environment Politics: IPCC media irresponsibility
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Year 4, Month 10, Day 5: A Fine Roll Of Honour
The Hattiesburg American (MS) reprints a USA Today article on the IPCC report:
The panel releases reports every few years that synthesize the latest in peer-reviewed research, and its fifth assessment – to be released in several parts over the coming year – is the first since 2007.
This assessment is likely to paint a dire portrait of climate change. Yet some scientists say it actually underestimates the problem. Kevin Schaefer of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., says it doesn’t, for example, include the increasing greenhouse gas emissions from thawing permafrost, which is perennially frozen ground in Alaska and other Arctic regions.
The State Department’s Climate Action Report, updated every four years as part of the U.N.’s monitoring of global efforts, agrees that the challenges ahead are formidable. “Climate change represents one of the greatest challenges of our time,” it says.
Nobody wants to talk about it, but it’s all there is to talk about. September 27:
There are more than enough inadequacies to go around when it comes to our collective response to climate change. When the best the most powerful nation on Earth can offer is a “dent” in its emissions goals, that’s pathetic. And when the IPCC report, hailed as a “blockbuster,” turns out to understate multiple aspects of the problem (Arctic methane release being the most terrifying of a very bad lot), that’s a sobering realization. But the capper comes in the State Department’s polite characterization of the climate crisis as representing “…one of the greatest challenges of our time.”
What a sadly tentative statement. All other challenges — ending slavery, expanding the franchise, empowering women, addressing income inequality, stopping child labor, wiping out epidemic diseases — are contingent on a stable environment. Our climate is the canvas upon which great humanitarians throughout history have painted their visions of a better future; destroy that through the irresponsible consumption of fossil fuels, and all our species’ aspirations will be replaced by the grim imperatives of survival on a planet turned hostile.
If we fail to address climate change, we fail at everything.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists droughts idiots media irresponsibility sustainability
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Year 4, Month 10, Day 4: Love You To
Crater Lake in Oregon is drying up:
Almost 2,000 feet deep, Crater Lake is the deepest body of water in the United States, a beautiful gem of southern Oregon. Fed by overhead snow and rain, the lake is one of the cleanest and purest in the world. Gazing upon the breathtakingly bright blue waters of the lake is something you never forget.
But there is trouble in paradise. During the past 21 years, I have spent my summers living in Crater Lake National Park. Looking out my bedroom window, I noticed winters are becoming shorter, warmer and less snowy. It looks to me like it has been raining more and snowing less in the months of May, June, September, and October. This change in the weather has led me to become very worried about climate change.
The science confirms my observation. In 1931, rangers first began keeping track of the average annual snowfall at Crater Lake. Since then, the totals have been trending downward by decade from an average of 614 inches in the 1930s to about 455 inches last decade. Even more alarming, this last winter, 2012-13, Crater Lake received about 355 inches.
Climate researchers expect the trend to continue. They predict the Pacific Northwest will experience even less snow and warmer temperatures in the decades to come.
I gather it’s a lovely place. September 25:
When it comes to confronting global climate change, Oregon’s not alone. Everywhere on Earth, people are discovering that the bill for a century-long carbon binge is coming due. Whether it’s devastated agriculture, rising sea levels and oceanic acidification, extreme and unpredictable weather, or the kind of droughts that are disrupting ecosystems at Crater Lake, we can no longer ignore the warning signs.
There’s a lot of argument about how to prepare for the greenhouse effect’s consequences — but one thing is certain: we will never successfully address climate change if we cannot accept its existence, its causes, and its potential to harm our neighborhoods, our regions, our states, our nation, and our world. The time is past for denial; politicians and media figures who continue to hide their heads in the sand on this planetary crisis are sacrificing the happiness of future generations for a few minutes in the limelight.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: analogies IPCC scientific consensus smoking
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Year 4, Month 10, Day 3: A World Of Plastic Hungers
A well-informed citizenry. That’s the phrase. The Washington Post, on the IPCC report’s numbers:
WASHINGTON — Top scientists from a variety of fields say they are about as certain that global warming is a real, man-made threat as they are that cigarettes kill.
They are as sure about climate change as they are about the age of the universe. They say they are more certain about climate change than they are that vitamins make you healthy or that dioxin in Superfund sites is dangerous.
They’ll even put a number on how certain they are about climate change. But that number isn’t 100 percent. It’s 95 percent.
And for some non-scientists, that’s just not good enough.
There’s a mismatch between what scientists say about how certain they are and what the general public thinks the experts mean, specialists say.
Ah well, it was fun while it lasted. September 25:
It’s not only that scientists are as certain of human-caused climate change as they are that smoking is bad for your health, or that some of the people most responsible for spreading misinformation about climate change did the same for big tobacco companies. The really significant analogy lies in the psychology of addiction.
Consumer culture is hooked on fossil fuels; like all addicts, we’ll do anything to ensure our supply. Anyone who’s ever tried to quit smoking surely remembers the phrases they used to rationalize their dependency. “Just one more,” “I need to relax,” and “It’s too hard to quit right now” — all these phrases uncomfortably evoke the fossil-fuel industry’s case against meaningful policy approaches to climate change.
Our civilization’s carbon energy habit has gravely damaged our planet’s health, and denialists’ responses to the IPCC report are remarkably similar to a heavy smoker’s hacking contempt for the oncologist’s advice.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: heroes Keystone XL pipelines Tar Sands
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Year 4, Month 10, Day 2: She’s My Curly-Headed Baby…
Great work against the PIPELINES recently. The Burlington Free Press (VT):
MIDDLEBURY — Activists attempted to draw the line against what they called dirty fuels Saturday.
As high noon hit the Middlebury Town Green, young families, teens, seniors and outspoken 30-somethings eagerly donned wide, orange strips of tape to connect each other in a human line intended to send an unyielding message against the Keystone XL, Vermont Gas, and Portland-Montreal pipelines.
Raymond LaLumiere of Leicester heckled guest speakers by shouting, “What about the facts? What about the facts?”
Rally coordinator Maeve McBride of South Burlington calmed the pipeline supporter so the more than 100 registered activists could listen to the speakers on the gazebo who rallied against pipeline projects in Vermont.
Activists at the rally were from the Center for Biological Diversity, joined by members of 350 Vermont, Rising Tide and other citizens to voice their opposition.
I sure do love reading about protests. September 24:
Patriotism is not expressed by flags and slogans, but by acting on a shared responsibility to the future of our nation and the world. It was two hundred and thirty-eight years ago that the Green Mountain Boys struck a decisive blow in the early history of America, catapulting Ethan Allen into our nation’s pantheon of legendary patriots, and laying the groundwork for the creation of the State of Vermont. The American Revolution was the world’s first fight to establish a country free from economic and political domination by a major world power, and its effects are still part of our lives, centuries later.
Now Americans are under the domination of a different sort of major power — the multinational corporations which profit by selling us fossil fuels. Just as King George III’s government disregarded the needs and wishes of the American colonists, these giant collective entities are indifferent to the common good…and just as the heroes of the revolution fought back against British rule, so too must ordinary citizens resist the incursions of our new corporate rulers. Ordinary citizens — like the patriots who came to Middlebury last Saturday to express their dedicated opposition to the destructive and polluting oil and gas pipelines proposed to cross Vermont.
When most eyes are focused on pop stars and the banalities of television news, these environmental activists seek a world where our energy consumption no longer endangers humanity’s future, while grossly enriching a corrupt few.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility denialists IPCC media irresponsibility
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Year 4, Month 10, Day 1: They All Lived Happily Ever After
The Border Mail (Australia) talks about the IPCC report in unambiguous language:
Early next week, hundreds of scientists will meet in Stockholm’s Brewery Conference Centre to put the finishing touches on the world’s most important climate change document. It is unlikely the beer will be flowing.
By Friday the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will have released the results of its labour – the first part of its fifth major assessment of climate science.
Its last report, released six years ago, delivered a stark message: the climate is warming mostly because of human activity and poses a major threat – especially if global temperatures increase by more than two degrees.
Go beyond two degrees and the planet faces dangerously rising seas, larger drought-affected areas and more frequent extreme weather events, amid other dire projections.
That report won the group the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, which the panel’s chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, observed would ”be seen as a clarion call for the protection of the Earth as it faces the widespread impacts of climate change”.
Six years on, the fifth report’s core findings remain largely the same, only now there is even greater scientific certainty. But already, it is clear the fanfare that greeted the last report is unlikely to be repeated. And so far it is the areas of uncertainty in the report – inevitable when dealing with scientific predictions – that are creating headlines.
To prepare the report, scientists from throughout the world volunteer years of their lives to collate and assess data and modelling results to pull together the report’s 3000 or so pages. The report is split into three sections: the first dealing with the physical science, the second and third – due out next year – looking at impacts and ways to cut emissions.
The IPCC does no research of its own, but calls on the expertise of about 830 scientists to draw together evidence from thousands of sources – from ice-core samples drilled out of Antarctica, to ocean temperature records sampled kilometres below the surface – to form the most comprehensive picture of the Earth’s climate system.
Scientists who were lead authors on the report gave Fairfax Media a consistent message: the evidence of a warming planet caused by human activity – such as burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests – is stronger than six years ago.
Dire. September 23:
As the new IPCC report shows, the scientific evidence both for climate change’s human causes and the profound danger it represents is now overwhelming. As their political power ebbs and flows, climate-change deniers are finding it harder and harder to keep up the pretense of objectivity.
There are five stages of climate denial: 1 – it’s not happening; 2 – it’s happening but humans don’t cause it; 3 – humans cause it but it’s not so bad, really; 4 – it’s really bad, but it’s too expensive to fix; 5 – it’s too late to do anything, so let’s have a party instead. Wholly controlled by their petroleum paymasters and aided and abetted by a complaisant media, the titular leaders of the industrialized world have spent decades begrudgingly working their way to stage two.
Assuming the IPCC report pushes them along to stage three, expect to see cheerful talking heads on television telling us that a warmer planet will mean millions of new jobs manufacturing air conditioners. Plants will grow taller, food will be more nourishing, and economies worldwide will boom. Our children will be smarter and more beautiful, and everyone will be above average.
No, they won’t.
Such fairy tales are beneath contempt. All five stages of denial represent intellectual and moral abdications of our responsibilities to our posterity, our species, and to the planetary web of life of which we are a part.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Arctic ice melt assholes denialists idiots
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Year 4, Month 9, Day 29: Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer, Do…
The same Cal Thomas column, this time in the Winona Daily News (MN):
Yet the climate change cultists continue to focus on melting polar ice caps and “displaced” polar bears as part of their emotional appeal for government to “fix” the problem. Now comes a report in the UK Daily Mail that “eminent scientists” have observed a record return of the Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60 percent in a year, covering with ice almost 1 million more square miles of ocean than in 2012.
Recycling yesterday’s letter, and making it better, too. September 21:
Ignorance may be bliss, but in today’s information-rich world, it’s no longer excusable, especially when the issue is as fraught with consequences as global climate change. As a representative of the professionally ignorant whose work demands that they remain uninformed, Cal Thomas is an exemplar of intellectual and ethical bankruptcy. His discussion of the increase in polar ice coverage since 2012 is a perfect example, for if Mr. Thomas really cared about it, he could have learned a great deal with a few minutes of research. Unfortunately for his readers, and for the broader national discussion of this important issue, he chose to remain ignorant.
When discussing how Arctic ice expands and contracts over time, there are two things to keep in mind. First, while the surface area with ice cover has indeed increased, it’s much, much thinner than ever before — not by any imaginings a good sign. And second, while year-to-year numbers may fluctuate, the trend over decades has been an accelerating decrease. If a terminal patient gains a couple of pounds, that’s a good day, not a remission.
Mr. Thomas’ simplistic misrepresentation of a planetary crisis does us all a disservice.
Warren Senders
Education environment Politics: Arctic ice melt assholes denialists idiots
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Year 4, Month 9, Day 28: If You Lived Here, You’d Be An Idiot
Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas is a moron, and he does it for a living. Here’s his column printed in the Clarksville, TN Leaf-Chronicle:
Most bad weather – from hurricanes, which have been few this season, to tornadoes – are unwelcome by those in their paths, but these weather phenomena have existed for centuries. Both sides seem to agree that CO2 levels are elevated, but they don’t agree on whether that will cause dangerous climate change, including rising temperatures and turbulent weather. The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) argues, “The human effect is likely to be small relative to natural variability, and whatever small warming is likely to occur will produce benefits as well as costs.”
Yet the climate change cultists continue to focus on melting polar ice caps and “displaced” polar bears as part of their emotional appeal for government to “fix” the problem. Now comes a report in the UK Daily Mail that “eminent scientists” have observed a record return of the Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60 percent in a year, covering with ice almost 1 million more square miles of ocean than in 2012.
In 2007, the BBC reported that by 2013, global warming would leave the Arctic “ice free.” Oops!
Useless. The present-day commentariat is useless. September 20:
Ignorance is excusable, for it can always be corrected. But professional ignorance — deliberately choosing to stay uninformed for purely financial reasons — is both intellectually and morally beyond the pale. Cal Thomas’ attempt to discredit climate scientists by citing an increase in polar ice coverage over last year is a perfect example of the latter; if Mr. Thomas was really interested in understanding the mechanisms by which Arctic ice expands and contracts over time, he could have informed himself with a few minutes’ research — but he’s well-paid to remain ignorant, and we are all the losers thereby.
Two simple points need to be made about polar ice. First, while the surface area covered by ice has indeed grown since last year, the overall trend has been steadily downward. A cancer patient who’s losing weight may gain a few pounds occasionally on a good day, but that doesn’t mean the disease is cured. Second, that expanded surface area is much, much thinner than it’s ever been; like ice cream on a hot sidewalk, it spreads out over a wide area.
Mr. Thomas does his readers a disservice with a simplistic misrepresentation of a genuinely dangerous planetary reality.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Arctic ice melt assholes denialists idiots Republican obstructionism
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Year 4, Month 9, Day 27: As He Gives It To Her She Begins To Sing
Meet Rep. David McKinley, who made an idiot of himself at the recent hearing on climate change, as reported in the Charleston Gazette (WV):
McKinley cited data showing that there is now 60 percent more ice in the Arctic than there was at this time last year, when ice levels hit a record low.
However, levels of Arctic ice are still substantially below historical averages. As of this week, there were about 1.5 million square kilometers less Arctic ice than there has been, on average, for the past 30 years, according to data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, a research center at the University of Colorado.
McKinley and others pointed to a recent slowdown in temperature rises over the past several years as evidence that man-made greenhouse gas emissions might not be contributing to climate change.
Moniz pointed to a study in the journal “Nature,” published in August, showing the slowdown to be a product of short-term weather trends.
“Our results show that the current hiatus is part of natural climate variability, tied specifically to a La Niña-like decadal cooling,” that study concluded. “The multi-decadal warming trend is very likely to continue with greenhouse gas increase.”
No shortage of these asshats, unfortunately. Sept. 19:
In a single remark during the recent House hearing on climate change, Representative David McKinley demonstrated that (along with most of his GOP colleagues) he does not know the difference between short-term phenomena and long-term trends. McKinley’s claim of a sixty percent increase in Arctic ice coverage from last year is a grotesque misrepresentation of the data, which show that despite brief interludes of accumulation, the overall level of Arctic ice has been dwindling for at least a decade.
Let’s clarify with an analogy: if a stage four cancer sufferer steadily loses weight over many months, a few days of slight gain may be a brief and welcome respite from the terminal decline, but it doesn’t mean the disease has disappeared. A doctor who asserted otherwise would be guilty of medical malpractice, no matter how happy it makes the patient’s family. If his misunderstanding of Arctic ice decline is deliberate, Rep. McKinley’s intentionally misleading his colleagues and his constituents; if it arises from ignorance, he’s incompetent.
Climate science is absolutely unambiguous. Whether through stupidity or cupidity, politicians like David McKinley are endangering all of us by blocking responsible action to address the threat while there is still time.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes corporate irresponsibility denialists idiots Republican obstructionism
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Year 4, Month 9, Day 26: Well, THAT’S A Surprise.
This comment from a UN honcho, via the AP via the Vincennes Sun-Commercial (IN):
LONDON — International leaders are failing in their fight against global warming, one of the United Nations’ top climate officials said Tuesday, appealing directly to the world’s voters to pressure their politicians into taking tougher action against the buildup of greenhouse gases.
Halldor Thorgeirsson told journalists gathered at London’s Imperial College that world leaders weren’t working hard enough to prevent potentially catastrophic climate change.
“We are failing as an international community,” he said. “We are not on track.”
Thorgeirsson, a senior director with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, was speaking with two years left to go before the world powers gather in Paris for another round of negotiations over the future of the world’s climate, which scientists warn will warm dramatically unless action is taken to cut down on the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.
One of the main points of contention is how to divide the burden of emissions cuts between industrialized nations and emerging economies such as India and China, the world’s top carbon polluter. The lack of progress in recent years has fueled doubts over whether a binding deal is possible at all.
Thorgeirsson seemed to strike a pessimistic note Tuesday, talking down the idea that Paris — or any other conference — would produce a grand bargain that would ensure the reductions needed to prevent a dangerous warming of the Earth’s atmosphere. He even seemed to suggest that a global solution to the issue wasn’t likely until the effects of climate change came barreling down on peoples’ heads or flooding into their homes.
“I don’t think that an international treaty will ever be the primary driver for the difficult decisions to be made,” he warned. “It’s the problem itself that will be the primary driver — and the consequences of that problem.”
Sorry about that, kids. September 18:
The inability of the world’s people to respond adequately to the threat of climate change is undeniable. This collective apathy in the face of a planetary threat now threatens not only our civilization, but our very survival as a species. Why have we, and our leaders, failed to act? There are many factors in this potentially deadly equation.
Climate change’s consequences unfold over decades, which may be instantaneous from a geological perspective, but are far longer than politics’ two, four, and six year electoral cycles. Our representatives in the halls of Congress are unwilling to address long-term issues except in the vaguest possible terms. Furthermore, many are profoundly ignorant of scientific method, and mistrust any experts whose conclusions or analyses are ideologically inconvenient.
This political shortsightedness is exacerbated by corporate interests which fear for the safety of their profit margins. These multinational malefactors of great wealth have invested heavily in misinformation campaigns, obscuring the unambiguous science of climatology with mediagenic spurious false equivalency.
It is a “perfect storm” of ignorance and narrow self-interest. As they struggle to survive in a climatically-transformed world, our descendants will have justifiable contempt for the “deniers” and “delayers” in our government and media.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes carbon tax corporate irresponsibility denialists idiots
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Year 4, Month 9, Day 25: Then You Came And Caused A Spark
The Roanoke Times has a nice piece by Sarah Frost, debunking business-sector whining:
In her Aug. 11 commentary, “Climate-change zealotry will cost jobs,” Jane Van Ryan posits that by regulating carbon pollution, the Obama administration “could eliminate the ability of many American families to reach for the American dream.”
In fact, acting to slow and stop climate change will undoubtedly improve our health, safety, environment and economy. Failing to do so will leave future generations with diminished resources and opportunities.
The science on this issue is unambiguous: 97 percent of climate scientists agree that global warming is real and caused by human activity. We reached 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the first time in human history this spring, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently confirmed that 2012 was the hottest year on record in the U.S.
The costs of inaction are already being felt around the commonwealth and beyond: nine out of 10 Virginians live in counties and independent cities affected by federally-declared weather-related disasters since 2007. Nationally, between 2011 and 2012, Superstorm Sandy and 24 other extreme weather events left $188 billion in damages and claimed more than 1,100 lives. Scientists agree that these types of events are likely to become more frequent and more severe in a warming world.
The United States’ largest source of carbon emissions is our power plants, though to date, there are no regulations on carbon emissions from power plants the way there are on arsenic, mercury, sulfur and soot. As part of his Climate Action Plan, President Obama has directed the Environmental Protection Agency, under the authority of the Clean Air Act, to issue limits on carbon pollution from new and existing power plants.
Americans submitted more than 3 million comments — including 130,000 from Virginia — in favor of this plan last year. And in a recent poll, nearly two-thirds of voters said they support “the President taking significant steps to address climate change now.”
The opponents of action ignore and deny the science that tells us it is time to act – and often times are quietly backed by corporate polluters.
When Van Ryan suggests that the president and his administration “place a higher value on big government and the environmental movement than on the financial well-being of the American people,” she is failing to recognize that the health benefits from the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 are estimated to exceed the costs of implementation by a factor of more than 30 to one.
Hit me baby, one more time. September 17:
It wasn’t that long ago that US auto manufacturers were up in arms about legislation requiring that all cars be equipped with seat belts. It would, apparently, cripple sales, alienate consumers, and deal a death blow to American manufacturing. And it wasn’t long after that that tobacco companies got into a swivet about mandatory warning labels, which apparently would wipe out all their profits forever. Last I looked, the roads were full of cars, and there’s no shortage of smokers either.
It’s the same now, as the notion of taxing carbon emissions begins to gain currency among citizens and politicians who can read the unambiguous warning signs of human-caused climate change. Once again, we get to hear wailing predictions of disaster if environmentally sensible approaches to climate change are enacted.
Those nay-sayers who claim that the economy will be damaged by environmental responsibility are perpetuating a mentality of victimization and entitlement in the business sector. America likes to call itself a “can-do” nation, but you would never know it from the whining of some of the world’s most profitable and productive industries.
Pathetic. Just pathetic.
Warren Senders