environment: denialists Great Lakes ice loss idiots
by Warren
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Year 3, Month 3, Day 18: Mother Superior Jumped The Gun
The Albert Lea Tribune (MN) runs an AP story on ice loss in the Great Lakes:
DULUTH — A published report says the amount of ice covering the Great Lakes has declined about 71 percent over the past 40 years, a drop that the lead author partly attributes to climate change.
The report published last month by the American Meteorological Society said only about 5 percent of the Great Lakes surface froze over this year.
“There was a significant downward trend in ice coverage from 1973 to the present for all of the lakes,” according to the study, which appeared in the society’s Journal of Climate.
Researchers determined ice coverage by scanning U.S. Coast Guard reports and satellite images taken from 1973 to 2010. They found that ice coverage was down 88 percent on Lake Ontario and fell 79 percent on Lake Superior. However, the ice in Lake St. Clair, which is between Lakes Erie and Huron, diminished just 37 percent.
The study’s lead researcher is Jia Wang of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration lab in Ann Arbor, Mich. He attributed the decline to several factors, including broad climate change and smaller cyclical climate patterns like El Nino and La Nina.
Sent March 12:
The decline of Great Lakes ice is a local manifestation of a global phenomenon. Everywhere around the planet, people are noticing that, climatically speaking, things ain’t what they used to be. Regions that depend on glacial ice melt for their water supplies are facing increasingly arid futures, while the residents of island countries are making plans to evacuate their homelands entirely as rising seas turn sovereign nations into historical footnotes.
But America is unique among nations in the number of its citizens who deny the existence of climate change entirely. No mountain of evidence can convince Rush Limbaugh’s followers that the greenhouse effect’s reality is going to disrupt their lives in unimaginably complex ways.
One can sympathize with their reluctance to accept the facts of global warming (who looks forward to planetary catastrophe?), but future generations on the shores of an ice-free Lake Ontario will not remember the denialists kindly.
Warren Senders
Education environment: denialists Heartland Institute Peter Gleick
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Year 3, Month 3, Day 17: I Like Gleick
More on Gleick, this time reprinted from the WaPo in a suburban Chicago paper, the Daily Herald:
Everybody talks about the weather, as Mark Twain is famously quoted as saying, but nobody does anything about it.Many climate researchers are no longer following that adage, noted Michael McPhaden, president of the American Geophysical Union. “Scientists today, they don’t just want to talk about it. They want to do something about it,” he said in an interview. “We’re the trustees of information which, in many ways, is of critical benefit to society.”
Some researchers are taking on a greater advocacy role to confront what many of them consider an existential crisis. But this strategy carries inherent risks, since scientists’ influence stems from the public perception that their credibility is beyond reproach.
That’s why many in the scientific community recoiled when Peter Gleick, a respected hydrologist, admitted he had tricked the Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank that questions whether human activity contributes to global warming. “Integrity is the source of every power and influence we have as scientists,” said Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “We don’t have the power to make laws, or run the economy.”
Thanks to DK diarist jamess, whose piece gave me the frame for this letter, sent March 11:
Given Heartland Institute’s previous disregard for the privacy of other people’s communications, it should be surprising to hear their howls of outrage after their defenses were penetrated and their internal documents released to the public. It was just two years ago that Heartland published illegally-obtained emails from the University of East Anglia — setting off “Climategate,” a non-scandal that occupied media attention and confused public discussion before being resolved and forgotten.
Let’s compare “Denialgate” with “Climategate,” shall we? First: while the hacker who stole the East Anglia documents has never come forward, we know who got Heartland’s documents: Peter Gleick (who’s paying a significant professional penalty for his deed). Second: multiple independent investigations confirmed the innocence and the integrity of the UEA climatologists… but to believe that any such study of Heartland’s work on climate change would similarly vindicate either their science or their ethics would be breathtakingly naive.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility denialists Kiribati rising sea levels
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Year 3, Month 3, Day 16: Octopus’ Garden Edition
Reprinting the Kiribati story in the New York Daily News:
Tong has been considering other unusual options to combat climate change, including shoring up some Kiribati islands with sea walls and even building a floating island. He said this week that the latter option would likely prove too expensive, but that he hopes reinforcing some islands will ensure that Kiribati continues to exist in some form even in a worst-case scenario.
“We’re trying to secure the future of our people,” he said. “The international community needs to be addressing this problem more.”
Tong said he hopes that the Fiji land will represent just one of several options for relocating people. He pointed out that the land is three times larger than the atoll of Tarawa, currently home to more than half of Kiribati’s population.
Although like much of the Pacific, Kiribati is poor — its annual GDP per person is just $1,600 — Tong said the country has plenty of foreign reserves to draw from for the land purchase. The money, he said, comes from phosphate mining on the archipelago in the 1970s.
I’d love to see a floating island. Sent March 10:
No doubt it’s hard for Americans to be overly concerned with the impending disappearance of the Pacific nation of Kiribati. With a quarter the population of Staten Island, the tiny state is to all intents and purposes statistically nonexistent in the larger sphere of international relations.
But the plight of Kiribati deserves our attention and concern. As a poor country with a negligible carbon footprint, it has contributed nothing to the accelerating consumption of fossil fuels that now endangers its existence; as a nation on the front lines of climate change, it offers us a preview of the dangerous times ahead.
While neighboring Fiji may be able to supply the necessary acreage for a hundred thousand climate refugees to rebuild their lives, the tragedy of a homeland lost beneath the rising sea is not something we in the industrialized world should ignore. There are no climate-change denialists in Kiribati.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: climate refugees rising ocean levels
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Year 3, Month 3, Day 15: Any Port In A Storm, Right?
USA Today gives us this story, of the Kiribatians who are planning ahead:
Fearing that climate change could wipe out their entire Pacific archipelago, the leaders of Kiribati are considering an unusual backup plan: moving the populace to Fiji.
Kiribati President Anote Tong told the Associated Press on Friday that his Cabinet this week endorsed a plan to buy nearly 6,000 acres on Fiji’s main island, Viti Levu. He said the fertile land, being sold by a church group for about $9.6 million, could be insurance for Kiribati’s entire population of 103,000, though he hopes it will never be necessary for everyone to leave.
“We would hope not to put everyone on one piece of land, but if it became absolutely necessary, yes, we could do it,” Tong said. “It wouldn’t be for me, personally, but would apply more to a younger generation. For them, moving won’t be a matter of choice. It’s basically going to be a matter of survival.”
Kiribati, which straddles the equator near the international date line, has found itself at the leading edge of the debate on climate change because many of its atolls rise just a few feet above sea level.
Naturally, their carbon footprint is utterly negligible. Sent March 9:
When rising ocean levels make Kiribati a danger zone, and the island nation’s population moves en masse to Fiji, will they all become Fijian citizens? Will Fiji donate a small fraction of its total area to the climate refugees, allowing them to re-establish a sovereign state? And for that matter, what’s going to happen to Fiji as climate change keeps melting polar ice over the next century? Given that poor nations contribute hardly anything to the greenhouse emissions that have triggered their predicament, should the industrialized nations take responsibility for the damage they’ve caused?
These questions are novel enough to us now, but the coming decades in a climatically transformed world are going to alter international relationships in new and complex ways. At some point, the world community must realize that the options available to Kiribati’s citizens don’t scale upward; there’s no “Planet B” where we can all find refuge.
Warren Senders
Year 3, Month 3, Day 14: And Twin Peruvian Midgets In Thigh-High Leather Boots….
Well, this is a novel argument. According to the Boulder (CO) Weekly’s Paul Danish, since our children’s children’s children’s…..children will have gotten used to catastrophic post-greenhouse meltdown conditions, there’s no reason to do a damned thing:
There is, of course, no other rational reason for attempting to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels. That’s because if we stopped emitting CO2 tomorrow, it will be two or three centuries before atmospheric CO2 began to drop. Like it or not, the planet is going to keep getting warmer for centuries just on the strength of the CO2 that’s been released up to now. Today’s level of global warming, and then some, is a done deal, yea unto the seventh generation.
So the only reason to reduce our carbon footprint today is the hope that the eighth generation will get something out of it — to do the right thing for posterity, in other words.
Too bad the eighth generation isn’t going to see it that way.
When that glorious day finally arrives when CO2, temperatures and sea level all begin to fall, the eighth generation will be angry beyond belief. They will curse our names and piss on our graves.
The reason why the advent of the global cooling will not be met with huzzas and hosannas is that the eighth generation will have adapted to global warming. Embraced the suck. Learned to live with it. More than learned to live with it. Learned to thrive in it. Learned to thrive because of it.
And they will be horrified by the prospect of having to re-adapt to a colder world, just as we would be horrified by the the prospect of having to re-adapt to ice age conditions.
Ohhhhh-kay. My head hurts. Sent March 8:
It’s tempting to think we clever apes will be able to survive and prosper on a drastically warmed planet. Paul Danish carries this to a surreal apotheosis, stating that should we succeed in slowing the runaway greenhouse effect even slightly, eventually allowing the Earth’s atmosphere to start shedding CO2 and cooling down, our descendants (who will by that time be enjoying life in a climate previously experienced only by dinosaurs) will be enraged at our actions.
By this logic, there is no reason to mitigate any catastrophe, since the survivors (as survivors always do) will adapt to conditions on the ground. But such adaptability demands gradual civilizational changes rather than frantic emergency responses. Humanity will flourish in the coming centuries only if we substitute a sustainable economy for our present consumption-based model; if we don’t start now, our descendants will be too busy struggling for survival to curse our memories.
Warren Senders
environment: birds denialists species loss
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Year 3, Month 3, Day 13: The Pelicans In The Coal Mine
The Marin Independent Journal (CA) runs an article on a study detailing the threat posed by climate change to a great many local bird species:
Several bird species in Marin and around the state are at risk because of climate change as the sea level rises and affects habitat, according to a new study.
The brown pelican, western snowy plover and California clapper rail are among the species in Marin that could be affected by changing temperatures, states the report issued by PRBO Conservation Science and the Department of Fish and Game. The study was published last week in the journal PLoS ONE.
The study found that wetland species are more vulnerable than other groups of birds because they are in specialized habitats along bay areas. Those habitats will be threatened as ice caps melt and the sea level rises, which could affect the California black rail, seen along Tomales Bay.
Written in a Boston restaurant close to New England Conservatory; I’m on my way to sing a raga-ized adaptation of “Barbara Allen” at an NEC concert. Sent March 7:
Marin county’s shorebirds are a microcosm of the countless varieties of Earthly life that are threatened by the effects of global warming. Tragically, human beings often seem unable to grasp the gravity of the situation. And no wonder, for what’s needed is a form of wisdom that is in very short supply. Few of us can imagine anything outside our own regional environments, or beyond the timespan of our own limited lives — and climate change is both larger and longer than anything we recognize.
It’s useful to keep this in mind when reading the derisive comments of climate-change denialists, who are increasingly grasping at straws to maintain their locally-based illusions, while the scientific evidence confirming the greenhouse effect’s human origin accumulates. They may use the argument from incredulity (an inability to imagine any human actions affecting the entire planet), the argument from incomprehension (an inadequate grasp of basic science), or the argument from selfishness (unwillingness to give up a convenient and comfortable lifestyle). All the snide put-downs of Al Gore, attempts to resurrect the long-debunked “climategate” non-scandal, cherry-picked temperature measurements, irrelevancies and red herrings — all of these represent failures of imagination, understanding, or morality.
If losing a few species of bird to a changing climate seems no great tragedy, it is because we have chosen to ignore that what is happening in Marin is happening everywhere around the world. Whether we know it or not, our lives are impoverished thereby.
Warren Senders
Education environment: denialists extreme weather idiots
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Year 3, Month 3, Day 12: And In Related News…
This letter was prompted by the comments on this article in the (upstate NY) TImes-Herald-Record:
A new report by an environmental advocacy group shows our region has been particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events — driven by what it believes is climate change.
The report, compiled by Environment New York Research and Policy Center, shows our nook of the Northeast has had a high number of federal disaster declarations since 2006.
Numbers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency show Ulster County has had six weather-related federal disaster declarations in the last five years, while Orange County has had five and Sullivan County, four.
Related Stories“Catskill, Hudson Valley, and Mohawk River Valley residents have endured extreme weather beyond the usual cold winters during the last five years,” David VanLuven, director of the Center, said in a statement.
Our region stands out for the amount of federal disaster declarations in the past five years.
I figured I’d write a guide for wanna-be “skeptics.” Sent March 6:
Here’s how to simulate a climate-change denialist’s response to the report linking New York state’s increasingly extreme weather to global warming.
First, assert that the climate has always changed over time, so why worry? Second, note that since the report was sponsored by an environmental group its contents are necessarily suspect. Third, point out that scientists predicted global cooling in the 1970s, so why should their opinions be trusted now? Fourth, claim that the hacked emails from the University of East Anglia show climatologists can’t be trusted. Fifth, raise the specter of a socialist New World Order apparently operated for the enrichment of dastardly tree-huggers. And last but not least, make fun of Al Gore.
Leaving aside the last two absurdities, each of these arguments is simply rebutted. Multiple inquiries absolved the “climategate” scientists from any wrongdoing while confirming their results; a substantial majority of climatologists were in fact predicting global warming in the 1970s; most reports on the environment come from environmental groups (surprise!). Finally, nobody suggests Earth’s climate has never changed — just that if climatic shifts that historically lasted a hundred thousand years are now taking a hundred, that’s not a good sign.
It’s easy.
Warren Senders
India Indian music music Personal vocalists Warren's music: khyal
by Warren
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Nasik Concert, August 19, 2011
Finally getting around to uploading and embedding the concerts from last summer’s trip to India. Here is the concert from Nasik embedded as a single playlist, leading off with Puriya Kalyan, and including Mian ki Malhar, Kafi tappa, Tilak Kamod, Khamaj, Pahadi and Bhairavi.
I greatly enjoyed this evening. Nitin Ware’s accompaniment was extremely solid, and Dyaneshwar Sonawane gave very supportive sangat on harmonium.
Note the cascade of inaccuracies in the news clipping. I began studying khyal in 1977, went to India first in 1985. I never studied with Nana Joshi, who was my Guru’s first teacher. Etc., etc., etc.
I’m grateful to Asmita Sevekare and her father for arranging this program. With luck I’ll go back there again next year.
This review is remarkable for its near-complete inaccuracy!
environment: ethics responsibility tornadoes
by Warren
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Year 3, Month 3, Day 11: Tighten Up, Willya?
The Malaysia Star runs a Reuters story on the increase in tornadoes as a consequence of You-Know-What:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – When at least 80 tornadoes rampaged across the United States, from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico, last Friday, it was more than is typically observed during the entire month of March, tracking firm AccuWeather.com reported on Monday.
According to some climate scientists, such earlier-than-normal outbreaks of tornadoes, which typically peak in the spring, will become the norm as the planet warms.
“As spring moves up a week or two, tornado season will start in February instead of waiting for April,” said climatologist Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Whether climate change will also affect the frequency or severity of tornadoes, however, remains very much an open question, and one that has received surprisingly little study.
“There are only a handful of papers, even to this day,” said atmospheric scientist Robert Trapp of Purdue University, who led a pioneering 2007 study of tornadoes and climate change.
I used this as the hook for some large-scale moralizing. Cheers. Sent March 5:
In the unfolding disaster of global warming, our species faces a crisis so broad in scope and diverse in symptoms that it is almost impossible to imagine. Until now, of course. The sudden uptick in extreme storms and climatic disturbances is giving us a preview of the coming centuries, and it isn’t pretty. The temperatures are still rising, and only a fool could now suggest that the weather is going back the way it was when we were young.
Modern humans are indeed uniquely situated in history; our global response to the crisis will shape the fate of our descendants. They will judge us harshly if we continue to put CO2 in the air, our behavior a mix of carelessness and callousness. If we put aside petty politics and addressed the unfolding climate crisis with responsibility and integrity, our children’s children’s children will justly remember us with respect and reverence.
Warren Senders
environment: assholes denialists Heartland Institute idiots Peter Gleick
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Year 3, Month 3, Day 10: (Facepalm)
Meet a denialist clod at the North County Times (“serving North San Diego and SW Riverside Counties” — CA), named Steven Greenhut. He mouths off about Gleick, and about climate scientists in general:
When it comes to global warming, the ends apparently justify the means. People from all political persuasions do stupid things to advance their cause, but what bothers me most are respectable people who justify behavior they would never tolerate from their foes. That type of ideological fanaticism is corrosive of our democratic society.
It’s easy to chide the hypocrisy of Gleick. He had been the chairman of an ethics committee for a scientific association. His column blasting dishonesty still sits on his institute’s website. It’s harder to explain away his deceit as a mere aberration in the climate-change drama.
In the “Climategate” scandal in 2009, “Hundreds of private email messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change,” according to a New York Times report from the time.
The emails showed that the scientific community is so invested in this climate-change ideology for financial and ideological reasons that it would rather cook the numbers than level with the public about the reality of the threat. A follow-up release of emails in 2011 provided even more evidence supporting skeptics’ claims.
Blah, blah, blah.
The whole thing could have been written by a robot, and probably was. But my response was written by a human, and mailed on March 4:
Let’s stipulate in advance that Dr. Peter Gleick shouldn’t have impersonated a staffer at the Heartland Institute in order to authenticate some documents purportedly originating at the secretive right-wing think tank. But the arguments Mr. Greenhut builds on this fact are specious, and reveal that he has swallowed the denialist message — hook, line and sinker.
For example, he cites the hacked emails from the University of East Anglia without noting that multiple separate investigations cleared the scientists involved of any improprieties. Mr. Greenhut cites “a New York Times report at the time,” but ignores the paper’s subsequent coverage acknowledging that “climategate” was a “manufactured controversy” (editorial, July 10, 2010).
The Heartland Institute documents revealed a carefully crafted agenda for undermining science education in America. Under the guise of “teaching the controversy,” Heartland planned to supply curricula which covered climate science inaccurately, in a way consistent with the profit-driven motives of the Institute’s funders. It’s analogous to a tobacco company funding health and fitness curricula downplaying the link between cigarettes and cancer.
Whether retail or wholesale, lies have no place in science. But those on the denialist side of the climate change argument have far more to answer for than Peter Gleick.
Warren Senders