We can’t rule out catastrophic climate change

A couple of weeks ago I plugged an upcoming talk by Pieter Tans of NOAA’s Earth Systems Research Lab in Boulder — a carbon cycle specialist and winner of the Roger Revelle Medal. The talk has now been and gone (on Wednesday in Wellington), and the Science Media Centre has made an audio recording available. It’s embedded below the fold, and very well worth a listen. After an excellent introduction to climate basics (basic physics and chemistry mean that the climate’s changing), Tans traverses our addiction to fossil fuels, and how we might fix the problem.

Pieter Tans

8 thoughts on “We can’t rule out catastrophic climate change”

  1. Definitely worth seeing (and using IE that one time)….
    The most remarkable statement is that he sees us in a 1 in 6 chance to produce AGW of 30 Deg Farenheit or about 15 Deg C in warming over the continental land masses… and likens what we are doing to playing Russian Roulette with a 6 chamber revolver pointed at the head of our children….
    Tell somebody to take a ride in a plane that has a 1 in 6 chance of crashing… not many takes I would think. The Space shuttle had a 1 in 100 failure rate…

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