I spent an evening recently in Veterans Hall in Solvang listening to
Dr. James Lawrence Powell, a local resident and a scientist appointed to the National Science Board by two presidents, Reagan and George H. W. Bush, neither exactly standouts with their concerns about climate change…the topic of Powell's lecture. The immediacy of Powell's concerns regarding man-induced global warming, or 'climate instability', as he termed it, is all the more remarkable for, or perhaps enhanced by his service to those two particular presidents.
Powell didn't pull his punches. He gives us fifteen years to stop sending CO2 into the atmosphere. Serious events linked to climate instability have already begun. After fifteen years it will be too late - we might as well party (my words, not his!).
It is clear to me that Powell's tenure on the National Science Board and his current post of executive director of the National Physical Science Consortium have honed his perspective on the likelihood of Americans to change their ways. Consequently, his approach this night was one of precision surgery, beginning with the presentation of graphic, undeniable evidence of a consistently warming planet, and his proof that man is the cause. I won't reiterate those…we've all heard them before, if not as clearly and specifically outlined as done by Powell. Suffice to say, scientists find no evidence of change in CO2 levels in the atmosphere before the industrial revolution (ice core samples supply data going back hundreds of thousands of years) but there has been a steady 41% increase ever since. Scientists can distinguish between ancient and modern carbon particles because ancient CO2 molecules do not contain C14 (from oils and gas). C14 is rapidly becoming diluted in the atmosphere as we burn our fuels and send that residue into our life bubble.
Powell's intensity, his unapologetic directness of stance comes from those changes we all experience as we grow older…the sty is removed from the eye. In our grandfather-hood we are able to see the bigger picture, the image of our grandchildren struggling in a waterless, windy, dry, stormy, hot, hostile planet. Because of us. Because of the comforts and urges ands splurges we have granted ourselves.  Now the warmer nights are increasing, even faster than the warmer days...sea levels are rising faster than any other time in history...the number of days without frost each year are increasing steadily.  And the dominoes are falling.
Dr. Powell is a scientist. For him, the evidence has been collected, analyzed, tested, evaluated and is unequivocal. He finds it difficult to understand how anyone can deny the science. He does not understand that not everyone chooses to see that the emperor has no clothes.