Special to the Mirror by Charles A. Landis
Unfortunately, absent from discussion about climate change, global warming, and rising seal levels on Tangier and the coastal communities of the Eastern Shore, is the intellectually honest information needed to more fully understand the issue.
National, and local, media report on the different views of Al Gore and Mayor of Tangier, James Eskridge, on climate change and the rise of the sea level of Chesapeake Bay. Mr. Jay Ford of Eastern Shorekeepers, joins with Mr. Gore and is quoted as admonishing Mayor Eskridge for saying, in his lifetime, 58 years, and as a waterman, he has observed no rise in sea level. Mr. Ford asserts that it is an indisputable fact that seal level rising is the cause of Tangier’s problem, not erosion as Mayor Eskridge believes..
Also, published in local newspapers, is an open letter to Congressman Scott Taylor by Mr. Tony Picardi, speaking on behalf of the Citizens Climate Lobby, which says “We on the Eastern Shore are in desperate need of a solution that will reverse the accumulation of greenhouse gasses and help our economy.”
Here are some inconvenient truths that should be part of an honest conversation about Tangier, global warming, and sea level rise:
Rising sea levels, beginning 10,000 years ago, turned the river flow of the Susquehanna River Valley into a drowned river which we now call the Chesapeake Bay. Archaeologists from the Smithsonian Institution have determined the sea level of the Chesapeake Bay 3,000 years ago was 12 feet lower than today. None of this was caused by carbon emissions from human activity.
A recent report by Remote Sensing Systems, which provides data for NASA, NOAA., and the National Science Foundation, says “Global mean temperatures have not risen for 18 consecutive years”.
The Petition Project (on climate change) reports that 31,487 scientists have signed a statement saying that “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will cause in foreseeable future, catastrophic heating of Earth’s atmosphere and destruction of Earth’s climate.”
Recent studies by US National Snow and Ice Data Center show Artic ice has significantly expanded for past two consecutive years. This contradicts Al Gore’s apocalyptic prediction in 2007 that there would no ice by 2014 and costal areas, where 40% of Americans live, would be under water.
In a recent paper written by Patrick More, co-founder of Greenpeace (arguably the most activist environmental organization in the world with 2.9 million supporters) More says “The science is not settled. The debate is not over. The climate is always changing.” The climate has been changing for over 4.6 billion year and will continue to change. Thirty million years ago there was no ice on the earth, there is no correlation in this period between temperature and carbon dioxide, and over periods of hundreds of millions of years, they are out of sync with each other. It is “arrogant” to think we can predict the climate 30-60 years from now.
Richard Lindzen, an atmospheric physicist at MIT for over 30 years who has published more than 2,000 scientific papers concludes everyone agrees that the climate is always changing, CO2 gas is necessary for life to exist, and over the past 200 years with increased emissions, global mean temperatures have increased by only 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Where all the hysteria comes from is the politicians, environmentalists, and the media who know doomsday scenarios sell. They argue that humans are the most destructive force on nature. These people are winning the argument because they scare a lot people.
Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist and mathematician, who spent most of his life at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, agrees that global warming exists and one of the main causes is burning fossil fuels. However, the simulation models do not account for important factors which result in too much error to predict future climate trends. In an opinion he wrote in the Boston Globe, December 3, 2015 he wrote:
“The environmental movement has been hijacked by a bunch of climate fanatics, who have captured the attention of the public with scare stories…”
Yes, Virginia (Eastern Shore), there is climate change. There always has been and there always will be. Yes, there has been significant sea level rise over the past 3,000-10,000 years but Tangier’s problem today is erosion.
It is time for the fear mongers to introduce a little intellectual honesty to the conversation.
Charles A. Landis is author of An Introduction to the History of Virginia’s Eastern Shore and writes commentaries on contemporary issues of historical importance. He lives in Onancock. Contact charland2@verizon.net.
About the Author
“It is time for the fear mongers to introduce a little intellectual honesty to the conversation.”
I don’t think of myself as much of a a fear-monger, but I am a fan of intellectual honesty, so here is my
modest contribution:
I don’t claim to know the answers to the subject of climate change in general, or the fate of Tangier Island in particular, but I was curious, and I did a little research on my own.
Mr. Landis did not provide any specific links for his quotes, and I was not able to actually identify them precisely, but I did look at the websites of some of the organizations he mentioned, and found the following:
Remote Sensing Systems (http://www.remss.com/):
The satellite data in question has been a mainstay of climate denial enthusiasts, however the RSS has re-examined their methodology and determined that there were inconsistencies in the way in which individual satellites took their measurement, and last year they updated and re-issued the dataset, which shows modest but continued warming:
https://phys.org/news/2016-03-revamped-satellite-global.html
The following is a link to the actual RSS paper published in the American Meteorological Society’s Online Journal:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0744.1?af=R&
The OISM Petition Project (http://www.petitionproject.org/):
The OISM Petition Project is presented as evidence of a substantial backlash by scientists who disagree with the consensus view on climate change. The following articles provide ample reason for skepticism regarding both OISM and the related Petition Project:
Wikipedia article regarding the OISM Petition Project (aka Oregon Petition):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition
https://skepticalscience.com/OISM-Petition-Project.htm
US National Snow and Ice Data Center (https://nsidc.org/):
I did not find any evidence that “Artic ice has significantly expanded for past two consecutive years” on the site, but there is a lot of information available, so perhaps I missed it. The following plot of “Average Monthly Artic Sea Ice Extent July 1979 – 2017” seems to me a more accurate representation of the site’s overall message:
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2017/08/Figure3-350×270.png
In addition, the following plot is also informative, it is captioned:
“The 2012 Arctic sea ice minimum, on September 16, 2012, reached the lowest ice extent in the satellite record. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center”
https://nsidc.org/sites/nsidc.org/files/images//N_20120916_doy_extn_hires-350×417.png
Regarding Dr. Richard Lindzen:
The author appears to have overstated Dr. Lindzen’s output by a factor of 10 (~200 papers, not 2000).
Some examples of why it might be wise to be skeptical about Dr. Lindzen’s claims:
https://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptic_Richard_Lindzen.htm
Other MIT climate scientist’s critique of Dr. Lindzen’s letter to Donald Trump:
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06032017/climate-change-denial-scientists-richard-lindzen-mit-donald-trump
A few other things:
http://news.mit.edu/2017/mit-issues-statement-research-paris-agreement-0602
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/06/08/trump-used-our-research-to-justify-pulling-out-of-the-paris-agreement-he-got-it-wrong/?utm_term=.088d08303e44
So yes, I tried to introduce a little intellectual honesty to the conversation.
If they will not tell the truth about slavery, why on earth would they tell the truth about erosion?
Let us try a few facts that should be spoken often and loud:
1) 10-15 million African slaves were shipped to the New World, but only 6% (400,000) to North America. The vast majority went to South America, yet countries like Brazil don’t get hit with slavery guilt.
2) Most of the American slave ships and American slave-markets were run by Jews. But no one blames modern Jews. Because if anyone today says anything was “run by Jews”, they’re immediately dismissed as a crazy anti-Semite, regardless of whether or not it’s true. Nonetheless, slavery is projected onto and laid entirely at the feet of White men.
3) There are approximately 5-8,000 White Supremacist(KKK, Nazi, ect). It is totally impossible for 5-8,000 people to be Trump’s base. It is totally impossible for them to have swung the vote in his favor. In fact, most of the real White Supremacist are incarcerated.
Until Americans want to deal with cold, hard facts….there will be nothing left but emotion. This country can not be governed by simple emotion. If we continue to divide our nation, there will be an attempt to take us over. If we do not stand together we will fall divided. I was not raised to even understand this madness and I will not change my moral compass to support liberals ideals.
I visited the island. My take: they want to build a sea wall on the N.West side to help stop erosion. In the short term that will help. But,…and this is big, there is hydraulic pressure under the island. It’s causing graves to pop up. Tangeir, like so many islands before it will disappear. Probably sooner than later. They all know one big storm and that could be it. It’s hard to leave the things you love. However, like a famous rock group once pointed out; You can’t always get what you want. The Federal & State Government should help them relocate.
I suspect the question of Tangier Island will be settled once and for all time as it was on the community of Broadwater on Hog Island .
After the hurricane caused the seas to wash over the island , the remaining houses were barged to Willis Wharf and are still there with plaques to identify them .
Rather than spend money to delay the inevitable how about a grant to move certain buildings to the mainland ? Maybe even something like John Rockefeller did for Williamsburg .