Times-Picayune op-ed on Global Warming

On December 18, the Times-Picayune ran the following op-ed on Global Warming by long-time Alliance supporters Tom and Tracey Sherry.

Recent floods are what a warmer, wetter world would look like

Stranded at home for the third time in as many days by roads flooded from record-breaking rainfall, we felt grateful for our dry home, if not yard. At least the high water was temporary.

Over coffee and the morning paper, we wondered how the greater New Orleans drainage pumps, obviously struggling with the heavy rainfall, could possibly protect us from the much higher water forecast to submerge our city as global sea levels rise.

The paper reported a prominent local politician's skepticism about global warming, while on the same page a new scientific study predicted ice-free summers in the Arctic in five years. Never mind a U.S. government study reporting just months ago that this wouldn't happen until 2030.

Whom to believe? The opinions of a few nay-saying pundits and politicians or the overwhelming body of scientific evidence?

Isn't the science a fraud, according to stolen emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit?

Actually, the Associated Press, among other groups, reported that the global climate science is impeccable, and the apparent improprieties of a few scientists largely, if not completely disappear when viewed in context.

You wouldn't know this from some policy makers.

One reads that global warming will increase big government, yank freedoms, chase energy jobs overseas and further wreck the economy. All these claims have been addressed rationally, some in our newspaper.

What's important is that with time and some government incentives society can shift towards greater energy efficiency and renewable energy sources -- growing the economy -- while weaning ourselves from the worst carbon producers like coal.

Denmark, for example, gets 19 percent of its total energy from wind alone (compared to 11 percent from all renewable sources in U.S.) by developing technologies that will continue to grow its economy for decades. It's no surprise that Copenhagen is hosting the global climate conference.

Nay-sayers notwithstanding, scientific research is valued highly today for its verifiability and transparency.

Before such research is published, qualified competing scientists scrutinize it for accuracy and validity. Funding sources are disclosed.

Future funding, scientists' credibility, and scientific institutions depend on maintaining the highest standards of accuracy.

We rely on scientists to explain everything measurable, from the structure of subatomic particles to the universe.

Scientists get us airborne, find the causes and treatments of medical ailments, increase agricultural output and locate new fossil fuel deposits.

Scientists also tell us that by burning coal, oil, and natural gas we pump 2.8 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere annually -- faster than plants or oceans remove it -- which traps heat that would otherwise dissipate in space.

No surprise: The earth is warming (the last decade was the hottest ever recorded) and the oceans rising.

Scientists further warn that such warming will so disrupt weather-determining ocean currents, rainforest growth (a major carbon sink), and global ecosystems including the Arctic Ocean, that we'll reach dangerous tipping points.

Once reached, there's no turning back to the current environmental status quo enjoyed by humans (and millions of other species) for thousands of years.

Melting the Arctic sea ice won't raise sea levels, but the loss of its enormous heat-reflective surface will exacerbate the warming.

Greenland's ice cap on the other hand, up to 9,800 feet thick in some parts, will raise sea level an estimated 23.6 feet at the rate of over three feet per century if allowed to continue melting.

Needless to say, this doesn't bode well for the not-so-distant future of south Louisiana.
Denial is a common and psychologically comforting reaction when facing such frightening prospects. But in the face of multiple convergent lines of scientific evidence, mounting for more than 30 years, global warming deniers are today's "flat-earthers."

We should be aware of their arguments, and move forward with thoughtful action.

Ideology and the politics of fear masquerading as reason may win elections but rarely solve problems. We urge our leaders instead to base their decisions about climate change on peer-reviewed, verifiable science -- on facts, and nothing less.

Voodoo might sell books and concert tickets, and some "who dats" believe it's helped the Saints, but voodoo climatology sure won't save New Orleans.

Tom Sherry is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Tulane University and Tracey Sherry holds a doctorate in zoology from the University of Massachusetts. The Sherrys live in New Orleans. They can be reached at tsherry@tulane.edu.