different agencies that they had particular issues if it was around politically sensitive areas.
Climate change is one of them.
Another sensitive area is human health and with Food and Drug Administration approvals of drugs.
And another area is endangered species.
And so these particular scientists that happen to be in these politically sensitive, their results may have political sensitivity.
It's just been, they've been feeling the pressure.
And so, the hue and cry against that has started to be a louder voice, and Congress is having hearings on this, and hopefully there'll be laws that protect the scientists, and they will be clear to scientists what the media policy is.
And every scientist has the right, as a private citizen, to say, okay, now I'm taking off my NASA hat, and this is my personal opinion as a scientist, but also as a citizen, But here's my NASA hat, and this is the science.
Either way, it's the same.
It's just that, you know, you might feel that you want to have self-censorship because you're afraid of consequences.
You want to remove that so that people aren't self-censoring as well.
Okay.
Edward in Shell Beach, California.
You're on the air with Dr. Ekwerzel.
Yes.
Good morning, Art.
Good morning, Doctor.
As a student of Earth science, I have real questions about some of the hypothesized models that have been used lately, because I'm looking at the hard data right now on my computer screen from the National Ice Core Lab, and I've been studying this for quite some time.
It appears the Earth basically has about a 27,000-year ice age cycle, followed by perhaps every three to four cycles approximately 120,000-year peak cycles.
And when I'm looking at the data right in front of me, both the CH4, which is the methane, and the CO2 levels were quite higher than they are now in the last three main peak cycles, and even the last, the fourth cycle, at approximately 120,000 years ago, 240,000 years ago, 360,000 years ago, and 420,000 years ago.
240,000 years ago, 360,000 years ago, and 420,000 years ago.
The data I've looked at shows that the CO2 and the methane levels lag the temperature
by about 300 to 600 years.
And I would hypothesize that this is the fact that, you know, it's a basic chemistry fact and physics fact that when you have rising temperature levels, more gases are evolving, more gases are being transpired by plants and animals, and more gases are being released from soil and the ocean.
And I'd like to see what the doctor says about that.
Sure.
Thank you for your question.
One aspect of looking at ice cores and where they end is that if you look at carbon dioxide, it's bounced between 300 parts per million and a low of 180 parts per million through all those ice age cycles.
Right now we're at 380 parts per million above.
So we are much higher than it's been over the past 650,000 years today.
What we do see is looking at those changes When you look at an ice core, it has trapped ancient air, and air is well-mixed in the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide, methane, it's well-mixed.
Temperature in an ice core is that local temperature where you took the ice core, because that's the isotopes in the oxygen and hydrogen.
I don't want to go into that, but locally, the temperature of that snow as it fell.
uh... and and that is the local temperature we would need to have all
the ice cores and many other temperature records all around the world to be able
to reconstruct a global average temperature in the past which is much
harder uh... than just the atmosphere so if you look at the
atmosphere and you look at that
global and then you're looking at comparing with local temperature
i hear the music so we can perhaps answer this for a little bit
Okay, well, anyway, I think you hit it right between the eyes.
Between 180 and 300, you said, over the 650,000 last years, and we're currently at 380.
Is that right?
over the 650,000 last years and we're currently at 380, is that right?
That's right.
Well, that answers it for me, all right.
Doctor, hold tight right where you are.
We've got one more segment to go, and I appreciate your staying up this late with me.
Dr. Brenda Eckwerzel is my guest.
She really does know what she's talking about.
If you've got a question that bears on what we're discussing, a very, very serious matter for the whole world, you know the numbers.
Here I am.
My guest is Dr. Brenda Eckersall, and she's laying it out very carefully for you.
Global warming is real.
What's happening around the world right now is real.
Now, any small weather matter, whether it's a hurricane or whether it's, you know, hot today or cold today, is not what we're talking about.
We're talking about a worldwide temperature hike that's going to continue unless we change our ways and the implications of that, which are quite severe and rather immediate in the larger scheme of things.
Rather immediate.
We'll be right back.
Doctor, we're a very young country in the larger scheme of things when you look around the world, and we tend to think of things, I don't know, in terms of our own lifetime 10 years from now, 20 years maybe, and mostly not more than next year.
That's what we really have to change, isn't it?
Yes, it's important to think about our consequences that have long-term implications.
I kind of think about Climate change and thinking about the consequences is kind of like starting to save for your retirement when you're 60 and trying to hope you can catch up or something and hope that you can, you know, not be bagging groceries because you started at 60.
So it's the catch-up factor is something that is difficult to comprehend because I know I often, you know, myself want to avoid some things that, you know, take some challenge to do.
Luckily, I think that some of the stuff is common sense and makes sense from energy security and having homegrown jobs and things like that, that also help the climate.
So I think that that does give me hope because everyone probably will benefit if some of these solutions started getting enacted on a more rapid pace.
Are you aware of the recent executive order prohibiting any NASA or NOAA scientists to speak out publicly or privately as information regarding the climate or atmosphere is now considered, in quotes, national security?
No, is this a new?
It is fairly new, yes.
Wow, that's... Well, we know that there has been, you know, interference in the past and we're hoping that things get better because essentially Science that has been manipulated, we've seen on subjects as diverse as childhood lead poisoning, some of the toxic mercury emissions, some of the endangered species, workplace safety, we've seen over the past few years and so many, many scientists are calling for much more transparency and to restore the scientific integrity of the federal agencies because these are really good scientists and we're spending a lot of good money on innovative research that
In the past, the U.S.
investment in science has brought a lot of economic process and public health and gains and everything.
Well, you're right about one thing.
It definitely is a matter of national security, but not to be kept quiet.
Scott, in New York City, you're on the air.
Good morning, Dr. Thank you for taking my call.
I have a question and I'll take your answer off the air.
I don't have a great connection here.
Given the amount of pollutants that our nation's power plants are pumping into the atmosphere, I hear everyone talking about alternative energy sources such as solar power, wind power, and I don't know honestly if that is realistic as an option to power our nation, but I don't hear in the conversation anyone talking about nuclear power, and should we not, as a nation, take another look At nuclear power, which would not.
It does create pollutants, but it's not pumping these gases into our atmosphere.
And I'm very curious to hear what you think about nuclear power as an option for our country.
Okay.
Alright, here it comes.
Doctor?
Sure, sure.
The first part of your question, you know, is renewable energy enough?
If we had a national policy where we had a 20% national renewable electricity standard, That would cut the growth in power plant carbon emissions by 60 percent.
So that's a significant chunk.
We have a lot of free energy, so to speak, from the sun and the wind that happens every year.
So that's something that's really important, and it's homegrown.
But with respect to nuclear power, we do have it as a portion of our national energy generation.
By far, coal-fired power plants generate the most of our electricity in our nation.
Nuclear is a smaller percentage.
And what we are seeing is that many people are looking at this.
Would this be something that we would want to increase a little bit and help with some of these solutions?
Because what we do have is non-proliferation concerns in that if we start reprocessing some of the fuel rods and so on, there are security issues.
That are very concerning.
If you hear a lot of the talk about other nations trying to start their own nuclear energy programs and a lot of the political security issues around all that, making sure that it's safe for energy generation and not something that's being used to generate nuclear weapons, that becomes a big, tricky issue politically.
And then the safety issue is something that we are concerned about because we still do not have a long-term repository for all the nuclear waste.
So right now they're in caskets at each of the nuclear power plants.
And one thing is that it will be part of the mix.
We want it to be safer.
We want it to be cost-effective because right now the cost of building and all the hurdles that are involved with building a nuclear power plant keep Wall Street from wanting to invest in it.
and so that would have to be lots of subsidies and perhaps on a level playing
field renewable energies look quite attractive because they don't create any
pollution at all they don't have a waste stream that's radioactive last
hundreds of thousands of years
so there are a lot of issues with nuclear power that have to be looked at and
people are looking at them seriously okay let's go to
Bruce in Los Angeles You're on the air with Dr. Edwards.
Yes, doctor.
They may be looking at it, but not doing anything about it, because Iran and North Korea already have the nuclear bombs.
Anyway, you mentioned scientific credibility.
This has nothing to do with science, in my opinion.
You mentioned satellites.
We had satellites back in 75, which actually is 30 years ago that you had mentioned.
Ironically, 30 years ago, We had all of the same players and institutions talking about global cooling and the next ice age, including the institution where you got your doctorate, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia in 1998, correct?
What we have is that there was a blip in recording some of the scientific research in some media articles.
And then the scientific, if you follow all the journal articles, then that was resoundingly rejected by the scientific community.
Well, if that's the case, then how do we know you're not going to be rejected?
Hold on, let her finish.
It was soundly rejected, she said.
Yes.
People were very concerned about the ice ages because there is a cycle, it looks like 20,000 years.
You go through a warm period over this past, say, million years.
And then you plunge back into an ice age because of the different aspect of the suns and the orbits, our relationship with the Earth in relation to the sun.
There's the orbital different aspect ratio that changes that sun's energy on the planet and drives ice age cycles primarily.
Dr. George Kukla, who is related to the same Lamont Dougherty at Columbia, has an exact opposite view and he started back in 75
talking about and still believes in the ice age.
So is Lamont-Dowerty basically an institution that should not be believed and has no credibility?
Well if you look at most of the scientists at Lamont-Dowerty Earth Observatory and what
they're talking about today, we have a lot of evidence about climate change that is much more
sophisticated than in the 70s and updating that information we find that we understand the
drivers of climate change to an unprecedented level and we are understanding that the climate
can shift much faster than we knew back in the 70s.
For example, there are rapid time changes in the past when during deglaciations we have very rapid changes in temperatures over Greenland, for example, that might happen over in just a decade and things like that.
But the broad picture that global warming is happening And that we are, as human activities, are having a profound influence on the climate today, on top of the natural cycles.
I would hazard to guess that most of the scientists you would talk to there would be in accord with that.
Okay.
Derek in Gig Harbor, Washington.
You're on there.
Well, good to be with you.
Thank you.
Sure.
I work as a firefighter, and this is something that's been bothering me since this has really picked up steam since Al Gore's movie.
They talk about rising CO2 levels, and part of my job is working with hazardous materials and the like, and we do air sampling and whatnot.
And since I've been involved in the fire service since 91, the oxygen level has been at 20.9 to 21 percent O2.
Now, when you burn something, it consumes oxygen.
As a matter of fact, it takes 140 molecules of oxygen to make 100 molecules of CO2.
So you would think that if you see CO2 levels go up X amount, you should see O2 levels decrease X amount plus another 40%, and that is not the case.
So the numbers aren't adding up to me, and I don't understand it, and nobody addresses it, and everyone just, you know, CO2 levels are rising.
Right.
It's a matter of proportion.
The nitrogen and oxygen in our atmosphere, they're huge, huge percentages of the gas that are in our atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide is a tiny, tiny little trace gas.
And it's kind of, it makes me, it's unbelievable to me that such a tiny, tiny thing can have such a huge impact because of its heat trapping ability.
But it is a large enough concentration in our atmosphere that it has that.
And there is someone who is starting to measure the oxygen at a very precise level and try to see the changes, and it makes sense with the changes of the carbon dioxide.
In fact, it is the son of the person who started those early measurements in Hawaii, a U.S.
scientist, a pair of them, who, one is measuring carbon dioxide, and now his son, the carbon dioxide is still measured.
His son started measuring oxygen precise levels, and what he finds is that it's entirely consistent With the carbon cycle and the oxygen and these small perturbations.
Because you have a big, big, big part of the atmosphere.
It's a very difficult task that he's doing.
But it all is self-consistent.
Right.
And the interesting thing about CO2, though, is, at least the way we work with it, is it's heavier than air.
It displaces oxygen.
So if you use a CO2 extinguisher on something in a confined space, you have to ventilate it out because it'll just sit there.
And that's right, that's why people can die if they have too much CO2.
Exactly.
So I kind of think my opinion on this thus far is this, that this is the first time where I can get on my computer and check real-time temperatures all across the world.
That's never happened before.
So I kind of think at this stage it's the equivalent of bringing the newborn home.
And it has never heard what it sounds like when somebody drops a plate.
And so, it hears a plate drop, it comes unglued, baby cries.
Until it learns that, oh, well, dropping a plate's a normal aspect of being in a house.
You know, where I'm at right now used to be under 5,000 feet of ice.
I've read recently that up in the Canadian Arctic, it used to be covered in ferns.
So, is it a normal abnormality, and it just happens to be that you can Get people to change a behavior that is socially unacceptable or whatever.
Because, I mean, let's be frank, you know, research scientists need porches too.
So everyone needs to, you know, pay the light bill and buy groceries and stuff.
So, you know, where's the lubrication of the gears taking place and why?
Well, one interesting aspect is when scientists figure out something that Once the sciences solve, for example, the ozone depletion, the ozone story, the funding, federal funding for that dropped because once we figured out that atmospheric chemistry and so on, and that has been dropping recently, so scientists move on to the next new greatest thing to figure out.
So they're just constantly curious people.
It's not a matter of, you know, this particular topic is something that gets money or anything.
It's more that they're curious about trying to figure out things that aren't known.
The stuff that's in the textbooks are global warming is happening.
Humans are having an impact on top of the natural cycles.
The stuff they're trying to figure out right now is what does that mean for hurricanes?
That's getting on a finer scale.
What does that mean for what would the temperature of New York City be at the end of the century?
This is a much finer scale and that's where they're They're figuring things out and having fun trying to figure this stuff out.
But the aspect of ice ages and so on, you don't take away the natural variability.
That's always ongoing.
What we've learned is what the climate is most sensitive to.
And so what we see is that with Milankovitch, who's figured out these ice age cycles and the atmospheric forcing, I mean the forcing from the sun, That right now we're in a period that it's like over 430,000 years ago where we had about a 30,000 year long interglacial period.
So we're about 18,000 years into our deglaciation so we have a lot more years before we would have to face another ice age it looks like based on the orbital parameters that the mathematicians have figured out.
So whatever we add on top of this warm period means we have to live with for a while because We're adding to the heat-trapping capacity and we are adding to the warmth of the planet while these natural cycles go on.
Okay.
Dan in Illinois, on the air with Dr. Eckwurzel.
Hi.
Well, good morning, Art.
I've listened to you for quite a few years, since the 80s, and good morning, Doctor.
I've got a question about how do you feel with the fact that the probability of the satellites that orbit our Earth are causing A disruption in the magnetic field, and that's why there's problems with our weather.
Okay, Dan.
That one I haven't heard before.
Now, perhaps a different question might be, Doctor, the launch vehicles that put these satellites into orbit, and of course our space shuttle and so forth and so on, there's a lot of launches going on.
Do they have an effect on climate?
Well, they do have an effect in that the fuel that they're burning, if it releases heat-trapping gases that become heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere, then they would be contributing to global warming.
Steve in California.
Time is short, but you're on the air with Dr. Eckwurzel.
Hi.
Hi, Art.
Hi, Doctor.
Art, you've heard of the guy who wrote the book, Not by Fire, but by Ice?
Yes.
I wonder if the doctor has heard of this guy and his book.
I'm not familiar with it.
Okay, well, from what I, all I know is what I hear on coast to coast.
And from what I understand, every ice age is preceded by a period of global warming.
And I would just, everyone's stolen all my thunder.
I just have a nano firecracker left.
That would be my only question, just what the doctor would have to say about that.
Alright, well we kind of already covered that, that is to say the ice ages, and what she's saying is that what we're doing right now is on top of any other natural cycle, including a natural ice age.
Am I correct, Doctor?
Yes, yes.
Charles in Florida, perhaps time for another one.
You're on the air.
Hi, just quickly, I had a question and a statement.
The question is, how does the doctor resolve the fact that Mars and the other planets are warming?
My statement is, in this narcissistic world, how are we to trust the scientific think tank community with over a billion dollar budget this year?
And then my suggestion would be to everyone, who wants to know the theory of everything, global warming, be simply explained to you.
Alright, we're back to something again we already covered, but Dr. E asks about the warming, the apparent warming on Mars.
Right, well there are, every planet has its own different types of atmospheres and so on, and then you have the energy from the Sun, and on our planet we have a much more complicated mix of things influencing our climate, and so what we have is we have the Sun's energy warming our planet, of course, And it warms other planets, but we also have on top of that aspect is that we are trapping excess heat, and so we're adding to the warming, and we also have sometimes on our planet that has shifting plates, we have volcanic explosions, which after a volcanic explosion that's very powerful and puts particulate matter in the atmosphere that reflects sunlight, we could cool down for a few years, then those particles are washed out of our atmosphere, and then we bounce back to the type of
climate that would have happened without that volcanic explosion.
And so all of these factors make a mix of interesting climate on the planet.
Indeed.
Doctor, we're out of time.
No book to sell, no website to hawk.
So that's it.
I just I want to say it was an honor to have you on the program, Doctor.
My pleasure.
I really enjoyed talking to you.
OK.
Good night.
And again, thank you so very much.
And for all the rest of you, the flu allowing, I will see you tomorrow night from the high desert.
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