26 Common Climate Myths Debunked

holy_calamity writes to mention that New Scientist is revealing the truth behind the '26 most common climate myths' used to muddy the waters in this ongoing heated debate. "Our planet's climate is anything but simple. All kinds of factors influence it, from massive events on the Sun to the growth of microscopic creatures in the oceans, and there are subtle interactions between many of these factors. Yet despite all the complexities, a firm and ever-growing body of evidence points to a clear picture: the world is warming, this warming is due to human activity increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and if emissions continue unabated the warming will too, with increasingly serious consequences."

Here's the list w/o links

[flogger]

This appears to be "weather-Mongering." The only one of these that I didn;t know to be a myth was that "it is all a conspiracy"

• Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter
• We can't do anything about climate change
• The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong
• Chaotic systems are not predictable
• We can't trust computer models of climate
• They predicted global cooling in the 1970s
• It's been far warmer in the past, what's the big deal?
• It's too cold where I live - warming will be great
• Global warming is down to the Sun, not humans
• It's all down to cosmic rays
• CO2 isn't the most important greenhouse gas
• The lower atmosphere is cooling, not warming
• Antarctica is getting cooler, not warmer, disproving global warming
• The oceans are cooling
• The cooling after 1940 shows CO2 does not cause warming
• It was warmer during the Medieval period, with vineyards in England
• We are simply recovering from the Little Ice Age
• Warming will cause an ice age in Europe
• Ice cores show CO2 increases lag behind temperature rises, disproving the link to global warming
• Ice cores show CO2 rising as temperatures fell
• Mars and Pluto are warming too
• Many leading scientists question climate change
• It's all a conspiracy
• Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming
• Higher CO2 levels will boost plant growth and food production
• Polar bear numbers are increasing

Re:WTF

[LMacG]

Did you read the whole polar bear article? The population of bears in a specific area is increasing, and that is partially explained by
 

Animal rights activists can take some credit for the growth of polar bear numbers in the eastern Arctic. The battle to ban the hunting of harp seal pups has meant that the harp seal population has jumped from 2 million to 5 million. It also means sealers, especially those from Norway, are no longer hunting the polar bears, which they used to do when the seal hunt was larger.

.

#16

[benhocking]

That was the 16th myth [newscientist.com] on the list.

Re:WTF

[kebes]

can anyone tell me, why the discrepancy?

Well, at least with regard to the polar bear populations, TFA states:

While polar bear numbers are increasing in two of these populations, two others are definitely in decline. We don't really know how the rest of the populations are faring, so the truth is that no one can say for sure how overall numbers are changing.

So, the article is clearly stating that right now, we can't know for certain either way. So the point is that they are saying that "Polar Bear populations are definitely rising!" is incorrect: it is a myth inasmuch as it overstates its case. (Furthermore the article points out that conservation efforts have reduced hunting of polar bears and their prey, which would obviously increase their numbers regardless of climate changes.) So again, the article is debunking the myth "global warming can't be true because polar bear populations are rising!" which is not in conflict with the statement "some polar bear populations are rising."

Re:thickest strongest ice in 30 years

[bobo mahoney]

If you read any articles about Global Warming you will see that some local areas will get colder, wetter, more snowfall, and more ice accumuluation because of shifting water currents and atmospheric wind patterns. The issue is GLOBAL WARMING, not is it warmer at my house.

Re:WTF

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Then I find this article.

But you didn't check the source [sourcewatch.org], apparently.

I'm unsurprised that anti-climate-change folks can find a few PhDs who will agree with them. There are a lot of scientists out there, after all. But unless Morano's "more to come" has another 10,990 scientists on it, his "converts" are still nothing compared to the number of scientists who DO buy the global warming argument.

Re:WTF

[je ne sais quoi]

Funny. I see this in TFA Myth: Many leading scientists question climate change .Then I find this article.

That article was written by Marc Morano. I'm not seriously going to consider anything written by the producer for Rush Limbaugh. [exxonsecrets.org]

Also, in TFA, I see this: Myth: Polar bear numbers are increasing Then I see this.

Did you even read the article you linked to? Almost every scientist they interviewed about the subject said something along the lines of,

"The critical problem is, the sea ice is changing. We're looking ahead three generations, 30 to 50 years. To say that bear populations are growing in one area now is irrelevant," says Derocher." [f the World Conservation Union and a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.] "The increase in the population is not a climate-change related issue," Derocher claims. It's the result of "conservation and an increase in the harp seal population," he says."I don't think there is any question polar bears are threatened by global warming," responds Andrew Derocher of the World Conservation Union and a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

So, yes a single population of polar bears is increasing, but too bad there's 19 populations world-wide, at least two of which are decreasing.

Re:Welcome the warmth

[Richard McBeef]

You might get the short end of the stick:

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=282&cid= 10148 [whoi.edu]

Re:Welcome the warmth

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even read the article? [newscientist.com]

Re: thickest strongest ice in 30 years

[Black Parrot]

Eastern Canada is currently experiencing its thickest strongest ice in 30 years.

Meanwhile, Antartica is melting [yahoo.com].

Sounds like NS neglected to debunk the biggest myth of them all, namely that global warming means a uniform increase in temperature everywhere on the planet.

Re:FUD

[Ragingguppy]

Those people who talk about ice melting and water logging the cities of the world haven't taken into consideration the increased evaporation in the Oceans. The Indian ocean for example is 30cm lower then what gravity says it should be due to an increased evaporation. The oceans haven't been going up in fact due to such evaporation. Water evaporates from the ocean and gets deposited elsewhere Like in the east antarctic where the ice sheet is actually growing not shrinking. That is the balance of the globe.

It seems you got your facts mixed up.

[NeutronCowboy]

Anecdote [wikipedia.org], meet data [wikipedia.org].

Re:FUD

[fyngyrz]

You want to hear from scientists? Perhaps you should go read what these scientists have to say [senate.gov] (The scientist's comments are a little way down the page.)

Suffice it to say that the scientific community is not unanimous on the issue of anthropocentric warming.

A non-pointless method or What Can I Do?

[WillAffleckUW]

Instead of listing 26 reasons that global warming is real and caused by humans, wouldn't we all be better served by a list of 26 things that a single person can do to improve our quality of life and the health of the environment (that just so happen to also reduce global warming) that aren't prohibitively expensive or that demand levels of sacrifice that we all know Joe Blow won't make?

Exactly. In fact, if you read the article, you would have noticed a few that specifically are What Can I Do issues.

Let's break it down:

First, Primary, Big Impact: your cars, SUVs, trucks. This accounts for probably 50 percent of your lifestyle choices that impact global warming (or cataclysmic global climate change, since it oscillates like crazy when pushed).

What can you do?

A. Easy - take your vehicle(s) in for regular tuneups. Keep the tires PROPERLY inflated. Amazingly, this can affect 10 percent of your impact from vehicles.

B. Moderate - next vehicle(s) you buy, new or used, just get one that gets 5 mpg BETTER than your last.

C. Real Change - increase transit use, walking, and bicycling instead of car/SUV/truck use. Switch from a low mpg class like an SUV that you use for in-city driving to a passenger car with twice the mpg. Carpool. Move closer to where you work. Have fewer cars in your family (for example, drop the kids off en route and make them take the bus home).

Second. Flying. If you visit Europe, consider only flying to the first destination, and using their high-speed passenger rail system (same time as a jet) to travel from one city to the next, and then using local transit once you arrive. This will save you money, and sometimes time. If travelling to Germany, but wanting to see London, consider flying to London and then taking the train the rest of the way, stopping along the way to see other spots. Or use one of the new Boeing low-fuel plane models on a flight leg if you can (they use 50 percent as much jet fuel, a MAJOR impact on global warming, and it cost YOU the SAME or less to fly on it).

Third. Lightbulbs. Seriously. Just consider replacing lights as they burn out with high-quality inexpensive 4 or 6 packs of Compact Flourescent Lights (CFL) at Home Depot - usually I can get 4 for about $6 or 6 for $9. Worth a trip. This will SAVE YOU MONEY. Each lasts five to seven years, they use 1/8 as much energy. Or consider the slightly expensive LED lights - they use 1/20th the energy - new ones are WHITE light. These should be as cheap as CFLs by 2008, and will be required in most US states and all of Canada, so it's not like you have a choice anyway.

Some facts remain difficult to dispute.

[emil]

I have learned that past sky-high CO2 concentrations have been documented in peer-reviewed research journals [harvard.edu]. If we have hit peak oil, I doubt we will ever be able to reach these levels.

We find that CO2 emissions resulting from super-plume tectonics could have produced atmospheric CO2 levels from 3.7 to 14.7 times the modern pre-industrial value of 285 ppm.

This data is available from a variety of sources, with interesting commentary:

RES: Professor Robert E. Sloan, Department of Geology, University of Minnesota [ucl.ac.uk]
JC: Dr Joe Cain, interviewer

We are talking about carbon dioxide levels 6 to 10 times the present carbon dioxide level. When you have high amounts of carbon dioxide in an atmosphere up to a certain limit, which is considerably higher than it is now, the result is green plants grow very much better... And it is precisely at this time that the recovery from the first dinosaur extinction takes place. When the super plumes come and carbon dioxide increases, and the oxygen correspondingly increases as a result of photosynthesis... And yet the super plumes did not last forever and they started to die at the end of Cretaceous.... In any event, large dinosaurs really required to be living in an oxygen tent. An atmosphere in the neighborhood of 35 percent oxygen would be considerably more compatible with large dinosaurs than one in the neighborhood of 28. And so this suggested to me that this was perhaps a significant reason for the first dinosaur extinction, and probably one of the major factors in the second, the terminal dinosaur extinction, other than the birds. It also neatly tied together all of the really bizarre features about the Cretaceous... The Cretaceous is clearly a green house period as opposed to the present ice house that we have... Well, the rich carbon dioxide of course provides for a much greater biogenic diversity.

There is a great rejection [canada.com] of the global warming panic in the scientific community (it is unlikely that "big oil" funds have "bribed" so many faculty members of such prestigious universities, despite a smear [news.com.au] campaign). Because of the tremendous expense [nypost.com] of implementing Kyoto, should we pause in global warming remediation efforts that may border on the alarmist? It is not in any way difficult to find distinguished [msn.com] scientists who reject all calls for panic.

Sixty scientists call on Harper to revisit the science of global warming... If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.

Re:Inconsistent argumants to debunk debunkers

[Wannabe Code Monkey]

Article 2 states "The great majority of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was put there by the developed world, with the US alone responsible for an estimated quarter of emissions since 1750" right after the first article states "It is true that human emissions of CO2 are small compared with natural sources."

Which it is ? How can anybody know what to believe in the face of such huge inconsistencies ?

There is no inconsistency there, at most it was bad phrasing. What article to meant was that "Of all the carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere by humans, the great majority was put there by the developed world, with the US alone responsible for an estimated quarter of emissions since 1750." I admit that it was very badly stated, but anyone with the slightest reading comprehension would understand that they were talking about portions of human emissions. Especially when combined with the second half of the sentence which discussed the United States' percent of emissions.

If you have actual evidence, please bring it up. I will promise (to try) to not nit pick at typos or badly phrased sentences.

The rest of the story

[sheldon]

Isn't the entire quote, something more like this...?

It is true that human emissions of CO2 are small compared with natural sources. But the fact that CO2 levels have remained steady until very recently shows that natural emissions are usually balanced by natural absorptions. Now slightly more CO2 must be entering the atmosphere than is being soaked up by carbon "sinks".

How can I debunk your debunking, when you can't even be bothered to read the article?

Re:FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

There is, in fact, fairly compelling evidence through geological proxies (over much much broader periods than the instrument-based data) that:
1. The Earth has been through many warming and cooling cycles in the past. The current cycle is not outside this norm.
2. We have been in a warming phase since long before industrialization. In fact, the current warming trend dates back something like 18kyrs.
3. Temperature changes lead CO2 level changes, not the other way around. This strongly supports the idea that higher temperatures somehow cause CO2 levels to rise, not vice versa. (One theory suggests that lower gas solubility in the oceans, a major sink for CO2, as they warm -- far more slowly than the air -- accounts for much of this release.)

The reason Greenland was named Greenland

[benhocking]

Did someone mention Greenland [grist.org] yet again?

Verify this for yourself with a NASA GCM

[Anonymous Coward]

If you'd like to do some of the experiments discussed in the article yourself, the EdGCM [columbia.edu] project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.

Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.
Posting anonymously so I can moderate too.

Re:I am scared of global warming fanatics

[Mab_Mass]

However, if I have to choose between siding with scientists from MIT or Oxford - or "scientists" that got project grants or paid jobs because they mentioned "Global Warming" in their project name - guess what I'll choose... This whole silly thing reminds me of Y2K panic.

FYI, your heroes at MIT [mit.edu]/ Oxford [ox.ac.uk] seem to agree with global warming and are trying to educate you, but

perhaps the real problem is that you don't understand it [eurekalert.org].

Alarmists!

[shelterpaw]

We have a history of global warming or cooling alarmists. My fist assumption by looking at just a small history of reporting is that we don't have a friggin clue.

Example:

• In 1895 The New York Times wrote "Geologists Think the World May Be Frozen Up Again."
• In 1924 New York Times ran stories about "A New Ice Age."
• In 1933 the New York Times wrote "The Longest Warming Spell since 1776."
• In 1975 the New York Times wrote, "A Major Cooling Widely Considered to be Inevitable. "

Now Time Magazine's turn:

• In 1923 Time Magazine wrote "The discovery of changes in the sun's heat and the southward advance of glaciers in recent years, have given rise to conjectures of possible advent of a new ice age."
• In 1939 Time Magazine wrote: "Weather men have no doubt that the world at leas for the time being is growing warmer."
• In 1974 Time Magazine wrote: " Experts are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age."
• In 2001 Time Magazine wrote: "Scientists no longer doubt that global warming is happening."

I have no idea whether these scientists or climatologists really have a clue or not, but we should be focusing on cleaning up are act regardless. Cleaner energy is a great thing regardless if global warming or cooling is looming. Purely recyclable products should become mandatory. I think we have a moral obligation to have as little impact on the environment as possible. We are clearly intelligent enough to know that most of our byproduct aren't good for the environment and intelligent enough to figure out how to clean it up.

It really shouldn't matter whether you believe global warming/cooling is real or not. It shouldn't matter if your of some political affiliation or not and it shouldn't matter if your an environmentalist or not. What matters is that you do your part and make a statement by doing whatever you can to help reduce pollution and waste.

Re: thickest strongest ice in 30 years

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is annual
temperature plot from the south pole Amundsen-Scott station:

http://www.nerc-bas.ac.uk/icd/gjma/amundsen-scott. ann.trend.pdf [nerc-bas.ac.uk]

Vostok:

http://www.nerc-bas.ac.uk/public/icd/gjma/vostok.a nn.trend.pdf [nerc-bas.ac.uk]

Now, do you see any temperature trend at all there?

Re:FUD

[ozeki]

I am assuming you wanted a real list of scientists. Now this is only a partial list. Many of these scientists fought to have Canada leave the Kyoto treaty and are firm Global Warming skeptics.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction= Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=927b9303-802a-23ad -494b-dccb00b51a12&Region_id=&Issue_id= [senate.gov]

Some of these scientists are dyed in the wool environmentalists as well, not a big oil employee.

Re:WTF

[kebes]

Let's recap shall we.

New scientist publishes an article that says "polar bear populations are rising" is a myth. They claim that some populations are rising, others falling, and the overall trend is unknown.

A skeptic points to an article about reliable research that found that one particular population of polar bears was rising. (Exactly what the new scientist article states.) The skeptic asks "what gives?"

True believer tries to answer, by pointing out that new scientist was trying to show that some populations are rising, whereas others are falling, and the overall trend is unknown. Hence "polar bear populations are rising" is a myth, or at least incomplete and misleading. Furthermore, there is no contradiction between the New Scientist claims and the data the skeptic linked to.

Then random passerby comes along, mixes up facts, and mis-represents the discussion so far. He ends with a quasi-personal attack and mythological reference.

Re:Bickering

[Coryoth]

Then perhaps you can tell me the figure, in W/m**2/ppm, that CO2 directly contributes to climate forcing...but I don't seem to be able to find a reliable source for it anywhere.

It would seem you didn't look that hard. Current atmospheric carbon dioxide levels provide a radiative forcing of 1.66+/-0.17 W/m^2 (IPCC 4th Assessment Report, Working Group I, Summary for Policy Makers [ucar.edu] Figure SPM-2). Inferring from Figure SPM-1 it looks like atmospheric carbon dioxide provides approximately 0.02 W/m^2/ppm (though obviously there are threshold values involved). Feel free to dig through the details in the full WGI report [ucar.edu].

Re:thickest strongest ice in 30 years

[rcamans]

Actually, a lot of ice is on top of dirt, not water, and so when it melts, it gets added to the ocean, raising the water levels. Glaciers on mountains are an obvious example. The south pole is a land mass, as is much of the northern area which is covered by ice. just because some ice is on top of water does not mean that all ice is floating. So, no, it is not clear to me what the water level will actually do.

Re:The reason Greenland was named Greenland

[CorSci81]

Just to nitpick, this was my area of research in grad school. Heat transport by the Gulf Stream directly isn't the whole story, or even the major part of it. The sea surface temperatures off of England and continental Europe really aren't fantastically warmer than the west coast of North America at the same latitude, but its climate is somewhat warmer on the whole. Most of the warmth in these regions has to do with the jet stream rather than the Gulf Stream. The big storms that the north Atlantic is famous for are what actually transports a lot of heat to Europe. Now to what extent the jet stream is dependent upon the Gulf Stream is a different and much more complicated matter.

RTFA

[Scrameustache]

You want to hear from scientists? Perhaps you should go read what these scientists have to say [senate.gov] (The scientist's comments are a little way down the page.)
Suffice it to say that the scientific community is not unanimous on the issue of anthropocentric warming.

Climate change sceptics sometimes claim that many leading scientists question climate change. Well, it all depends on what you mean by "many" and "leading". For instance, in April 2006, 60 "leading scientists" signed a letter urging Canada's new prime minister to review his country's commitment to the Kyoto protocol.

This appears to be the biggest recent list of sceptics. Yet many, if not most, of the 60 signatories are not actively engaged in studying climate change: some are not scientists at all and at least 15 are retired.

Compare that with the dozens of statements on climate change from various scientific organisations around the world representing tens of thousands of scientists, the consensus position represented by the IPCC reports and the 11,000 signatories to a petition condemning the Bush administration's stance on climate science.

The fact is that there is an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community about global warming and its causes. There are some exceptions, but the number of sceptics is getting smaller rather than growing.

Re:Inconsistent argumants to debunk debunkers

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, no . . . the point is the second article claims that the humans of the "developed world" contributed to the "great majority of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere" and the first article claimed that the human contribution was small compared to natural sources.
Pay attention.
The two statements are mutually exclusive.

Re:Inconsistent argumants to debunk debunkers

[LadyLucky]

It's a dynamic equilibrium, with large sources and sinks of CO2. Adding more from human sources will increase the total amount, even if net production is small compared to natural sources.

Re:FUD

[asusag]

Typical one sided report. Even the "myths" are written out like a bad true or false test you take at the DMV. 1. It is ok if I run through a red light from time to time, but only if I'm in a hurry. I'm not saying their arguments don't hold merit, but there is certainly a counter-argument to these claims.

Re:Inconsistent argumants to debunk debunkers

[emm-tee]

Article 2 ... states ... "The great majority of the carbon dioxide... was put there by the developed world" ... the first article ... states "It is true that human emissions of CO2 are small compared with natural sources."

Which it is ? How can anybody know what to believe in the face of such huge inconsistencies ?

Errr.. it's simple really. You're comparing a quantity with the rate of change of a quantity.

The "great majority of the carbon dioxide...[which] was put there by the developed world" is referring to the excess of carbon dioxide which is not able to be absorbed by historic processes which are fully capable of absorbing historic (comparatively very large) emissions of carbon dioxide.

Re:issues with some of the graphs

[Ambitwistor]

Okay, for one, this one is obviously skewed. I modeled this in Excel, and wow, it's way less threatening when you actually show a real scale on the Y axis, as opposed to skewing the graph for shock value.

You can't tell how "threatening" a CO2 increase is until you know what baseline to compare it to, no matter what scale you plot it on. CO2 levels are now about 35% higher than average pre-industrial values, which while not huge, is nothing to sneer at either.

Besides, the point is not to make it look "threatening", but to zoom in on the region of interest.

Second. this guy is even worse. Where's the calculated effect of terrestrial water vapor, i.e., the stuff near the ground?

Water vapor isn't on that chart because it is a feedback, not a forcing. It's wrapped up in a quantity known as "climate sensitivity", which is the key quantity being debated in the literature.

"Anthropogenic?" Uh, sorry, but contributing less than half a percent to that CO2 value annually doesn't make all that carbon "anthropogenic."

In fact, virtually all of the ~35% increase in total CO2 levels is anthropogenic.

I really fail to see how having half the highest CO2 concentrations of the past million years is going to do anything,

Why not? Do you dispute that CO2 concentrations have changed the climate in the past?

and especially with the relatively minute contribution Homo sapiens,

As noted, homo sapiens has not made a "minute" contribution to CO2 levels.

would be warming the world more than having an atmosphere in the first place.

Humans aren't warming the world more than having an atmosphere does. They're still warming the world. What's your point?

Re:Ugh - not again.

[ScentCone]

Bullshit.

Hmmm. How about re-reading the summary from this very post?

"...Yet despite all the complexities, a firm and ever-growing body of evidence points to a clear picture: the world is warming, this warming is due to human activity increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and if emissions continue unabated the warming will too, with increasingly serious consequences."

This is completely typical. Use of phrases like "due to human activity" ... not "due in part to," or "exacerbated by," or "accelerated by..." And you know exactly what I mean, and that I'm right.

From the U.N.'s web site: "Changes in the atmosphere, the oceans and glaciers and ice caps now show unequivocally that the world is warming due to human activities, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in new report released today in Paris."

No mention of whether, or the degree to which, other factors play a role. Nope, the earth is "warming due to human activities." What else is one to take away from a that sentence, which introduces the UN's conclusions on the subject?

From a USA today interview: "The element of surprise here is that the picture is becoming so clear that (climate) changes are due to human activity," said Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences.

That's the president of the freakin' NAS. Maybe his middle name is "strawman," and that's what you're referring to?

Re:A waste of time, really

[TFloore]

Astonishing -- even people with very low Slashdot IDs don't bother to RTFA.

Actually, I did RTFA. I learned a few things, too. :) The part about percentage of energy absorbed in various wavelengths by various greenhouse gases was interesting, in the section about CO2 not being the most important greenhouse gas. I'd heard that complaint, but not the response before.

Unfortunately...

Most of what I read was one form or another of "it's complicated and there isn't enough evidence but we believe it" when talking about things that support Anthropomorphic Climate Change, and "it's complicated but there isn't enough evidence so we don't believe it" when talking about things that don't support human-caused climate change.

It was rather sad.

That 800 year lag, incidentally... They don't know where it comes from exactly. In general, sure, you can hand-wave an explanation about it. Quoting from the article:
What seems to have happened at the end of the recent ice ages is that some factor - most probably orbital changes - caused a rise in temperature. This led to an increase in CO2
followed by
The source of this extra carbon was the oceans, but why did they release CO2 as the planet began to warm? Many factors played a role and the details are still far from clear.

That's a sciency way of saying "we don't know." Which is what I said before.

The neat thing with me arguing about this is that I don't really object to a lot of the things reasonable people want to do about this, and I actually support a lot of them. Stop building coal power plants, build nuclear power plants instead. Sharply reduce gasoline use in vehicles, use electricity from those nukes to power electric cars for the 80% of people that only need a car to go 100 miles or less in a day. Use some real science to figure out how to do sustainable agriculture and fishing. (We in the US are doing horrible things to our farmland. All countries everywhere in the world are doing awful things to global fish stocks. I like eating fish... and I want to still be able to eat fish 30 years from now.)

These things make sense. But it makes sense on environmental stewardship and sustainable development grounds, much more than it does as a response to some scary global disaster that you can't back up with real defensible data.

Re:Welcome the warmth

[jc42]

Actually, "cabbage palm" is the common name for at least five species [wikipedia.org]. On the US East Coast, it usually refers to Sabal palmetto. In the case of this species, the name comes from the fact that the soft, central part of the bud is harvested and eaten as a vegetable, and has an internal structure much like a cabbage. I'd guess this is true of the other cabbage palms, too.

The potted plants I saw (in a nursery west of Boston) looked like this species, but I didn't examine them closely. I just thought "How about that?" and went on. I think that several of the other cabbage palm species are for sale in the US, too.

Coconut palms would be a lot more fun, but I suppose it's still a few years before they'll survive this far north.