tagged w/ Climate Science
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From The New York Times: Environment
By JUSTIN GILLIS
Published: November 18, 2011
It is likely that greenhouse gas emissions related to human activity have already led to more record-high temperatures and fewer record lows, as well as to greater coastal flooding and possibly to more extremes of precipitation, the report said.
Whether inland flooding is getting worse because of greenhouse gases is murkier, the report said. Nor, it found, can any firm conclusion be drawn at this point about a human influence on hurricanes, typhoons, hail storms or tornadoes.
The findings were released at a conference in Kampala, Uganda, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a high-profile United Nations body assigned to review and report periodically on developments in climate research. They come at a time of unusual weather disasters around the globe, from catastrophic flooding in Asia and Australia to blizzards, floods, heat waves, droughts, wildfires and windstorms in the United States that have cost billions of dollars.
“A hotter, moister atmosphere is an atmosphere primed to trigger disasters,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University climate scientist and a principal author of the new report. “As the world gets hotter, the risk gets higher.”
The I.P.C.C. won the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007 for its efforts on climate change, but later became a focus of controversy related to minor factual errors in a large report that it had issued that year. It has tightened its procedures in the hope of preventing future errors.
The new report on extreme weather, one of a string of reports that the panel is issuing on relatively narrow issues, did not break much ground scientifically, essentially refining findings that have been emerging in climate science papers in recent years.
Indeed, the delegates meeting in Kampala adopted scientifically cautious positions in some areas. For instance, some researchers have presented evidence suggesting that hurricanes are growing more intense because of climate change, but the report sided with a group of experts who say that such a claim is premature.
Nonetheless, the report predicted that certain types of weather extremes will grow more numerous and more intense as human-induced global warming worsens in coming decades.
“It is virtually certain that increases in the frequency and magnitude of warm daily temperature extremes and decreases in cold extremes will occur in the 21st century on the global scale,” the report said. “It is likely that the frequency of heavy precipitation or the proportion of total rainfall from heavy falls will increase in the 21st century over many areas of the globe.”
By the end of the century, if greenhouse emissions continue unabated, the type of heat wave that now occurs once every 20 years will be occurring every couple of years across large areas of the planet, the report predicted.
Even as such extremes are projected to increase, human vulnerability to them is growing as well, the report said. Rising populations and flawed decisions about land use, like permitting unchecked coastal development, are putting more and more people in harm’s way, the report said.
“Rapid urbanization and the growth of megacities, especially in the developing countries, have led to the emergence of highly vulnerable urban communities, particularly through informal settlements” — meaning slums — “and inadequate land management,” the report said.
Increases in population density and in the value of property at risk, rather than changes in the climate, are the likeliest explanation for rising disaster losses in many countries, the report said. It called on governments to do a better job of protecting people and heading off catastrophes before they strike.
The report, approved in its final form on Friday morning, is a 29-page summary of a larger document with more scientific detail that is not expected to be ready until the spring. The group’s next all-encompassing review of climate science is due in 2013.
In two weeks, negotiators from many countries are to convene in Durban, South Africa, to try, as they have been doing for nearly 20 years, to come up with more effective ways of reining in the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are causing the climate to change.
Analysts are not optimistic about any major breakthrough at those talks. At the same time, some countries that had long held out are starting to adopt stronger domestic policies on climate change, with Australia being a notable example. It passed a carbon tax earlier this month.
Some groups that have long attacked mainstream climate science did so again Friday in response to the new report. David Whitehouse, an astrophysicist working for a London organization called the Global Warming Policy Foundation, declared that “the I.P.C.C. scientists are speculating far beyond any reasonable scientific justification.”
But advocates of climate action, particularly American groups stymied in their efforts to win aggressive measures in Washington, welcomed the new report.
“I think it really provides an opportunity to shift the conversation away from just changes in global averages to the kinds of extreme weather that people are seeing in their back yards,” said Juanita Constible, who follows scientific issues for the Climate Reality Project, founded by Mr. Gore.
http://www.whataretheywaitingfor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Global-Climate-Change.jpgFrom The New York Times: Environment
By JUSTIN GILLIS
Published: November 18, 2011... more
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Though by no means a climate change denier, Richard Muller, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, whose work in nuclear and astrophysics is well known, had long been suspicious of some of the science underpinning the accepted catechism on global warming.
He wondered, for example, about the the potential for urban areas, which retain and generate inordinate amounts of heat, to distort data suggesting that things were getting warmer. He also questioned the reliability of surface temperature readings collected from aging and error-prone monitoring stations all over the planet.
Muller's desire to examine these issues -- along with a willingness to excoriate prominent climate scientists for what he considered bad behavior, and to cheer climate change skeptics for bucking received orthodoxies on the topic -- certainly made him something of an orphan in the ever-polarized climate wars. But to his mind, it didn't mean he rejected the basic mechanics of global warming.
Casual readers, perusing the headlines over the last two weeks, would be forgiven for thinking otherwise.
After Muller's two-year-old Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project began publishing its findings on these and other questions late last month, numerous news outlets have portrayed him as a former skeptic whose research has led him back to the global warming fold.
In a nutshell, Muller and his team at Berkeley, which includes his daughter, Elizabeth, merged and analyzed a staggering amount of data collected from temperature monitoring stations the world over in order to address several complaints about climate research thus far. Skeptics, for example, have long argued -- legitimately, in Muller's view -- that climate researchers have relied on too small or too selective a sample of station data to definitively conclude that temperatures are rising; that many of the stations offer unreliable data, or are skewed upward by proximity to urban "heat islands"; or that researchers have made inappropriate adjustments in data to compensate for changes in measuring equipment and other local variables that crop up over decades of pulse-taking.
None of these concerns proved significant. "Our analysis of the complete data set showed that none of these four major concerns of the skeptics had biased the answer," Muller said.
In fact, the results closely matched most previous analyses showing a clear up-tick in temperature -- roughly 1 degree Celsius -- over the last half-century. And their estimate even exceeded the conservative estimate of a 0.64 degree increase promulgated by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Read the full article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/03/its-science-not-skepticis_n_1072419.htmlThough by no means a climate change denier, Richard Muller, a physicist at the... more
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The weather is becoming so extreme in a manner that climate scientist had been predicting for decade that it’s getting harder to ignore. At the same time, climate scientists are starting to do a good job of documenting the link to global warming and coming up with good analogies with which to explain it to the public, like Meehl’s steroids analogy.
Indeed, the AP also reported on a leaked version of a new IPCC report on this subject with the headline, “More weather disasters ahead, climate experts report; Some locations will become ‘increasingly marginal as places to live’.” Here are some key excerpts:
Freakish weather disasters — from the sudden October snowstorm in the Northeast U.S. to the record floods in Thailand — are striking more often. And global warming is likely to spawn more similar weather extremes at a huge cost, says a draft summary of an international climate report obtained by The Associated Press.
The final draft of the report from a panel of the world’s top climate scientists paints a wild future for a world already weary of weather catastrophes costing billions of dollars.
The report says costs will rise and perhaps some locations will become “increasingly marginal as places to live.”
The report from the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be issued in a few weeks, after a meeting in Uganda.
It says there is at least a 2-in-3 probability that climate extremes have already worsened because of man-made greenhouse gases.
Other studies makes stronger statements (see “Bombshell: Study Finds 80% Chance Russia’s 2010 July Heat Record Would Not Have Occurred Without Climate Warming” and “Bombshell: Study Finds 80% Chance Russia’s 2010 July Heat Record Would Not Have Occurred Without Climate Warming“).
More at the linkThe weather is becoming so extreme in a manner that climate scientist had been... more
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Freakish weather disasters – from the sudden October snowstorm in the Northeast U.S. to the record floods in Thailand – are striking more often. And global warming is likely to spawn more similar weather extremes at a huge cost, says a draft summary of an international climate report obtained by The Associated Press.
The final draft of the report from a panel of the world’s top climate scientists paints a wild future for a world already weary of weather catastrophes costing billions of dollars. The report says costs will rise and perhaps some locations will become “increasingly marginal as places to live.”
The report from the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be issued in a few weeks, after a meeting in Uganda. It says there is at least a 2-in-3 probability that climate extremes have already worsened because of man-made greenhouse gases.
This marks a change in climate science from focusing on subtle changes in daily average temperatures to concentrating on the harder-to-analyze freak events that grab headlines, cause economic damage and kill people. The most recent bizarre weather extreme, the pre-Halloween snowstorm in the U.S., is typical of the damage climate scientists warn will occur – but it’s not typical of the events they tie to global warming.
“The extremes are a really noticeable aspect of climate change,” said Jerry Meehl, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “I think people realize that the extremes are where we are going to see a lot of the impacts of climate change.”
The snow-bearing Nor’easter cannot be blamed on climate change and probably isn’t the type of storm that will increase with global warming, four meteorologists and climate scientists said. They agree more study is needed. But experts on extreme storms have focused more closely on the increasing numbers of super-heavy rainstorms, not snow, NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said.
The opposite kind of disaster – the drought in Texas and the Southwest U.S. – is also the type of event scientists are saying will happen more often as the world warms, said Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Meehl, who reviewed part of the climate panel report. No studies have specifically tied global warming to the drought, but it is consistent with computer models that indicate current climate trends will worsen existing droughts, Mr. Meehl said.
Studies also have predicted more intense monsoons with climate change. Warmer air can hold more water and puts more energy into weather systems, changing the dynamics of storms and where and how they hit.
Thailand is now coping with massive flooding from monsoonal rains that illustrate how climate is also interconnected with other manmade issues such as population and urban development, river management and sinking lands, Schmidt said. In fact, the report says that “for some climate extremes in many regions, the main driver for future increases in losses will be socioeconomic in nature” rather than greenhouse gases.
There’s an 80 per cent chance that the killer Russian heat wave of 2010 wouldn’t have happened without the added push of global warming, according to a study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
So while in the past the climate change panel, formed by the United Nations and World Meteorological Organization, has discussed extreme events in snippets in its report, this time the scientists are putting them all together. The report, which needs approval by diplomats at the mid-November meeting, tries to measure the confidence scientists have in their assessment of climate extremes both future and past.
Chris Field, one of the leaders of the climate change panel, said he and other authors won’t comment because the report still is subject to change. The summary chapter of the report didn’t detail which regions of the world might suffer extremes so severe as to leave them marginally habitable.
The report does say scientists are “virtually certain” – 99 per cent – that the world will have more extreme spells of heat and fewer of cold. Heat waves could peak as much as 5 degrees hotter by mid-century and even 9 degrees hotter by the end of the century.
More at the link
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More intense rains due to increased moisture and temperature in the atmosphere exacerbated by human forcings cause sea level rise as well as thermal expansion of the oceans. Water evaporation then brings water back up from the oceans and dumps it back down on the land washing away topsoil and sediment. Sea level rise is causing salt water intrusion and erosion and combines with subsidence to cause the land to crumble and shift. The question that never really gets the proper attention in all of this is, where will the people go when their land is either gone or unliveable? We have no global plan to deal with the huge amounts of climate refugees that we will (and already) have as a result of these conditions. Matter of fact, infrastructure, land management, deforestation, etc. are only exacerbating this. Oh well, I guess we as humans really are not up to this task.Freakish weather disasters – from the sudden October snowstorm in the Northeast... more
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To see or not to see, that is the question about the new conspiracy movie Anonymous that asserts William Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him. As a NY Times magazine piece by Stephen Marche puts it:
“Was Shakespeare a fraud?” That’s the question the promotional machinery for Roland Emmerich’s new film, “Anonymous,” wants to usher out of the tiny enclosure of fringe academic conferences into the wider pastures of a Hollywood audience. Shakespeare is finally getting the Oliver Stone/“Da Vinci Code” treatment, with a lurid conspiratorial melodrama involving incest in royal bedchambers, a vapidly simplistic version of court intrigue, nifty costumes and historically inaccurate nonsense. First they came for the Kennedy scholars, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Kennedy scholar. Then they came for Opus Dei, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Catholic scholar. Now they have come for me.
Professors of Shakespeare — and I was one once upon a time — are blissfully unaware of the impending disaster that this film means for their professional lives. Thanks to “Anonymous,” undergraduates will be confidently asserting that Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare for the next 10 years at least, and profs will have to waste countless hours explaining the obvious. “Anonymous” subscribes to the Oxfordian theory of authorship, the contention that Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford, wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Among Shakespeare scholars, the idea has roughly the same currency as the faked moon landing does among astronauts.
The good news is that “Anonymous” makes an extraordinarily poor case for the Oxfordian theory.
Yes, Shakespeare scholars, like climate scientists, must now suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and decide whether or not to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.
Readers know that I am a long time Shakespeare buff — see “William Shakespeare special: Why deniers out-debate smart talkers.” Indeed, a quarter-century ago I even published a journal article on Hamlet, and I have an unpublished manuscript that explores how Shakespeare uses rhetoric and the figures of speech to communicate his meaning. So I’m well aware of the snobbish myth that Shakespeare was supposedly too uneducated to have written so many diverse masterpieces.
That merely reflects a complete lack of understanding of basic grammar school education in Shakespeare’s day — where students were taught rhetoric, the figures of speech, and Latin poetry and grammar hour after hour after hour year after year. That’s why they called it grammar school. The book I am intending to publish next year on messaging devotes a page on this very subject, how Elizabethans like Shakespeare and the authors of the King James Bible came to their mastery of the English language. Understanding how they did it is key to understanding how you can do it.
This new movie goes one step further and ascribes the plays to a person who simply could not have written them. I haven’t seen it yet — I’m quite conflicted since I’m confident it will be as head exploding as your typical denier movie. Marche actually makes a direct connection in his piece between Shakespeare deniers and climate science deniers. But first he briefly explains why no serious Shakespeare scholar buys the Oxford theory:
… the liberties with facts in “Anonymous” become serious when they enter our conception of real history. In scholarship, chronology does matter. And the fatal weakness of the Oxfordian theory is chronological, a weakness that “Anonymous” never addresses: the brute fact that Edward de Vere died in 1604, while Shakespeare continued to write, several times with partners, until 1613. “Macbeth” and “The Tempest” were inspired by events posthumous to the Earl of Oxford: the gunpowder plot in 1605 and George Somers’s misadventure to Bermuda in 1609. How can anyone be inspired by events that happened after his death?So, enough. It is impossible that Edward de Vere wrote Shakespeare. Notice that I am not saying improbable; it is impossible. Better scholars than I will ever be have articulated the scale of the idiocy. Jonathan Bate in a single chapter of “The Genius of Shakespeare” annihilated the Oxfordian thesis. If you want to read the definitive treatment, there is James Shapiro’s more recent “Contested Will,” although that book is nearly as absurd as its subject, because using a brain like Shapiro’s on the authorship question is like bringing an F-22 to an alley knife fight, and he kind of knows it. He ties his argument into the larger question of art and its relationship to the artist’s life, but even so the whole business is evidently a waste of his vast talent.
Scientists don’t generally use the world “impossible” — though they do use “unequivocal” and “settled fact” — but then this guy was a Shakespeare professor. He does draw compelling analogies between Shakespeare deniers and climate science deniers:
Besides, no argument could ever possibly sway the Oxfordian crowd. They are the prophets of truthiness. “It couldn’t have been Shakespeare,” they say. “How could a semiliterate country boy have composed works of such power?” Their snobbery is the surest sign of their ignorance. Many of the greatest English writers emerged from the middle or lower classes. Dickens worked in a shoe-polish factory as a child. Keats was attacked for belonging to the “cockney school.” Snobbery mingles with paranoia, particularly about the supposedly nefarious intrigues of Shakespeare professors to keep the identity secret. Let me assure everybody that Shakespeare professors are absolutely incapable of operating a conspiracy of any size whatsoever. They can’t agree on who gets which parking spot. That’s what they spend most of their time intriguing about.
Well, it’s certainly apparent that no argument and no fact can sway the hard-core disinformers — see Koch-Funded Berkeley Temperature Study Does “Confirm the Reality of Global Warming.”
And climate scientists are even less capable of operating a conspiracy than Shakespeare scholars. After all, they’d need to enlist all the major science journals and every major science organization and every member government of the IPCC….
Marche himself notes:
The original Oxfordian, the aptly named J. Thomas Looney, who proposed the theory in 1920, believed that Shakespeare’s true identity remained a secret because, he said, “it has been left mainly in the hands of literary men.” In his rejection of expertise, at least, Looney was far ahead of his time. This same antielitism is haunting every large intellectual question today. We hear politicians opine on their theories about climate change and evolution as a way of displaying how little they know. When Rick Perry compared climate-change skeptics like himself to Galileo in a Republican debate, I dearly wished that the next question had been “Can you explain Galileo’s theory of falling bodies?” Of all the candidates with their various rejections of the scientific establishment, how many could name the fundamental laws of thermodynamics that students learn in high school? Healthy skepticism about elites has devolved into an absence of basic literacy.
Precisely.
More at the linkTo see or not to see, that is the question about the new conspiracy movie Anonymous... more
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Professor says state agency censored article
By HARVEY RICE, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Updated 09:38 p.m., Monday, October 10, 2011
GALVESTON - A long-awaited report on Galveston Bay is being delayed by accusations that Texas' environmental agency deleted references from a scientific article to climate change, people's impact on the environment and sea-level rise.
John Anderson, the Maurice Ewing professor of oceanography at Rice University and author of the article, accused the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality of basing its decision to delete certain references on politics rather than science.
"I don't think there is any question but that their motive is to tone this thing down as it relates to global (climate) change," Anderson said. "It's not about the science. It's all politics."
The article has several references to climate change but does not say it is caused by humans. However, other references to the impact people have had on the environment were deleted by TCEQ.
TCEQ spokeswoman Andrea Morrow gave no reason for the deletions in an e-mail response, saying only that the agency disagreed with information in the article.
"It would be irresponsible to take whatever is sent to us and publish it," she said.
Editors also rap agency
Anderson said TCEQ prevented the article - written for a report by the agency's Galveston Bay Estuary Program - from being published without the deletions. That, and Anderson's refusal to accept the changes, have held up publication of The State of the Bay
TCEQ contracted with the Houston Advanced Research Center to produce the report two years ago; the research center asked Anderson to write an article on sea-level rise in Galveston Bay. The research center received the final edited version of his article about three months ago, Anderson said.
Jim Lester, vice president of the research center and editor of the publication, said he, co-editor Lisa Gonzalez and Anderson have advised TCEQ officials that they do not want their names associated with the edited version.
"We feel it would impact our credibility as scientists on something where the data on sea-level rise has been censored," Lester said. He said the report would have been published a year ago, if not for the disagreement.
A 10-year study
Anderson wrote to TCEQ Commissioner Buddy Garcia Aug. 30 complaining about the censorship, including as an example the deletion of a section saying the ocean level in Galveston Bay is rising by 3 millimeters a year, compared with the long-term average of 0.5 millimeters.
"The sea level rates presented in this chapter are scientific fact, not speculation," he wrote to Garcia.
"Preventing me from publishing this chapter in its current form is a clear case of censorship, which we academicians take very seriously. I would hope that you will intervene at this point and assure that publication of The State of the Bay is no longer delayed."
Anderson said he has not heard from Garcia, although TCEQ's spokeswoman said someone from Garcia's office had tried to reach him.
Anderson said the article is a synopsis of a 10-year study he and other scientists conducted, published by the Geological Society of America. The study was peer-reviewed, meaning it was critically reviewed by other scientists.
He said TCEQ never offered an explanation for the deletions.
"They just went through the document and deleted, deleted, deleted," he said.
Lester said TCEQ officials made it clear the agency is uncomfortable with any references to human-caused climate change.
"We stayed away from human-induced climate change, but we felt like we had to talk about sea-level rise," he said. "After all, it's been happening for 12,000 years. We were surprised the data on sea-level rise became a contentious issue."
TCEQ also deleted any references to human-caused change in other contexts, including a reference to human activity being responsible for wetlands destruction.
"I think that we're seeing an expression of the ideology of the TCEQ leadership," Lester said. "I can't think of any other reason why these would be contentious issues."
harvey.rice@chron.com
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Professor-says-state-agency-censored-article-2212118.phpProfessor says state agency censored article
By HARVEY RICE, HOUSTON CHRONICLE... more
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The headline on the 1975 report was bold: “Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?” And this article that coined the term may have marked the last time a mention of “global warming” didn’t set off an instant outcry of angry denial.In the paper, Columbia University geoscientist Wally Broecker calculated how much carbon dioxide would accumulate in the atmosphere in the coming 35 years, and how temperatures consequently would rise. His numbers have proven almost dead-on correct. Meanwhile, other powerful evidence poured in over those decades, showing the “greenhouse effect” is real and is happening. And yet resistance to the idea among many in the U.S. appears to have hardened.
What’s going on?
“The desire to disbelieve deepens as the scale of the threat grows,” concludes economist-ethicist Clive Hamilton.
He and others who track what they call “denialism” find that its nature is changing in America, last redoubt of climate naysayers. It has taken on a more partisan, ideological tone. Polls find a widening Republican-Democrat gap on climate. Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry even accuses climate scientists of lying for money. Global warming looms as a debatable question in yet another U.S. election campaign.
The A.P. has published journalist Charles Hanley’s nearly 2000-word essay on U.S. climate denial, “The American ‘allergy’ to global warming: Why?”
The piece is an excellent edition to a growing group that includes, WashPost stunner: “The GOP’s climate-change denial may be its most harmful delusion” and National Journal: “The GOP is stampeding toward an absolutist rejection of climate science that appears unmatched among major political parties around the globe, even conservative ones.”
Here is more:
The basic physics of anthropogenic — manmade — global warming has been clear for more than a century, since researchers proved that carbon dioxide traps heat. Others later showed CO2 was building up in the atmosphere from the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels. Weather stations then filled in the rest: Temperatures were rising.“As a physicist, putting CO2 into the air is good enough for me. It’s the physics that convinces me,” said veteran Cambridge University researcher Liz Morris. But she said work must go on to refine climate data and computer climate models, “to convince the deeply reluctant organizers of this world.”
The reluctance to rein in carbon emissions revealed itself early on.
In the 1980s, as scientists studied Greenland’s buried ice for clues to past climate, upgraded their computer models peering into the future, and improved global temperature analyses, the fossil-fuel industries were mobilizing for a campaign to question the science.
By 1988, NASA climatologist James Hansen could appear before a U.S. Senate committee and warn that global warming had begun, a dramatic announcement later confirmed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a new, U.N.-sponsored network of hundreds of international scientists.
But when Hansen was called back to testify in 1989, the White House of President George H.W. Bush edited this government scientist’s remarks to water down his conclusions, and Hansen declined to appear.
That was the year U.S. oil and coal interests formed the Global Climate Coalition to combat efforts to shift economies away from their products. Britain’s Royal Society and other researchers later determined that oil giant Exxon disbursed millions of dollars annually to think tanks and a handful of supposed experts to sow doubt about the facts.
In 1997, two years after the IPCC declared the “balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate,” the world’s nations gathered in Kyoto, Japan, to try to do something about it. The naysayers were there as well.
“The statement that we’ll have continued warming with an increase in CO2 is opinion, not fact,” oil executive William F. O’Keefe of the Global Climate Coalition insisted to reporters in Kyoto.
The late Bert Bolin, then IPCC chief, despaired.
“I’m not really surprised at the political reaction,” the Swedish climatologist told The Associated Press. “I am surprised at the way some of the scientific findings have been rejected in an unscientific manner.”
In fact, a document emerged years later showing that the industry coalition’s own scientific team had quietly advised it that the basic science of global warming was indisputable.
See “Scientists advising fossil fuel funded anti-climate group concluded in 1995: The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of GHGs such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied”
Kyoto’s final agreement called for limited rollbacks in greenhouse emissions. The United States didn’t even join in that. And by 2000, the CO2 built up in the atmosphere to 369 parts per million — just 4 ppm less than Broecker predicted — compared with 280 ppm before the industrial revolution.
Global temperatures rose as well, by 0.6 degrees C (1.1 degrees F) in the 20th century. And the mercury just kept rising. The decade 2000-2009 was the warmest on record, and 2010 and 2005 were the warmest years on record.
Costal threat prediction
Satellite and other monitoring, meanwhile, found nights were warming faster than days, and winters more than summers, and the upper atmosphere was cooling while the lower atmosphere warmed — all clear signals greenhouse warming was at work, not some other factor.
The impact has been widespread.
An authoritative study this August reported that hundreds of species are retreating toward the poles, egrets showing up in southern England, American robins in Eskimo villages. Some, such as polar bears, have nowhere to go. Eventual large-scale extinctions are feared.
The heat is cutting into wheat yields, nurturing beetles that are destroying northern forests, attracting malarial mosquitoes to higher altitudes.
From the Rockies to the Himalayas, glaciers are shrinking, sending ever more water into the world’s seas. Because of accelerated melt in Greenland and elsewhere, the eight-nation Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program projects ocean levels will rise 90 to 160 centimeters (35 to 63 inches) by 2100, threatening coastlines everywhere.
“We are scared, really and truly,” diplomat Laurence Edwards, from the Pacific’s Marshall Islands, told the AP before the 1997 Kyoto meeting.
Today in these low-lying islands, rising seas have washed away shoreline graveyards, saltwater has invaded wells, and islanders seek aid to build a seawall to shield their capital.
The oceans are turning more acidic, too, from absorbing excess carbon dioxide. Acidifying seas will harm plankton, shellfish and other marine life up the food chain. Biologists fear the world’s coral reefs, home to much ocean life and already damaged from warmer waters, will largely disappear in this century.
Arctic ice cap
The greatest fears may focus on “feedbacks” in the Arctic, warming twice as fast as the rest of the world.
The Arctic Ocean’s summer ice cap has shrunk by half and is expected to essentially vanish by 2030 or 2040, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported Sept. 15. Ashore, meanwhile, the Arctic tundra’s permafrost is thawing and releasing methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
These changes will feed on themselves: Released methane leads to warmer skies, which will release more methane. Ice-free Arctic waters absorb more of the sun’s heat than do reflective ice and snow, and so melt will beget melt. The frozen Arctic is a controller of Northern Hemisphere climate; an unfrozen one could upend age-old weather patterns across continents.
more at the linkThe headline on the 1975 report was bold: “Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced... more
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This is a critical time. The science has never been more clear and compelling. Yet the public has never been so confused and misled. There is much to tell, and there are many scientists who are talented at and committed to telling it. People need to know the facts, and there are labs and universities ready to offer them. People also need to hear the stories of climate change, from scientists and other messengers whom they trust. The need is urgent, as the time for effective action is short. In this context, Climate Communication was born.
I’d spent a couple of decades working with climate scientists to communicate their work to the wider public. I had helped to put a lot of great reports on the shelf (see for example: Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, Impacts of A Warming Arctic, etc.). But if a tree falls in the forest and not enough people hear, then what?
So we’re here to do everything we can to bring the science forward in a way that it can be heard. We’re still doing much of what I’ve been doing for a long time: helping scientists produce accessible reports and other science-based materials. But we’re also doing a lot more.
For scientists, we’re offering workshops in communicating climate science that go far beyond typical media training. We focus on the specific challenges of communicating about climate change. We go beyond problems of language to consider psychological and cultural issues. Our Science Director, Richard Somerville, and I led a climate communication workshop at the American Geophysical Union meeting in December 2010 and we’ll both be speaking there again this year. We led a workshop at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab on communicating about climate change. And we have more workshops planned. We welcome inquires about holding additional workshops and professional development sessions.
For journalists, we’re making the latest science available in a more accessible form and helping them identify the best experts to interview on particular topics. In a fast-paced and challenging media environment, we’re bringing the science to journalists in ways that are credible and helpful. Last week we held a telephone press conference featuring leading climate scientists discussing the linkages between extreme weather and climate change. We also posted a summary of the latest peer-reviewed science on that subject. Journalists are welcome to contact us and we’ll do our best to help.
For the public, we’re producing clear, brief summaries of the most important things they need to know about climate change, using not only words but also videos and animations. We’re providing concise answers to the key questions people ask: What’s happening to climate and why? How will it affect us? And what can we do about it?
The Yale and George Mason Universities’ studies tell us the questions most Americans want answered. Our science advisors answer those questions and more, simply and clearly, at our website in both text and videos.
Our Science Advisors include many of the world’s leading climate scientists, who are also great communicators: Ken Caldeira, Julia Cole, Robert Corell, Kerry Emanuel, Katharine Hayhoe, Greg Holland, Jeff Kiehl, Michael MacCracken, Michael Mann, Jeff Masters, Jerry Meehl, Jonathan Overpeck, Camille Parmesan, Barrett Rock, Benjamin Santer, Kevin Trenberth, Warren Washington, and Don Wuebbles.
You can read their bios, learn what they do outside of science, and even see them in action on our website, in brief bio videos. We also put together a short video on what the public really needs to know about climate change. And there are many more videos on common climate questions, extreme weather and climate change, and other topics. We hope to help amplify their voices and bring more clarity to public discussions of this great challenge.
by Susan Hassol, Director of Climate Communication
More at the linkThis is a critical time. The science has never been more clear and compelling. Yet the... more
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It’s been a regression of intellectual thought, where intellect has been removed from the equation and cast aside as something to be ridiculed and demonized, only to be replaced with a bizarre hybrid of religion, ignorance, greed, and bloodlust. Why else would those who practice stupidity-by-choice cheer for the death of an uninsured man, or celebrate the fact that one of their beloved candidates has executed close to 300 people in his state?
http://veracitystew.com/2011/09/21/american-idiots-the-gops-aversion-to-intelligence-video/It’s been a regression of intellectual thought, where intellect has been removed... more
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More Americans than last year believe the world is warming and the change is likely influenced by the Republican presidential debates, a Reuters/Ipsos poll said on Thursday.
The percentage of Americans who believe the Earth has been warming rose to 83 percent from 75 percent last year in the poll conducted Sept 8-12.
Republican presidential candidates, aside from Jon Huntsman, have mostly blasted the idea that emissions from burning fossil fuels and other human actions are warming the planet.
The current front-runner, Texas Governor Rick Perry, has accused scientists of manipulating climate data while Michele Bachmann has said climate change is a hoax.
As Americans watch Republicans debate the issue, they are forced to mull over what they think about global warming, said Jon Krosnick, a political science professor at Stanford University.
And what they think is also influenced by reports this year that global temperatures in 2010 were tied with 2005 to be the warmest year since the 1880s.
"That is exactly the kind of situation that will provoke the public to think about the issue in a way that they haven't before," Krosnick said about news reports on the Republicans denying climate change science.
WEATHER DISASTERS
This year has been a record year for the kind of costly weather disasters -- including Hurricane Irene, which raked the East Coast -- that scientists have warned would be more frequent with climate change.
The United States suffered 10 natural disasters in 2011 with economic losses of $1 billion or more, according to the National Weather Service.
Unlike many other issues that divide Republicans and Democratic voters, such as healthcare or how to deal with the deficit and debt, a majority of Americans from both major parties agree on global warming, the poll found. Some 72 percent of Republicans believe global warming is happening and 92 percent of Democrats do, it found.
Global warming could be an important issue in next year's election, because some 15 percent of voters see it as their primary concern, said Krosnick, who is also a university fellow at the Resources for the Future think tank.
If President Barack Obama, a Democrat, can define himself as the environmental candidate, he could have a large advantage over a Republican, Krosnick said. If however, a Republican softens his or her stance on climate and Obama, who has failed to pass a climate bill in his first term, moves more to the center, it may not be a factor in the election.
Some 71 percent of the Americans who believe warming is happening think that it is caused either partly or mostly by humans, while 27 percent believe its is the result of natural causes, the poll found.
More at the linkMore Americans than last year believe the world is warming and the change is likely... more
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This past Wednesday and Thursday there was an event that took place that once again reiterated the urgency of a crisis that scientists have been warning us about for the last five plus decades. 24 Hours of Reality started at 8pm EST culminating in 23 subsequent hours from around the world in relaying to the over 8 million viewers the urgency of a crisis that warranted our attention all of those years ago. And I personally think it succeeded in doing just that. While in my own personal opinion I think some of the presenters could have been a bit more passionate about the information, it nevertheless was an effective tool in showing the reality of the consequences of the human forcings upon our natural processes that are now pushing this planet to a tipping point. Although, some complained of the monotony of the same presentation over and over and over again and I can also see that point. It actually might have been better to do a documentary on the effects of climate change globally with us actually seeing testimonials from people experiencing its effects (like the Inuit in Alaska) then have Al with the help of the scientists tie it all together along with the information on the well funded denier movement and a special segment on solutions and their availability to us right now. However, I still think the point was made.
There is definitely a need to remove the doubt which has been paid for by entities such as the Marshall Institute which was also instrumental in sowing seeds of doubt about missile defense, acid rain, effects of smoking and now seeds of doubt regarding the established and settled science behind global warming. And the established science that was discussed by the scientists on the panels put together for this event that spoke the facts about a world on the precipice regarding food, water and humanity, but with solutions that can still be implemented and are being implemented by the most unlikely among us were also informative.
A boy in Malawi who made a windmill out of old bicycle parts and other materials that wound up serving the needs of his community. The rise of solar in places like Sierra Leone and Kenya, as well as the international shift towards renewable energy even here in the US where wind energy has soared made the message clear: This is not a political issue, but a human one. Our ability to survive the effects of what we have now brought upon ourselves is indeed in the balance in the greatest test of the human spirit.
In watching this these were the messages: that this transcends politics and all of the other stigmatisms placed on the human condition. That we now must finally see that it matters not where you live, or your culture, or your beliefs, or your color, or your biases because this is a real crisis that calls upon our moral courage as citizens of this planet to make it right as best we can now possibly do. And that finally we must bring out into the light of day those who have been slinking in the darkness doing all they could to keep this truth from being believed for what it is and thus delaying action on a crisis of our environment and conscience that now sees our work made even harder.
These are messages we must take to heart, and to our pens, and our modems, and our voices, and our votes. There is no contestation of these facts. Every national scientific academy in the world agrees that this is happening and that we humans are primarily responsible for these shifts and changes by our actions. Every scientific institution whose scientists publish in the peer reviewed journals agrees that this is happening and is primarily driven by human activity.
The Earth revolves around the sun, gravity keeps you grounded and CO2 traps heat. And when more of it goes into our atmosphere than is within the natural envelope that keeps our temperature comfortable for our existence and the balance of our ecosystems, it traps more of the sun's infrared rays thus warming the lower atmosphere and raising temperature. This combines with other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere such as water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, land usage, deforestation etc. and it amplifies the effects of the forcings upon the atmosphere resulting in patterns that lead us to water evaporation, droughts, sea level rise, glacier melt, floods, storms, as well as species invasion, extinction and the spread of diseases. And the more we continue to treat the atmosphere as an open sewer the more we amplify these effects now to the point where we have actually managed to oversaturate the hydrologic cycle which explains in part the severity and frequency of the global events that we have experienced costing us lives, agriculture, water quality, economies and biodiversity.
The atmosphere like our water is a public trust, a public commons if you will. Not to be used as a dumping ground at the whim of those who have the money to do so. We all need to be able to breathe the air and be confident that we and other species will all be assured equality in the quality of our air, water and other life sustaining resources. However, this is not happening presently and it needs to be addressed now.
And for me the one man who has been able to articulate this message in the way it needs to be articulated is Al Gore. For over thirty years he has been out here telling us about the findings of scientists like Roger Revelle, Charles Keeling and the world we would find ourselves in if we did not heed these findings and warnings. It was why he decided to seek public office all those years ago hoping that once this was seen it would be of primary importance. And here a bit over thrity years later here we are still at that fork in the road.
Only now, it is not just some faraway scenario of the future that we can afford to place at the bottom of the pile. It is a present danger to our continued existence because it is not just a rainstorm here and there or a heatwave every once in a while. It is about the total shifting of the patterns of the climate system that sustains our ability to feed ourselves, house ourselves and provide for our sustenance. It is about our morality, our humanity and our ability to come together without seeing the labels that have to this point restricted our humanity. It is about providing a cleaner healthier environment for us and for those to come in order to preserve that climate system and the other systems that depend on it as we do.
But as we all know, certain interests with their money and political ties have been working overtime to keep their status quo at any cost and work to smear anyone who dares challenge it, but challenge it we must if we are to have a future. And this is just one reason why I love this man so much. His unwavering passion, perseverence and courage to do what is right in the face of what seems like insurmountable odds and hatefilled rancor. It is truly a testamount to a man who has transcended it because he sees the higher purpose to it. This is what we all must strive for. For this is not an illusion, it is reality. A reality of our making and a reality we can make even better in seeing at last our true purpose on this planet.
This is my comment which can be found here:
http://progressivesforgore.blogspot.com/2011/09/earth-definitely-in-balance.html
Videos of the event can be seen on the Climate Reality Project site since it seems they are not allowing sharing outside of the site.This past Wednesday and Thursday there was an event that took place that once again... more
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When it comes to foreign policy, the saying goes that politics stops at the water’s edge.
When it comes to climate science, we say that politics should stop at the atmosphere’s edge.
One of us is a Republican, the other a Democrat. We hold different views on many issues. But as scientists, we share a deep conviction that leaders of both parties must speak to the reality and risks of human-caused climate change, and commit themselves to finding bipartisan solutions.
Kerry Emanuel, a climate and hurricane expert who happens to be a Republican, has co-authored a must-read op-ed with Peter C. Frumhoff, an ecologist. who happens to be a Democrat, “Candidates must deal with facts, not wishes.”
Here’s more:
Scientists have known for more than 100 years that carbon dioxide in our atmosphere traps heat. And today we know that the excess carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere from human activity – primarily, burning coal and oil and clearing forests – is altering our climate.
It’s a conclusion based on established physics and on evidence gathered from satellite data, ancient ice cores, temperature stations, fossilized trees and corals. And it’s a conclusion affirmed by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, established by President Lincoln to advise our nation’s leaders on matters of science.
Note: The major 2011 climate report from the National Academy of Sciences called on nation to “substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions” starting ASAP.
But as scientific understanding of climate change has advanced, the public discourse has split along partisan lines.
Republicans who identify with the Tea Party are particularly likely to deny the reality of global warming. Several of this year’s aspiring presidential candidates are rejecting the findings of climate science – and feeling the political heat if they don’t.
After former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney reiterated his understanding that human activity is warming the planet, Rush Limbaugh denounced him for doing so, saying, “bye-bye nomination.” Romney now says that he doesn’t know what is causing climate change.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry recently accused climate scientists of “manipulating data.” In Wednesday’s Republican candidate debate, he made an argument like the one tobacco industry executives used to cast doubt on the scientific evidence of smoking’s health risks, saying, “The idea that we would put Americans’ economy in jeopardy based on scientific theory that’s not settled yet to me is just nonsense.” Science is never truly settled and no responsible leader would wait for 100 percent certainty to respond to a serious threat.
The National Academy concluded its 2010 review of climate science saying these are “settled facts“: The “Earth system is warming” and “much of this warming is very likely due to human activities.”
More at the linkWhen it comes to foreign policy, the saying goes that politics stops at the... more
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Taking on controversial claims that clouds are a main driver of temperature changes across the globe, a Texas A&M University atmospheric scientist finds evidence of cherry picking and errors.
By Douglas Fischer
New findings published Tuesday appear to undermine a controversial study - oft-cited by those who downplay the human impacts of climate change - that claimed variations in cloud cover are driving temperature changes across the globe.
You would think, if you have a scientific history of being wrong on so many issues, that you would have a little bit of humility before claiming you've overturned scientific evidence yet again. - Andrew Dessler, Texas A&M University
The latest analysis confirms – as most atmospheric scientists have long held – that the reverse is true: Clouds change in response to temperature changes. There is no evidence clouds can cause meaningful climate change, concluded the report's author, Andrew Dessler, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University. "Suggestions that significant revisions to mainstream climate science are required are therefore not supported," he wrote.
Dessler's findings are the third blow in less than a week to the research of University of Alabama, Huntsville, climatologist Roy Spencer.
On Friday, the editor at the journal that published Spencer's paper resigned, stating that the paper "should ... not have been published."
And on Thursday, a separate study led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher Benjamin Santer purported to disprove earlier Spencer claims that climate models overstate observed warming and thus are unreliable predictors of the future.
Myriad atmospheric events combine to drive weather and climate. That complexity has long stymied researchers trying to predict the impact that changes to the atmospheric system - notably the addition of billions of tons of greenhouse gases from industrial activity - will have on the Earth's climate.
Spencer, a scientist whose views and findings often put him outside the consensus on climate change, co-authored a report in July that concluded the influence of those many variables are too strong to reliably attribute any climate change to humans.
That paper, published in the two-year-old – and relatively obscure – journal Remote Sensing, explored the interaction between changes in ocean heat, cloud cover and surface temperatures. It found that computer models could not adequately explain changes in temperature observed over the past 10 years but - if certain key assumptions are made and a simple climate model is used - random changes in cloud cover could drive temperature changes enough to account for the observations.
The results, widely cited by those who claim the science on the human influence on climate change remains unsettled, cut against the basic tenets of atmospheric science, Dessler said in an interview.
Data vs. assumptions
But Spencer's key assumptions were wrong, Dessler added. And while Spencer and his co-author, University of Alabama scientist Danny Braswell, claimed to have examined 14 climate models, they presented just the results of the six models showing the biggest mismatch with reality.
"You would think, if you have a scientific history of being wrong on so many issues, that you would have a little bit of humility before claiming you've overturned scientific evidence yet again," Dessler said.
More at the linkTaking on controversial claims that clouds are a main driver of temperature changes... more
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Anti-reflexivity
The American Conservative Movement’s Success in Undermining Climate Science and Policy
Aaron M. McCright
Lyman Briggs College and the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University, mccright@msu.edu
Riley E. Dunlap
Department of Sociology at Oklahoma State University, rdunlap@okstate.edu
Abstract
The American conservative movement is a force of anti-reflexivity insofar as it attacks two key elements of reflexive modernization: the environmental movement and environmental impact science. Learning from its mistakes in overtly attacking environmental regulations in the early 1980s, this counter-movement has subsequently exercised a more subtle form of power characterized by non-decision-making. We examine the conservative movement’s efforts to undermine climate science and policy in the USA over the last two decades by using this second dimension of power. The conservative movement has employed four non-decision-making techniques to challenge the legitimacy of climate science and prevent progress in policy-making. We argue that reflexive modernization scholars should focus more attention on similar forces of anti-reflexivity that continue to shape the overall direction of our social, political and economic order, and the life chances of many citizens. Indeed, better understanding of the forces and effectiveness of anti-reflexivity may very well be crucial for societal resilience and adaptation, especially in the face of global environmental problems like climate change.
http://youtu.be/NiYn2G-rbEQAnti-reflexivity
The American Conservative Movement’s Success in Undermining... more
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In his bid to cast doubts on the seriousness of climate change, University of Alabama's Roy Spencer creates a media splash but claims a journal's editor-in-chief.
The science doesn't hold up.
by Kevin Trenberth, John Abraham, and Peter Gleick
The widely publicized paper by Roy Spencer and Danny Braswell, published in the journal Remote Sensing in July, has seen a number of follow-ups and repercussions.
Unfortunately this is not the first time the science conducted by Roy Spencer and colleagues has been found lacking.
The latest came Friday in a remarkable development, when the journal's editor-in-chief, Wolfgang Wagner, submitted his resignation and apologized for the paper.
As we noted on RealClimate.org when the paper was published, the hype surrounding Spencer's and Braswell's paper was impressive; unfortunately the paper itself was not. Remote Sensing is a fine journal for geographers, but it does not deal much with atmospheric and climate science, and it is evident that this paper did not get an adequate peer review. It should have received an honest vetting.
Friday that truth became apparent. Kevin Trenberth received a personal note of apology from both the editor-in-chief and the publisher of Remote Sensing. Wagner took this unusual and admirable step after becoming aware of the paper's serious flaws. By resigning publicly in an editorial posted online, Wagner hopes that at least some of this damage can be undone.
Unfortunately this is not the first time the science conducted by Roy Spencer and colleagues has been found lacking.
Spencer, a University of Alabama, Huntsville, climatologist, and his colleagues have a history of making serious technical errors in their effort to cast doubt on the seriousness of climate change. Their errors date to the mid-1990s, when their satellite temperature record reportedly showed the lower atmosphere was cooling. As obvious and serious errors in that analysis were made public, Spencer and Christy were forced to revise their work several times and, not surprisingly, their findings agree better with those of other scientists around the world: the atmosphere is warming.
Over the years, Spencer and Christy developed a reputation for making serial mistakes that other scientists have been forced to uncover. Last Thursday, for instance, the Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres published a study led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory climate scientist Ben Santer. Their findings showed that Christy erred in claiming that recent atmospheric temperature trends are not replicated in models.
This trend continues: On Tuesday the journal Geophysical Research Letters will publish a peer-reviewed study by Texas A&M University atmospheric scientist Andrew Dessler that undermines Spencer's arguments about the role of clouds in the Earth's energy budget.
We only wish the media would cover these scientific discoveries with similar vigor and enthusiasm that they displayed in tackling Spencer's now-discredited findings.In his bid to cast doubts on the seriousness of climate change, University of... more
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The Australian is the country’s biggest-selling national newspaper. It is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, which “also owns the sole dailies in Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin and the most popular metropolitan dailies in Sydney and Melbourne.”
Michael Ashley investigates the national paper’s “seriously warped” op-ed policy in this extended excerpt.
[R]eality becomes so distorted that The Australian was able to state earlier this month, “it is in keeping with this newspaper’s rationalist pedigree that we have long accepted the peer-reviewed science on anthropogenic climate change,” while at the same time engaging in a campaign to misrepresent and distort climate science.
Other editorials have made it clear that The Australian believes it is treating its readers as mature adults who should be able to make up their own minds based on arguments from “both sides” of the debate.
The problem is that on one side of the debate you have 97% of the world’s published climate scientists and the world’s major scientific organisations, and on the other side you have fools.
Excuse my bluntness, but it is past time to acknowledge that the science underpinning anthropogenic climate change is rock solid. The sceptics have had the time and opportunity to come with up a convincing case, but their best efforts read like arguments that NASA faked the moon landing.
My colleagues working in the climate sciences have largely given up trying to correct the constant stream of misinformation from The Australian, in frustration.
The Australian’s anti-science campaign takes many forms.
One is the inflation of the credentials of their fake experts. For example, OpEd writer and member of the Outdoor Recreation Party Jon Jenkins was referred to as an “Adjunct Professor”. Bond University wrote to The Australian informing them that this was not true.
Howard Brady was called a “climate change researcher from Macquarie University”; in fact, Brady is a 70 year-old retiree who has published just seven scientific papers (on Antarctic sediments, not climate), the most recent one in 1983, following which he worked for 17 years in the oil industry. Macquarie University contacted The Australian to set the record straight.
In neither of these cases did The Australian publish a retraction or clarification.
Another tactic is to accept opinion pieces on science from unqualified sources. When I contacted The Australian’s opinion editor late last year to express dismay at their bias, I was given the example of Michael Asten, a part-time professorial fellow in the school of geosciences at Monash University, Melbourne, as someone who was well-qualified to comment.
So I did some investigation into Asten and his four OpEds in The Australian over the past two years.
A quick check of Asten’s peer-reviewed publications shows that while he appears to be your go-to guy if you have electromagnetic interference problems with your fluxgate magnetometer, he hasn’t published anything remotely related to climate science. He is, however, well-connected with the mining and coal industries.
snip
None of these people has made any impact whatsoever with their arguments in the peer-reviewed literature — they just aren’t contributing to any real scientific debate. The only place that they can publish their junk science is in outlets such as The Australian, where they are welcomed with open arms.
And if you think the bias in The Australian only affects its choice of OpEd pieces, wait till you read Tim Lambert’s examination of news reporting in his article later in this series for The Conversation.
So, when The Australian claims in its editorials to support the peer-reviewed science, it is really just an insurance clause for when the tide inevitably turns against their campaign of misinformation.
The Murdoch media empire has cost humanity perhaps one or two decades of time in the battle against climate change. Each lost decade greatly increases the eventual economic costs, the devastation to our ecosystems, and the suffering of future generations….
Read the real science, ask the real experts.
The editors sitting around the table in that meeting room in Surry Hills need to reflect on their culpability.
More at the linkThe Australian is the country’s biggest-selling national newspaper. It is owned... more
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The story of Dr. David Suzuki, the environmental conscience of Canada who has strived all of these years to bring us truth. As he stated, we are now a force of nature.
This movie is now on DVD for anyone interested.The story of Dr. David Suzuki, the environmental conscience of Canada who has strived... more
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A cavalcade of phonies, liars and as the narrator states, "self serving well funded" people who care not for this planet or any of us but only their own agendas. This is indeed a planetary emergency and people need to know it and see this reality over and over again in order to begin NOW to do what is necessary to save our future. And the first step in doing that is exposing the frauds!A cavalcade of phonies, liars and as the narrator states, "self serving well... more
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Al made an appearance at the Aspen Institute this past Thursday and did what we should all be doing; calling BS on liars, polluters and their minions, truthfully and forcefully. All I can say in response to his words is that I love him so much more today. Al, you are the one voice out here informing people of what scientists have been trying to tell us about for decades. There is absolutely no reason why we all shouldn't be calling what deniers are selling what it is: BULLSHIT.
However, that isn't all he said and this entry isn't just about the words Al used. Leave that to the complicit corporate owned media to twist or sites like Huffington Post that is now the mini FOX news, or a plethora of other sites where paid shills make their living trashing and diverting. This entry is about the essence of what he was talking about. A concerted deliberate effort by these special interests and polluters to cover up the truth for profit which has now brought us to facing that tipping point.
And in the course of his words he mentioned the book, Merchants of Doubt-How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming” by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. This is a comprehensive book that explains the entire metamorphosis of the denial movement based on the roots of the same movement in regards to tobacco. This video which is led by one of the authors of the book, Dr. Naomi Oreskes outlines exactly the truly diabolical methods employed to safeguard ideology, political standing and profits at any cost, even our planet and our civilization. Weighing these two variables is it any wonder those of us who understand what is at stake would not become upset by their treachery?
For far too long these evil entities that care for nothing regarding this planet and our ability to live on it have been getting away with their BULLSHIT. It is way beyond time to stand up to it for the future of our civilization. Anyone with two eyes and a brain cell can surmise the patterns currently making themselves known globally. I have been reading the reports but more importantly have been observing the changes in our Earth's systems, particularly the hydrologic cycle in relation to GHG emissions and temperature. The facts cannot be denied. Anthropogenic climate change is forcing the boundaries of our natural systems and taking them to a place they have not been before. And we are seeing this playing out on every continent.
Take a look at this link from Current.com ( see post below) and the climate events taking shape globally simultaneously now. Those who continue to deny this corrolation only do so out of political bias, ideology or because their bank accounts tell them to. They are not people who are credible and in my eyes are actually accomplices in the deaths of thousands who now suffer from the effects of prolonged severe droughts, floods, glacier melt, more intense wildfires and stronger storms which are being called the "new normal." Just researching damage to agriculture globally from these events alone gives you a pretty stark picture of what we are up against in the future.
So the usual hacks can try to divert the meaning of his words by focusing on only those they wish to use for their own purposes. But again, the Reality is clear and we as a species probably do not deserve this planet if our allegiances continue to fall with what is convenient and easy as opposed to what is real.
So hell yes, volcanoes? BULLSHIT! Sunspots? BULLSHIT! It isn't warming? BULLSHIT!
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Oh and moderators, please allow me some creative license with this.
Thanks.Al made an appearance at the Aspen Institute this past Thursday and did what we should... more
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That steamy July you just sweltered through not only served up the hottest individual day on record in New Jersey, it was also the second-warmest month ever recorded, dating to 1895.
New Jersey’s average July temperature was 78.8 degrees, knocking last July into third place. This July ranks behind only July 1955 on the list of the state’s hottest months. And the higher-than-average temperatures are not an anomaly — they are becoming the norm here, no matter what time of year. Ten of the past 17 months have ranked in the top 10 for warmth for that particular month, with only December 2010 and January 2011 below average, according to data released on Friday by the state.
“New Jersey is getting warmer; there’s no denying that,” said David A. Robinson, the state climatologist. “And it’s not just in urbanized areas — we’re talking about temperatures recorded in the Pinelands, Highlands and at the Shore. This is in lockstep with what we’re seeing elsewhere around the globe.”
Since 2000, New Jersey has experienced one of the five warmest Februaries on record, one of the five warmest Marches on record, one of the five warmest Aprils and so on for every month except January.
“Those data are completely consistent with our understanding of global warming,” said Alan Robock, associate director of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers. “As the average temperature of the planet warms due to human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, individual locations are expected to follow the trend, but with a large amount of natural variability thrown in.”
In other words, we still can experience an occasional colder-thannormal month or season. Experts use the analogy of rolling dice to explain the general warming trend.
In the past, the various sides of a pair of dice would have some red sides, representing warmer-thannormal weather; some blue sides, representing colder-than-normal weather; and some unmarked sides, representing normal weather. Roll the dice, and any month could come up cooler, warmer or typical.
But with global warming, some of those blue sides are replaced with red sides, increasing the odds that we’ll end up with warmer-than-average weather any given month.
“What we’re seeing is consistent with the expected effects of global warming,” said Anthony Broccoli, director of the Climate and Environmental Change Initiative at Rutgers. “It shifts the odds towards seeing more warm months.”
More at the link.That steamy July you just sweltered through not only served up the hottest... more
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