environment: conservative scientist denialists scientific method
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Year 2, Month 1, Day 9: The Rarest of the Rare
Stop the presses! Neela Banerjee has a story in the Seattle Times about Dr. Kerry Emanuel, a responsible climatologist who is also a political conservative.
Unsurprisingly, the guy’s a little baffled these days. Where is the Republican party of yore?
As a politically conservative climatologist who accepts the broad scientific consensus on global warming, Emanuel occupies a position shared by few scientists.
“There was never a light-bulb moment but a gradual realization based on the evidence,” Emanuel said. “I became convinced by the basic physics and by the better and better observation of the climate that it was changing and it was a risk that had to be considered.”
He sounds like a pretty good guy.
“I’ve always rebelled against the thinking that ideology can trump fact,” said Emanuel, 55. “The people who call themselves conservative these days aren’t conservative by my definition. I think they’re quite radical.”
Paradoxically, conservative Republican administrations in the past four decades pushed through the creation of the EPA and the signing of the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act.
And only a Republican could have opened Communist China to the world. See how this works? The Republicans used to have a Jekyll/Hyde thing, where they’d do tons of dirty tricks and then occasionally allow some decent legislation to pass so they could get credit for it later, as witness Richard Nixon’s EPA. But the last vestiges of Jekyll have been thoroughly expunged; we’re now all-Hyde, all the time.
Naturally, he’s horrified by the behavior of the politicians he’s supported in the past, although he still “reveres Ronald Reagan.” But the current gang of crooks and thugs was too much for him. He supported Obama in 2008, which automatically makes him a far-left DFH.
Once upon a time it was possible for scientific integrity and conservative political views to coexist in the same individual. Charles Keeling, the climatologist whose detailed records of atmospheric CO2 made it possible to measure the greenhouse effect, was, like Kerry Emanuel, a lifelong Republican. The contemporary GOP, however, is deeply antipathetic to the principles that underlie scientific thinking. Ideologically-driven and devoid of scruples, wearing intellectual dishonesty as a badge of honor, the Republican party of today is a danger to the nation and to the planet.
There is no logical reason to deny climate science; the greenhouse effect is indifferent to ideological affiliation. The only reasons are rooted in the profit motive; as they fulfill the wishes of their corporate sponsors, Republican politicians show a near-sociopathic disregard for the common good. Alas, (as Dr. Emanuel has discovered) the phrase “Republican scientist” now sounds sadly oxymoronic, and a tad embarrassing.
Warren Senders
And for your viewing pleasure, here are some old-style Republicans transforming into new-style Republicans before your very eyes:
And here’s one featuring some modern-day Democrats, too!
environment: endangered species media irresponsibility
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Year 2, Month 1, Day 8: More On Our Failed Media Experiment
The title of this post is one of the regular tags at John Cole’s blog, “Balloon Juice.”
The San Francisco Chronicle notes a newly released report from the Endangered Species Coalition detailing the likelihood that climate change is going to cause big, big, big problems for a lot of creatures. If the past is any indication, this report will be handled like all the other reports which say the same thing: a newspaper article and a couple of blog posts followed by a lapse into innocuous desuetude (kind of like first performances of modern classical compositions).
It’s definitely “Getting Hot Out There,” as the Endangered Species Coalition notes in its just-released report on the implications of climate change for many of the world’s most fragile natural ecosystems. While the impending extinction of a significant number of species should be sounding alarm bells throughout our society, we can expect this news to be received with a collective shrug by our distracted and economically frayed society. Why would we ignore such an ominous augury? The answer lies in another type of extinction. Over the past decade, responsible, scientifically-informed coverage of climate change issues by our news media has become increasingly rare. Even as the atmosphere has been steadily heating up, American broadcast news has treated global warming with cool dismissal, regularly giving more on-air minutes to tea-party political theater and the latest celebrity scandal du jour than to the single greatest existential threat our species has ever faced.
Warren Senders
environment: denialists Iowa media irresponsibility
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Year 2, Month 1, Day 7: As Falls Wichita…
There’s been a new report released on climate change’s projected effects on Iowa, and the WCF Courier is all over it. Naturally, the comments on the article are a fount of stupid.
Earlier I had read this piece at Daily Kos, which points out that our media have (surprise!) done an absolutely wretched job of covering what is, y’know, actually a major threat to our country and our world. Now watch this drive!
So I put the two together, and sent this off to the WCF Courier:
The university scientists who’ve just released a report on climate change’s impact on Iowa in the years to come are hopeful that their work will “inform future discussions” — a hope that is, alas, sadly naive. While the effects of global warming are by now well understood, and the role of human beings and their greenhouse emissions established beyond doubt, there’s something else taking place across America that bodes ill for our nation’s future. While the planet has been steadily heating up, our news media have been steadily less inclined to cover any issues related to climate change (unless it’s to run stories that tout an anomalous snowfall as somehow “disproving global warming”). In 2010, newspaper coverage of climate change in Europe was double that in the USA, according to researchers at the University of Colorado. Robert Brule, a researcher at Drexel University, points out that television news networks’ December coverage of the crucial Cancun conference added up to exactly ten seconds — a single clip. The result of this drop in coverage has been exactly what you’d expect: an increase in ignorance. The authors of “Climate Change Impacts on Iowa” will have their work cut out for them.
Warren Senders
environment: bumblebees colony collapse disorder scary
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Year 2, Month 1, Day 6: Not Good News At All
Hey, kids! Wanna get the shit scared out of you?
Dear Representative Markey, Senator Kerry and Senator Brown,
A recent report from the National Academy of Sciences, “Patterns of widespread decline in North American bumble bees” (Authors: Sydney A. Cameron, Jeffrey D. Lozier, James P. Strange, Jonathan B. Koch, Nils Cordes, Leellen F. Solter, and Terry L. Griswold) outlines in disturbing detail the declining population of bumble bees in our country and on our continent.
Among the authors’ findings:
“…the relative abundances of four species have declined by up to 96% and that their surveyed geographic ranges have contracted by 23–87%, some within the last 20 years.
We also show that declining populations have significantly higher infection levels of the microsporidian pathogen Nosema bombi and lower genetic diversity compared with co-occurring populations of the stable (nondeclining) species. Higher pathogen prevalence and reduced genetic diversity are, thus, realistic predictors of these alarming patterns of decline in North America, although cause and effect remain uncertain.”
While “cause and effect remain uncertain” it seems overwhelmingly likely that much of the population decline was triggered by a disease organism in populations of commercially raised bumble bees, which had been distributed for greenhouse pollination in the western U.S.
Indigenous pollinators are integral to our country’s agriculture, and thus to its food supply. When whole populations of some of the most industrious and effective insects decline so precipitously, it bodes ill for all of us.
Just under a year ago, a group of concerned scientists sent a petition to Agriculture Secretary Vilsack; the opening paragraph read:
The undersigned scientists respectfully request that the USDA-APHIS take action to regulate the movement and health of commercial bumble bees in order to safeguard wild, native bumble bee pollinators.
I am attaching a copy of the petition for your records. I wish to go on record as strongly supporting the petition’s aims and goals, and I sincerely request you to do the same.
While the decline in native pollinating insect populations is not, strictly speaking, a “climate-change” issue, it is another aspect of the same problem: human beings have been interfering with beautifully functioning natural systems for the sake of profits. How much more of this can we (our species, our planet) take?
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists EPA
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Year 2, Month 1, Day 5: Stop Them Before They Stop Us!
The Lewiston Sun/Times reprints an editorial from the Miami Herald, with some good words for the Environmental Protection Agency.
As we keep taking carbon out of the ground and putting it into the atmosphere, our planet continues to heat up. The long-term consequences of this unplanned experiment in geoengineering are likely to be disastrous for our children and their children in turn, as we face a future of disrupted seasons, wild fluctuations and ever-more-frequent “once-in-a-lifetime” weather events. Those who pay attention to the consequences of our civilization’s environmental disruption would have liked nothing better than a robust climate bill to emerge from the previous Congress — but thanks to nihilistic Republicans and timid coal-state Democrats, even the ludicrously watered-down Kerry/Lieberman effort was unable to advance. Hence it is up to the EPA. The kneejerk opposition to this agency in the newly GOP-dominated House is a three-part failure: of our politics, dominated by corporate cash; of our schools, dumbed-down and pandering to anti-science factionalism, and of our news media, whose specious false equivalence enables the claim that “the science of global warming isn’t settled.” We’re headed for a world of hurt in the coming centuries unless we get our carbon emissions under control; Republicans who seek to hamper the EPA are increasing the likelihood of disaster.
Warren Senders
environment: denialism timescale
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Year 2, Month 1, Day 4: Can A Bacterium Experience A Car Crash?
The Tennesseean notes that climate change takes place so slowly that most people don’t know how to recognize it.
It is unsurprising that the effects of climate change are difficult to spot on a day-to-day basis. We’ve become desensitized to changes in the natural world, which happen in timescales too slow for our hurried, impatient, post-industrial selves. Climatologists have worked for decades to develop the tools to trace the slow transformations of Earth’s climate over millions of years, and they are unequivocal: the climate change that’s happening right now is moving much, much faster than normal. However, that’s still a lot slower than our perceptions allow, and therein lies a critical problem for humanity. The coming centuries will feature increasingly severe and unpredictable weather, affecting our agriculture, infrastructure and community life in ways we can only begin to imagine. If we are to survive and prosper, it’s imperative that we begin re-learning how to perceive the world’s transformations on timescales greater than those of our own puny lives.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists EPA idiots
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Year 2, Month 1, Day 3: Fred Upton Is An Idiot. Who?
The Boston Globe notes that new EPA regs go into effect today, and lets us know that the Republicans are outraged! Outraged! Outraged!
It’s instructive to keep count of the number of times GOP legislators use the phrase “power grab” when referring to a perfectly legitimate use of governmental authority on the part of the Obama administration. Fred Upton’s use of this meaningless rhetorical trope, however, may have more severe repercussions. The new and more stringent EPA regulations on greenhouse gas emissions that have just gone into effect are one of our final lines of defense against the steadily building threat of global warming; if the conservative nay-sayers have their way, our national policy on this issue will consist entirely of denial. When Upton says he’s “not convinced” greenhouse gases need controlling, the question arises: what would convince him? I suspect that scientific facts and figures will never persuade the Michigan representative; the only figures that will influence Mr. Upton and his colleagues are those to the right of the dollar sign.
Warren Senders
environment India: agriculture Assam tea
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Year 2, Month 1, Day 2: The Gypsy Woman Told Me…
The Times Of India notes that the tea plantations of Assam are reporting short crops…and flavor changes. The growers are attributing this to climate change. Why not? It makes a good hook for a letter.
The effects of climate change and the greenhouse effect are now beginning to be felt everywhere humans live and farm the land. Long predicted by climatologists, the problems attendant on planetary atmospheric warming have arrived. The changes reported in Assamese tea production, not to mention the unwelcome alterations in flavour reported by growers, are localized symptoms of a worldwide problem. While a specific example of extreme or unusual weather cannot be attributed directly to global warming (because that’s not how climate science works), the evidence is irrefutable: a warmer atmosphere makes weirder weather increasingly likely — more droughts, more floods, more “once-in-a-century storms” occurring every few years. It appears that scientists’ predictions match what Assam’s tea leaves are saying: humanity is facing an unimaginably different and difficult future, even if we change our ways immediately. And should we fail to make those changes, it’s going to be a bitter cup indeed.
Warren Senders
environment: Australia denialists scientific consensus
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Year 2, Month 1, Day 1: Hangover Edition
Adam Morton gives a good summary of the past ten years’ worth of climate change in The Age (Australia). I figured I’d get a jump on the deniers with this letter…
Listening to the increasingly vociferous voices of those who deny the validity and relevance of climate science, one wonders: do these people live on the same planet we do? The planet climatologists are studying is buffeted by increasingly severe weather, uprooting people from their lands, crippling agricultural systems, and tearing holes in the fabric of life. On the alternate planet where global warming deniers live, it’s always the right temperature; crops aren’t wilting; floods aren’t wiping out villages; glaciers aren’t melting. On the planet we live in, we’re headed for a significant temperature increase in a time span so short it doesn’t even qualify as a geological instant. On the planet of the deniers, that’ll be fine, because when dinosaurs were alive, the atmosphere was a lot hotter than it is now. Our species is inadequately prepared for such an abrupt climatic shift — on this Earth, anyway.
Warren Senders