Japan may become 4.5 C hotter if no anti-global warming steps taken

I think Japanese government is preoccupied with the urgent need to revive the economy! We must think of the large risk of global warming.

Counting the summers until I can return to the Pacific Northwest.

What if the warming will occur even without greenhouse gasses?

What is the plan in that case? And what if the scientific models are wrong and we are headed for an ice age? What then?

These "simulations" i.e. models are notoriously not good at prediction. A risk model and a risk forecast are completely different things, thus the word "may" was added as a qualifier. They can say anything no matter how outlandish as long as a qualifier is used. Put a bunch of exaggerated data into a model and the result is meaningless.

The day after the govt. announces it has decided not to bother asking companies to take energy-saving steps?

Burning Bush.

Weather and climate are different.

"Theories" (in the non lay person meaning) are reevaluated, updated or even abandoned based on the quality, amount and understanding of the evidence, that is a GOOD thing.

The consensus if we are on a path to climate change, towards warmer, infant most ardent deniers don't deny that its getting warmer, just the cause.

Economies are important no doubt, but surely there is money to be made and industries to grown and change even if the goal is simply to have better air to breath. Even been in Beijing on a bad day barely see a few meters in front of you, thats what unregulated "progress" only policies get you.

Another reason to ride a bike to work - and cities need to be supporting this by actively discouraging automobile use.

A paradigm shift in thinking is necessary.

Is it just me or do others find this article to be Japan-centric? The warming of the planet will have catastrophic effects worldwide, especially in Asia. However, the temperature is not the main problem. Rising sea levels is what they should be most concerned about. Half of the world's population live in Asia and a large portion is less than 2 meters above sea level. This is where all the rice is grown. Once the rice plains are inundated with salt water there will be no rice. This will cause a huge famine throughout Asia and displace tens to hundreds of millions of people. Some of the richer and more advanced countries are starting to prepare for this (London, Florida), but I have not seen any of the Asian countries assessing or preparing for this looming disaster. Bangladesh will disappear altogether and displace 50 million people. The Kanto plain will become the Kanto bay displacing possibly up to tens of millions of people and also causing a huge rice shortage in Japan. This is not a dreamt up scenario. This is a real inevitability that nobody wants to believe and will happen over the next century or two.

@NZ2011

You're wasting your breath. Climate-change sceptics are impervious to reason. They're so much cleverer than the "sheep" who blindly follow the "experts". Even when faced with devastation after catastrophic crop failure, they'll come up with some quip about the unpredictability of nature and the idiocy of those who would try and predict future climate trends.

Hope it's a comfort as their grandkids are killed in the food wars.

Nuclear power reduction should be on the table since tritium affects causes of GHG as well

Melissa, please explain how tritium causes global warming.

Japan may become 4.5 C hotter if no anti-global warming steps taken

And if anti-global warming steps ARE taken Japan would still become 4.5 C hotter, but many people would be 400% richer!

Economies are important no doubt, but surely there is money to be made and industries to grown and change even if the goal is simply to have better air to breath.

I agree that having cleaner air and water is very important. I just don't think the focus should be CO2.

CO2 is not a pollutant, it stimulates plant growth.

Once the rice plains are inundated with salt water there will be no rice. This will cause a huge famine throughout Asia and displace tens to hundreds of millions of people.

If ever that does happen, it won't happen overnight.

The consensus if we are on a path to climate change, towards warmer, infant most ardent deniers don't deny that its getting warmer, just the cause.

Yes, there is a consensus that climate changes, always has, always will.

4.5 degrees rise will desecrate many crops, cause deaths from heat exhaustion, destroy sea and river life with algae, melt snow and cause landslides and cause more rain through persisipation. Japan is on the way out

And a meteor strike MAY cause a global extinction event. How many of the climate alarmists' predictions of the last twenty years have been correct? None. Computer models are not science, but they ARE fiction.

Weather and climate are different.

NZ2011, you are of course correct, people like BBush are either simply unwilling to see the obvious or perhaps truly are unable to understand the difference between weather & climate, pretty incredible but there seems to be many who refuse to see whats right SMACK in front of them.

@lucabrasi Where have these crop failures been happening? There is a massive surplus of food in the world thanks to four years of record harvests in most of the world. Yes, there have been a couple of small localized minor wrecks but those happen somewhere every year.

4.5 degrees rise will ... destroy sea and river life with algae,

Sea life has survived such temperatures in the past.

Algae will help bring down CO2 levels...

These "simulations" i.e. models are notoriously not good at prediction. A risk model and a risk forecast are completely different things, thus the word "may" was added as a qualifier. They can say anything no matter how outlandish as long as a qualifier is used. Put a bunch of exaggerated data into a model and the result is meaningless.

What parts of the specific model used to make this prediction do you take issue with and how does it affect the robustness of its predictions?

I ask ask because your comment is so vague and broad that it could apply to any prediction about any thing that may happen at any time in the future. So for you to actually have something meaningful to say about this, you would need to provide some specifics rather than just broad and obvious observations.

The Japanese nor any else in the World should worry about the cult known as Global Warming, Climate Change or any other name - according to experts half the islands in the Pacific should be under water by now, again according to the experts Australia should have run out of water by now blah blah blah you get the picture its no more than a con Al Gore turned himself into a billionaire out of all the suckers who believed all that Climate Change rubbish all while he flies around the world in his carbon producing jet - when they can accurately predict the weather a week in advance then they can work on weather predictions a month advance etc

First of all I agree that humans contribute to climate change. However to what degree requires further study. One must remember Al Gore's predictions (none of which came to fruition).

What bothers me is

First: Sensationalist claims are made which do not/will not happen and it takes away from the true environmentalist cause. People on the fence hear ridiculous claims like this and disregard what is a real issue but can be solved incrementally over time, and

Second: The so called "spokespeople" of this movement (i.e. Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, President Obama) are all guilty of gross CO2 emissions. Recently President Obama vacationed for a month with a great deal of time spent on a private yacht, took a private jet to give a climate speech and showed up in a huge motorcade. Dicaprio flies the world on private jets, vacations on private yachts, etc. Gore has 5 very large houses and has made 100's of millions off of "carbon credits".

As for President Obama and DiCaprio...if they wish to travel on private jets, etc....that is ok with me...but please do not try to tell us not to eat meat or take other ridiculous actions to "save the planet"

97% of peer-reviewed papers on climate change say man made climate change is real. And those who want to maintain the status quo for financial reasons choose to believe the 3%.

As for President Obama and DiCaprio...if they wish to travel on private jets, etc....that is ok with me...but please do not try to tell us not to eat meat or take other ridiculous actions to "save the planet"

Why? Is there use of private jets etc somehow reversing climate change, meaning we don't need to be worried? How exactly does their use of private jets etc negate the message they are spreading?

Or do you think that criticizing hypocrisy somehow takes precedence over caring about the future of our planet?

@rainyday I am involved in a project with a couple dozen researchers in creating a forecast for an event that is strongly correlated with 2 variables; accumulated precipitation and corn heat units. We have data going back 50 years, have live feeds from 450 automated weather stations and 25 years of ground proofing data and we are nowhere near being able to provide a risk forecast. We can provide model risk maps but not a forecast. Not one of the scientists involved in this project would hang their hat on a forecast. The data set being used to try and scare the pants off of people that driving to the supermarket will cause their grand kids to be killed in a flood is so massive and with so many variables included and so many variables not included that anything produced by the model is pure speculation and equivalent to trying to forecast a typhoon in the Philippine by counting the number of times Monarch butterflies in Mexico flap their wings.

@Strangerland

97% of what? That number is bogus. It comes from a single paper by 1 grad student who sent out 10,000 questionnaires to climate change scientists and received only 1,500 back.

@strangerland - Sorry I do not follow "Do as I say, not as I do" messages. Yes in my opinion (as an environmentalist) their actions completely negate the message. If they are so concerned about this issue why can they not personally take steps and make sacrifices to help the cause. This reminds me of the dachas in the USSR.

In this case, criticizing hypocrisy is important as I believe there are many people on the fence on this issue that are thoroughly disgusted by elitist hypocrisy and hypocrites telling us minions how to live our lives.

Also carbon taxes are about as regressive as they come. There are better ways to solve the problem rather than enriching 1%ers

97% of what? That number is bogus. It comes from a single paper by 1 grad student who sent out 10,000 questionnaires to climate change scientists and received only 1,500 back.

Didn't fact check yourself, did you.

https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

Sorry I do not follow "Do as I say, not as I do" messages.

Why? How do their actions negate the message?

If they are so concerned about this issue why can they not personally take steps and make sacrifices to help the cause.

So you think that criticizing hypocrisy is more important than preserving our planet.

@Strangerland - Your question is not so simple. Yes, I do. If the "faces" of climate change practiced what they preached perhaps there would be more momentum to make changes. (By the way this is one reason the U.S. ended up with a buffoon for President - people are sick of elitists preaching to them)

So let me reverse the question. Do you think it is OK for everyone to live the way DiCaprio, Obama, and Gore do? Imagine the CO2 emissions if this were the case.

Or, do you believe there is an elite that should be allowed to live this way and the masses should sacrifice and conserve.

Do you think it is OK for everyone to live the way DiCaprio, Obama, and Gore do?

No I don't. I think that they should practice what they preach. But I also think that the message they are preaching is correct, and is more important than the hypocrisy. When you say their message doesn't matter because they aren't practicing it, you are attacking the messenger rather than the message.

And I also think that the cumulative C02 created through their actions is pretty insignificant to the C02 created by the mass of humanity. So while they should most definitely be practicing what they preach, even if they did, we'd still have the same problem on our hands. It's not like they are single-handedly creating the problem. They are just contributing to it.

It's fine to criticize their hypocrisy on the matter. But ignoring the message because of it is cutting off the nose of the planet to spite its face.

@Strangerland - thanks for the permission to criticize their hypocrisy. As an environmentalist that is appreciated.

Now - the premise of this article is a prediction made by an IPCC model, which has never been right, then dutifully regurgitated by the JMA, bothers me. I find their prediction ludicrous. As a scientist and engineer I take issue to the article.

The IPCC has never made a correct prediction, not due to their qualifications (as they have very intelligent people working there) but due to the fact that they are attempting to model one of the most complex systems imaginable...the climate of the entire planet. The inputs are numerous beyond belief and are constantly changing. The sun (yes sun does impact temperature and climate) is unpredictable (look at recent solar cycles).

Using this type of "analysis" to make policy which will severely impact the poor (through regressive taxation and lack of opportunity to develop) borders on criminal.

Gore, DiCaprio and President Obama have no worries in the world. They are set for life and are insulated from the challenges of every day people. While we are told to decrease our meat intake, drive less, travel less, etc. they will suffer in no way and most likely increase their wealth.

I would be willing to bet against the 4.5 degree temperature increase by century's end but I think neither you (Strangerland) nor I will be alive (our demise will not be due to climate change) to settle our bet.

In my opinion it is unfounded and radical predictions like this that do more damage to a good movement than bad. But heck, I am not near the 1% and I am not a star or super model or politiican (haha...gee that is a scary thought) so my opinion means little in the grand scheme of it all

@lucabrasi Where have these crop failures been happening? There is a massive surplus of food in the world thanks to four years of record harvests in most of the world. Yes, there have been a couple of small localized minor wrecks but those happen somewhere every year.

There have been LOTS of crop failures & droughts etc, its in the news all the time

Russia has had wheat crop failures, Australia has had severe droughts, ditto for California.

India also has problems regularly.

Heck more locally look at potatoes in Hokkaido, also many places had too much rain whipping out a lot of winter veggies in Japan.

It IS in the news IF you pay attention.

Also wrt to rising ocean levels, several South Pacific nations are under threat, Bangladesh is hit with more & more flooding.

Its there to see IF you are paying attention.

When considering the alleged consensus in the scientific literature, one should keep in mind what had been uncovered by Climate Gate. For example, editors were discouraged to accept papers skeptical of human-caused GW and some editors that allowed such papers to be published were eliminated.

Plus, the word "consensus" should not be used in science. Something is either proven or it isn't; in this case it has not been proven. There used to be a flat-Earth "consensus", and many others that were later proven false.

Tokyo-Engr

Now that you see my position on it, I'd like to go back and re-ask my questions:

Is their use of private jets etc somehow reversing climate change, meaning we don't need to be worried? How exactly does their use of private jets etc negate the message they are spreading?

Or do you think that criticizing hypocrisy somehow takes precedence over caring about the future of our planet?

Raw Beer

When considering the alleged consensus in the scientific literature, one should keep in mind what had been uncovered by Climate Gate. For example, editors were discouraged to accept papers skeptical of human-caused GW and some editors that allowed such papers to be published were eliminated.

I see this so much these days. Someone does something that is underhanded, and the opposition uses that to discredit the entire message, rather than just the underhandedness.

It will be the downfall of our planet.

@Zachi Some great news! The % of malnourished people in the world has been in steady decline for decades and is improving every year. If you have been in Japan for decades you must have studied a bit of history and read something about the 154 famines in the Tokugawa period????

If the climate is changing then governments will find ways to tax us as a means to control it

(yes, that is sarcasm)

And even though temperatures hit records almost yearly in Tokyo there is still a policy here which encourages building of and an increase of the population in the capital!

When more people become unconscious due to heatstroke there might be a policy change but I doubt it.....

When all the ice melt which is happen. I don't need doctor or President to verify it. It is in my face. So you have to solid weight directly opposite on each other North and South pole when these weight final spread ( melt ) over the earth surface things will change. Physic have prove this. I don't know but I reckon gravity will change a bit to either more or less. All because of something is making this change and the next change will be this present change on sterols which will be the release of methane built up in the melting tundra. The Ice Melting and the tundra is in ours faces please don't choose to bury your faces in the sand. These people tell us it is CO2 are not billionaire nor people of power. So there ganda is more believable then those who will loss power and wealth from reducing CO2. What will these CO2 people gain. A bit of writing in history on how these people help save the world with the help of the Rich and Powerful. That what history will say if they are correct. It how it play out all through history. So These people telling us it the CO2 have heaps more cred then the deniers.

A lot of people on this forum couldn't see their hand if it was right in front of their face. Man is clearly modifying it's environment, and not in a good way. Climate change deniers justify their stance by saying "today was cold, clearly there is no global warming", or "the average temperature only rose by 0.5 degrees, not 2 degrees, so the scientists are wrong". You'll be laughing out the other side of your face 20 years in the future after the tipping point has been reached. Your children will wonder why you failed to see/believe it as it was happening.

Yeah, and like Al Gore the Climate Guy said, the arctic ice is gonna be totally gone by 2013. Wait! That was 4 years ago and look at the arctic ice today! Deeper and wider than it's been in a long time. Hmmm. Obviously our climate models are not very accurate!

The climate changes all the time. It changed before man affected it and it is still changing today. There were ice ages in the past and antarctica was forested at one point. What we don't know is how much man effects the climate. There are so many factors involved here and so many different greenhouse gases that it is really hard to know if we can ever really know these things.

97% of peer-reviewed papers say man-made climate change is real. Yet you still have guys saying 'but we had climate change before, so it can't be real'.

It's that lack of intelligence that shows exactly why they aren't scientists.

Does that mean everyone has to wear bikinis?

"which will be the release of methane built up in the melting tundra"

Yes. This is big. Uprooting the whole economic system is the only way. Unfortunately, no politician will do this. Attacking climate deniers is a waste of time. Sadly, the movie Silent Running is the future. Only Star Trek's Khan Noonien Singh would be able to alter the course of the human destruction of the planet. Global revolution and dictatorship. So be careful what you ask for.

JT

you need to move the B I " to the right side for your mobile web site. Every time we highlite something for a "quote" the cut/copy/paste/ bar blocks it.

Don't need to highlight it? Thanks Zich

put an ice cube on your kitchen worktop and watch it melt. That is what is happening in the Arctic, right now.

Got it. Too bad the MSM thinks Russian hacking is more of a global threat.

If they're saying it'll increase if they don't tackle global warming, then it WILL increase, because not only are nations not tackling it, they are going in the opposite direction -- particularly the US, whose leaders seem to think it's all made up.

@proxy

True, we haven't been faced by drastic crop failure yet. There is currently an abundance of food, at least in most parts of the world. But that situation has no bearing on what might happen. And, as a layman, I'm forced to rely on the opinions of qualified climatologists who are almost unanimous in their prediction that the future doesn't look at all good.

Inconvenient, I grant you, but denial by itself doesn't make the problems go away.

@Raw Beer:

CO2 is not a pollutant, it stimulates plant growth.

This is definitively incorrect because plants do not survive on CO2 alone. What this means is that everything a plant uses to survive - water, nutrients, etc. - would need to increase in proportion to the CO2. Yes, some plants can be stimulated to grow with the introduction of CO2 but only under very controlled circumstance.

jacapan: Long live the PNW!!!!!

If the climate change predictions are wrong but we clean up our badly abused environment then we still win.

Not the people with a vested interest in fossil fuels and coal. That's why they fight back so hard. They'd rather have money now, than ensure the survival of our species for the long run.

If the climate change predictions are wrong but we clean up our badly abused environment then we still win.

Cleaning the environment is a very good thing. Pollution is a real problem. But going after CO2 is a racket.

put an ice cube on your kitchen worktop and watch it melt. That is what is happening in the Arctic, right now.

Yeah, put water in the freezer and watch it freeze. That is what is happening in the Antarctic, right now, or at least it was happening the last time I paid attention to all this nonsense.

research is not useless, it how one intrepid data, This data show a increase and a decrease which is not matching recorded data over 100 years when uniform data collection started. It not a argument for nor again it a article showing a collection of recent data and compare it to project future predictions. We have all been told by credibly people their theory. I don't try to understand their theory. Like when the plumber say don't flush tanpons down the toilet because it will might block up. So I don't try to understand his theory just use the toilet like like he suggested. Not brain surgery.

Yes, some plants can be stimulated to grow with the introduction of CO2 but only under very controlled circumstance.

I think you will find that all plants growth is stimulated with CO2, and it doesn't have to be under very controlled circumstances.

The problem is that we are putting more CO2 into the atmosphere than we have plants to process it. Add this to the fact that we are cutting down forests at record amounts, and the problem is compounded.

I would rather sweat than freeze. Plant's don't grow in ice . Also, girls look better in bikini's than coats...

The problem is that we are putting more CO2 into the atmosphere than we have plants to process it. Add this to the fact that we are cutting down forests at record amounts, and the problem is compounded.

Most of the oxygen does not come from plants, it comes mainly from cyanobacteria and algae in the oceans.

Antarctic is also melting, at a slower rate than the Arctic

Perhaps that might be correct now, but I do remember a few years ago that the Antarctic ice was in fact expanding.

This aint going to go down well but i dont mind.

Am i the only one who this human arrogance is just amazing. What we have been in heavy industry for a few hundred years and we have the conceit to think that its all due to us. No just the natural cycles the plant takes. Sure were like a bad case of fleas for the planet but this whole global warming oops changed the name to climate change thing is more like some globalist reason to slow productivity and population growth. Dont get me wrong i care for the planet and do more than my bit and sure we need to do more but we are sure full of ourselves thinking we can "save the planet". The planets gonna be just fine for a long long time. Maybe we wont be but thats nature. Rant over.

Star Viking

I read a science paper that links tritium to the GHG global increase. The link is below

www.rense.com/general96/arctic.html

Am i the only one who this human arrogance is just amazing. What we have been in heavy industry for a few hundred years and we have the conceit to think that its all due to us . . . 

George Carlin said the same thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c

I think Japanese government is preoccupied with the urgent need to revive the economy!

You mean, the military right ?

The climate changes all the time. It changed before man affected it and it is still changing today. There were ice ages in the past and antarctica was forested at one point. What we don't know is how much man effects the climate. There are so many factors involved here and so many different greenhouse gases that it is really hard to know if we can ever really know these things

Correct! But do you know an ice age is, how long they are etc??!!??

Clearly you DONT! Otherwise you would know the happen over 10s of THOUSANDS of years, NOT within ones LIFETIME!!!

With what mankind has done & CONTINUES to do how could we NOT affect climate, bottom line is we are BIG TIME, its starring us RIGHT in the face & so many on this site cant see the OBVIOUS, incredible

Am i the only one who this human arrogance is just amazing. What we have been in heavy industry for a few hundred years and we have the conceit to think that its all due to us. No just the natural cycles the plant takes. Sure were like a bad case of fleas for the planet but this whole global warming oops changed the name to climate change thing is more like some globalist reason to slow productivity and population growth. Dont get me wrong i care for the planet and do more than my bit and sure we need to do more but we are sure full of ourselves thinking we can "save the planet". The planets gonna be just fine for a long long time. Maybe we wont be but thats nature. Rant over.

Yeah, your theory makes way more sense than that of those 97% of climate change scientists who have gone to all that wasted effort to actually collect data and actually study it to support their hypothesis.

why is it that very few of these scientific reports use reliable, repeatable data?

the majority of climate science reports i have read merely took advantage of favorable data readings and discarded unfavorable data in order to achieve whatever specific aim the research group had.

i don't believe there is a climate science conspiracy, but i do believe most climate scientists are willing to sweep unfavorable data under the rug and only publish the good stuff. the "peer review" process is an utter joke, if you are with a powerful university your paper can be pushed through any review process simply because a journal wants to have your university in its next issue. the reviewers are also not guaranteed to have knowledge of the topic being discussed.

4.5 degrees in the next 80 years. well, let's see the rock solid data to prove that, and let's have the scientists post the real standard deviation they used when collecting that data.

it smacks of BS

Amazing that my comment revived so many negative votes.

i am asking merely what are we going to do in the case of bad, bad stuff happening to the climate. And 66% of people just don't want to know?

Sounds like we are possibly, screwed....

eeasily fixed, since this fabricated rise in temperature is only happening in the rigged computer models, just change the code or variables to match the real world and the models will be fixed.

the majority of climate science reports i have read merely took advantage of favorable data readings and discarded unfavorable data in order to achieve whatever specific aim the research group had.

Then the articles you were reading weren't peer-reviewed. Part of peer-review is that the data is replicable.

eeasily fixed, since this fabricated rise in temperature is only happening in the rigged computer models, just change the code or variables to match the real world and the models will be fixed.

And then the rest of us live in the real world.

Then the articles you were reading weren't peer-reviewed. Part of peer-review is that the data is replicable.

No, it just means it was reviewed by "peers".

if you are with a powerful university your paper can be pushed through any review process simply because a journal wants to have your university in its next issue.

I think it's more that doom a gloom has more impact than papers saying that everything is fine.

Japan may become 4.5 C hotter if no anti-global warming steps taken

Fixed: Japan will become 4.5 C hotter as no significant anti-global warming steps continue to be taken

Is it just me or do others find this article to be Japan-centric?

Well, yes. You'll notice the name of this website is JapanToday. This is not the place I come to read about the Maldives or Florida.

I live in Japan, and am naturally interested in the effects of climate change specifically in Japan. There is very little such information in English, so JapanToday is providing a service by running this article.

@Stranger

Yes, some plants can be stimulated to grow with the introduction of CO2 but only under very controlled circumstance.

I think you will find that all plants growth is stimulated with CO2, and it doesn't have to be under very controlled circumstances.

Thank you for pointing out my mistakes. However, too much CO2 is harmful for plants.

Too much CO2 is harmful to everything!!

Here in the states the climate change enthusiasts create pictures of the Statue of Liberty up to its waist in sea water. Of course they promised us that the Seychelles would be under water by 2012, how is that going. Any excuse for more government control. Used to be that it was to save us from poverty, until the socialist ideal brought us great prosperity (Venezuela is the current example) so we need climate Armageddon to justify all taxpayers (people not working for the government) supporting all on the government payroll and dole. Consensus is not science, especially when the voters are not scientists anyway!

@rainyday I am involved in a project with a couple dozen researchers in creating a forecast for an event that is strongly correlated with 2 variables; accumulated precipitation and corn heat units. We have data going back 50 years, have live feeds from 450 automated weather stations and 25 years of ground proofing data and we are nowhere near being able to provide a risk forecast. We can provide model risk maps but not a forecast. Not one of the scientists involved in this project would hang their hat on a forecast. The data set being used to try and scare the pants off of people that driving to the supermarket will cause their grand kids to be killed in a flood is so massive and with so many variables included and so many variables not included that anything produced by the model is pure speculation and equivalent to trying to forecast a typhoon in the Philippine by counting the number of times Monarch butterflies in Mexico flap their wings.

Ah, you are a scientist? Then you must know the uselessness of the observation that a scientific model can't predict the future. Everyone already knows that. The only useful criticism you, as someone involved in scientific research, could contribute would therefore be to actually look at the model which you are objecting to and identify weaknesses which suggest that it draws misleading conclusions.

So again I ask, what specifically do you object to in their model? What model would you use?

J-government should encourage people to use electric vehicles by subsidizing them, I almost don't see electric cars on the roads in Tokyo, mostly hybrids, but hybrids still burn fuel. Start building the vast network of changing stations now, and in a few years almost everybody will switch to pure electric. Stop lobbying the interests of oil importers for the future of humanity. Also every new apartment should be equipped with a solar panel on the balcony and on the roof, this should be the law. This is the way to stop global warming.

Consensus is not science, especially when the voters are not scientists anyway!

You're goshdarnned right! Most voters are not scientists. Many of them believe in Creationism and I wouldn't be surprised if a few of them are Flat Earthers, too.

Scientists. Meh. What the heck do they know?

CO2 is not a pollutant, it stimulates plant growth.

This is definitively incorrect because plants do not survive on CO2 alone. What this means is that everything a plant uses to survive - water, nutrients, etc. - would need to increase in proportion to the CO2. Yes, some plants can be stimulated to grow with the introduction of CO2 but only under very controlled circumstance.

Definitively incorrect? No, it is definitely correct. Some growers even add CO2 to their greenhouses. Obviously they do not grow on CO2 alone, but other nutrients would need to also increase only if they are limiting. Plus, an increase in global temperatures would cause an increase in rain and humidity. Higher CO2 is a plus for agriculture.

However, too much CO2 is harmful for plants.

Yes, but the levels that would harm plants are much higher than the levels that can be expected by even the most hysterical global warming fanatic.

Science can't predict the future?

I am afraid I am going to have to disagree with that statement.

Science is science because it proves something called a constant.

When scientists discover something that is basically always true (within standard deviation allowing for random, chance events), their data can be used to make predictions about what is going to happen in the future.

It is science because the observation can be replicated under the same conditions and the result will generally always be the same.

This is how Mendeleev was able to publish a periodic table in the 1800's that had the right number of elements even though most of the elements had not been discovered yet. But he did not stop there, he actually went on to describe what the elements would look like, their color, weight, etc. He was proven correct as chemistry caught up to him. This is real science at work.

Humans don't even understand how to forecast their own local weather systems. We have only recently learned that things like microbursts and downdrafts exist. The mechanisms of things like that have just recently been figured out and applied to aircraft systems to improve safety.

If the client scientists can't even figure out local weather phenomenon, why on earth would you believe claims about global warming, backed up with piss-poor data collected by people with a major need to renew their foundation grants?

For what it's worth I've got 3 articles published in scientific journals, one in EMBO, another in EMBO Reports, and another in Coatings. I do have some experience with the "peer review" process. Remember Obokata got through peer review. It is happening far more often than you think. Peer review just keeps the presented quality of the published data high, it does not necessarily mean the data is reliable or even real . The peer reviewers only look at what the research team sends to the journal. You get 1 or 2 chances to reply to their critiques, then if they like it it's published, if not they may recommend you to another journal or just drop it.

People's inability to distinguish between weather and climate is widespread and frustrating.

If you asked a climate scientist if it rained on the morning of March the 1st 3008 BC in Aberdeen, you'd be laughed at. But that same scientist could tell you with confidence that is was generally about 2 degrees Celsius warmer in northern Scotland than now. It works the same way when we think about the future. Trends aren't events. It's really not rocket science.

@Kobe White Bar Owner

You are partially correct. Yes, the world will eventually recover, as it has in the past. However, it will be too late for human civilization. Btw, if you take your climate change advice from a comedian, forgive me for not taking you seriously. Do you also seek out Carlin's advice on your medical issues?

"In the 70s all the experts were predicting we'd be in an cooling period by now."

No, they weren't.

Upon hearing this news, Al Gore is reportedly rushing to the airport in his tour bus to get on his private jet and fly to Japan to deal with this emergency.

"In the 70s all the experts were predicting we'd be in an cooling period by now."

No, they weren't.

I do remember the fear mongering around that time of the upcoming ice age.

Anyway, assuming that all these BS models and predictions are correct, seeing how governments have so far handled the war on drugs and the war on terror, I would be very surprised if any measures they take will have any positive impact.

Doesn't matter what side of the fence you're on in regards to global warming. It's a fact that land becomes hotter after its paved with cement. Tokyo's radiant heat is increasing, in part, due to continuous development without preserving more green spaces.

seeing how governments have so far handled the war on drugs and the war on terror, I would be very surprised if any measures they take will have any positive impact.

Positive impact? If history is any guide, government measures will make lots of rich people richer, help some otherwise connected people get rich through taxpayer funded initiatives, and keep the middle class in servitude. So there is that.

Hi Melissa,

I'm afraid your paper comes from a conspiracy site: rense.com

If you check the contributions of the author, Yoichi Shimatsu, you'll see strange articles about satanic child-porn rings at MIT murdering MIT students, the CIA killing Kim-Yon Nam, Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 being sabotaged by the Israeilis (Rense is anti-semitic), and other crazy stuff.

However, if you check figure 4 in the Nature scientific paper which was his first reference, you'll see that the Arctic Ozone decine in 2011 started in early February - almost two months before the Fukushima accident.

Star Viking

I did not come across occult things. The author is a science writer and his references about his facts are impeccable.

Melissa,

He is an ex-newspaper reporter who publishes on conspiracy theory websites. The scientific paper he claims as the cornerstone of his article contradicts his claim.

His facts are rubbish.