Step Into the Ring
I have a belated wish for the New Year. I want the CNAS Natural Security bloggers to juice up their posts. I want that blog to generate dialogue and become a must-read in green circles. I’m already a fan, but that’s because I’m interested in the environment/security intersection. So I dutifully check in to see what the latest policy papers or related news Natural Security is flagging.
They need to liven things up over there, write with a stronger voice, and maybe throw a few elbows around. Enough already with the polite, wonky, approach. If Natural Security wants to be a player in environmental debates, it should emulate its sister blog. Or any of the frontline bloggers at Forign Policy.
To do that, they have to be fully engaged not just with current political events and recent journal articles, but also with other bloggers. The blogosphere is where average, interested readers go to watch the action and join in. If you want your ideas to gain greater currency, you gotta step into the ring. It’s not enough to just be in the arena.
So guys, put on the gloves and get in the damn ring. It’s just a lot of sparring. And nobody really gets hurt, unless they’re overly sensitive. It’s actually quite invigorating. And who knows, you may even land a few punches.
Throw some ‘bows? You should see us around the office!
We started the Natural Security Blog as a research outlet – definitely not on the model of Ex’s, which is based on his personality in addition to his analysis. (I love btw that you refer to him and Abu M as our sister blog. Zing.) If it were personal, you’d read a lot of me pontificating about the glory of the Buckeyes, vegetarian cooking and the art of not sleeping. And I guess I don’t usually think of myself as a blogger, despite, you know, all the blogging I do.
However, point taken. We’ll try to liven it up, but only if you promise to leave us comments too to help us generate more debate there! And we’ll do better at reciprocating.
CP
Yes. CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
However, the observed global temperature does not show accelerated warming with increase in CO2 emission.
Global Mean Temperature (GMT) data => http://bit.ly/pxXK4j
The most important observation in the above data is that the upper GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT peaks, the lower GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT valleys, and these lines are parallel. Also, the line that bisects the vertical space between the two GMT boundary lines is nearly identical to the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade for the whole data. This result indicates that, for the last 130 years, the GMT behaved like a stable pendulum with the two GMT boundary lines that are 0.5 deg C apart as the end points of the pendulum’s swings, and the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade as the pendulum’s neutral position.
In the above data, the GMT touched its upper boundary line only 3-times, about every 60-years, but has never crossed it for long in the last 130 years.
In the GMT data, a shift in climate to an accelerated global warming would have been indicated if the upper GMT boundary line had been a curve with an increasing positive slope with increasing years, or the upper and lower GMT boundary lines had been diverging with increasing years.
Fortunately, the upper GMT boundary line is a straight line having, interestingly, the same global warming rate of 0.06 deg C per decade as the global warming trend line for the whole data. Also, the upper and lower GMT boundary lines are parallel, showing no change in the magnitude of the GMT swing with increasing years. As a result, the vertical cooling or warming swing of 0.5 deg C between the two GMT boundary lines is cyclic and is therefore natural.
However, there is evidence of a persistent but natural global warming of 0.06 deg C per decade. Not 0.2 deg C per decade as claimed by the IPCC.