Hal Lindsey is that You?

Armageddon: only sex sells better.

I've mentioned that when it comes to global warming I am a "Lukewarmist."

Yes, I think global warming is happening.
Yes, I believe that humanity is at least partially responsible as the driver of this phenomenon.
No, I do not think the alarmists know as much as they think they know.

I say this because science is about making predictions and testing the validity of our theories upon whether, how, and when those predictions pan out.  Climate science has a pretty poor track record in this department.

Essentially, it becomes a battle against fundamentalists.  Fundamentalists who believe they are doing what is necessary to save our souls planet.

Tom Hartsford over at Real Clear Science describes the problem better than I can in this recent article.

Predictions are made by building models using the smartest simplifications we have thought of and running them on the most powerful computers ever built. Basically, it's the best we can do right now. 

But there is a major failure of science going on. 

The failure is the lack of transparency and honesty about how feeble these models are and how much we should stake on their all-too-fallible forecasts. Thus the same problem continues: climate science has once again botched a prediction that its models were underequipped to make. 

It seems that there can be no moderate and honest discussion of this issue. Skeptics are singled out in creepy enemies lists. Actually, we're now supposed to call them deniers, as though they were disputing the existence of HIV or the holocaust. Numerous scientists, as well as senators,anti-vaccination Kennedys, and clickbait purveyors have even called for the imprisonment and legal prosecution of those who disagree with them. 

Climate science acts like it is fighting a holy war. There are only those who are just and those who must be silenced and stopped at all costs. Anyone who mounts reasonable logical, empirical, or skeptical challenges to the orthodoxy must be ruined, not by counterfactual evidence, but by vicious attack.

The problem is not with the science per sea.  It is a problem of thinly veiled hubris.

Methane Belching Hydro

Reservoirs and hydropower are often thought of as climate friendly because they don’t burn fossil fuels to produce electricity. But what if reservoirs that store water and produce electricity were among some of the world’s largest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions? 

Scientists are searching for answers to that question, as they study how much methane is emitted into the atmosphere from man-made reservoirs built for hydropower and other purposes. Until recently, it was believed that about 20 percent of all man-made methane emissions come from the surface of reservoirs. 

New research suggests that figure may be much higher than 20 percent, but it’s unclear how much higher because too little data is available to estimate. Methane is about 35 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide over the span of a century.

Read it here:

The world is complex.  Everything you do to the environment sets off a cascade of unintended consequences.  When you create big pools of water, some plants live and other plants die.  When you change the course of rivers, some species will thrive, others will suffer.  When you dam a river, you create the circumstances where silt will collect.

When you change the visible environment, you change the invisible environment.

You can either refuse to do anything, and suffer the consequences or you can do, learn, and understand you'll need to respond to the unintended consequences.

Global warming is probably a reality.  It probably will not bring the apocalypse.  Acting as if we can live in a technologically advanced world without having an impact on the world is a fantasy born of naivety and ideology.

Best we begin to discuss the achievable: responding to the changes we can expect and building the infrastructure which improves economic and social flexibility to respond to what we can not predict.