Last weekend’s Open Thread was so successful I’m making it a regular feature.
Most GOP gubernatorial candidates are climate science deniers, like their House and Senate counterparts
October 23, 2010
An exclusive Wonk Room analysis by Brad Johnson finds that 22 of the 37 Republican candidates for governor this November deny the scientific consensus on global warming pollution. These science deniers are part of an anti-reality wave of Tea Party candidates, who comprise the Republican slate for the U.S. House and Senate. “The GOP is stampeding toward an absolutist rejection of climate science that appears unmatched among major political parties around the globe, even conservative ones,” writes National Journal’s Ron Brownstein.
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Seven steps to a greener dorm room
October 23, 2010The fall semester is in full swing at colleges and universities across the country. This CAP cross-post offers seven steps to make a dorm more environmentally friendly:
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I’m not an environmentalist, but I am a climate hawk*
October 22, 2010My Grist colleague Dave Roberts has a must-read post, “Introducing ‘climate hawks’.” I’ll reprint it below and then offer some comments. And I am quite interested to hear what you have to say on his idea:
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Energy and Global Warming News for October 22nd: Five renewable energy issues at stake in midterms; Arctic continues to warm at unprecedented rate; Plants play larger role than thought in cleaning up air pollution
October 22, 20105 Renewable Energy Issues at Stake in the Midterm Elections
Two weeks from now, voters will decide which federal and state politicians to keep and which to send packing. Polls, including the one from Wall Street Journal/NBC News released Wednesday, have shown that some voters are disenchanted with the Democrats and many voters remain undecided. Speaking at the Solar Power International (SPI) conference in Los Angeles last week, Democratic political strategist James Carville summed it up this way: “There is a hurricane coming, and it’s not changing course. It’ll be hitting the Democrats.”
The anticipated power shift could affect some of the policy decisions for which renewable energy industries have been lobbying in recent months, while other questions will go directly to voters in state elections. Here’s a list of hot issues and challenges facing cleantech advocates going into the midterm elections:
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Polluter-funded groups spending almost $70 million on anti-clean energy ads
October 22, 2010Amid an unprecedented surge in mostly secret money into this year’s election campaign, a report released last week by the Center for American Progress Action Fund details how 13 right-wing groups — including large secret money groups like American Crossroads, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and American Action Network — have spent more than $68.5 million this year on “misleading and fictitious televisions ads designed to shape midterm elections and advance their anti-clean energy reform agenda.” In addition to the anti-clean energy ads polluting our airwaves, an earlier CAPAF report outlined an astonishing $242 million in spending on lobbying by the 20 biggest oil, mining, and electric utility companies.
CAPAF’s Josh Dorner has the story in this TP cross-post:
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Palin: “Drill, Baby, Drill and Mine, Baby, Mine”
October 22, 2010The staggering BP oil disaster and a string of coal mine disasters have not chastened the “Texas Tea” Party queen. Sarah “the quitterer” Palin posted on Facebook a piece with the unintentionally ironic headline, “Drill, Baby, Drill and Mine, Baby, Mine; Serious Consequences,” with this half-baked Alaska argument:
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Tea Party leader: “Some people say I’m extreme, but they said the John Birch Society was extreme, too.”
Fred Koch helped found JBS, his sons fund the Tea Party.
October 22, 2010Yesterday CP posted on the amazing NY Times article on how denying the reality of climate science has become “an article of faith” among Tea Party conservative activists. But the NYT article had one particularly jaw-dropping Tea Party quote that deserves its own post:
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Faith leaders, industry Leaders, Al Gore, and Barack Obama: NO on Prop 23
October 22, 2010By CAP’s Jorge Madrid.
Polls show momentum is growing for the No on Prop 23 campaign, which seeks to defeat a November 2nd ballot initiative — sponsored by two Texas oil companies — to repeal California’s landmark clean energy and climate law, AB 32.
Yesterday, religious leaders representing a wide spectrum of faiths and regions across California announced they are joining forces to defeat Proposition 23:
We have a moral responsibility to protect the most vulnerable among us – our children, the elderly, the poor – who suffer the most from air pollution,” said Rev. Canon Sally Bingham, President of the California Interfaith Power and Light.
“Church councils find a deeper unity in our common concern for the stewardship of God’s creation. We want clean air and a healthy environment; therefore we recommend a no vote on Proposition 23,” said Rev. Albert G. Cohen, Executive Director of the Southern California Ecumenical Council.
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Tea Party defends climate pollution as the Lord’s will
October 21, 2010
In a front-page NY Times article , John Broder noted that opposition to the science of global warming has become “an article of faith” among Tea Party conservative activists. Brad Johnson has the story.
In addition to libertarians who believe “efforts to address climate change are seen as a conspiracy to impose world government and a sweeping redistribution of wealth,” others — prodded by the “preaching” of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, and others — use their Biblical faith to justify their denial of the destructive power of coal and oil pollution. Tea Party organizers in Rep. Baron Hill’s (D-IN) district told Broder their denial of pollution was consistent with the Bible’s teachings:
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Ken Buck embraces Inhofe: “Global warming is the greatest hoax”
Meanwhile, Colorado State University is named a DOI "Climate Science Center"
October 21, 2010Colorado GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck, like his endorser Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), believes “global warming is the greatest hoax that has been perpetrated.” Brad Johnson has the story:
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ClimateProgress milestone: 40,000 subscribers
October 21, 2010Today, Feedburner identified more than 40,000 “readers” of ClimateProgress.
That figure, which is near the top of the right hand column, is updated by Feedburner daily. You may have noticed that while it has been growing steadily month by month, it can fluctuate wildly on a daily basis (and it will no doubt drop down below 40,000 this weekend). In 2007, Rick Klau, Feedburner’s Vice President of Publisher Services, explained why that happens here.
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Obama humor: A Modern U.S. President
October 21, 2010Here’s a great spoof Obama video, especially for all you Gilbert and Sullivan fans:
Read the rest of this post »
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What role have Justices Scalia and Thomas played in the Koch money machine?
Should they recuse themselves from climate cases?
October 21, 2010
This week, ThinkProgress’ Lee Fang revealed several documents outlining the details of one of right-wing billionaire Charles Koch’s secret convenings of corporate political donors. As Koch revealed to the Wall Street Journal in 2006, the purpose of these meetings is to recruit “captains of industry” to fund the conservative infrastructure of front groups, political campaigns, think tanks and media outlets. Buried in this document, however, is a surprising revelation about the role two supposedly impartial jurists have played in these extended fundraising solicitations: “Past meetings have featured such notable leaders as Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.”
TP looks closer at the implications of this revelation in this cross post.
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New study puts the ‘hell’ in Hell and High Water
Must-read NCAR analysis warns we risk multiple, devastating global droughts even on moderate emissions path
October 20, 2010
Extended drought and Dust-Bowlification over large swaths of the habited Earth may be the most dangerous impact of unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions, as I’ve discussed many times (see Intro to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water).
That’s especially true since such impacts could well last centuries, whereas the actual Dust Bowl itself only lasted seven to ten years — see NOAA stunner: Climate change “largely irreversible for 1000 years,” with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe.
A must-read new study from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, “Drought under global warming: a review,” is the best review and analysis on the subject I’ve seen. It spells out for the lukewarmers and the delayers just what we risk if we continue to listen to the Siren song of “more energy R&D plus adapatation.”
The NCAR study is the source of the top figure (click to enlarge), which shows that in a half century, much of the United States (and large parts of the rest of the world) could experience devastating levels of drought — far worse than the 1930s Dust Bowl, especially since the conditions would only get worse and worse and worse and worse, while potentially affecting 10 to 100 times as many people. And this study merely models the IPCC’s “moderate” A1B scenario — atmospheric concentrations of CO2 around 520 ppm in 2050 and 700 in 2100. We’re currently on the A1F1 pathway, which would takes us to 1000 ppm by century’s end, but I’m sure with an aggressive program of energy R&D we could keep that to, say 900 ppm.
Indeed, the study itself notes that it has ignored well understood climate impacts that could worsen the situation:
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Glenn Beck’s anti-science rant: Evolution is “ridiculous — I haven’t seen a half-monkey, half-person yet.”
October 20, 2010
“Glenn Beck and a monkey”
TPM has a great post (and the above separated-at-birth photos) on Beck’s latest anti-science rant. Evolution, as you know, was discredited by the Piltdown Man hoax, and “It’s like global warming.” This clip from his radio show is evidence that perhaps he’s right, at least in his case — evolution is no longer operative, and we are regressing:
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More conclusive proof of global warming
February 17, 2010In honor of the Vancouver Olympics, I am reposting this humorous video from 2008:
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An illustrated guide to the latest climate science
February 17, 2010
Here is an update of my review of the best papers on climate science in the past year. If you want a broader overview of the literature in the past few years, focusing specifically on how unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gas emissions are projected to impact the United States, try “An introduction to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water.”
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Martin Bunzl on “the definitive killer objection to geoengineering as even a temporary fix”
September 27, 2010
Solar radiation management (SRM) – aka ‘hard’ geo-engineering — is, literally, a smoke and mirrors solution to the dangers posed by unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gases,.
As science advisor John Holdren resasserted in 2009 of strategies such as space mirrors or aerosol injection, “The ‘geo-engineering’ approaches considered so far appear to be afflicted with some combination of high costs, low leverage, and a high likelihood of serious side effects.“
And, of course, those ’solutions’ do nothing to stop the consequences of ocean acidification, which recent studies suggest will be devastating all by itself (see Geological Society: Acidifying oceans spell marine biological meltdown “by end of century”).
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Foreign Policy’s “Guide to Climate Skeptics” includes Roger Pielke, Jr.
February 28, 2010Warning: Please put your head in a vise before reading further.
Andy Revkin has just written the most illogical climate post on Earth. Or maybe he’s written the most logical climate post on the Bizarro World Htrae.
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The complete guide to modern day climate change
All the data you need to show that the world is warming
April 14, 2010According to the IPCC 4th Assessment Report (2007):
Read the rest of this post »
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U.S. National Academy of Sciences labels as “settled facts” that “the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities”
New report confirms failure to act poses "significant risks"
May 19, 2010A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems….
Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities.
The National Academy released three reports today on “America’s Climate Choices.”
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Exclusive interview: NCAR’s Trenberth on the link between global warming and extreme deluges
New England, Tennessee, Oklahoma.... Who's next?
June 14, 2010I find it systematically tends to get underplayed and it often gets underplayed by my fellow scientists. Because one of the opening statements, which I’m sure you’ve probably heard is “Well you can’t attribute a single event to climate change.” But there is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago. It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms and it’s unfortunate that the public is not associating these with the fact that this is one manifestation of climate change. And the prospects are that these kinds of things will only get bigger and worse in the future.
That’s Dr. Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, on the warming-deluge connection. I interviewed him a couple weeks ago about Tennessee’s 1000-year deluge aka Nashville’s ‘Katrina’.
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Time magazine names Climate Progress one of the 25 “Best Blogs of 2010″
And one of the "top five blogs Time writers read daily"
June 28, 2010For any first time visitors here, you might start with “An Introduction to Climate Progress.”
From the savvy to the satirical, the eye-opening to the jaw-dropping, TIME makes its annual picks of the blogs we can’t live without
Here’s the full list along with what Time said about Climate Progress [plus a nice video]:
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UK Guardian slams Morano for cyber-bullying and for urging violence against climate scientists
July 15, 2010I have previously written about The rise of anti-science cyber bullying and the role played by Swift Boat smearer Marc Morano — who believes climate scientists should be publicly beaten.
The UK Guardian has posted an outstanding piece slamming Morano’s “warped world vision” and the ‘award’ he just won:
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Brookings embraces American Enterprise Institute’s climate head fake along with right-wing energy myths
October 13, 2010I’ll bet you didn’t know that
- The success Republicans had killing the climate and clean energy jobs bill means they are now ready to embrace a big new federal spending effort of $15 to $25 billion a year for low-carbon technology.
- Such RD&D could, all by itself, bring the cost of new carbon-free power plants below the cost of existing coal plants.
- A massive federal RD&D effort, even if it were not politically untenable, could, all by itself, avert catastrophic climate change.
- “Liberals often maintain” the “choice” is between “global warming apocalypse or mandating the widespread adoption of today’s solar, wind, and electric car technologies.”
- Nuclear power is likely to be a key part of an effort to deliver cheap, low-carbon power.
You didn’t know any of that because none of it is true. But it’s all part of a new report by Steven F. Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute, Mark Muro of the Brookings Institution, and others, amusingly titled, “Post-partisan power.”
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The failed presidency of Barack Obama, Part 1
Rolling Stone: "Instead of taking the fight to big polluters, President Obama has put global warming on the back burner"
July 22, 2010
UPDATE: Sens. Reid and Kerry made it official today – the mostly dead climate bill is now extinct. It has passed on! It is is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the perch ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-CLIMATE BILL!!
… the disaster in the Gulf should have been a critical turning point for global warming. Handled correctly, the BP spill should have been to climate legislation what September 11th was to the Patriot Act, or the financial collapse was to the bank bailout. Disasters drive sweeping legislation, and precedent was on the side of a great leap forward in environmental progress. In 1969, an oil spill in Santa Barbara, California – of only 100,000 barrels, less than the two-day output of the BP gusher – prompted Richard Nixon to create the EPA and sign the Clean Air Act.
But the Obama administration let the opportunity slip away….
That’s from a must-read Rolling Stone obit “Climate Bill, R.I.P.” excerpted below.
As I’ve said many times, Obama’s legacy — and indeed the legacy of all 21st century presidents, starting with George W. Bush — will be determined primarily by whether we avert catastrophic climate change (see “Will eco-disasters destroy Obama’s legacy?“). If not, then Obama — and all of us — will be seen as a failure, and rightfully so.
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Rebutting climate science disinformer talking points in a single line
August 9, 2010Progressives should know the most commonly used arguments by the disinformers and doubters — and how to answer them.
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Stanford poll: The vast majority of Americans know global warming is real
Florida, Maine, and Massachusetts residents agree: Global warming is here and we're causing it.
August 11, 2010By Kalen Pruss of CAP’s executive team.
Large majorities of Florida, Maine, and Massachusetts residents believe that global warming is real—and that humans are causing it.
So says the latest poll from Jon Krosnick, senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. Krosnick found that large majorities of Florida, Maine, and Massachusetts residents believe that:
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Real adaptation is as politically tough as real mitigation, but much more expensive and not as effective in reducing future misery
Rhetorical adaptation, however, is a political winner. Too bad it means preventable suffering for billions.
August 27, 2010We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation and suffering. We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be.
That’s the pithiest expression I’ve seen on the subject of adaptation, via John Holdren, now science advisor. Sometimes he uses “misery,” rather than “suffering.”
I’m going to start a multipart series on adaptation — in honor of the fifth anniversary of Katrina. That disaster provides many lessons we continue to ignore, such as Global warming “adaptation” is a cruel euphemism — and prevention is far, far cheaper.
I draw a distinction between real adaptation, where one seriously proposes trying to prepare for what’s to come if we don’t do real mitigation (i.e. an 800 to 1000+ ppm world aka Hell and High Water) and rhetorical adaptation, which is a messaging strategy used by those who really don’t take global warming seriously — those who oppose serious mitigation and who don’t want to do bloody much of anything, but who don’t want to seem indifferent to the plight of humanity (aka poor people in other countries, who they think will be the only victims at some distant point in the future).
In practice, rhetorical adaptation really means “buck up, fend for yourself, walk it off.” Let’s call the folks who push that “maladapters.” Typically, people don’t spell out specifically where they stand on the scale from real to rhetorical.
I do understand that because mitigation is so politically difficult, people are naturally looking at other “strategies.” But most of the discussion of adaptation in the media and blogosphere misses the key points:
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New Yorker exposes Koch brothers along with their greenwashing and whitewashing Smithsonian exhibit
August 24, 2010Yesterday, the New Yorker published a devastating investigative piece by Jane Mayer that exposes the Koch family’s efforts to put together the Tea Party movement and much of the modern right-wing infrastructure. It builds off the original reporting conducted by ThinkProgress, some of which I’ve reposted here (see “From promoting acid rain to climate denial — over 20 years of David Koch’s polluter front groups“).
It also builds off a joint effort by TP and Climate Progress to investigate David Koch’s funding of a dreadful Smithsonian Institute exhibit (see “Must-see video: Polluter-funded Smithsonian exhibit whitewashes danger of human-caused climate change: Koch money and dubious displays put credibility of entire museum and science staff on the line”).
Mayer interview me and the fact checker followed up. Indeed, this piece is doubly devastating because the New Yorker remains one of the few major magazines that still fact checks line by line. The whole piece is worth reading. The end focuses on the Smithsonian story: Read the rest of this post »
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What’s the difference between climate science and climate journalism?
The former is self-correcting, the latter has become self-destructive
August 29, 2010UPDATE: Revkin replies below with a tweet that pretty much makes my case.
UPDATE 2: Dr. Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University, whom the NYT itself quoted last year as “an expert on environmental communications,” writes me that Revkin “fundamentally misrepresents the actual history of climate science.” His full comments are below.
So New York Times blogger Andy Revkin has written perhaps his worst post yet. The blogosphere and my inbox are filled with the most amazing rebukes I’ve seen from scientists and others, which I’m reposting here, including Steve Easterbrook’s, “When did ignorance become a badge of honour for journalists?”
Revkin’s guilt-by-(distant)-association piece, “On Harvard Misconduct, Climate Research and Trust,” betrays a remarkable lack of understanding of the scientific process. And what is most ironic is that if you replace the word “research” with “reporting” — and “science” with “journalism” — throughout his piece, you get a much more plausible indictment of modern climate journalism.
As one of the country’s leading climatologists emails me (paraphrasing Revkin’s final graf):
Can we trust Andy Revkin to cover the science of climate change in an honest way without misquoting scientists, drawing false equivalencies, and interpreting all new findings through the myopic lens of a contrarian narrative? I wouldn’t be a scientist if I answered “yes”.
Science blogger Eli Rabett of Rabett Run fame writes (here):
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Climate Progress at four years: Why I blog
August 29, 2010From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books….
I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts….
– George Orwell, “Why I write”
I joined the new media because the old media have failed us. They have utterly failed to force us to face unpleasant facts (see here).
What I have learned most from the success of my blog, from the rapid growth in subscribers and visitors and comments, along with the increasing number of websites that link to or reprint my posts, is that there is in fact a great hunger out there for the bluntest possible talk. It is a hunger to learn the truth about the dire nature of our energy and climate situation, about the grave threat to our children and future generations, about the vast but still achievable scale of the solutions, about the forces in politics and media that impede action—a hunger to face unpleasant facts head on.
Unlike Orwell, I knew from a very early age, certainly by the age of five or six, that I would be a physicist, like my uncle, and I announced that proudly to all who asked.
I knew I did not want to be a professional writer since I saw how hopeless it was to make a living that way. My father was the editor of a small newspaper (circulation under 10,000) that he turned into a medium-sized newspaper (70,000) but was paid dirt, even though he managed the equivalent of a large manufacturing enterprise — while simultaneously writing three editorials a day — that in any other industry would pay five times as much. My mother pursued freelance writing for many years, an even more difficult way to earn a living (see also “This could not possibly be more off topic“).
Why share this? Orwell, who shares far, far more in his many brilliant essays, argues in “Why I write“:
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Some pundits challenge my statement, “Future generations are likely to view Obama’s choice of health care over energy and climate legislation as a blunder of historic proportions.”
Here's why they are wrong
September 10, 2010Last week, I blogged on David Brooks’ counterfactual in which Obama tackled energy before health care.
I broke a cardinal rule of blogging — well, it would be a cardinal rule if blogging had any — in that I made a sweeping statement, but sent folks to my earlier post, “The failed presidency of Barack Obama, Part 1,” for the defense of that statement. Few people click on links. That is life on the blogosphere.
That said, I’ve been making the same essential point for a long time now — see my May Salon piece, “Will eco-disasters destroy Obama’s legacy?” and my January 2007 CAP piece, History Won’t Warm to “W”.
I think it’s obvious that failure to tackle climate legislation is a blunder of historic proportions — at least obvious to anyone who has read the recent climate science literature or talked to any significant number of leading climate scientists (see “An illustrated guide to the latest climate science” and “Real adaptation is as politically tough as real mitigation, but much more expensive and not as effective in reducing future misery“). Sadly, that is not a large fraction of the pundit class or intelligentsia.
Anyone who writes on politics and policy for a general audience, especially someone who opines on global warming, must take the time to educate themselves seriously on this most important of issues beyond “I read an article in the New York Times….” or “This guy I trust on scientific matters tells me….”
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Wow! Watch the Nissan Leaf’s provocative, irreverent polar bear ad, which markets global warming
... and makes the anti-science disinformers go nuts
September 11, 2010I am very interested in your thoughts on this remarkable ad:
Here are mine:
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A detailed look at climate sensitivity
Debunking the dangerous anti-science fantasy of the 'lukewarmers'
September 19, 2010The amount of warming we are going to subject our children and countless future generations to depends primarily on three factors:
- The sensitivity of the climate to fast feedbacks like sea ice and water vapor (how much warming you get if we only double CO2 emissions to 560 ppm and there are no major “slow” feedbacks). We know the fast feedbacks are strong by themselves (see Study: Water-vapor feedback is “strong and positive,” so we face “warming of several degrees Celsius” and detailed analysis below).
- The real-world slower (decadal) feedbacks, such as tundra melt (see Science: Vast East Siberian Arctic Shelf methane stores destabilizing and venting and links at the end).
- The actual CO2 concentration level we are likely to hit, which is far beyond 550 ppm (see U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: “Recent observations confirm … the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories are being realised” — 1000 ppm).
Given that the anti-science, pro-pollution forces seem to be succeeding in their fight to keep us on our current emissions path, it’s no surprise that multiple recent analyses conclude that we face a temperature rise that is far, far beyond dangerous:
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Two more independent studies back the Hockey Stick: Recent global warming is unprecedented in magnitude and speed and cause
September 21, 2010There are now more studies that show recent warming is unprecedented – in magnitude and speed and cause — than you can shake a stick at!
As with a pride of lions, and a conspiracy of disinformers [or is that a delusion of disinformers?], perhaps the grouping should get its own name, like “a team of hockey sticks” (see “The Curious Case of the Hockey Stick that Didn’t Disappear“).
- GRL: “We conclude that the 20th century warming of the incoming intermediate North Atlantic water has had no equivalent during the last thousand years.“
- JGR: “The last decades of the past millennium are characterized again by warm temperatures that seem to be unprecedented in the context of the last 1600 years.” [figure below]
Reconstructed tropical South American temperature anomalies (normalized to the 1961–1990AD average) for the last ∼1600 years (red curve, smoothed with a 39‐year Gaussian filter). The shaded region envelops the ±2s uncertainty as derived from the validation period. Poor core quality precluded any chemical analysis for the time interval between 1580 and 1640 AD.
Yes, the 39‐year Gaussian filter appears to wipe out over half of the warming since 1950 as this NASA chart makes clear:
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Exclusive: Journalism professor Jay Rosen on why climate science reporting is so bad
"You must realize that having to portray an illegitimate debate fries the circuits of the mainstream press."
September 20, 2010Here’s how The Economist introduced its interview of Jay Rosen:
JAY ROSEN is a professor of journalism at New York University and an insightful critic of the media. Earlier this year he wrote an essay on “the actual ideology of our political press”, which we praised and discussed on this blog. Mr Rosen has a blog of his own, PressThink, and his work has been published in Columbia Journalism Review, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and others. He has also written a book, titled “What Are Journalists For?“, about the rise of the civic-journalism movement. This week we asked him some questions over email about the press and its failings.
Rosen wrote a terrific comment for my August 29 post, “What’s the difference between climate science and climate journalism? The former is self-correcting, the latter has become self-destructive.” Since it was #52, I suspect many missed it, so I’ll repost it below.
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Exclusive: Former correspondent and editor explains the drop in quality of BBC’s climate coverage
Shocker: For 2011, BBC has "explicitly parked climate change in the category 'Done That Already, Nothing New to Say'."
September 22, 2010This past Monday night, discussing climate change at a very poorly-attended (as usual, when the subject is global warming or peak oil) screening at the Frontline Journalists’ Club in London of the movie Collapse with Michael Ruppert — yes, flawed, but with much sound analysis about oil and energy — I heard from a former BBC producer colleague that internal editorial discussions now under way at the BBC on planning next year’s news agenda have in fact explicitly parked climate change in the category “Done That Already, Nothing New to Say.”
Deep in the comments for “Exclusive: Journalism professor Jay Rosen on why climate science reporting is so bad” was an amazing perspective by former BBC correspondent and editor Mark Brayne. It seeks to explain where the BBC is coming from on climate, though it applies more broadly to Western journalists.
Having been raised by journalists, I held the BBC in the highest esteem for most of my life. I suspect most CP readers have, too. Recently, though, the quality of their coverage of climate change has declined catastrophically, as I and others have noted (see “Dreadful climate story by BBC’s Richard Black” and links below). So I asked Brayne if he would revise and extend his remarks, and the result is below.
UPDATE: He adds more thoughts in the comments here.
His three decades as a journalist make this sobering analysis a must-read for anyone wondering why British — and American — reporting on climate change has declined in quality recently:
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‘Oy Canada’: Imagine our northern neighbor in 2050
Prime Minister Harper on Hurricane Igor: "I have never seen damage like this in Canada."
September 29, 2010CONTEST: Describe Canada in 2050, assuming we listen to folks like John Allemang, feature writer for The Globe and Mail, and keep doing not bloody much to restrict CO2 emissions.
In what appears to be a mostly serious — and thus mostly dreadful — article, “Canada in 2050? Future’s so bright . . . you know the rest,” John Allemang embraces human-caused climate change.
Perhaps I am missing something from the Canadian dry wit, since the column is printed with the above cartoon and opens with this mashed up intentional (and, I think, unintentional) humor:
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NASA’s Hansen: Would recent extreme “events have occurred if atmospheric carbon dioxide had remained at its pre-industrial level of 280 ppm?” The “appropriate answer” is “almost certainly not.”
"It is likely that 2012 will reach a record high global temperature."
October 1, 2010Our top climatologist has a must-read, chart-filled analysis, “How Warm Was This Summer?”
The two most fascinating parts are
- Hansen’s discussion of how scientists should answer questions about the recent record-smashing extreme weather events
- Hansen’s analysis of what is coming in the next couple of years.
Let’s start with the extremes:
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The New Yorker: How the Senate and White House missed their best chance to deal with climate change
October 3, 2010As the Senate debate expired this summer, a longtime environmental lobbyist told me that he believed the “real tragedy” surrounding the issue was that Obama understood it profoundly. “I believe Barack Obama understands that fifty years from now no one’s going to know about health care,” the lobbyist said. “Economic historians will know that we had a recession at this time. Everybody is going to be thinking about whether Barack Obama was the James Buchanan of climate change.
It may be true that Obama “profoundly” understands what failing to address global warming means. Certainly I (and many others) thought that was true — until he basically punted on the issue without a serious fight.
The lengthy New Yorker piece, “As The World Burns,” however, suggests that if Obama did understand the transcendent nature of human-caused climate change, he personally didn’t try bloody hard to put together 60 votes for a bill.
The piece is well worth reading, although the conclusion, quoted above, just misses the mark. I don’t believe that in 50 years “Everybody is going to be thinking about whether Barack Obama was the James Buchanan of climate change.” Let’s set aside whether “everybody” (or even most people) in 2060 (or even today) would know what the “James Buchanan of climate change” means. For the record, Wikipedia notes:
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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.”
October 10, 2010Indeed, it is difficult to identify another major political party in any democracy as thoroughly dismissive of climate science as is the GOP here. Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, says that although other parties may contain pockets of climate skepticism, there is “no party-wide view like this anywhere in the world that I am aware of.”
It will be difficult for the world to move meaningfully against climate disruption if the United States does not. And it will be almost impossible for the U.S. to act if one party not only rejects the most common solution proposed for the problem (cap-and-trade) but repudiates even the idea that there is a problem to be solved. The GOP’s stiffening rejection of climate science sets the stage for much heated argument but little action as the world inexorably warms — and the dangers that Hague identified creep closer.
That’s from an excellent National Journal piece, “GOP Gives Climate Science A Cold Shoulder.” It’s rare for a straight political commentator like Ron Brownstein to write a piece that isn’t just political theater but actually gets the importance of being wrong on this most important of issues.
Hague is the UK’s conservative Foreign Secretary William Hague, who said in a must-read speech last week, “You cannot have food, water, or energy security without climate security.” The point is, only U.S. conservatives are this uniquely self-destructive, embracing a position that will destroy food security, water security, and energy security for the nation and the world.
Think Progress has a couple of recent instances of this, with videos, starting with the most famous one-time witchcraft dabbler on the planet:
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Exelon’s Rowe: Low gas prices and no carbon price push back nuclear renaissance a “decade, maybe two”
And a new Maryland nuke bites the dust
October 12, 2010Exelon Corp. Chief Executive Officer John Rowe said he expects natural-gas prices to remain low, pushing back the construction of new U.S. nuclear power plants by a “decade, maybe two.”
“We think natural gas will stay cheap for a very long time,” Rowe said in an interview today at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York. “As long as natural gas is anywhere near current price forecasts, you can’t economically build a merchant nuclear plant.”
… Absent a price on carbon dioxide emissions, gas would have to rise to $9 or $9.50 to make the reactors economically attractive, Rowe said.
Reports of the death of the long-heralded nuclear renaissance have not been exaggerated. The industry has helped ruin itself by failing to either standardize its product or stop costs from escalating out of control (see “Intro to nuclear power” and “Nuclear Bombshell: $26 Billion cost — $10,800 per kilowatt! — killed Ontario nuclear bid“).
And the pro-nuke conservative movement finished off the renaissance by killing the climate and clean energy jobs bill, which would have priced carbon and boosted all low-carbon forms of energy.
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How carbon dioxide controls earth’s temperature
NASA's Lacis: "There is no viable alternative to counteract global warming except through direct human effort to reduce the atmospheric CO2 level."
October 18, 2010A study by GISS climate scientists recently published in the journal Science shows that atmospheric CO2 operates as a thermostat to control the temperature of Earth….
CO2 is the key atmospheric gas that exerts principal control (80% of the non-condensing GHG forcing) over the strength of the terrestrial greenhouse effect. Water vapor and clouds are fast-acting feedback effects, and as such, they are controlled by the radiative forcing supplied by the non-condensing GHGs….
There is no viable alternative to counteract global warming except through direct human effort to reduce the atmospheric CO2 level.
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has posted three articles on their website explaining two important new studies, “Atmospheric CO2: Principal control knob governing Earth’s temperature” (subs. req’d) in Science by Andrew Lacis et al. and “The attribution of the present-day total greenhouse effect” (subs. req’d) in JGR by Gavin Schmidt et al. Together they make a terrific tutorial on the critical role human-caused CO2 plays in climate change.
Schmidt is best known as a key contributor to the must-read blog, Real Climate. Lacis may be best known as the NASA climatologist whose 2005 critique of the IPCC Fourth Assessment draft — “There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary” — was embraced by the anti-science disinformers until it was revealed he thought the IPCC consensus was in fact some watered down, least-common denominator piece of wishy-washiness that understates our scientific understanding, which it is (see “Disputing the ‘consensus’ on global warming“).
It may be obvious to CP readers and all those who follow the science, but the core conclusion of the Science article bears repeating again and again by all of us who communicate on global warming:
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NOAA reports 2010 hottest year on record so far*
Zambia hits 108.3°F, 18th nation to set record high this year
October 18, 2010
Following fast on the heels of NASA reporting the hottest January to September on record, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center has released its State of the Climate: Global Analysis for September. It finds:
For January–September 2010, the global combined land and ocean surface temperature was 0.65°C (1.17°F) above the 20th century average of 14.1°C (57.5°F) and tied with 1998 as the warmest January–September period on record.
Meteorologist Jeff Masters, the source of the figure above, reports on the national records set this year:
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William Shatner worries about global warming
Plus his must-see interview by Glenn Beck who says, "I think there are too many stupid people"
October 17, 2010
Okay, this post is mostly my chance to blog about William Shatner, the iconic figure of 1960s science fiction techno-optimism, who has shown that one can build a career around almost absurdist self-parody (much like Glenn Beck).
Star Trek helped launch the optimistic futuristic vision of science fiction, in contrast to the apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic vision that is more commonplace today. Shatner has been widely parodied for his thespian style — to make the cliché meta, if you look up overacting in Wikipedia, there is a picture of Shatner. He defends his style in a hysterical Beck interview (excerpted below):
He is an advocate of global warming action, as in this Sierra Club video :
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The Christian Science Monitor jumps the shark with pre-debunked, anti-science op-ed by Anthony Watts on Harold Lewis’s resignation from APS
October 19, 2010One of the many differences between science and religion is that science is almost completely unconcerned with what any individual scientist believes, no matter how famous. Religions, of course, are typically built around famous individuals, like, say, Mary Baker Eddy, and what they believe. Sadly, these days, journalism — even at once-great newspapers — also appear to care more what one individual believes than what scientific observation and analysis actually tells us.
Last week I wrote about how a physicist named Hal Lewis who doesn’t know the first thing about climate science resigned from the American Physical Society because he doesn’t know the first thing about climate science. I debunked the laughable — and unintentionally ironic — post by “former television meteorologist” Anthony Watts comparing Lewis’s words of resignation to “a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door.”
Only anti-science disinformers believe scientific views are no different from religious ones, that a letter from a non-climate-scientist (particularly one who hasn’t bothered to learn the first thing about climate science or talk to actual climate scientists) would carry any weight at all, let alone lead to a major new science religion of Lewisism (Wattsism?), since, of course, that’s not how science works.
I never would have imagined in a hundred years, though, that the once respected Christian Science Monitor would publish a piece by Watts that opens with this pure anti-science headline and subhead (and picture of Martin Luther):
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Scientists: Caribbean coral die-off may be worst ever, Southeast Asia and Indian Ocean bleaching “may prove to be the worst such event known to science.”
October 20, 2010Scientists studying Caribbean reefs say that 2010 may be the worst year ever for coral death there. Abnormally warm water since June appears to have dealt a blow to shallow and deep-sea corals that is likely to top the devastation of 2005, when 80% of corals were bleached and as many as 40% died in areas on the eastern side of the Caribbean.
So Eli Kintisch reports at Science online. He explains:
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MEMO: Health insurance, banking, oil industries met with Koch, Chamber, Glenn Beck to plot 2010 election
October 20, 2010
In 2006, Koch Industries owner Charles Koch revealed to the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore that he coordinates the funding of the conservative infrastructure of front groups, political campaigns, think tanks, media outlets and other anti-government efforts through a twice annual meeting of wealthy right-wing donors. He also confided to Moore, who is funded through several of Koch’s ventures, that his true goal is to strengthen the “culture of prosperity” by eliminating “90%” of all laws and government regulations.
Although it is difficult to quantify the exact amount Koch alone has funneled to right-wing fronts, some studies have pointed toward $50 million he has given alone to anti-environmental groups. Recently, fronts funded by Charles and his brother David have received scrutiny because they have played a pivotal role in the organizing of the anti-Obama Tea Parties and the promotion of virulent far right lawmakers like Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). (David Koch praised DeMint and gave him a “Washington Award” shortly after the senator promised to “break” Obama by making health reform his “Waterloo.”)
In this must-read cross post, TP’s Lee Fang details how Big Oil and the leading funders of anti-science disinformation are trying to buy a pollution-friendly government.
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REPORT: Renewable standards will create two million jobs, unless right-wing candidates kill them
October 20, 2010
This Wonk Room cross post is by CAP’s Richard Caperton and Rebecca Lefton.
Congress may be stalling on clean energy and climate reform, but states are not waiting for the federal government to capture the economic and job benefits of the clean energy economy. Government leaders are racing ahead at the state level with clean-energy and climate policies to lessen dependence on dirty fossil fuels, provide safe and reliable sources of energy, and –especially vital in today’s economy—create jobs. Already, 35 states and Washington, DC, have renewable energy standard policies in place, which set targets for how much of a utility’s electricity sales must come from renewable power sources. Thirty of these standards are mandatory, while the remaining six are less-stringent goals.
Our analysis of the current renewable energy programs underway across states finds that meeting these targets will create more than 2 million jobs. But the upcoming elections may slam the brakes on these new clean energy jobs.
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Prop 26′s dirty backers flee from political poison of Prop 23
October 21, 2010Supporters of Proposition 26 — a California ballot measure that could undermine implementation of the state’s landmark climate law — are attempting to distance themselves from the unpopular Prop 23 effort to block the legislation. Brad Johnson has the story.
California oil companies and the Chamber of Commerce, who have sat out of the Proposition 23 fight to suspend AB32, have been quietly funneling millions of dollars to support Prop 26, which would “require a two-thirds vote of the state legislature anytime a government agency tries to assess a fee on a company that is not then used to regulate that entity”:
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Energy and Global Warming News for October 21st: Gulf Coast faces $350 billion in climate damage by 2030; U.S. approves fifth solar plant on Western public land; Hidden costs of coal generation
October 21, 2010Hidden costs of coal generation
Pollution from Chicago’s two coal-fired power plants costs neighboring communities $127 million a year in hidden health damages, according to a report released Wednesday that relied on research from the nation’s leading scientific organization.
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Generating clean energy jobs
October 21, 2010
A wind turbine blade is displayed during the opening of the Vestas blade factory in Windsor, CO in this AP photo. The U.S. renewable energy industry created 40,000 jobs because of the Treasury Department’s Section 1603 cash grant program. CAP’s Richard Caperton and Kate Gordon wrote this cross-post.
Key Recovery Act Program Deserves Renewal
In yet another demonstration of the success of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, new research finds that the U.S. renewable energy industry created 40,000 jobs because of a Treasury Department cash grant program created to provide incentives for clean energy project development. This important Recovery Act program could create another 100,000 more jobs if Congress extends the so called 1603 cash grants when it returns to Washington next month.
Unfortunately, the program is wrongly and disingenuously attacked by political opportunists who charge that Recovery Act funds went to projects that would have been built even without the program and, further, that the projects have not significantly contributed to job growth.
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Scientific American’s truly lame Shell-sponsored pop-up “Energy Poll”
October 20, 2010I have great respect for Scientific American and have even published a couple of articles in it in my career. So it was quite disappointing to see this pop-up when I visited ScientificAmerican.com yesterday from two different computers:
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