Articles by David Roberts
David Roberts was a staff writer for Grist. You can follow him on Twitter, if you're into that sort of thing.
All Articles
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From Wine to Wood
Nice jugs When winemaker Carlo Rossi looks at a pair of jugs, he sees art. His new furniture collection — or “functional pieces of pure jug leisure” — includes a Chardonnay Chandelier, a Cabernet Couch, and a Sangria Sound System. For this oenophile, it’s all about “jug shui.” Photo: carlorossi.com The “Greatest Generation” thing was […]
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Breaking: There are skeptics
A fine piece of reporting from Gannett News Service, tipping off its readers to the fact that there's a small group of skeptics who don't believe global warming is a threat.
In case readers missed that info in every single other piece of vapid he-said she-said transcription that passes for journalism on this subject.
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Talking point: Climate nonlinearity
Global warming will not necessarily mean a slow, steady rise in temperature, to which we can gradually adjust. Climate history contains sudden, lurching reconfigurations. Says the IPCC, as quoted by the U.S. EPA, "complex systems, such as the climate system, can respond in non-linear ways and produce surprises."
We might be able to adapt to an incremental warming trend, but such a surprise -- e.g., the shutdown of the thermohaline circulation -- would be likely be catastrophic.
What are the chances of a sudden shift? No one knows for sure. Low, we think, for now, probably. Such things are, almost by definition, difficult to predict with any certainty. What we do know is that we increase the probability of such a catastrophe with every ton of CO2 we put in the atmosphere.
We are rolling dice with humanity's future.
