April 14, 2007: Global Warming - Brenda Ekwurzel

From the high desert and the great American Southwest, I did you all good evening, good

morning, good afternoon as a case may be in the time zone you're located in each and

everyone covered like a blanket by this program coast to coast a M. Good evening or whatever

from the high desert. I'm Art Bell. It's my honor and privilege to be with you throughout

this weekend. Now it's going to be an interesting weekend. Originally I had invited Ed Dames

to be here. He may still be here in the first hour. Let me tell you why. This was a lead story

a few days ago on unknown country.com. That's with the streamers website. It's bad enough

that we've got missing bees. We've got a coral reef dial off. Big one. That'll affect

the fish, fish population. Say, in fact, they say there may be no fish in 50 years. No fish

in the sea. But now we may have a mystery wheat blight. In new scientists, Deborah McKenzie

quotes Norbell laureate Norman Borlaug is who's known by the way as a father of the Green

Revolution saying, quote, this thing has immense potential for social and human destruction

because wheat feeds more people on earth than any other plant. This new blight is called

UG99. It is a newly evolved version of the familiar wheat rust that farmers finally

thought they might have conquered when rust resistant strains of wheat were created.

But UG99 has now learned how to invade rust resistant wheat. This new strain of the disease

first discovered in Uganda, Africa eight years ago. And the spores have been gradually

spreading across East Africa into Yemen and Sudan. Scientists who are tracking it say,

the spores will eventually blow into Egypt, Turkey, the Middle East and India. Then only

a matter of time until the fungus ends up in Europe and the Americas. But scientists

are racing the crop trying to create new wheat resistant varieties that are resistant

to UG99. Now, it's worth noting that years and years and years ago, that's exactly what

Ed Dame said. That's precisely what Ed Dame said. So I thought I'd have them on and acknowledge

sadly that he appears to be right, but we're not able to reach him at this hour. And there

may be some mix up about which day he agreed beyond. He responded with some sort of

email saying yes, it's dire ahead indeed or something like that.

Now the webcam photograph tonight, if you go to coast to coastam.com, Art Bell's webcam,

you'll see a picture of our little Philippine immigrant Kitakat and Abby. She's kind of

peeking out of a little, a little area that we've created, especially for her. Now, my

appearance is night is tempered by the fact that I have the flu. It began about two or

three days ago with usual sniffles and that sort of thing progressed into a night of shivering

and temperature that reached about 102. And I've fed it just about everything I can think of

defeated that you're supposed to, you know, lots of water, lots of liquids, some antibiotic

prevent any further disturbance and flu medicine. I guess you know you have the flu when you have

a temperature. So I do have a little bit of a temperature tonight, but we will plow through

nevertheless. So if you're something a little untoward, that's my flu. Storm blade. Oh, by the way,

pizza punch is shipping. And I'm going to be very, very curious. I'm informed that it is

shipping now. So I really want to hear from those of you who have acquired pizza punch and tried it

on some pizza. And I would love to get some reviews from some of you years in the thinking about

and the doing it finally out there. It's artbells pizza punch calm. Now, the we've been having storms

here in the west. Really windy storms. It's been almost all wind out here. Just wind and wind

and wind virtually every day wind. These storms are now blowing east and they're gathering strength.

And as they go, they're killing. There are now five dead as these storms had east at this hour,

it's still blowing out here. It has virtually been blowing all week long anywhere between 30

and 55 miles an hour here in the desert. Well, these storms as they go east are gathering

strength, meeting other storms, and then meeting hot air coming from the north and causing all

kinds of havoc in the southeast. Five dead so far.

Well, let's see. Oh, this is too bad. A legendary crooner, Don Hull is dead at age 76.

A very saddy died of the heart failure at age 76.

Upstart China challenges the US by blasting a satellite out of orbit. North Korea

lobs a missile over Japan, trumpeting Tokyo to initiate a multi-billion dollar spy satellite program

India is readying a lunar mission while rival Pakistan makes headlines with new improved warheads.

The most heated space race since the Cold War is underway, not here, but in Asia.

Where countries are concluding that a space program is no longer just an expensive status symbol,

but rather a matter of national security, and they are scrambling to keep abreast of each other.

Meanwhile, we're closing ours down. It seems as quickly as we can.

There's a lot of news we could talk about, a lot of additional news we could talk about.

The IMA situation, of course, and I really don't know what to say about that. A fellow broadcaster

has been fired and he's just he's gone. On the one hand, what he said was

incredibly stupid. However, so many incredibly stupid things have been set on the air

that I'm not sure what to say about it. Whether or not the death penalty was appropriate for what he

said, I guess has already been decided that was just really decided by the sponsors.

He did do a lot of good. I'm as helped a lot of kids with cancer, whether that's going to be able

to continue or not now that he's off the air is certainly in question. It's kind of sad to see

a career end in that way. Whether he has any future on the air anywhere I think is pretty much

up in the air. I covered the pet poisoning for you some time ago, and here's the headlines. I

told you it wasn't six or 15 pets. Veterinary hospital chain reports, 39,000 pets were sickened or

killed by contaminated food. Pet food contamination with an industrial chemical may have

sickened or killed 39,000 cats and dogs nationwide, mostly cats, by the way, based on an extrapolation

from data release Monday by one of the nation's largest chains of veterinary hospitals.

The pet hospital in Banfield said an analysis of its database compiled with records collected by

its more than 650 veterinary hospitals suggests that three out of every 10,000 cats and dogs at

eighth pet food contaminated with milamine developed kidney failure. There are an estimated 60

million dogs, 70 million cats in the US. The hospital chain saw one million dogs and cats during

the three months when the more than 100 brands of now recalled contaminated pet food resolved.

It saw 284 extra cases of kidney failure among cats during that period, or a roughly 30 percent

increase when compared with background rates. It has meaning when you see a peak like that,

we see so many pets here, and it coincided with a recall period. So there you go. It was not 15,

it was more like 39,000 and most of them were cats. We are going to go to open lines,

unscreened I might add, open lines in a moment. In fact, let me give you the numbers for that

that opportunity for you to get in on all of this. Wester the Rockies is 1-800-618-825-5.

Wester the Rockies 1-800-825-5.033. First time callers, we love you.

Area code 818-5.01.4721. The wildcard lines, any number of those, good chance to get in. Area

code 818-5.01.4109. Finally, outside the country all together, we love you. We have a number

toll free 800-893-0903. That's 800-893-0903. And we'll be right back.

Well, all right, the Honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder is now spreading to Europe.

A not only is it spreading to Europe, but it's getting worse here. And there is now a suggestion

that mobile phones, that's right cell phones, which I never really liked anyway, maybe wiping out

our bees. Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for the mysterious colony collapse of

bees. It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film, but some scientists suggest

that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages as the world's harvests fail.

They're putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other high-tech

gadgets is a possible answer. One of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the

natural world, the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate our crops.

Late last week, some beekeepers claimed that the phenomena, which started in the US,

spread to continental Europe, was beginning to hit Britain as well now. The theory is that

radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees navigational systems, preventing the famously

home-loving species from finding their way back to their hives, improbable as it may seem.

There is some new evidence to back it up. colony collapse disorder occurs when a hives

inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, queens eggs, and a few immature workers,

like so many. Mary Celeste, the vanished bees, are never found, but thought to die in a lonely way

sing the leaf are from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees, it normally raid the honey

and pollen left behind while a colony dies rather, refused to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

The alarm was first handed, last autumn, but now has hit half of all the American states,

the West Coast, thought to have lost now 60% of its commercial bee population, with 70% missing

on the East Coast. Now, when you put all that together with our current ecological woes,

and they are many and by the way, in the next hour, Brenda Equizile will get it straight.

Equizile I believe it is. Brenda, actually doctor Brenda Equizile,

is going to be with us and she's going to be talking about our climate, which very clearly

now is changing. I think there is a consensus among the world's scientists that no longer

are we guessing about this? Our climate clearly is changing, and the number of woes that we're

beginning to perceive are adding up day by day. In fact, it's hard to keep up with the number

of headlines in that area. All right, let's go to the phones, unscreened open lines. That means

have something interesting to say, please. Not only that, but once I answer the phone, please be

very sure that your radio is turned off, or you will get confused by the time delay, and you will

sound confused on the air, and I know you don't want that. That said, let's go to the first time

caller line. It says here. Let's try it again. No, can't do that. Yes, we did do it. First time

caller line, you're on the air. Hello. Hi. Yes. It's a prayer list to talk to you, Mr. Bail.

Could just speak with you as well. Thank you. I'm the lady. You've over the years called

a fairy lady, because sometimes I talk about fairies. But anyway, what you just said about

maybe at the cell phones and all that, it's interesting because just a few days ago,

I was thinking about before Thadam Hussein was executed, a reporter was interviewing him,

and the reporter said to him, he said, well, once you're gone, he said, you think we're going to

have any more terrorism. And Thadam Hussein, oh, yes. He said, oh, yes. Oh, yes. He certainly are

going to. And I was thinking just a few days ago that maybe the terrorist found a way of

electronically finding the frequency of the bees and sending in a electronic grade to the bees.

And I don't know. I'm not a scientist. I'm just telling you what I was thinking and I just

wanted to share it with you. Well, you've got a very good connection. It does not sound like you're

on a cell phone. Is that correct? No, I'm not. I have my speaker phone on because I was doing

something while I was waiting for you to answer. All right. Well, listen, thank you very much for the

call. It's obvious that you are not responsible for killing any bees. I wonder if it really is

cell phones. And what if it was cell phones? What if the scientists are correct? And it actually

has cell phones killing bees? All right. Well, I'm going to have to have the cooperation for the

moment of the of the people in California to get these calls on the air. Let's go to our west

of the Rockies line and say, good evening. You're on the air.

Hi. Hi. This is Barry in Thomas River, New Jersey. Yes, Barry. Welcome.

I was reading in progressive Mormon magazine. I sort of get accidentally that the

bee problem is due to a species of mite that has infected the bee population.

It's a possibility. I mean, they are virtually they're speculating about everything, my friend.

They honestly have no idea for sure what it is. It might be some sort of mite. It might be cell phones.

It might be a lot of things. They really don't know for sure. It's just a pleasure to talk to you.

I've been a fan since 1997. I had a child born that year who was colloquy and I found you then.

I guess you were up late a lot at night, huh? Yeah. That's how I found you and I haven't

slept much at night since then. I see. Well, it does become a habit. All right. Thank you very

much for the call and take care. Let's go to one of the wild card lines. Doesn't matter which one.

I'll say hello. You're on the air. Art. Yes. Hi. This is Mark. I've got some information for you

that's a little more explicit about the cell phone phenomena. Yes, sir.

And I want to take it to the to humans first because I don't know if this relates to bees,

but I do know it relates to humans. The information carrier wave of a cell phone

is what is causing the problem in humans because the frequency of that wave on the human cell

causes the you know, you know, you know, Bruce Lipton. I think you've interviewed him. Yes.

Okay. He's an imminent pre-imminent cellular biologist, somebody I know. And his understanding

from his longtime research is the cell membrane is actually the brain of a cell.

And he's proven that with his extensive research. So what happens with this information carrier

wave frequency from cell phone? I'm not I'm not clear on what you first said. Say it again. The

okay. Okay. Bruce Lipton's longtime research has shown his experiments in his research

and cellular biology shows that the cell membrane, the container, the membrane is actually the

brain of the cell. Okay. I guess it's what gives the information. It's not the DNA. It's not the

RNA. It's the membrane that's actually the cell. And the information carrier wave that happens

with the wireless systems and cell phones causes that cell membrane to harden and shut down. It

cuts off what's called biologically intercellular communication. So it doesn't have the right

information to do the other cells in the body to do what it's supposed to do. So it causes the

body's immune system to deteriorate and it also causes the reproductive process of the cell

to deteriorate. So you start getting aberrant cells in the body. Now I don't know if that does

that with with bees or not. But I know that there's a commonality with wireless

radio, you know, like communications and cell phones and microwave systems and everything.

Every place that they're having, even in Australia from where I'm from, every place that they

are having this problem, there is a high amount of electronic connectivity, whether it's wireless,

Wi-Fi, whether it's cell phones, whatever it is. And humanity has never, ever been so saturated

with different kinds of waves before. And it's a real problem. I have a connection with a

couple of doctors who's done really good research on that. And I'll send you an email with their

name on it. All right, please do. I'm going to have to cut it off here. But I am aware of

certainly of some effects of higher frequency RF radio frequency. Now a number of years ago,

they did a study and high powered RF and how it affects amateur radio operators. I was particularly

interested in that since I'm one of those. But they've pretty much proven that the lower frequency

stuff isn't that much of a problem. Now the higher frequency stuff from one gigahertz on up

may be a problem. It may be a problem to human beings. It may be a problem to bees. We're not sure yet.

But I guess we better be sure pretty soon because if it is the bees, they're already going at a

rate that we can't withstand. I mean, this is our food folks. The pollination of all this food

that we eat from the high desert and the great American Southwest. I'm Art Bell.

It seems so unfair for me to have caught the flu yet again prior to leaving

Manila knowing I'd be on a long flight exposed to the flu and lots more. I took a flu shot

sometime ahead of taking the flight. And so I thought, ha ha, this year I definitely beat the flu.

Wrong. How many of the rest of you took a flu shot and then suffered?

Anyway, it's just not fair. Back in just a moment.

Well, all right, back to unscreened open lines. Let's see what we can do. The controlling software

here is having a bit of difficulty, but we'll give it a shot. West of the Rockies, you are on the

air. Good morning. Good morning, Art. How are you doing today? There goes another bee.

I was just thinking with our with all our modern technology and the bees. I mean, why could

we track the bees? Like find a hive that's not affected by this virus or miter or whatever it is

and like somehow track it like with an RFD chip or something like that. I mean, they're talking

about putting in in us and then money to track the cash. Who gets what cash and where and where it

goes? Why can't they do that with bees? Well, I suppose they could and I suppose they're probably

thinking of exactly that sort of thing, of doing that sort of thing. So I don't have a complete

answer for you, but it's a good idea. I had somebody earlier sent me a very interesting

picture of dead bees by his mailbox, actually dead and dying bees. They're little legs up just

as I described a few weeks ago. And I don't know what to make of it. Other people have said the bees

are gathering in San Diego. There's an infestation bees in the San Diego area. I don't know if that's

true. San Diego wide. So I have no idea. I just know that we certainly need bees. Now this is

interesting. I'm going to try and bring up a couple of lines that don't even show their

active. Let's see if it works. East of the Rockies, you're on the air. Hello. Apparently it does.

Hello there. This is Bud. Hi, Bud. Where are you? I'm there in Battle Creek, Michigan. Welcome.

How are you? I'm calling about a different subject. Is that okay tonight on? It's open

lines. You don't talk about anything you want. Well, I wasn't talking about saucers. I tried to get

through to Mr. Norris several times. And for some reason, let me through to him no more. I got

through once and asked the question to the person that asked me the screener. You're through.

I don't have a screener. You're through. So go ahead. I've heard you say before that you believe

the government might have something to do with like, you know, know about saucers or even have

their own saucers and stuff. Is that true? That's possible. Okay. I think I heard Mr. Norris too. Well,

I've always I got thinking if that's true, you know, our astronauts that we send up on the

shuttles and that when these astronauts got killed and everything, wouldn't that mean that the

government let them die for nothing? Yes, it would mean that. If if we have

saucers, if we have alien technology and we were still using old rocket propulsion,

then yes, that's exactly what it would mean. Now, I didn't say for sure that our government

has saucers. I didn't say for sure that we have alien bodies or that we have anything else

because I don't know what to be true. It's something that a number of people on the show have said

that doesn't make it so. And I want to be very clear about that. Despite all the interesting

testimony we've had here on the air from various people who believe this or believe that,

we don't have the smoking saucer as it were. So, so there you have it. I've got to be honest,

while I believe this might be true, while I believe we have certain knowledge, I can't know it.

And I'm not going to say it's true if I don't know it. I can tell you what I've seen. I can tell you

what I think, but only if I certainly know it to be true what I would I say it is so.

What's to the Rockies? You're on the air. Hello. Hi, this is my name is Rory and I'm calling from

San Diego. Hi, Rory. And you know, I just heard you talking about the bees in San Diego and I was

talking to one of the people that I work with and she's seen a lot of bees around around her home.

So, there you are. So, apparently there are a lot of bees in San Diego. Maybe they flew south from

elsewhere. Anything else? Have you seen them? I have not. I have not recently, but that isn't the

reason why I was calling you. I wanted to tell you something that happened to me when I was very,

very young. When I was very, very young, my mom was on the prices right and actually won a

bunk bed and myself and my brother used to sleep in it and I had a vision. I used to get really sick

and I had fevers and I used to have nightmares all the time and I had this vision of these three

blue faces on the ceiling of the bunk beds and I never really thought much of it. It wasn't really

scary and they were in my delimited memory that I have of them. They were trying to communicate

with me, but I couldn't hear anything and they looked kind of like holograms. Were they the famous

blue men? The famous blue men from the Vegas show? Remember the, well, yes. Yeah, no, no, no, no,

this happened in the early 1970s. Well, it's not, yeah, but it sounds as, oh, look,

I've had fevers too. Not in fact, I've got one right now and you tend to have obviously a lot of

visions when you have a fever. So, yeah, I mean, you got to kind of put that as a main possibility.

Right. It doesn't mean it doesn't mean something, but

I think if you have a fever, I can recall any number of problems and things that I saw. I remember

one time I went to the dentist and they gave me some gas to pull some teeth when I was very young

and I had a vision of little men chopping up the world. But that's all it was. It was an

effective, whatever it was, they gave me. Let's go to the international line and say, hello there,

you're on the air. Good evening, Art. It's good to talk to you. I've been listening to you for

years. You know, this thing about the bees. Yes. You know, there's so much work being done in

nanotechnology and you know, it seems like the, the job that the bee does is really basic one.

Couldn't we have a research done into this and create an artificial bee?

An artificial bee. I don't think, I really don't think we're up to that task just yet. You'd have

to have something that would go from flower to flower doing the job bees do. And as far as we've

come in nanotechnology, I don't think we're quite ready for that yet. Okay, that was it.

Apparently he didn't wish any further discussion on the matter. I wrote, I don't think we're ready

for that yet. We're still putting very small things together, but not in a meaningful machine

like way yet. Let's go to one of the wild card lines and say, good morning, you're on the air.

Good morning, Art. How are you doing? I'm doing quite well, sir.

Oh, I was just listening in on this bee thing. This is actually quite scary.

If they put little chips on them, I don't know. The manufacturer wise said that fella just called

in. How could they, how soon could they gear up with something like that and get some kind of

tracking system going? I don't think that quickly. I don't think, well, to track a bee, I suppose we

can do that. And I suppose we can find out where they're going. Yeah, I would imagine they're

working on that already. I don't think we're ready for any artificial bees to be made and be

working, pollinating everything, but we can certainly track them. And I suppose find out where

they're going. This is really freaky. It's one of those things that you never would have thought

whatever happened. Well, there's an off lot going on in the world right now that you never thought

would have happened. And yet it's happening. I think it's all possibly traced back to either

our hand one way or the other or the climate changes we're going through. But that's just my

opinion. Let's pick on one of the other wild card lines and say, good morning. You're on the air.

Hello there. Going once, going twice, gone. Let me give it a try myself. Wild card line. You

are on the air. Good morning. Hey, Art. This is Eric. I'm calling you from Bozeman, Montana. Hello, Eric.

I was, you know, I've been listening to this Don. I miss saying, geez, they're all week ever since

this happened and, you know, really what gets me about this is they're calling it a racial

comment. Really what it is, is this what he made was a sexist comment. Actually, was both.

Well, yes, yes and no. But what irritates me about this is how it stern says words on the radio

than Don I miss does and he got persecuted and fired. Yeah, I know. Of course, Howard is off on

satellite now as I'm sure you're well aware. Well, I think look, I think, you know, what you're

saying is worthy of some attention. I mean, this is going to send a chill through the radio

industry. Certainly the shock radio industry. Personally, I've never felt that it was necessary at

all what's going on in the world right now is shocking enough without punctuating it with

bad language or racist language or anything else that's really going to irritate people. There's

enough irritating stuff going on in the world right now. So there you have it. I have very mixed

feelings about about what's happened on the one hand, what I'm a said, I suppose, justified what

happened and what happened really I think was that the sponsors pulled out when the money went

away, look, radio is a business. And that's it. I mean, that says it all radios of business ratings

equal money, equal ratings, equal money. It's a grand circle. And when the money goes away, that's

it. And so if you remember at the beginning of the controversy, they were going to let it slide

with a couple of weeks off, something like that suspension. But then the sponsors began to go away.

And when that happened, I suppose CBS made a decision that that it just wasn't worth holding on

without the money. West of the Rockies, you're on the air. Good morning. Hi, this is Stephanie in

Seattle. Hi, Steph. Hi, I would like your opinion on the global warming. I know you've had a couple

guests that have had their different views. Well, I'm going to have I'm going to have a real expert on

tonight, Brenda Aquazole. I heard her on on radio or on a TV program quite a number of months ago.

And she's really an expert in this whole area. So you'll be you'll be hearing her tonight. Do

you believe in her view or because I keep hearing all the different views and everything. And I was

just wondering what specific view do you believe in? I think it's happening. You think it's happening.

But I mean, like the I've heard the, you know, the the icebergs are melting the different, you know,

the the bees, which which one, you know, the different the volcanoes. They're the different. I'm not the whole the

whole North Pole is melting. It's not. The North Pole's melting the. Are we doing it? Or is it is the earth

doing it? You know, is it a combination of both? Yeah, that'd be my that's what I think it's a

combination of both. I think there's something. Look, the climate is always changing. If you look

back in the earth's history, you know, the oceans have risen. They've fallen. We've had ice ages. So

yes, the world's climate changes. Are we adding to what's going on right now in a way that is

going to be deadly for us? It's certainly a possibility. So that's my view. I think it's probably

both. Okay. Is it, are we, is what we're doing that catastrophic though? Or is this just the change

life? Okay. Is what we're doing that catastrophic? I think that it's potentially so. They talk about

very small changes in temperature going to the upside, having a very, very large effect. And of

course, in the northern latitudes, it's compounding upon itself. In other words, as the ice melts,

you now have a non-reflective surface. You have an absorbing surface that kind of compounds the

process and more ice melt and so forth and so on. Anyway, that's why we're having an expert on

tonight. She'll try and explain. I hope in a way we can all understand exactly what's going on

and what we've got to do to prevent it east of the Rockies. You are on the air. Good morning.

Good morning, sir. Congratulations on your lifetime achievement award.

Thank you so much. This is Roger Cohn, you from London, Ontario, Canada. Yes, sir.

I just wanted to comment a little bit about on a ways back. They said that they had found the

tomb of the so-called tomb of Jesus. And they were, they were basically touting it as saying,

wow, this is going to really jeopardize the whole belief of Christianity. And myself, I said,

well, where are the other religions in this whole episode? Because if it was true,

if they did find them, sure, this would put some doubt in Christianity. But

I guess first of all, I'm not up on having found the tomb of Jesus. I don't believe it either.

Where did you hear that it was so? Oh, you didn't hear the news about that? No. Oh, there was a big

documentary on the Discovery Channel in George and Ian, each had a guest on. And it was probably

one of those folks that said that they think they had found the tomb and that Jesus had a wife

named Mary and he had kids and whatnot. And they believed those to be his bones.

And so what I'm saying, have they proven that it was so? Well, to their, you know, limited.

They're satisfied. Well, I think that if they had found the so-called tomb of Jesus,

that would be news far beyond the Discovery Channel. I think we'd all be talking about it.

Well, that's that just basically pleasing to the fact of how preposterous it was. And I was

going to say as well, in addition to that, that it would also turn the other monotheistic

religions like Judaism and Islam, who would also have an impact on this.

Well, I would think so. I'm, look, I'm, I don't know what to say about that except as far as I'm

concerned, I've not heard a word and I peruse the news very carefully before I go on the air.

At any given time, that includes not just the major happening news, but what's behind the news

and the stories that don't quite make it into the mainstream. So I'm sure I would have seen that

if it had been proven beyond somebody's opinion. On the wildcard line or a wildcard line,

you're on the air. Good morning. Hello. Going once. Going twice. Go on. Let's move to another

wildcard line. You're on the air. Good morning. Hello. Morning. Going once. Going twice. Yes. Yes,

sir. Good morning. Good morning. The last caller. I just, um, great. I got through my name.

Oh, I live in Bellingham, Washington. And last call on the actual documentary was James Cameron

actually headed that up. Hi, Kenny producer. And, uh, I have a take on the bees. Um, you saw

X files movie, right? Sure. Remember when mold and skilly were in the dome and the floor opened

up and all the bees came out. And then I think the plan was that the bees were going to carry the

virus around the world, right? Barricella. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know. It just might take,

you know, in other words, you think the bees might be in one of those giant domes somewhere,

instead of where they ought to be in their hives. Possibly, you know, the government has done, you

know, I mean, they're all about conspiracy here and there. And it just, it just feels right. You

know how you're switching kind of, you know, I hadn't thought about that. But you got a point. Uh,

thank you very, very much for the call. I suppose it's as likely a place for the bees as any other.

Yes, that was the theme of the X files movie. Interesting because I just happened to catch that.

And you remember those giant white domes? And of course, at the, well, I guess I ought not relate

the end of the movie. Uh, west of the Rockies, you are on the air. Good morning. Good morning.

We have very little time before the top of the hour. So let her rip. Well, I let it call about.

Step it up. Step it up.

Hello. Hello. Yes. Go ahead. Step it up. Step it up. No. Well, there were over 1400 locations in the US

today where people were marching to step it up on working for a solution to global warming and

cutting emissions. Oh, oh, okay. Well, that's going to be, uh, thank you very much. That's going to

be the topic coming up with, uh, uh, Brenda Equersville after the break at the top of the hour.

Now again, she is a type of a top climate person worldwide. So if you've been wondering what's

really going on with our climate, I suggest to you that you stay tuned from the high desert. I'm Art Bell.

Well, all right. Apparently there was something about the tomb of Jesus, uh, which somehow or

another, I did miss. So I'll see what I can find out. In the meantime, this is something I've

waited a long time for. Brenda Equersville works on actually Dr Brenda Equersville works on, uh,

the National Climate Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, UCS. She's leading UCS's climate

science education work aimed at strengthening support for strong federal climate legislation and

sound U.S. climate policies. Prior to joining UCS, Dr. Equersville was on the faculty of the

University of Arizona Department of Hydrology and Water Resources with a joint appointment

in the geosciences department. Her specialty is isotope geochemistry of tools. She's used to study

climate variability in places as disparate as the Arctic Ocean and the desert southwest my home.

She's also worked as a hydrologist with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection

working with communities to protect groundwater sources. So in a moment, an expert that I've

been waiting quite a while to interview and we'll find out what's going on with our climate. Stay

right where you are. All right. Maybe we can move from opinion to science. Here is Dr. Brenda Equersville.

Dr. Welcome to the program. Thank you. I hope I'm pronouncing your last name correctly. Equersville,

is that correct? Perfect. All right. Can we indeed move? I had a call in the first hour,

Dr. which said, Art, what do you think? Is it, is it just a natural variability or is it,

is it man's hand? And anything I would say, I have my own opinion, but that's all it is,

is an opinion and hopefully you're here to give us a science. And I suppose we ought to begin with

what is the difference between what we call weather and climate? Weather is something that really

is a short term phenomenon that happens over a few days to weeks. So I mean through history's

lore, we've had incredible extremes and weather that nature can throw our way. And in fact,

it's kind of mundane, but climate scientists look at all those weather events and want to look at

the little shifts in the averages, the long term statistics and say, wow, what is the average

temperature over this particular location and has that change? So in fact, climate change is

looking at decades long data and seeing if there are shifts in the weather patterns. So that's

that's really what climate science is and that's very a little bit different than a particular storm.

In fact, if someone says, oh my goodness, it's a blizzard today, that means global warming is not

happening or is this is a heat wave today. This means global warming is happening is both of those

statements, climate scientists will reject because we would never look at one particular storm.

When you talk about climate doctor, how long a period of time are you looking at?

We really focus on the changes that are happening over the past several decades and compare that with

the entire century. And then we go even further back in time with our most high resolution data that

ice cores go back all the way down to 800,000 years ago. And in fact, we've been studying climate

since as far back as millions and millions of years to look at what type of big changes happened

on our planet to try to get a sense of what how sensitive is our earth to different changes that

influence the climate. Well, in recent years, there's been plenty of debate. Is it a natural

change that we're going through or is it man's hand adding it to it or is it just man?

Is the in fact, the debate over whether it's even happening now, I think the debate is over.

I'm not sure, but I think the debate is pretty much over. It's happening. Is that a fair statement?

Yes, the majority of scientists agree that that core statement you just mentioned that

is global warming happening and are we having a hand in the earth's climate is definitely sound

decision about we have unprecedented level of heat trapping gases in our atmosphere that have not

been seen in over 650,000 years and that is having an impact on the ground. And people are starting

to notice the difference in their own life as well as the scientists who have been measuring it.

So you would go so far as to say what we're in right now is not just a natural cycle.

Well, you never get rid of the natural cycles. It's not as if we're doing this experiment changing

the atmosphere's composition in a vacuum. The natural cycles will go on, our ocean cycles will

go on, our different cycles will go on and we are adding to that. So it's as if you have little

squiggly lines going up and down these natural cycles. And we've just, if you look at temperature,

we've tilted that temperature curve, especially recently. It's really tilted up hot. And so every year

it's hotter than it would be. If you looked at that, if we weren't adding heat trapping gases

to the atmosphere, the pace that we are. Well, I hate to be, oh, I don't know, ask you to comment

on where I am, but I'm not very far, Dr. From Death Valley. Now, the, the kind of temperatures we

get here in the summer are really hot. I mean, really hot here. And it wouldn't take too many

more degrees of heat in the summertime to make it virtually uninhabitable in this area. I'm not

very far from Las Vegas. And so I am concerned about the desert southwest. Can you tell me anything

about what lies ahead? Well, in essence, you are sitting in one of the, I would say, one of the

hot spots to use around the world where we're looking at very closely. Because just last week,

the intergovernmental panel on climate change released a report talking about what are the

impacts on the ground? And they focused on that the Southwest United States is at risk of having

increased water resource stresses in that there are three things happening to the Southwest.

One, in the future, if we do not turn this around, and we keep emitting heat trapping gases,

unabated, and we keep going at the pace we're going, that by the end of the century,

you would have much higher risk of wildfires because it's drying out. One thing is that you're kind

of turning the Southwest into a tender box. The next thing that you will have brutal heat waves

when they do occur, they'll be longer and more severe, and more likely suffering from the drought,

which you already are in a long period of drought right now. It's lasted

multi years, and you understand the resources that strain that that takes upon all the water

stores. So you'd have to, we have to plan and have some adaptation in our future to try to figure

out how can we best save water resources for the Southwest because it is such a particularly

vulnerable spot in the United States. All right. Well, of course, a lot of the documentaries

that are done on this subject, focus on the effect here in the U.S. Let's leave the U.S.

for just a moment. What about the rest of the world? How is, for example, the Pacific and some

of the islands in the Pacific? How are they going to fare if this continues, and it certainly seems

as though it will? Yes, well, again, one thing is important to remember, a lot of these projections

of the future are worst-case scenarios, and the fact that it's assuming we're going to keep

emitting heat-trapping gases, so what I'm talking about is assuming that, and we do have the choice

to stop and start turning this around. So assuming that we keep at the pace we're going, and we're

unable to change our ways, sea level rise will, it has already accelerated, and when you

heat the ocean, it expands, and that causes global sea level rise. Plus, we are melting our land-based

glaciers, and they're adding fresh water to the ocean, also adding to sea level rise, and that

means that many of your coastal areas are more likely to experience storm surges when a storm

comes in that are higher than before, and as you say, these specific islands that are very close

to sea level, they already are at their personal tipping point, and that some of them are going to

have to be relocated because sea level rise will overtake their small islands. And so that is an

immediate concern for those coastal residents, and for the rest of us, places like Bangladesh

is at a crossroads, and that there's a very highly populated region, there are many

regions in Asia that have the situation, but Bangladesh, for example, has the threat of sea

level rise from the ocean, causing storms and flooding that way, but also they have accelerated

melting of the Himalaya glaciers, and the landside flooding coming from the landside can also

cause immense amount of flooding. There are billions of people within very close

proximity to sea level rise, so it's similar to our New Orleans where we have this huge river

that can create land-based flooding. If you protect against that, that made New Orleans very vulnerable

to the ocean flooding that from a coastal storm of a hurricane, if it comes nearby.

Dr. Are you able to speak completely freely?

I hope so to you. Well, yes to me, of course. I would hope so as well, but there has been a lot of

talk of climate science being muscled or rewritten a little bit as the reports come out.

This is a concern of ours because what has happened, we conducted a survey of climate scientists

in different federal agencies, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, NASA,

United States Geological Survey, Environmental Protection Agency, and so on, and there were,

as you say, these high-profile cases in the news where a couple scientists would report,

hey, I wanted to write this report. I wanted to talk to the public about what your taxpayer

dollars paid for these studies, and in fact, I was not allowed to talk to the press about a certain

scientist was talking about hurricanes and projections going forward in his models that with increasing

heat-dropping gases in the atmosphere that hurricanes would become more intense and have more

rain associated with them when they came on land, and other such muscling of scientists.

So we conducted a survey and we found that it was widespread that they were allowed to publish

journal articles, but how many of us actually read those obscure science journal articles.

They were allowed to go to science conferences, but again, that's the public not really going to

those conferences, and the point of pressure was when they would want to talk to the public through

the media and so on. And so what we found is that, you know, several hundred scientists

are complaining that, for example, they were not allowed in a press release to use the word global

warming or climate change. How much? Things like that. To try to steer the media away from

reports they published to letting them know, hey, we found something new about global warming.

How was this imposed? I mean, was there some sort of memo that went to all those who receive

government money in their research or how is this done? They basically, for example, 52 percent

of respondents said their agency's public affairs officials would monitor scientists' communication,

which is not a strange thing. It's just that if you compare that with scientists that work at

academia or work at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which is a different entity,

that they do not have that level of monitoring by the public affairs officials. And so the public

affairs officials might be directly interfacing with the reporter and say, no, we don't want you to

talk to this particular scientist, but you to talk to this other scientist. And in fact,

we feel that the media should be able to talk to all scientists in any agency at the cutting edge

of research, letting the public know, even though it's the end of, for example, type of research

that is at the edge of what we know, and there may be controversy, that's where the bait lies,

not the core issues of whether climate change is happening or not. It's just some of these impacts

on the ground. We still have a lot of room and science to work on those. And so that was the

disturbing thing is we think that that number should be zero, and no one should be mazzled,

and the public should be allowed to know what the results are of their research.

Indeed. Dr. How do we measure the difference between what would be a normal cyclical change,

and how much these greenhouse gases emitted by man are making in what's going to happen?

What what we do is we look at we have very good records of how much, for example, the sun has

emitted its energy coming to the earth. We have lots of observatories measuring that very carefully,

and we compare that data with data about volcanic eruptions. It's also influenced the climate.

They can cool the climate, reflect aspects of the sunlight, and we compare that with all our

measurements of different heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere over the last century, and we look

at the global average temperature, and we run models that look at ocean temperature, land temperature,

everywhere around the earth, and we compare the results, compare that global average temperature

that happens in our computer simulation that adds all the factors that influence the climate,

and compare that with the observed climate. And when we look at that, we see that the natural

variables do not show that the earth would be cooler today than it is. And when we add to the

natural variables, the factors that influence climate, the heat-trapping gases that we've contributed,

and also the pollution, which we've contributed, those particles that come out of our smokestacks.

They reflect sunlight and cool. They cool the climate. We have to add that in too.

And that you compare natural factors plus our man-made factors. You see that that curve,

if you look over the last century, absolutely as much closer match to the observed temperatures,

then we see if you just use the natural factors alone. And it's by significant amount. And that's why

the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued in its report, this very strong statement.

It basically said that it's very likely, which in their terms means greater than 90% probability,

that emissions of heat-trapping gases from human activities have caused most of the observed

increase in global average temperature since the mid-20th century. It's a very strong statement

from the international science community. That is very strong. And that is, as they set it

without any modification, I know that in the report I think that came out last week,

there were changes that were made in terms of the number of millions of people that would be

affected in some other areas that were sort of politically affected and changed.

That's right. And that is the part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,

the process. There are scientists in the room who participated in the full report.

And then there are also government representatives, including the United States Government

representative in the room. And they all go through this short summary of the deeper

full report, line by line. And that's where you were seeing those modifications.

And the reason they wanted to make it a short document, one of the reasons they changed some

of the billions to softer numbers, shall we say, is that when you have the scenarios for the

future, some of them include population estimates and what the future is, and they have different

estimates. So if you say one number, it's inaccurate. If you don't say it was this particular

scenario, the storyline about population, about how we use energy, would give this many billions

of people that are vulnerable to say sea level rise, whereas if you lose this other scenario where we

have perhaps less population in certain areas of the planet that are less than would be vulnerable.

So they chose to change a single number because they didn't have enough space to qualify

these different scenarios. So it is a very tricky thing. But in general, anything that the IPCC

says is kind of the lowest common denominator where everyone agrees. This is without a doubt.

And you'll find many science papers out there that may go beyond and have more, shall we say,

bolder predictions or projections of the future. And some of the climate surprises we call them

because it's in general, as you say, a kind of conservative process.

So it was, I heard countries like our country, the US and China and other emerging industrial

nations that, let's say, had an effect on the report that resulted in the lower numbers being

reported? Yes, yes. That is what happened. But in general, certainly, it's a process and it shows

that it's a policy-relevant document. And I think that governments around the world are paying

attention to this science. And it's a very sensitive topic when you talk about the impacts on the

ground in your backyard. Who is most vulnerable? And the general conclusion is that basically,

people who are in countries who may not have the ability to have the resources to adapt

will perhaps be the most vulnerable. And people in wealthier countries, industrialized nations,

who also may not have the resources individually, for example, if you're elderly or if you're someone

who suffers from cardiopulmonary disease, you're going to have more vulnerability to a heatwave.

For example, in Chicago or in the United States, when a heatwave comes through and is sitting there

for many days, sitting over your head, and you may not be able to afford air conditioning bills,

then you are much more vulnerable in this country to heatwave stress and potential loss of life

than someone who can afford to protect themselves and acclimate their climate.

Interesting you would mention Chicago. I think that's where the heatwave killed so many recently,

right? Yes, that was in 2005. And we also had in 2003, many people in Italy, France,

and all different parts of Europe, the Netherlands, that it was a insufferable heatwave.

It's a part of the world where many people expect there are summers to be mild and don't have the

capacity to deal with these incredibly more likelihood, basically people who studied that heatwave

says it's just basically more likely because we are having a warming climate. In fact,

when you look at, when we've been collecting statistics since about 1850, very widespread statistics

of temperatures in the ocean and on land, we have enough statistics to say that 11 of the last 12

years rank them on the 12 hottest on records. All right, Dr. Hold it right there. We're at a

break point. Dr. Brenda Ekwerzel will be right back. A real expert, Dr. Brenda Ekwerzel, and it's

remarkable to me how angry people get about this topic. I mean, we all know it's going on. Some of

us believe that it's a natural cycle. Some of us believe that man's hand is involved. Either way,

the reaction of the listeners is astounding to me. David in Florence, Kentucky asks, aren't if this

bell curve that reflects the change to our climate is accurate, what percentage of temperature

increase is due to man? Also, with this percentage, what is our country's level of responsibility?

That's a good question and we'll ask in a moment. Let's give that a try. David in Florence,

Kentucky again, is asking if this bell curve that reflects the change in our climate is accurate,

is there a way doctor to attach a actual percentage of increase due to man?

What we have is the statement from the intergovernmental panel on climate change that human

activities have caused most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th

century, and so most is more than 50 percent. So we're more than at this point in time. We are,

and it keeps growing each year. So every year, if you look at what the natural factors that

influence climate, and you look at our contribution every decade or so, we are creeping further and

further along this unfortunate curve where we're starting to drive the climate more than the

natural cycles are, and so now we dominate. We are the major drivers of climate change,

where we're more than half. We've kept the balance, and of course, if you ask me in five years,

then that will go more than, you know, will be at even a higher percentage, unless we choose to turn

this around. And as far as the United States portion, right now, if you look at the world's

population, the US has about 4 percent of the world's population living within our boundary,

and we emit about a quarter of the heat-trapping gases each year compared to the rest of the

world. That figure is changing, though. And what happens is China will probably, they're rapidly

accelerating their emissions at an incredible pace, and so they are going to probably surpass us

within the next couple years for annual emissions of heat-trapping gases. What we see is that if you

look at how long the industrialized nations have been emitting, we are, if you look at the

cumulative load to the atmosphere, the industrialized nations bear the brunt of the responsibility for

the amount of climate change that we have seen more than other nations around the world. And as you

say, China is rapidly catching up each year, and really it's going to have to be an international

solution to this challenge. And you said they're going to surpass us in a couple of years?

Yes. Holy smokes, I knew they were moving quickly, but I didn't know that.

There is an international energy agency study release that their projections based on the pace of

the, they're building power plants at the pace of, you know, every few weeks, a new one is

coming online and so on, and their energy demands are incredible, and it's a huge economy on

the move, and it's an incredible pace of change that they projected maybe by the year 2009.

And that's for annual emissions of heat-trapping gases, and so we will no longer be the leader

right now, the world is looking towards us. But what we say is that in general,

we aren't doing much to change our ways, and so China says, well why should, you know,

why should we? So in fact, many people believe that if we start showing leadership on a much

bolder scale, because voluntary cuts have not changed every year, the United States keeps

emitting more and more heat-trapping gases, so our voluntary measures have not come up to

meet our personal goals. And in general, you know, from the Apollo project to the Silicon

ship and so on, I mean, US innovation has been something that the world has benefited from.

And so, and created a lot of prosperity here at home and created jobs here at home,

and this is something that we could turn around and turn into an opportunity. If we figure out

ways to burn coal and figure out how to capture that carbon dioxide before it gets into the

atmosphere, it figure out a way to store it for a long time in geologic repositories and so on.

That would help all the nations of the world that have large coal reserves, because

we could be selling that technology and making a benefit, as well as benefiting our own, you know,

impacts here on the ground on sea level rise, and he waves that we may experience in our own country

from all the world emissions. The atmosphere is a neutral arbiter. It doesn't, it will register all

of our actions in a very neutral way. And so. Doctor, I think about a year ago, there was a really

interesting picture that showed the North Pole, I don't know, it was 30 or 40 or 50 years ago

on the left, and then the North Pole now, virtually now, on the right, and it looked as a 40 or

50 percent of the North Pole had melted. Is that correct? It's interesting you should mention that.

In fact, when I was in grad school, I had the opportunity, that was where I did my PhD research,

and I went on several icebreaker expeditions, and twice I ended up being able to go to the

pole, fortunately, the North Pole. And of course, I must tell you that back in 1991, the day before

we were steaming to the pole, the skies cleared up, usually it's very overcast, and they said, wow,

you can, it's incredibly open water. We're going to have an easy go of this, and in fact, it's so

clear, we're going to send, we're going to give you all a treat, and you can ride up, and while we're

doing helicopter reconnaissance to see what the best routes we should take, and let you go up and

take some pictures. And I was shocked that we were so close to the pole, and there were vast

tracks of open water, and this was in the summer, the end of the summer, when you have the least

amount. But here we are at the top of the world, and I expected it to be chock full of ice. And so,

I didn't realize it's time. I was a young student. I didn't realize that since, if you look at the ice

extent up in the Arctic, and you look at the natural cycle up there, it bounces around the first

part of the century. Then around 1950, the summer sea ice extent starts taking this dramatic downturn,

and it's been through just on this downturn cycle. It has little wiggles in it, but it's just going

down and down and down. So I was sitting there in 90, when we were already were melting the summer

at sea ice extent. And this means that the polar bears have to swim further in between

die flows while they're hunting their food, and the sea ice dependent animals in marine fauna,

their habitat is shrinking in the summer. And so this is certain species on this planet. If they

are, if they cannot adapt and figure out new ways to live, if their habitat may be shrinking and

shrinking. For example, if you are migrating, species are already migrating northward, southward,

so pullward, and uphill. They're basically going up the mountains as the temperatures keep

cranking up down below. Once you get to the top of the mountain top is a species, and then it gets

too hot for you to survive where you can't go any higher. There is no more mountain to go to.

It's the same thing with people who are very concerned about all the species that have adapted

to living just in the Arctic sea ice. It's a very special environment up there.

So it is that much gone. The pictures are incredibly dramatic. We've

been fortunate to see satellites since the late late 70s, and we've seen the sea ice extent basically

decrease a huge amount in the summer. It's on the order of 15 percent, and it just keeps going

down. And so this is way beyond the natural variability. We know a lot of what determines the

sea ice extent, and what's even worse is that the volume is the volume of ice, which is a very

hard number to get at, and we're trying to get better data. It looks like that is decreasing at a

more rapid pace, and maybe as much as 40 percent, but we're still trying to work on that number

since the last several decades. Dr. Why is it so much worse in the north? That is a really good

question. A lot of it has to do with, if you go out on a, if you go in California, if you go

up to the seara's and you are out there skiing on the seara mountains, you know just how fast you

can get a sunburn on your face, and you need the glasses. And anywhere you have a snow, the sunlight

coming down, basically 90 percent of that sunlight is reflected back out the space. When you melt

back that snow, say in the seara Nevada, and or up in the Arctic you have the sea ice that is

very white, you melt it back, and now you expose a dark ocean, or in the seara and Nevada mountains,

you are exposing a dark soil. Now the sunlight comes down, hits that dark soil, or the dark ocean,

and now you're absorbing most of the energy that before was reflected back into space. And now what

you've done is that's accelerating the warming, because as soon as you melt back a little bit,

you've changed from reflecting 90 percent of your energy to almost reflecting 90 percent to

absorbing that energy. Then you've now heating up the ocean and you're heating up the ground,

and then that hot of ground can in turn melt the adjacent ice or snow. All right, well one question

associated with that is, is there a kind of a, is there a switch point doctor when it's going to be too late?

We see that some of the most dangerous consequences that we're worried about, we would like to not

increase our temperature more than another, say two degrees Fahrenheit,

global average temperature. And in order to do that, it means that we would have to start reducing

our emissions, and all around the world, start really turning around the emissions curve within

the next few years. And if we don't turn this curve around the next decade, it means that it will

be much harder to catch up. And so in a way, you might hear some scientists say, oh, we have a

decade. What they mean is that when we build a power plant in this decade that will last 50 years,

that locks in a certain type of climate, depending on how efficient that power plant is,

and whether or not it's burning fossil fuels and releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

If there's a way you can build the power plant that would not release those fossil fuels to the

atmosphere, or it's an energy efficient alternative energy such as a wind farm or a solar source

of energy or a biofuel that's renewable, then you have changed the balance and you're starting to

reduce the heat-trapping emissions to the atmosphere. And the aspect of why we look at carbon dioxide

is that it lingers for 50 to 100 several centuries. And so that's why carbon dioxide gets a lot

of attention and nitrous oxide lingers for another century. So that's why the decisions we make today

have long-term consequences. That's like it's harder and harder to turn it around. Some people say,

if we can start reducing and get to say, and by mid-century, if we were in the United States

admitting about 20 percent of what we admitted in the year 2000, we have a reasonable chance of

turning this around. But we have to get on that pathway. Otherwise, it would be much harder and

more costly, plus because of adaptation, start growing as well. Because we have to adapt to less

water resources in the West, or more wildfires threatening our resources in the West, or we have

sea-level rise, threatening coastal communities all around the United States, and more storm

damage and heat waves and things like this that we would have cost associated with them in both

human-cost, societal-cost as well as dollar-cost, which insurance industries are very aware of.

They are watching climate change and trying to assess what other risks and so insurance costs go

up and so on. Well, all right. I know there's a big argument going on right now about whether we adapt

or we mitigate, and I suppose you would say probably both would you?

That's right. Well, the reason we have to learn how to cope with the changes we can't avoid

because of this, as I said, the heat-trapping gases have, if we were to stop emissions today,

there's a certain lag in the Earth's system and that the ocean still has a lot of heat stored

in it that we pumped into it from our past emissions. And so because of that, the heat-trapping

gases stay in atmosphere decades, certain amount of warming is already inevitable, and we are going

to have to adapt to that. But if you're not, you can't address everything by adapting. For example,

species who are living in the Arctic sea ice, they may not be able to adapt as fast, and that's

the pace of change. Really, hampers whether or not we can adapt, or if you have economic resources,

say parts of the world where you don't have the resources to adapt as easily. If you're

depending on agriculture that's completely rain-fed or you're depending on your local fishery source

that may be changing because the corals are bleaching or things like that, it may be difficult

for you to adapt locally. So you have to have international aid with all of this. But if we

reduce global warming emissions emissions today to avoid the prospect of leaving our children

grandchildren with these daunting and costly impacts, then that's the mitigation part. We could

hopefully reduce the cost of what they have to deal with and ourselves later in our lives.

If we do the mitigation part to make the impacts be less severe on the ground, and we could cope with

a slower pace of change, and as well as not getting beyond too hot, you know what's like in death

valley. And some parts of the world, it would be a huge amount of adaptation to deal with some

of the changes, and some of it we would just may not be able to adapt to, and we'd have to really

change the way we live. Or we can start reducing our emissions and perhaps avoid the worst consequences

that are laid out in these reports. I mean, if you go see these stories about all these things

that might happen, always keep in mind that it does not have to play out this way because we are

driving the climate. Right now we're driving it more than 50 percent because that's what we've

done in the past several decades of our long-term commitment to living the way we live.

And we figure that if we can live in a smarter way, in a more efficient way, and still keep our

economy going, and still keep our standard of living, and the way we live, the way we like,

it's just we've got to have more energy-efficient ways of doing that.

Point, Dr. I would like to say that I see the change going on, I see a switching to renewable

and all the rest of it, but I don't see it. I don't see it happening. I'm not saying it can't

happen, but I'm saying the chances I think are very, very small and the way our government is

presently reacting doesn't give one a great deal of hope. So if we don't change, what are the

worst possibilities? Assuming that we don't change at all, assuming China doesn't, and that's almost

a safe assumption, how bad is it going to be? Okay. Now you're talking about unmitigated climate change,

which you're right. We do seem to be on that path. Individuals are making changes and so on,

but it's not enough, as you say. We just don't have the will to implement a lot of the solutions

that we already know that are off the shelf. So assuming that we don't make these changes,

one of the scary things for me is that we have large bath doors of peat and frozen ground up

in the northern and high polar regions and both poles, but we have many more continental land

mass up in the northern hemisphere and we have these soils. But because it was so cold when something

a piece of vegetation died, it was so cold that the bacteria would not be running for very much,

very short summer, for them to be able to respire that and break that down and release carbon dioxide

back into the atmosphere. So it becomes these huge stores of peat lands that have been accumulating

for thousands and thousands of years. If we cross, right now we're already starting to melt those

peat lands and that frozen ground, which we call permafrost. In the past, when we've had deglaciations,

usually the start of the deglaciation was a natural phenomenon to change in the sun's energy

because of how we wobble and our little changes in our orbit around the sun that has long-term

cycles. And when the initiation of that starts, then we start melting things on the planet's ice

and then we would melt the soil and this frozen ground. When that releases a huge store of carbon

monocarbondioxide or it would come out as methane, we suddenly would accelerate our warming to a

level that would be very fast and I just don't want to cross that tipping point of melting all

the fast doors of carbon that are right now frozen up in our tundra regions where the Arctic fox

is running around and so on. And so that's one tipping point I don't want to cross and we hope we

can avoid that thing below. Again, this two degrees Fahrenheit above today. Okay, well that is what I was

talking about. What you just called a tipping point or a place I guess past which you don't want

to contemplate going but we really do I guess want to explain to the people maybe after this break

because we're coming up on a break. What would happen if we did do that and what would happen if

all of that was if it melted and all of that was released. So reflect on it from moment doctor,

I know you really don't have to but that's what I'm interested in. I guess we might as well let

everybody know what the worst case scenario would how it would play out. It's it's not going to be

a happy thing and it's important. I think that the general public this audience knows a lot more

than actually the general public understand exactly what kind of world is ahead of us if we don't

change from the high desert. The Great American Southwest. I'm Art Bell.

There I am. Good morning everybody. Listen, I'm experiencing a little of my own personal global warming

about 102 degrees of temperature right now. Nevertheless, this is a very important program

and I'm going to ignore some of the angry fast blasts coming at me. Actually, we're going to

address them but I want you to know you're not listening to just anybody. Dr. Brenda Equizal

works on the national climate program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, UCS. She's

leading UCS's climate science education work aimed at strengthening support for strong

federal climate legislation and sound US climate policies. Prior to joining UCS, she was on the

faculty of the University of Arizona Department of Hydrology and Water Resources with a joint

appointment in the geosciences department. Her specialty is isotope geochemistry. That's a tool

she's used to study climate variability in places as disparate as the Arctic Ocean and

here where I live in the desert southwest. She's also worked as a hydrologist with the Connecticut

Department of Environmental Protection working with communities to protect groundwater sources. She

knows what she's talking about and in a moment we're going to look ahead a little bit for you

into the worst case scenario and it's not that far into the future so stay right where you are.

Dr. Let's say that we ignore all or most and that any of the renewable stuff remains at the margin

and we arrive at this worst case scenario, this tipping point when the big releases in the north

and everything else that's going to happen actually begins to happen. What kind of world

are we going to be living in? Okay here we go. We have to realize that when we look at these

simulations, these calculations about what could happen there's a range of where we could cross

some of these thresholds where we think we would have cross the point where we would have irreversible

change and one of those is the large ice sheets, the green and ice sheet and the west and

Arctic ice sheet of down south and what some of the simulations suggest that if we had sustained

global average temperature warming between two and seven degrees Fahrenheit above today's global

average temperature that would initiate irreversible melting of the green and ice sheet and we could

do what we did like we did in the past. We had the green and ice sheet melting and the west and

Arctic ice sheet melting the raised sea level and the amount that the sea level would rise,

we could cross that threshold before it would take the full time for the ice sheet to melt,

a significant amount to raise sea level on the order of 23 feet. It's a combination of the

primeters of the green and ice sheet. There'll be this root core that will stay there for a long time

in the center but there's a lot of ice around the edges that would melt back a significant amount

and then the west and Arctic ice sheet. A lot of that is ice shelves that would be floated off

and big chunks of ice that would directly contribute. As soon as you dislodge it from land,

melt it, have it run off as melt water and go into the ocean, you directly raise sea level

and that type of sea level rise is something that would be significant for some of the major cities,

including New York City, the Bay Area of San Francisco. We would have Bangladesh, the small islands

that are sprinkled throughout our ocean areas that would be completely inundated by some of this

type of change. That would be something we'd have to adapt to if we cross that threshold and

give an idea of how close we are to the low end of that estimate is that right now we know that

we've stored so much heat in the ocean that's excess that would give heat back to the atmosphere

and warm up our global average atmospheric temperature at the surface. Another degree Fahrenheit

so we're already halfway to the low end of that simulation so that's kind of as if the scientists

know that we're approaching, as if we're in a car driving towards the cliff edge but it's a foggy

night because we're not sure how fast that cliff edge is going to approach because it depends on

the choices we, you and I and all the citizens of this planet, what we make, how fast is that

cliff edge going to approach but they know that it's out there and that if we keep driving the car

then we risk driving over the cliff edge and the problem is we just don't know how fast

and we know that we could put on the brakes and stop it and just not drive over that cliff edge

it's just we know that the low end estimate of where we think the edge of that cliff edge is

rapidly approaching and we hope that it's the better estimate that it's much much higher temperature

before we cross that threshold but we're not sure we know from the past that when carbon dioxide

was not even as high as today, 130,000 years ago sea level rose much higher than today because

significant melting of the grayline ice sheet and the West Antarctic ice sheet and so we know

that the Earth is capable of doing this it responds very rapidly when carbon dioxide is at a high

temperature it just takes centuries and in our time scale that seems like a long time but we could

cross that temperature for example the risk of crossing this threshold is some of the estimates

the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has for the end of this century so we could cross

that if it was the low end estimate of when we would cross that point where we would initiate

long-term melting of significant portions of the Greenland ice sheet and contribution from the West

Antarctic ice sheet. What would New York City look like with a 23-foot change?

The lower Manhattan area would a lot of that would be compromised. Maybe some people have seen

some of the simulations in the movie which Al Gore and Inconvenient Truth had these simulations

and that's taking 20-foot sea elevation and just running that over Manhattan. It would take

now mind you and it was said in the movie in a voiceover that it would take centuries for this to

happen it's not going to happen overnight but that would show you that you would have parts of

lower Manhattan that would be flooded parts of the Potomac running into DC would be flooded but

more importantly the worst cases of flooding would happen in Louisiana the huge portions of

the area around New Orleans and to the left and right of that area you could you lose significant

points of southern Louisiana and Florida all the Florida keys would be inundated the big portions

of southern Florida with that type of sea level rise. Not these are continent we'd have to move

inland which is we have and this has happened in the past it's just that we didn't have a lot of

people and a lot of high dollar real estate sitting in the way of sea level rise. That's right.

All right there are those who are sending me messages and indeed we're seeing Mars is warming

other planets are warming as well and people are suggesting that that's the cause of warming here

on earth that all of the planets appear to be warming certainly Mars is. Do you have any

comments on that? Sure there's a very easy way we can check whether it's external the Sun

driving this change and we have several ways of checking this. First of all we have measurements

of the Sun's energy on the ground over the past century and we see that relative to the other

climate drivers it hasn't changed too much it's wiggle around but it's not not that much of a change

compared to longer time in the past where it was the king it drove everything and so we have that

the other aspect is that if you have sunlight coming in and if it were getting warmer say from the

Sun say you know we had problems with our senses on the ground and we have a lot of measurements

in the stratosphere and the lower part of the atmosphere and we have lower part of the atmosphere

where all the weather occurs that's called the troposphere and the entire atmosphere would warm

up from this warming from the external warmth of the Sun coming into our atmosphere warming it up

what we see is because we have heat trapping gases that are trapping the longer wave radiation of

heat that the planet warms up it comes back as long wave radiation and these heat trapping gases

are transparent to the high energy sunlight coming in it goes through the heat warms up the earth

sends it back as long the wave radiation and that's when these heat trapping gases trap the heat

what we see is that the stratosphere is cooling because that heat that normally would go back out

and warm both the troposphere where the weather occurs and then up further up the atmosphere that

is no longer it's not happening as much because it's trapping so much heat so we have a cooler

stratosphere than it would be if we weren't trapping so much heat and so that's how we know that

it's not coming from the Sun and you would see on Mars and these other plans they have different

types of atmospheric concentrations and so on and so we know that it's not the Sun that is

driving most of the recent changes that we've seen it's mostly driven by heat trapping gases

and some of our pollutants and whenever we have volcanic explosions that temporarily cool the

earth for a couple years and then it bounces back once those little particular matters are washed

out of our out of our atmosphere why is there maybe you can answer this I'm sure you run into it

all the time but there is so much anger out there when what you're suggesting is presented to

people and I think it has to do with with guilt perhaps because of the lifestyle we lead I'm not

sure but there's a lot of anger that's right I think that for example I I don't want to change my

weight I want to be able to live the way I've been living I just would hope that we could implement

the technologies that are necessary to put us on the right path towards sea productions

since I know that they already exist I have hope it's just where I lose hope sometimes is when

I see that we don't have the political will to make full use of them and I know that climate change

sometimes can seem overwhelming but for me I have hope because if we weren't part of the problem

then we would only have nature driving this and when our only choice would be to be adapting

and what gives me hope is because we're driving the climate so much and we've had such

dramatic change we're on the beginning part of this rising curve that I know can get much much

hotter I know that if we stop it now then we have a chance of changing this and in my mind it's

irresponsible to satire our children with this problem so if we turn it around and we have the

chance to turn it around I understand that people may think that it's you have to change your

behavior the reality is that we as individual consumers have not as many choices as I would like

out there if we were to flip on the light switch and have it be a smart sensor switch that knows that

when I walk in the room it turns on and when I walk out automatically turns off I don't even have

to change my behavior this turning on and off the light switch you know sometimes I'm forgetful

or whatever if with an automatic sensor it doesn't work for you if we have more energy efficient

appliances that engineers can design then it takes it gives us as consumers more choices if we have

cars that are sporty are attractive can carry the number of people that we have for our personal if

we have you know a lot of people we cart around that we want a larger car that can still get

further down the road on a gallon of whatever fuel that we have in the future that would be perhaps

a renewable fuel then we're not changing our lifestyle it's just we have many more choices when

we go out there to purchase our goods because right now I would be angry too if I hear these

potential changes happening and yet I don't have many ways as an individual we cannot turn around

as individuals because we only have what consumer energy consumer choices that we have out there

are limited because we have not implemented all the solutions that are out there and other countries

are starting to take initiative and our country are starting to have business leaders that are

saying wow I need to change my ways and I'm investing money to reduce my heat chopping

gases and then they're reaping a lot of cost savings and making their businesses run more

efficiently because in fact we're so wealthy as a nation that we don't even notice how much

we're wasting spending money on energy on the gas prices and the our electricity bills to

run our businesses we can afford it and so we don't even realize that there's more energy

efficient ways and personally I'd rather have that money in my pocket and spend it on other things

all right some people believe that science could pull a rabbit out of the hat there's some idea

for reflective mirrors in the stratosphere that we could put up these mirrors and reflect

the sun's energy therefore cooling cooling the earth not letting as much sun hit the earth is there

is there anything like that out there that's right many people are trying to think of ways how can we

engineer our way out of this and still maybe pump out our heat chopping gases right so it would

be a good idea if if sunlight was the only concern the fact that one of the major heat chopping

gases perhaps the biggest culprit is carbon dioxide because it lingers in the atmosphere so long and

it's the major contributor it is something that interacts with the ocean and becomes absorbed

as a gas in the ocean and there's a couple reactions that go on chemical reactions that make it

change into a form that it's available for marine shell forming organisms at the base of the

food chain those floating plankton and those little organisms that form their shell material out

of this carbon that's dissolved in the ocean and right now the ocean is very basic

what we've done is we've changed it and made it slightly more acidic so the pH has changed

about .1 unit, .01 unit over the recent time frame because of our excess of carbon dioxide in the

atmosphere so basically we're acidifying the ocean so if you have these reflectors stopping the

sunlight you might be able to cool the temperature but we would keep acidifying the ocean if we kept

pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and if you acidify the ocean to a certain point where

these shells cannot no longer form their shells then you really have ocean chaos because you

have eroded the base of the food chain and then we have the concomitant or worsening

effective because we are also overfishing the top part in the predators and maybe you heard

about the sharks recently we're losing some of our top predators and that's cascading effects

down the food chain so this type of stress on the oceans is something that has oceanographers

and marine biologists very alarmed because that type of fix wouldn't solve the ocean problem

and we really wouldn't want to acidify the ocean to a point where the base of the food chain

couldn't form their shells. Speaking of the ocean of course we went through Katrina that's fresh

in everybody's mind. The ocean gets warmer and I understand what drives these hurricanes and

typhoons I was I spent last year in Manila in the Philippines and boy while Florida got off

easy in the the whole US got off easy in terms of hurricanes typhoon after typhoon after typhoon

slammed into us in the Philippines where I was and it was a rough rough year for typhoons now

what's going to happen if we get to this tipping point with regard to storms they're going to get

larger aren't they well what we see is that there is evidence that over the past since we've had

satellites and you bring up a very good point I think in the US media did not cover as much

those typhoons they might have been on the back page right that's right even though we had a

calmer an average year in the Atlantic for hurricanes where you are they're called it's the same

type of storm that's called a different name typhoons the oceans you know worldwide we have about

the same number that happened okay each year it's about 90 plus or minus 10 that happened

worldwide each year and the disturbing trend is that we're seeing that over the last 30 years

that we've seen an increasing in the intensity of those storms so the number hasn't really shifted

it's just the intensity so we have more category like maybe a some atropical storm might now be

a typhoon or a hurricane and so this is a double whammy for coastal residents because you have

higher sea levels and now your storm surges are getting bigger and you may have

increasing intensity of these storms what we've seen in the Atlantic if you just look at hurricane

landfall you'll see just kind of random pattern luckily in the Atlantic ocean we have only say 12

percent of the world storms occur in the Atlantic and then only a tiny fraction of those really make

landfall so we have the statistics on our side it's just unfortunately when it's a big storm like

we've experienced that have hit Florida or has hit the Gulf Coast a big one big storm can have

devastating consequences while something to keep an eye for what I saw in the Pacific last year

was absolutely amazing and there was a little bit of it the prior year in the Atlantic and that was

what was one day a tropical storm or a tropical depression you'd take a good night's sleep

get up the next day and it would have gone from a tropical depression to a category four and then

the next day it was category five now I saw some pretty strange things we all did in the Atlantic the

prior year but last year in the Pacific trust me there were I can't tell you how many storms went

from tropical storm to category four and then five that fast and I wonder if that's what we're

looking at times a few if we get to that tipping point from the high desert I'm Art Bell

it is and I hope you're listening carefully Dr. Brenda Aquarsil is my guest and she's talking

about global warming but it's going to mean to us and in a moment perhaps we'll talk a little

about the human health consequences possible consequences perhaps emerging diseases things that

will begin to appear where they have not before little things just the little things

that we might might start seeing very soon if this continues we'll be right back

Dr. in recent years there've been a lot of emerging diseases that have kind of surprised people

if the earth continues to warm is is that going to be a problem that's going to be exacerbated

what we do see is that with warming we're starting to see a change and how the diseases are

spreading in different areas for example we see that certain mosquitoes or ticks that carry

certain aspects of them that are harmful to humans they extend their range and this

includes for example agricultural pests for example if you live in a northern climate

your winters having that frost that frozen temperature in the winter really keep some pests

and some in check but if you start having milder winters and you start having perhaps

rodents that might carry the hentavirus and you have perhaps some other disease vectors these

carriers of these disease lasting through that winter and then coming back as pests that plague

and a farmer or the hentavirus people with the mouth cleaning up in their barn or whatever

anywhere that there was a outbreak of hentavirus in the southwest that was linked to milder winter

temperatures and so on and when they're starting to see another part of the world that that is

breaking out more malaria is changing its distribution pattern in parts of Africa another part

of the world we're starting to see that the aspects of smog formation which when you have

higher summer temperatures and you have the volatiles that are coming out of the tailpipes of

your cars it's this combination that creates this smog and that creates a lot of stress on people

who have cardio pulmonary disease and so you have a lot more we've an incredible increase in the

incidence of asthma attacks driving people to the hospital during these hot summer days you see

it's one of the leading reasons perhaps children may be going to the children's hospital say in

the Oakland area or other urban areas of our nation we see that and so these type of

stresses additional stresses and one of the more just common irritants that we all are noticing

is that the seasons we have season creep and so that means that the spring may be coming earlier

and we have these things coming into bloom we have a longer spring there's more pollen loading

and so the common allergies that people suffer from and the amount of pollen that is brought into

our environments are becoming more and more of a problem that is perhaps just a minor irritant

but the summer's really you know a major season yes it really compromises your energy and everything

it's not like threatening but it's just one of those as you say some of these these health aspects

that compromise our lives a little bit and sure did shock me how quickly West Nile moved across

the country yes that's something that had had really spread very fast and what we're starting to

see is that there are mosquitoes that are appearing for the first time up in Alaska and parts of

Canada and so they're moving they're on the move and if it's warmer we're seeing all the species

are starting to shift and move and and come out earlier in the spring and unroll their leaves

start their buds lay their eggs the fish are migrating earlier we see cold water fish species being

replaced by warmer water species this is affecting perhaps people who are sportsmen who like to fish

and they're seeing the change in the type of species that they're catching and also for the

commercial fisheries they're changing if you have your particular whole economic investment

in fishing a certain type of fish that's off of your coat and then now the species they're

changing you might have to be changing all of your rigging and things like that but it's it's

just something that is is undeniable no matter where you look we have seen this rapid warming

over the past several decades and the species are responding they're trying to cope and

we also are noticing the changes in our our own health for example I suppose doctor there's

good news in this for somebody I mean some colder climate is going to get warmer and that's

going to please some people somewhere so it's that's right we we are expected to have a longer

growing season and so parts of the northern parts of the United States Canada parts of northern

Europe parts of Russia and different places are going to be able to have grow crops they weren't

able to grow before and we agriculture can take advantage of this with a little bit of warming

we see that the intergovernmental panel on climate change has projected that with say a little bit

of warming you might have increased growing seasons in parts of the world and crop crop

productivity increasing but dramatic declines in the tropics and subtropics and there are many many

people who live in those parts of the world and depend on their livelihood growing some of those

crops and so that will decline and then if you get too hot even those of us in the more

northerly latitudes mid latitudes and higher our crop productivity in some areas with some crops

would start suffering as well so you kind of don't want to get too hot for things get

that all over the world if nothing changes doctor how soon is it going to be

apparently uncomfortable for a lot of people well what we see is that no matter what we have

another degree Fahrenheit of warming in the pipeline and that to put that in perspective

this is global average temperature that means that that's the same amount of warming that we

had happen over the last century and this will happen over the next few decades so it's a little

faster and when we say global average temperature that means the oceans the land everything all

I have it up that's just a small change we who live in the northern hemisphere and on land and if

you're in the interior of the continent you have much higher local average temperatures going up

and if you're in the Arctic you are really really warming up so the polar bears and this ring seal

and the people who are living up there will see dramatic changes and we ourselves in where the

United States is located and especially Alaska will see the Alaska residents will see more rapid

warming than we will in the lower 48 and so we're parts of the world that will see a lot of change

and so when you see that that type of heat you got to up the local temperatures much more for

the average temperature well for example to try say okay go ahead I'm sorry I we we could get people

from Alaska on here now and they would tell you right now they're already seeing what they would

describe as gigantic changes in their climate that's right there are residents who live in Shismarif

Alaska a famous location now in that they used to have sea ice offshore in the winter that would

protect them from coastal storms that would whip up strong waves but they couldn't whip up waves

the wind couldn't in the winter because there was ice covering the ocean off their shores now with

the sea ice retreating there are times of the year where these strong storms are coming through

and they are creating these huge waves and creating storms that are eroding their

shoreline at such a pace that people are going to have to relocate and there's talk about relocating

the entire community of Shismarif you know they're already at their own personal tipping point so to say

okay what can is this a situation where people could ignore their government and the government's

policies and make individual changes that would add up to something meaningful I mean if everybody were

to use fluorescence if everybody were to change their bulbs and we all know they're out there and

you can get them there are still a little bit expensive compared to the average light bulb would

that be enough it would go a long way towards making a big difference but it would not be enough

we want to create more choices and so that's where we need perhaps national actions to give more

choices across the board and to make it easier but for example if every American household did

replace just one incandescent light bulb the environmental protection agency estimates that

that would reduce global warming emissions that would be equivalent to taking about 800 thousand

cars off the road it'd be equivalent to what those guys in that sector admit and so that's a

huge huge impact so if you replace two then that starts you down on the path for example

if we start meaningful reductions if each of us could figure out say what we could cut back say

4% a year then that means that you replace a light bulb one year and the next year you replace

another light bulb and then you figure out ways to drive your car a little differently or one day

a week carpool and that immediately drops a significant amount what your personal footprint is

and so it does add up but the unfortunate thing is that when you go and buy a car I personally

wouldn't want to have a lot more choices out there when I'm choosing my next car because that's one

of the big sectors of what we admit because for example if we were to have fuel efficient cars

that can cut heat-trapping pollution by 40% in 10 years we have that off-the-shelf technology

that would really put us well down the road towards meaningful reductions that could say create

avoid some of the worst effects that we have already talked about today for example why are we

not doing it Dr. I think we just don't have the political will to make full use of these technologies

for example if you took all the available technologies some of our engineers have said okay look

at the cars out there look at all the technologies that are available let's combine them together

and try to make a fuel efficient car and it's possible you can basically create you can add

another gear to the car and make a much more much more fuel efficient car you can have a

unibody that would make the car stronger but also lighter lighter materials you can get a lot

further down the road you could one of the things the personal solution you could do is if you

kept your tires properly inflated it's one of the easiest ways to improve mileage by up to three

percent because there's friction as you're rolling down the highway that the engine has to

overcome when you have an under inflated tire so that's again a waste of energy your energy is

having your engines having to overcome that friction so if you keep your tires fully inflated that

reduces the friction and you have nice smooth rolling and rolling down the highway with less

less fuel being pushed up I'll also I just watched a program earlier today on wind energy

and it looks as to be at least a partially viable solution it's it I guess down point is that it's

not as reliable as you would want it to be but if we had wind generators scattered all over the

western us for example it seems to me as though the wind's always blowing some place or another

that's right I mean that that is something that we have that's free to us I mean how we harness it

isn't quite free but that instead of sending our dollars overseas for expensive oil that we do

not have in our in our country at the same level of what we burn every year we're importing so much

the wind and the sun are free to us and in fact if you had depth of alley we should harness some

of that sun energy we have enough if you were to harness the energy of wind and sun in the

United States that would meet all the projected energy demands that we have over the next coming

decades easily we have so much energy that we just aren't harnessing right now and some of the

utility engineers are coming up with ways for wind energy if you orient the wind turbines in

all the different directions the capture wind whatever direction it's blowing in a certain field

you can harness wind for longer and then at the nighttime when there's less wind that tends to

blow at night during the day if you were to pump up that pump up water up a hill and then at night

time let it run down through pipes and that would be a hydro power that's the way that you could have

energy from wind basically 24-7 because you use the excess wind from a very windy day pump up water

up hill the excess energy that's not being demanded during the day and then let that water run down

hill and you generate hydro power at night and that's a way of storing some of the excess energy

generated during the day from the sun you know heating up the surface and wind blowing across our

our land and so wind energy is something that is something we can take more use of right now it's

such a tiny tiny percentage of the few percent of our national energy is from wind but states many

states across the nation are increasing their renewable energy standard to try to some say let's

have 20 percent of our electricity when we turn on the lights come from renewable energy whatever

that may be geothermal wind energy solar energy as long as it's renewable that every year we can

harness new energy from the sound of the wind or from geothermal well you take my state for as an

example I hear Nevada about 90 percent of Nevada is federally owned land and rather remote and

I don't think people would object too much wind generators and we get plenty of wind or to a lot

of land being covered with the solar panels and we get I don't know how many days of sun every year

but it's a lot and so this state could be turned into a wind generation and solar generation

a bananza for the country I just can't understand why we're not doing it it's amazing because

it's create so many jobs here at home because we really need to have people that would maintain these

wind turbines you have to build the wind turbines and so on and and that creates jobs here at home

we have so much outsourcing problems as it is and that's homegrown energy which is really a nice

thing the other aspect is that in these more remote areas where people may not see these wind

turbines and so on or the solar panels that are generating all this energy that creates

situation where one state can supply energy for other states that maybe more densely populated

may not want to have some of the this in their backyard and so this becomes a situation where

if we have distributed energy all throughout the nation then we have many many people are

starting to farmers are starting to say this is my retirement my love people put wind turbines

I've seen and you've seen it too I've seen cattle grazing on land where there's a wind

turbine and such a small footprint on the ground and the cattle have really almost all the all the

land to graze upon it should there's wind turbines above them and so it's a multi-use situation

for people who have a lot of land so it boils down to political will really our government certainly

has the money our nation has the wealth we can do this it's just a matter of of the will that's

right and I think that I think it's we have to move beyond the science of global warming and really

unleash the engineers who can figure out the science of solving this problem and be like the

Manhattan Project and figure out how are we going to figure out some of the really new neat

fun ways of figuring out energy in the future I just was reading an article people are harnessing

sugars to maybe create energy that we might be able to just enough energy in a in a in a carbonated

beverage that could recharge our cell phone I mean they're coming up with all sorts of things it's

just amazing what types of smart gadgets we're going to have in the future and we can go hiking in

the desert and be able to recharge our perhaps some of our aspects of what we would need

just with some simple chemical fuel cells that we'd be bringing with us well the science

on global warming seems settled it really does seem almost like a settled science now it's really

happening but it's not settled among the general public I mean as I look at some of the messages

I'm getting on my computer it's obvious that a lot of people and I think again it has to do with

this guilt factor that's all I can figure but an awful lot of the general public is not settled

about this at all why do you think that is what I think there's there's several factors one is

it's it is sort of a strange thing and it's and a lot of the more scary impacts are further off

so we don't tend to plan for the future often we like to think about the here and now so that's

a little challenging but the other aspect is that I think the public has been given mixed messages

about the science and so we can talk about that but if you have government scientists who aren't

able to talk freely to the public about their new findings and that the science has become

very clear over the past five to ten years and then you have also companies perhaps other people

who are in fair and balanced reporting reporting both sides of the science and it's hearing the truth

then the public is understandably confused and I would be too if I didn't study this all right Dr.

hold it right there when we come back we'll find out what some of the public actually thinks about

all this and I think you'll be quite surprised Dr. Brenda Equerzel is my guest she is a scientist

she says it's happening I believe it's happening in a moment you'll have your say

well it's true our scientists have to be able to tell the truth to the people directly to the people

certainly if our government is not going to absorb and disseminate the information then the people

have got to get it directly from the scientists as you're hearing this morning otherwise you're

going to end up with a whole lot of misinformation and disinformation out there so I hope you're

listening very closely this morning Dr. Brenda Equerzel is my guest she knows what she's talking

about if you've got a good question for her that's coming right up all right Dr. just before we go

to the lines by computer Mike and Rochester New York asks subjectively how accurate do you believe

Al Gore is movie and inconvenient truth which I just saw because it's now on the you know the

page channels how accurate do you feel it was I would say it's it's like going to a global warming

class and I'd say about 90% of it is accurate some of the impressions that people are left with

is for example the sea level rise as if that might happen rapidly and that would happen over

centuries and so there's that impression and many people miss that Al Gore's voice over is saying

it would take a very long time centuries to for the sea level rise but so people might walk out with

a wrong impression given the visual of sea level rise coming over Manhattan that type of thing or

showing polar bears swimming it's still the the science of that is not completely in what the polar

a situation is there are some initial studies that are looking quite dire so so many impressions

might be off by maybe 10% when you leave the movie but in general all the science was he

worked with the scientists and at that time the available science when that movie was made

the graphs and everything they're all accurate okay let's do it then here we go Michael

in the Sacramento California you're on the air good morning art and good morning doctor

equisol good to talk to you art I have a couple of questions for the for the doctor far away

but before I go I want to tell you that I've been listening to art bells since he first came over

the hill and went national in my opinion you are the best interviewer on the radio very kind thank

you lastly though I have never heard a softball interview from art bells the way I heard tonight

okay well it may be because I agree with the doctor and and I'm I'm sure since you've been

listening that long you're fully aware that I agree with you absolutely 100% and you're entitled

to do that but I do have a couple of questions that I'd like to I'd like to put forward here far

away okay um doctor equisol we have talked a couple of times about the um scientific panel or the

government panel on global warning that's just issued a report I'd like to know what you

has to say about Dr. Chris Lancy the hurricane research division Atlantic uh oceanatic and meteorological

laboratory from NOAA who resigned from the IPCC because he personally could not in good faith

continue to contribute to the process that was motivated by preconceived agendas and was scientifically

unsound yeah at this the doctor have a response to his comment yes um well Chris Lancy does

incredible work on hurricane research in especially in the United States their history um he's

reconstructing historic records of hurricanes and his research is is um really wonderful research

and the IPCC has the benefit of uh all scientists that want to participate in the process i can

participate and he can uh submit his complaints it's all transparent and the review of of all the

scientists uh going through this process everyone who wants to be able to see the record it's on

record with the international body in in Switzerland and what we see is that if you wanted to see

what his comments were and so on and what he he had and what his concerns were um you can see

all that and i don't know the exact details i do know that at the time that that happened that was

when some of the early uh papers were coming out that we're talking about some of the links

between historical observations of hurricane trends and um he said that some of the historical

data without going beyond if you don't include if you don't include trends that were before the

satellite era which we have the best data since the satellites were aloft worldwide that he said

you couldn't make these long-term um statements or say that if you only have 30 years of data

you can't say any statements and many of the statements that were came out in the final IPCC

limit themselves to the 30 years do not make a long-term statement so i think he did have an impact

and so um it's at the edge of it's at the edge of our understanding the hurricane research and so

that science in the process well okay uh with regard to the hurricane research you uh your comments

regarding the al Gore movie was that they were basically sound dr. William Gray who is a emeritus

professor from Colorado state argues against the idea that he trapping gases are causing the world

to warm and that the Gore is a gross alarmist with regards to the uh hurricane processes do you

have a comment on that right and that's that's in that 10% that i told you about um in that the hurricane

research is that the we're watching this unfold and the media is paying attention to the journals as

they're published every new paper on the hurricanes we pay attention to and that's the process over

the long term we want to have much longer term data to pronounce that maybe this is something

that's for the textbooks this is at the edge of our knowledge it's still a debate on the hurricane

research and going forward we don't know if for example a strong El Nino which is what will

will Gray's specialty talking about wind shear when for example in the Atlantic you have a hurricane

starting off of the coast of african and ready to go heading westward um you could have wind shear

just nip these in the bud during the years um uh several months following a strong El Nino

year in the Pacific and what we see is that if you have conditions that nip these in the bud then

you wouldn't have a hurricane growing if the wind shear is not happening up on high and you have

much warmer oceans from heat trapping gases then those are the conditions the favor hurricane

hurricane growth and intensification or if you've worn seas in the Pacific and you have typhoons

growing as as uh are about saying very rapidly because it's a fuel to the hurricane is warm

moist airs and and so on and so we have to wait for the scientific process on hurricane research

to decide whether or not going forward it will continue what happened in the last 30 years

well it's pretty clear that there are a lot of parameters available to uh to be perturbed in

order to make that model work that's right and global climate models cannot um model uh a hurricane

they have to go to smaller scale models and so this is at the cutting edge of research and we have

to wait to see how this develops and the IPCC is a process saying this is we saw so many studies

it's not completely if you look at the language for the Atlantic it's it's very softened compared

to what the individual studies say and it doesn't say anything about the Pacific um and so on

so I think that the influence of uh scientists such as the ones you mentioned have had an

influence on how confident the statements that ended up in the final IPCC and I encourage everyone

to see uh look at those and see that it's not as strong as what some of the individual journal articles

are publishing because that's the what the cutting edge of research and so the doctor if you would

help me with this with this based on your on your comments just now it seems to me that in 2005

we were predicting a disastrous hurricane season in 2006 which really didn't happen um what

what I'm saying is that it seems like we had a one year forward prediction that was totally

inaccurate yet we are really putting all of our eggs in a basket on a climate model that predicts

50 years in the future okay that's a good one I'm gonna have to ask you to hold it there but I hope

you feel you had your say I do Arden thank you very much and we'll continue to listen even if you

go back over to take it uh he's right they got it totally wrong for that year doctor

yes well that was this is the difference between uh making projections climate models would never

make a projection for the next year like the the NOAA forecasters are that's a different different

level of projection uh the climate models are saying over the worldwide we're seeing this trend

over the period of 30 years we're seeing this increase and the climate scientists would never make

a year ahead projection now the meteorologists have the unfortunate task trying to figure out

what type of season it might be um and I wouldn't want to be in that business but they are very good

when storms are projecting they can track it and know exactly where it's going to land pretty close

very very close and they're trying to improve the models on getting the intensity of the storms

they're much further off on the intensity and trying to revise the model so it includes the ocean

temperatures more incorporated into those type of models so um it's a very different goal

protecting citizens when a storm is forming and so uh what we did see is that worldwide

the Atlantic was a calmer but the Pacific was uh there were typhoons that were pummeling

to parts of Asia that were devastating I mean absolutely unbelievable

we didn't pay attention to it in the US we are US centric um with looking at hurricane

you're absolutely right all right uh John in Palm Springs California you're on the air

boy are you kind to take my call and doctor um um I survived uh Katrina with it over my head

in New Orleans in mid city New Orleans Louisiana and then uh Rita followed me to Houston and there

I survived Rita with it over my head I have a follow up there if you will allow me but let me get

more quickly to my question and that is doctor um maybe I misunderstood but I only heard

quickly um last hour you were you mentioned I heard a fragment about uh some area or city

you know considering relocation and what was that uh that was a city that is up in Alaska

that is um being pummeled by storms that they normally in the wintertime they have sea ice

projecting them from ocean storms that would um are stronger in the wintertime and you know

the fall and the spring and stuff like that now with ice moving melting back further away from

shore those winter storms can kick up waves that would um hit them unfortunately you living in

a lower latitude where your ocean would never freeze over um you're exposed to storms whenever

they would be coming through funny enough yeah good point uh but at least uh you know even if

I was wrong thinking you may have been speaking about New Orleans it could have been absurd but uh

it's I'm on a learning curve here you just inform me and enlighten me of the true area that you

were speaking up and I'm glad I called and asked that question may I say this it's funny if you'll

allow me but surviving both hurricanes Katrina and Rita I claim that makes me an evacuee wee wee

okay well congratulations uh Sarah in New York uh you're on uh on the air hi art hi doctor

you mentioned that uh scientists were not allowed to talk to the public and um I saw she she said

that uh I that's tempered a little bit she said that some of what the scientists are saying

is being is being tempered right and um I saw a senate or a congressional hearing on

faith ban not two months ago about that very issue and testifying was that scientists from

NASA I believe his name was Dr. Hanson but anyway he was uh testifying and the

the consensus was that um this current Bush administration was ordering that he be silent

and I was wondering if the good doctor saw that hearing heard of it was she aware of it

yes there have been several hearings on congress ever since the 110th congress came into

um starting its session in January there have been several hearings on this very issue of

scientific intent integrity in the federal agencies and James Hanson is a respected climate

scientist at NASA and he um was concerned because some of his public statements were starting to be

scrutinized by the public affairs official um in response to the public outcry because of this and

people calling attention to it most of all uh James Hanson Dr. Hanson's uh situation has

improved because NASA has changed their media policy and they are working to improve uh their

scientist ability to be able to talk to the public so calling attention to this problem which was

unfortunate is starting to change and I think that more people are going to be aware of the good

science that is happening in our federal agencies more and more the websites will be updated and the

words global warming might appear and climate change more frequently than perhaps they were um

perhaps edited out a little bit earlier and so the change it is improving and it's not just climate

science there were FDA scientists fish and wildlife service scientists many different agencies that

they had particular issues if it was around politically sensitive areas climate change is one of

another sensitive area is human health and um with food and drug administration approvals of drugs

and uh another area is endangered species and so these particular scientists that happen to be in

these politically sensitive their results may have political sensitivity it's just been uh they've

been feeling the pressure and so the human cry against that has started to be a louder voice and

congress is having hearings on this and hopefully there will be laws that protect the scientists

and they it will be clear to scientists what the media policy is and every scientist has the right

as a private citizen to say okay now I'm taking off my NASA hat and this is my personal opinion

as a scientist but also as a citizen but here's my NASA hat and this is this is the science either

way it's the same it's just that um you know you might feel that you want to have self-subsorship

because you're afraid of consequences you want to remove that so the people aren't self-sensoring as

well okay Edward uh in shell beach california you're on the air with dr. eckworms on

yes good morning our good morning dr um i as a student of earth science i have real questions about

some of the hypothesized models that have been used lately because i'm looking at the hard data

right now on my computer screen from the national ice core lab and i've been staying this for quite

some time and it appears the earth basically has about a 27,000 year ice age cycle followed by a

perhaps every three four cycles of approximately a hundred and 20,000 year peak cycles and when

i'm looking at the data right in front of me both the CH4 which is the methane and the CO2 levels

were quite higher than they are now in the last three main peak cycles and even the last the

fourth cycle at approximately 120,000 years ago 200 and 40,000 years ago a 360,000 years ago and

400 and 20,000 years ago and the data i've looked at shows that the CO2 and the methane levels lagged

the temperature by about three to 600 years and i would hypothesize that this is the fact that

you know it's a basic chemistry fact and physics fact that when you have writing

temperature levels more gases are evolving more gases are being transpired by plants and animals

and more gases are being released from soil and the ocean and like to see what the doctor says about

that sure thank you for your question one aspect of looking at ice cores and where they end

is that if you look at carbon dioxide it's it's bounce between three say 300 parts per million

and a low of 180 parts per million and through all those ice age cycles right now we're at 380

parts per million above so we are much higher than it's been over the past 650,000 years today

what we do see is looking at those changes when you look in an ice core it has trapped agent air

and that is air is well mixed in the atmosphere carbon dioxide methane is well mixed temperature in

an ice core is that local temperature where you took the ice core because that's the isotopes

in the oxygen and hydrogen i don't want to go into that but locally the temperature of that snow

as it fell and and that is a local temperature and we would need to have all the ice cores and

many other temperature records all around the world to be able to reconstruct a global average

temperature in the past which is much harder than just the atmosphere so if you look at the atmosphere

and you look at the global and then you're looking at comparing with local temperature

i hear the music so you can perhaps answer this a little bit okay well anyway the i think

you hit right between the eyes between 180 and 300 you said over the 650,000 last years and we're

currently at 380 is that right that's right well that answers it for me all right doctor hold

hold tight right where you are we've got one more segment to go and i appreciate you're staying up

this late with me dr. Brenda equisal is my guest she really does know what she's talking about if you

got a question that bears on what we're discussing a very very serious matter for the whole world

you know the numbers here i am my guest is dr. Brenda equisal and she's laying it out

very carefully for you global warming is real what's happening around the world right now is real

now any small weather matter whether it's hurricane or whether it's you know hot today or cold

today is not what we're talking about we're talking about a worldwide temperature hike that's

going to continue unless we change our ways and the implications of that which are quite severe

and and and rather immediate from in the larger scheme of things rather immediate we'll be right back

doctor we're a very young country in the larger scheme of things when you look around the world

and we tend to think of things i don't know in terms of our own lifetime 10 years from now 20 years

maybe and mostly not more than next year um that's what we really have to change isn't it

yes it's it's important to think about our consequences that have long-term implications i kind of

think about retirement climate change and think about the consequences is kind of like starting to

save for your retirement when you're 60 and trying to hope you can catch up or something and hope

that you you can you know not be bagging groceries because you started at 60 so it's the catch-up

factor is something that is difficult to comprehend because i know may i often you know myself want

to avoid some things that uh you know take some challenge to do um luckily i think that some

of this stuff is common sense and makes sense from energy security and having homegrown jobs

and things like that that a lot that also help the climate um so i think that that does give me

hope because everyone probably will benefit if some of these solutions started getting enacted on

a more rapid pace are you aware of the recent executive order prohibiting any NASA or Norse

Noah's scientist to speak out publicly or privately as information regarding uh the climate or

atmosphere is now considered in quotes national security no is this a new it it is fairly new yes

wow that that's um well we know that there has been uh you know interference in the past and we're

hoping that things get better because um essentially science that has been manipulated we've seen

on on subjects as diverse as childhood led poisoning um some of the toxic mercury emissions

some of the endangered species um workplace safety we've seen over the past few years and so

many many scientists are calling for much more transparency and to restore the scientific integrity

of the federal agencies because these are really uh good scientists and we're spending a lot of good

money on on innovative research that has um in the past the US investment in science has brought a

lot of economic process and public health and gains and everything so well the right about one

thing it it definitely is a matter of national security but not not uh to be kept quiet uh Scott

in New York City you're on there good morning our doctor uh thank you for taking my call uh I have

a question and I'll take your answer off the air I don't have a great connection here um given the

amount of pollutants that our nation's power plants are pumping into the atmosphere I hear everyone

talking about alternative energy sources such as solar power uh wind power and I I don't know

honestly if that is realistic as an option to power our nation but I don't hear in the conversation

anyone talking about nuclear power and should we not as a nation take another look at nuclear power

which would not I it does create pollutants but it's not pumping these gases into our atmosphere

and I'm very curious to hear what you think about nuclear power as an option for our country

okay all right here it comes doctor sure sure um uh the first part of your question you know

is renewable energy enough um if we had a national policy where we had a 20% national renewable

electricity standard that would cut the growth and power plant carbon emissions by 60% so that's

a significant chunk we have a lot of uh free energy so to speak uh from the sun and the wind

and that it happens every year and so that's something that's really important and it's homegrown

but with respect to nuclear power we do have it as a portion of our national energy generation

by far coal fire power plants generate the most of our electricity in our nation nuclear is a

smaller percentage um and what we are seeing is that many people are looking at this would this be

something that we would want to increase a little bit um and help with some of the solutions

because what we do have is non-proliferation concerns in that um if we start reprocessing

some of the fuel rods and so on there are security issues that are very concerning if you hear a

lot of the talk about other nations trying to start their own nuclear energy programs and um a lot

of the political security issues around all that making sure that it's safe for energy generation

and not something that's being used to generate nuclear weapons um that becomes a big tricky

issue politically um and then the safety issue is something that we are concerned about because

we still do not have a long-term repository for all the nuclear waste so right now they're in caskets

at each of the nuclear power plants and uh one thing is that it will be part of the mix

we want it to be safer we want it to be cost effective um because right now the costs of

building and um all of the hurdles that are involved with building nuclear power plant are

are keep wall street um from wanting to invest in it and so there would have to be lots of subsidies

and perhaps on a level playing field renewable energies look quite attractive because they don't

create any pollution um at all they don't have a waste stream that's radioactive in the last

hundreds of thousands of years so there are a lot of issues with nuclear power that have to be

looked at and people are looking at them seriously okay uh let's go to Bruce and Los Angeles you're

on the air with Dr. Hock or Dr. they may be looking at it but not doing anything about it because

Iran and North Korea already have the nuclear bombs anyway uh you mentioned uh scientific

uh credibility this has nothing to do with science in my opinion you mentioned satellites uh we

had satellites back in 75 which actually said 30 years ago that you had mentioned

and ironically 30 years ago we had all of the same players and institutions talking about

global cooling and the next ice age including the institution where you got your doctorate

Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia in 1998 correct what we have is that there was

um a whip in recording some of the scientific uh research in uh some media articles um and then

scientific if you follow all the journal articles um then that was resoundly um rejected by the

scientific community uh called our hold on let her finish it it was soundly rejected she said

um the people people were very concerned about the ice ages because uh there is a cycle it looks

like 20,000 years um you go through a warm period over this past say a million years um and then

you plunge back into an ice age because of the different aspect of the suns and the orbits

our relationship with the earth in relation to the sun there's the orbital uh different aspect

ratio that changes that uh sun's energy on the planet and drive ice age cycles primarily.

Dr. George Kukla who was related to the same uh Lamont Doherty uh at Columbia has an exact

opposite view and he started back in 75 talking about and still believes in the ice age so is

Lamont Doherty basically an institution that should not be believed and has no credibility?

Well if you look at most of the scientists at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory and what they're

talking about today um we have a lot of evidence about climate change that is much more sophisticated

than in the 70s and updating that information we find that um we understand the drivers of climate

change to an unprecedented level and we are understanding that the climate can shift much faster

than we knew back in the 70s for example the rapid time changes uh in the past when during

deglications we have very rapid changes in temperatures over Greenland for example that might happen

over in just a decade and things like that uh and so but the broad picture that global warming

is happening and that we are as human activities are having a profound influence on the climate

today on top of the natural cycles uh i would hazard a guess that most of the scientists you would

talk to there would be uh in accord with that okay Derek and gig harbour washington uh you're on

there well good to be with you thank you hey uh i work as a firefighter and and this is something

that's been bothering me since this has really picked up the scene since Al Gore's movie it also

rising CO2 levels and part of my job is working with hazardous materials and the like and we do

air sampling and whatnot and since i've been involved with in the fire service since uh 91

the oxygen level has been at 20.9 to 21 percent 0.2 now when you burn something it consumes oxygen

as a matter of fact it you use uh it takes 140 molecules of oxygen to make 100 molecules of CO2

so you would think that if you see CO2 levels go up x amount you should see

oh two levels decrease x amount plus another 40 percent and that's that is not the case

so so the numbers aren't adding up to me and i and i don't understand it nobody addresses it and

and you know everyone just you know CO2 CO2 levels are rising right um it's a matter of proportion

the nitrogen and oxygen in our atmosphere they're they're huge huge percentages of the gas that

are in our atmosphere right carbon dioxide is a tiny tiny little trace gas and it's kind of

it makes me uh i don't believe it to me that's such a tiny tiny thing and have such a huge impact

because of its heat trapping ability but it it is the large enough concentration on our

atmosphere that it has that ability and there is someone who is starting to measure uh the oxygen

at a very precise level and try to see the changes and it makes sense with the changes that a carbon

dioxide in fact it is the sun of the person who started those early measurements in Hawaii um

uh US scientists appara them who one is measuring carbon dioxide and now his son the carbon dioxide

is still measured the sun started measuring oxygen precise levels and what he finds is it is

entirely consistent with the carbon cycle and the oxygen and the small perturbations because you're

you have a big big big big part of the atmosphere it's a very difficult task that he's doing

uh that it all is self-consistent right and and the interesting thing about CO2 though is at

least or the way we work with it is it's heavier than air it displaces oxygen so if you use

a CO2 extinguisher on something in a confined space you have to ventilate it out because it'll

just sit there um and that's right that's why people can die if they have exactly you know

not too much CO2 so I kind of think my opinion on this thus far is this that as you know this is the

first time where I can get on my computer and check real-time temperatures all across the world

that's never been happened that's never happened before so I kind of think at this stage it's

it's the equivalent of bringing the newborn home and it has never heard what it sounds like when

somebody drops a plate and so it hears a plate drop it comes unglued baby cries until it learns that

oh well dropping a plate to normal aspect of being in a house you know where I'm at right now

used to be under 5,000 feet of ice uh I've read recently that up in the Canadian Arctic

you used to be covered in ferns so is it a normal abnormality and it's and it just happens to be

that that you can get people to change a behavior that is socially unacceptable or whatever because

I mean let's let's be frank you know research scientists need porches too so everyone needs to

to you know pay the light bill and and buy groceries and stuff so you know where's the lubrication

of the gear is taking place and why well one interesting aspect is one scientist figure out

something that that the the once the sciences solve for example the ozone depletion the ozone

story on the funding federal funding for that drop because once we figured out that atmospheric

chemistry and so on and that has been dropping recently so scientists move on to the next new

greatest thing to figure out um so they're just constantly curious people it's not a matter of um

you know this particular topic is something that gets money or anything it's more that they're

curious about trying to figure out things that aren't known the stuff that's in the textbooks are

global warming is happening humans are having an impact on top of the natural cycles the stuff they're

trying to figure out right now is what does that mean for hurricanes that's getting on a finer

scale what does that mean for what would the temperature of New York City be at the end of the

century this is a much finer scale and that's where they're they're they're figuring things out

and having fun trying to figure this stuff out but the aspect of ice ages and so on you don't take

away the natural variability that's always ongoing what we've learned is what the climate is

most sensitive to and so what we see is that with Milankovitch who's figured out these ice age

cycles and the atmospheric forcing I mean the forcing from the Sun that right now we're in a

period that it's like for over 430 thousand years ago where we had about a 30 thousand year long

interglacial period um so we're about 18,000 the year into our degletiation so we have a lot

more years before we would have to face another ice age it looks like based on the orbital parameters

that the mathematicians have figured out so whatever we add on top of this warm period means we

have to live with for a while because we're adding to the heat trapping capacity and we are adding

to the warmth of the planet while these natural cycles go on okay Dan and Illinois on the air with

Dr. Aquarsal honey well good morning Art I listened to you for quite a few years since the 80s and

good morning Doctor I got a question about how do you feel with the fact that the the probability

of the satellites that orbit our Earth are causing a disruption in the magnetic field and that's

why there's problems with our weather okay Dan that one I haven't heard before now uh

perhaps a different question might be uh Dr. the uh the launch vehicles that put these satellites

into orbit and uh of course our uh space shuttle and so forth and so on uh there's a lot of

launches going on do they have an effect on climate well they do have an effect in that the fuel

that they're burning if it releases uh heat trapping uh gases that become heat trapping

uh gases in our atmosphere um then they would be contributing to global warming

okay uh Steven California time is short but you're on the air with Dr. Aquarsal hi

hi Art hi Doctor uh Art you've heard of the guy who wrote the book uh not by fire but by ice

yes uh I wonder if the doctor has heard of this guy in these book uh I'm not familiar

okay well uh from what I all I know is what I hear on coast to coast and from what I understand

every ice age is preceded by a period of global warming and um I would just uh everyone

stolen all my thunder I just have a nanofire cracker left so that'll be my only question just what

the doctor would have to say about that all right well we we kind of already covered that uh that

is to say the ice ages uh and what she's saying is that what we're doing right now is on top of any

other natural cycle including uh a natural ice age am I am my correct doctor yeah yeah

Charles in Florida perhaps time for another one you're on the air hi just quickly I had a question

in the statement a question is how does the doctor resolve the fact that Mars and the other

planets are warming my statement is in this narcissistic world how are we to trust

the scientific think tank community with over a billion dollar budget this year

and then my suggestion would be to everyone but once you know the theory of everything uh

global warming be simply explained to you all right uh we're back to something again we

already covered but uh doctor he asks about the warming the apparent warming on Mars

right um well there are uh every planet has its own different types of atmospheres and so on

and then you have the energy from the sun and uh on our planet we have a much more complicated

mix of things influencing our climate and so what we have is we have uh the sun's energy warming

our planet of course and it warms other planets but we also have on top of that aspect is that

we are trapping excess heat and so we're adding to the warming and we also have

sometimes in our planet that has shifting plates we have volcanic explosions which after

volcanic explosion that's very powerful and puts particulate matter in the atmosphere that

reflects sunlight we could cool down for a few years then those particles are washed out of our

atmosphere and uh then we bounce back to the type of uh climate that would have happened without

that volcanic explosion and so the factors make a make a a mix of interesting climate on the planet

indeed doctor we're out of time no book to sell no website to uh hawk so that's and i just

i want to say it was an honor to have you on the program doctor my pleasure i really enjoyed talking

to you okay good night and again thank you so very much and for all the rest of you uh the flu

allowing i will see you tomorrow night from the high desert night all