Climate Change Skeptics

Most of us, and by "us" I mean everyone who entered the 21st century already an adult, and is still here: most of us have at some point heard a common explanation of the causes of climate change, in terms of a greenhouse. It is this:

CO2 in the atmosphere prevents infrared light from escaping into space. This means that, as in an artificial greenhouse, more light gets in than can get out, so over time the temperature rises.

To this, climate change skeptics often reply: the absorption of infrared light is saturated at carbon dioxide levels well below those of the earth's atmosphere. If the saturation point is X, then the move from an X +2 level to an X + 20 level can't increase the infrared light, and so can't increase the heat. So let's get busy digging up or drilling for more of those fossil fuels!

That is a fallacious argument. But it can be difficult to see this because the metaphor is faulty. A greenhouse has a single surface that blocks the infrared radiation. The atmosphere is deep and gradually fades away in ever cooler thinner layers. And herein lies the real significance of emissions. There is no single saturation point. The emissions affect the average altitude at which the radiation will be blocked. The higher the atmosphere, the cooler the air is there. THAT is why continuing emissions are making it more difficult for heat to leak out into space.

Lawrence M. Krauss has a new book out about such matters, THE PHYSICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE. I haven't read it, but I will pass along the fact that people of whom I have a high opinion recommend it.

Comments

A Story About Coleridge

This is a quote from a memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth, reflecting on a trip she took with two famous poets, her brother, William Wordsworth, and their similarly gifted companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a maj...

The Lyrics of "Live Like You Were Dying"

Back in 2004 Tim McGraw recorded the song "Live Like You were Dying." As a way of marking the one-decade anniversary of this song, I'd like to admit that a couple of the lines have confused me for years. I could use your help understanding them. In the first couple of verses, the song seems easy to follow. Two men are talking, and one tells the other about his diagnosis. The doctors have (recently? or a long time ago and mistakenly? that isn't clear) given him the news that he would die soon. "I spent most of the next days/Looking at the X-rays." Then we get a couple of lines about a man crossing items off of his bucket list. "I went sky diving, I went rocky mountain climbing, I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu." Then the speaker -- presumably still the old man -- shifts to the more characterological consequences of the news. As he was doing those things, he found he was loving deeper and speaking sweeter, and givin...

Five Lessons from the Allegory of the Cave

Please correct me if there are others. But it seems to be there are five lessons the reader is meant to draw from the story about the cave. First, Plato is working to devalue what we would call empiricism. He is saying that keeping track of the shadows on the cave wall, trying to make sense of what you see there, will NOT get you to wisdom. Second, Plato is contending that reality comes in levels. The shadows on the wall are illusions. The solid objects being passed around behind my back are more real than their shadows are. BUT … the world outside the the cave is more real than that — and the sun by which that world is illuminated is the top of the hierarchy. So there isn’t a binary choice of real/unreal. There are levels. Third, he equates realness with knowability. I only have opinions about the shadows. Could I turn around, I could have at least the glimmerings of knowledge. Could I get outside the cave, I would really Know. Fourth, the parable a...

Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Search This Blog