Dan Miller's presentation focuses on why the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports are actually best case scenarios. For example, IPCC climate models do not include the effect of melting permafrost releasing greenhouse gases, even though the permafrost is melting now and it holds more greenhouse gases than all that mankind has ever released.
Another example is that IPCC predictions of sea level rise only take into account thermal expansion of the oceans and melting of glaciers; the largest factor, disintegration of glaciers, was not included because it is hard to model. The result is that sea level rise will likely be substantially higher this century than the IPCC predicts.
Miller discusses several other potential catastrophes that are not included in IPCC predictions and also discusses tipping points that could put climate change solutions out of our reach in years or decades, the psychology of climate change, and why it is difficult for people to respond to the threat posed by a warming earth.
His talk concludes with a discussion of ways to address climate change and the risks and opportunities that companies face due to the climate crisis.
Bio
Dan Miller
Dan Miller is Managing Director of the Roda Group. He is the former president of Ask Jeeves, Inc., a Roda Group affiliate company. He is currently working with a number of Roda Group affiliated companies to assist them with their business development efforts. Mr. Miller sits on the Board of several Roda Group companies.
At the end of 1994, Mr. Miller retired from his position as Executive Vice President of TCSI Corporation (Nasdaq: TCSI), a company he co-founded with his Roda Group partner, Roger Strauch. Mr. Miller retired from the Board of Directors of TCSI in June of 1997. TCSI is a leading provider of integrated software products and services for the global telecommunications industry.
Prior to TCSI, Mr. Miller was a systems engineer at Hughes Aircraft's Space and Communications Group where he was responsible for designing communications payloads for commercial communications satellites.
Increase in the global average surface temperature resulting from enhancement of the greenhouse effect, primarily by air pollution. In 2007 the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecasted that by 2100 global average surface temperatures would increase 3.2–7.2 °F (1.8–4.0 °C), depending on a range of scenarios for greenhouse gas emissions, and stated that it was now 90 percent certain that most of the warming observed over the previous half century could be attributed to greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activities (i.e., industrial processes and transportation). Many scientists predict that such an increase in temperature would cause polar ice caps and mountain glaciers to melt rapidly, significantly raising the levels of coastal waters, and would produce new patterns and extremes of drought and rainfall, seriously disrupting food production in certain regions. Other scientists maintain that such predictions are overstated. The 1992 Earth Summit and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change attempted to address the issue of global warming, but in both cases the efforts were hindered by conflicting national economic agendas and disputes between developed and developing nations over the cost and consequences of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
I think a key thing that you haven't mentioned is the capacity for soils to sequester carbon (probably falls within your broad definition of geo-engineering). You mention biochar, which is related, but I believe restoring the living carbon content of our now-degraded soils around the world is both an approach with greater potential, and can truly claim to be one of nature's own solutions.
I have summarised the research and my thoughts here, including the IPCC specialist's findings that we could reduce CO2 concentrations by 50ppm by this method: http://www.darkoptimism.org/2009/12/...nge-solutions/
ps Although I have other concerns with the approach, I've always wondered why fish eating the iron-fertilised algal blooms and preventing them from sinking to the bottom is seen as such a problem? Isn't sequestering carbon in fish just as valid as sequestering it in trees? Indeed, maintaining increased fish stocks seems like it would have other obvious benefits...
In previous versions of my talk, including the online videos, I used an incorrect animation to demonstrate the dramatic melting of the Arctic ice from 1979 to 2007. The animation I used was actually the 2007 maximum to minimum sea ice extent (i.e., one year). The correct animation is available here:
Unfortunately for all of us (and the reason I made the mistake), the 2007 maximum to minimum sea ice extent looks a lot like the 1979 to 2007 yearly minimum sea ice extent! In other words, back in 1979, the minimum sea ice extent (in September) was only slightly smaller than the maximum sea ice extent in 2007, and the progression of year-to-year minimums looks a lot like the 2007 max to min melting! The end points of both animations (2007 minimum sea ice extent) are the same in both animations. The still frame following the animation in the talk, comparing the average minimum extent with the 2005 and 2007 minimums, is correct.
Weather Channel Founder's Intent To Sue Gore For Fraud On Global Warming
Al Gore has made a lot of money and publicity with his crusade against global warming. I have written in the past how this whole crusade seems to be based on a Big Lie, and its real purpose appears more intended to get global government so the rest of the world (ie. the United Nations) can gain control over the United States' many assets without having to go through the awkward exercise of actually getting a their authority recognized by the US Congress.
However, there has been a backlash against the Gore Warming crusade (fueled partly by Gore's own hypocrisy in using large motorcades, private jets and his lavish lifestyle- none of which are designed to show others that he is serious about the entire issue. Not that the press has bothered to do any real reporting- they have fallen in line with Gore's crusade lock, stock and barrel- refusing to report on critics and making statements equating said critics with Nazis and other undesirables. However, the evidence is mounting that Gore and his global warming friends are no more accurate in their claims than Newsweek was in its new ice age campaign in the 1970s.
Al Gore is more about selling books and the people are falling for his line of bullshit !
The earth has been changing for billions of years...
Go back to the Ice Age didn't it change the earth!
Al Gore and his group of people have found a great paying jobs call climate change!
And we the people are idiots!
P.S.- A conservative "rag," "American Thinker," dismisses, to put it mildly, the concept of global warming, and not just human-caused warming, ALL global warming. The claim that, actually, the warmest years were in the 1930's. That WAS the dust bowl period. Are they right? I suppose there's a web-site for that information.
What did the host say in the introduction? "We're really..." WHAT?!?
This lecture is at least as good as "An Inconvenient Truth," but I have just one
nit to pick, other than the poor sound production, and that is: Why do so many otherwise intelligent people, and especially, those in scientific fields, mis-
pronounce "nuclear," Dan? (As a linguistically conscious person, I have a num-
ber of other gripes, such as: A)Many adults calling a picture, a "pitcher," like a first-grader. (Even the late art instructor, Bob Ross, said "pitcher.")
B)Use by almost all radio and TV personalities of the Appalachian colloquialism, "waiting on" instead of "waiting for," as in expectation, not serving. C)Saying standing "on" a line in which one is a part, etc.
Original Sin (for which we must ask forgiveness)
End of the world scenario (Revelations; as if we haven't heard all of that before)
Accepting personal responsibility for something we have no control over (unless we use this as an excuse to take over the whole world; wouldn't be the first time).
Personal sacrifice and discipline as the answer.
Predictions that will well exceed the lifespan of everyone.
The ones who really benefit are the priests (such as Dan Miller and Al Gore).
Any of the above sound familiar? 2 degrees is bad, 6 is deadly. 2 feet is bad 6 is deadly. Coincidence? Convenient. Congratulations.
I found the slide on the "psychology of climate" change interesting. Bad title though, should have been titled "How humans naturally spot hoaxes and how to suppress your natural instincts." My take away from this is that tonight, I will drive to a steakhouse in my V8 Trans Am and eat a steak (Outback should write Dan a check). As coal is one of our biggest exports (US), it would be economic suicide to cut back. Why cripple yourself at 20 because you may die of a cholesterol induced heart attack at 60?
We have bigger things to worry about. Odds are much higher we will all die from a nuclear or biological weapons exchange. Regardless, the sun will explode eventually anyway or the moon will leave our orbit. Who do we apologize to for that? We don't owe nature anything. Considering how many people have died to natural disasters, disease and famine I would be happy to know that we were the cause of it's destruction rather than something external.
So...how about those emails from the big names in climate "science"? That stuff is a great read. They certainly seem oblivious about the way the scientific method is supposed to work. What's worse is that from their responses to the leaked emails (in which they admit these are in fact real) they seem to have no idea that what they're doing would (heh, or will) get them fired from most academic jobs...if not jailed (one actually says in one of the emails that he'll delete the data rather than allow it to be examined by a skeptical scientist under FOIA).
With some of the editors of the IPCC reports showing this kind of bias...its obvious how the "science" came out so very, very wrong.
member. 
