environment Politics: extreme weather idiots media irresponsibility
by Warren
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Year 4, Month 1, Day 1: She Said She Said
Delaware Online recycles the idiots-are-waking-up story:
Something rather cataclysmic has being happening among anti-global-warming enthusiasts. A growing number admit they’ve been wrong. An Associated Press poll found four of every five Americans said climate change will be a serious problem for the United States if nothing is done about it. That’s up from 73 percent three years ago.
Personal experience, not the complicated formula of science measurements is winning new converts. That includes extraordinary changes in the rise of sea levels as The New Journal has been tracking, accelerated patterns of wildfires that are destroying entire communities in the country’s western regions and shorter cold weather patterns during winter.
Debunkers of global warming usually target bad or imagined science by the environmental lobby and liberal Democrats. But “events are helping these people see what scientists thought they had been seeing all along,” explains Jon Krosnick, a Stanford University social psychologist and pollster.
Braindead media had nothing to do with this. Nothing, do you hear me? Nothing. Sent Dec. 26:
It’s good to learn that Americans are getting around to accepting the facts of global climate change, now that the consequences of an accelerating greenhouse effect are actually having an impact on their lives. Christmas day tornadoes, devastating superstorms, agriculture-crippling drought — all these and more have clobbered our nation over the past year, and it’s harder and harder for anyone to dismiss it as a temporary deviation from the norm.
But the fact remains that for decades the steadily more urgent warnings of scientists have been ignored, misrepresented, and often ridiculed. Climatologists have been predicting exactly this type of transforming weather since the 1970s, but our national news media have essentially abdicated their responsibility to the national conversation by choosing to “balance” scientific expertise with the dismissive rhetoric of oil-industry spokespeople. Unfortunately, the growing public awareness of the climate crisis may well be too late for effective policy action.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: idiots media irresponsibility Republican obstructionism scientific consensus
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 26: Hit The Snooze Button Again, Willya?
The Chicago Sun-Times says Americans are finally waking up.
Call it change more Americans are starting to believe in.
A recent Associated Press-GfK poll found that a growing majority of Americans not only think global warming is occurring, but also that it will become a serious problem and that the U.S. government should do something about it.
If this fall’s elections were any indication, average Americans are moving ahead of the politicians on this issue. Serious debate on climate change was a lot less noticeable than the melting polar icecaps, Superstorm Sandy and Midwest drought were.
Fashionably late, that’s us. Sent December 20:
The fact that Americans are only now accepting the reality of global climate change demonstrates two things: first, that the United States has been able to avoid the adverse effects of global warming for longer than many other parts of the world, and second, that our national relationship to scientific knowledge has deteriorated grossly since the 1960s and 70s, when our space program brought human beings to the moon and back with the full support, admiration and respect of an engaged public. That was then.
Now, it’s a different story. Thanks to an indifferent media, climatologists are misrepresented when their findings are complex, ignored when their work is misunderstood, and physically threatened when their results are ideologically inconvenient. Since geographical good luck no longer protects our nation from the consequences of the accelerating greenhouse effect, will America’s politicians, media and citizenry finally accord climate scientists the respect they deserve?
Warren Senders
environment Politics: idiots scientific consensus snow timescale winter sports
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 23: Intestines Were A-Hanging From The Highest Of The Trees
The New York Times notes that winter sports are suffering a bit:
NEWBURY, N.H. — Helena Williams had a great day of skiing here at Mount Sunapee shortly after the resort opened at the end of November, but when she came back the next day, the temperatures had warmed and turned patches of the trails from white to brown.
“It’s worrisome for the start of the season,” said Ms. Williams, 18, a member of the ski team at nearby Colby-Sawyer College. “The winter is obviously having issues deciding whether it wants to be cold or warm.”
Her angst is well founded. Memories linger of last winter, when meager snowfall and unseasonably warm weather kept many skiers off the slopes. It was the fourth-warmest winter on record since 1896, forcing half the nation’s ski areas to open late and almost half to close early.
Whether this winter turns out to be warm or cold, scientists say that climate change means the long-term outlook for skiers everywhere is bleak. The threat of global warming hangs over almost every resort, from Sugarloaf in Maine to Squaw Valley in California. As temperatures rise, analysts predict that scores of the nation’s ski centers, especially those at lower elevations and latitudes, will eventually vanish.
I went skiing as a kid in different places all over New England. It was fun until I broke my leg as a teenager. At that point I said, “fuck it.” Sent December 17:
Thanks to the barrage of weather-related disasters over the past year, more previously dubious Americans are beginning to accept the reality of global climate change; there’s something about tangible evidence that helps nudge people off the fence. The decline in snow coverage on the nation’s ski slopes should amplify this effect, perhaps helping winter sports enthusiasts to recognize both the factuality of the greenhouse effect and the dangers it presents.
But we — all of us — must start thinking in much longer terms and much larger scales. While the economic disruption caused by a collapsing winter sports industry will be significant, it pales in comparison to that triggered by a collapsing planetary environment. While our industrialized society has wrought technological wonders, we are laughably unable to control the havoc unleashed by our profligate greenhouse emissions. Humanity isn’t on the bunny slopes anymore, but careening down a precipice, unknowing, unheeding.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists idiots media irresponsibility scientific consensus
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 22: Can Rat Piss Cure Cancer? Details At Eleven!
The San Francisco Chronicle covers the “More Idiots Are Finally Changing Their Minds” story:
A growing majority of Americans think that global warming is occurring, that it will become a serious problem and that the U.S. government should do something about it, a new Associated Press-GfK poll finds.
Even most people who say they don’t trust scientists on the environment say temperatures are rising.
The poll found 4 out of every 5 Americans said climate change will be a serious problem for the United States if nothing is done about it. That’s up from 73 percent when the same question was asked in 2009.
Wakey wakey! Probably too latey latey, but better late than never. Idiots. Sent December 16:
It’s good news that more people are finally accepting the truth of planetary climate change, now that the consequences of the rapidly metastasizing greenhouse effect are threatening to overwhelm Earth’s ecological defense mechanisms. That the newly converted find actual physical events more persuasive than scientific analyses is also unsurprising. But science offers ways to extend our senses into areas normally beyond human perception; the idea that scientists have become somehow untrustworthy should give prompt us pause to reconsider our media’s handling of science news. Ask any scientist whose work has been covered by broadcast media and you’ll hear story after story of sensationalism, misrepresentation, and exaggeration.
That complex scientific questions are ill-suited to the spectacle-driven news machine should be a motivation to those television and radio outlets to change their approach. When it comes to the looming climate emergency, we need accurate reporting, and we needed it thirty years ago.
Warren Senders
atheism environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Republican obstructionism
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 20: Can’t Find My Way Home
Two articles in the 12/13 issue of the LA Times. First, David Horsey’s op-ed, “The Blind Faith of Climate Change deniers endangers us all”:
This week’s Newsweek magazine features a couple of essays — one about Jesus and one about climate change — that demonstrate the difference between simple faith in the unknowable and blind faith that denies scientific fact.
(snip)
Yet, even though the consequences of climate change are becoming frighteningly obvious and, as Hertsgaard writes, “scientists at both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency linked the record heat and drought of summer of 2012 with man-made climate change,” far too many conservatives cling to a blind faith that climate science is a hoax. Doug Goehring, North Dakota’s Republican agriculture commissioner, is typical of them all. Rather than believe the science, he says, “I believe an agenda is being pushed.”
And then Bettina Boxall’s piece on water shortages in the Colorado River Basin:
Water demand in the Colorado River Basin will greatly outstrip supply in coming decades as a result of drought, climate change and population growth, according to a broad-ranging federal study.
It projects that by 2060, river supplies will fall short of demand by about 3.2 million acre-feet — more than five times the amount of water annually consumed by Los Angeles.
“This study should serve as a call to action,” U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday as he released a report that predicted a drier future for the seven states that depend on the Colorado for irrigation and drinking supplies. “We can plan for this together.”
Too soon old, too late smart. Sent December 14:
The December 13 Times offers an ironic juxtaposition: David Horsey’s column analyzing conservatives’ unthinking rejection of climate change, and the ominous report on rapidly dwindling water supplies in the Colorado River Basin. How many climate-change denialists live in those seven states? How much evidence must accumulate before they stop shouting that global warming is an ideologically-driven hoax?
Our media privileges the discussion of religion, rationalizing that people are entitled to their own beliefs. True enough. But climate science is no theology, and relies on facts, observation, and analysis. The facts of a warming planet emerge in every day’s news reports. The observations of rising temperatures and melting ice caps are confirmed and reconfirmed. The analysis of climate data shows very strong correlation between our warming planet and the increasing amounts of atmospheric CO2.
Climate change is not a matter of belief, but of understanding — and action. No faith required.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Republican obstructionism
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 19: Imagine No Pollution — It’s Easy If You Try
The Poughkeepsie Journal has an Op-Ed column which delivers the obvious truth:
This year is on the verge of becoming the warmest one in the nation’s history, something that climate-change deniers undoubtedly would like to chalk up to some kind of statistical anomaly.
Except for this: Seven of the 10 warmest years in U.S. history have occurred over the past 15 years, according to the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
Global warming is real, and it’s causing massive damage and is likely to cause a whole lot more. The overwhelming number of climatologists not only tell us this, they say it is very likely being caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
It’s hard to imagine a scenario under which that would not be the case. Over the decades, emissions from old power plants, factories and vehicles have polluted the air and have contributed to global warming.
Nice little planet you got here. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to it, would you? Sent December 13:
The accelerating climate crisis presents a rare opportunity for our nation to come together in the face of impending catastrophe. For too long we have delayed action until after a disaster mobilizes our energies; while the focused and dedicated response to Superstorm Sandy offers a fine example of what America can do in a pinch, the fact is that we’re going to see more storms and extreme weather of unprecedented scale over the coming decades. And our continuing consumption of fossil fuels is going to make things worse, not better. What’s needed is a country-wide response that mobilizes our ingenuity, optimism and expertise on local, regional, national, and global levels in order to cut our carbon emissions, stabilize excess greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere, and prepare for the things we can’t prevent.
The only thing that stands in the way is ignorance and apathy, as exemplified by obstructionist Republican politicians and a news media too lazy to present anything more than he-says/she-says false equivalent. And of course, their paymasters in the oil and coal industries: senators and congressmen are almost as expensive as broadcast networks.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: analogies denialists idiots
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 18: My Sign Is “The End Is Near!” What’s YOUR Sign?
In the High Country News, Megan Kimble writes about her “Date With A Climate-Change Denier.” It’s a good piece:
He nodded and thought this over. “Do you think this whole climate change thing is going to catch on?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, ‘global warming’?” His voice wore italics and, though his hands didn’t leave the table, his fingers became bobbing quotation marks.
I opened my mouth and paused. He smiled that uncomfortable first-date smile and took a sip of his beer.
Hmm, I thought. Yes. The climate is changing, has changed, and humans are central to the story. Sheets of ice are cleaving away from glaciers and more and more carbon dioxide and methane molecules are swarming through the atmosphere, heating it up, and they will continue to do so whether or not the “idea” of global warming, you know, “catches on.”
My date took another sip of beer and stared at me with the blue eyes that had prompted me to give him my phone number in the first place.
“I think climate change already has caught on?” I said, hating how my voice rose into a question mark. “I think it’s happening? And I think a lot of people agree that, um, it’s a … big deal,” I said.
“Hmm,” he said, and nodded, considering this. He smiled, and in a teasing, flirtatious tone, said, “So you’re all into that, the global warming stuff?”
Some believe that the climate deniers will just die out. Not many in my generation get riled up about interracial marriage, for instance — it is, for most of us, entirely a non-issue — and many say that attitudes toward climate change could similarly shift with time. The academic term for old ideas dying along with old people is called “cohort replacement,” and according to this logic, all we have to do is wait.
According to this logic, however, an eligible young woman does not find herself on a date with a very cute 28-year-old man who puts “global warming” in quotation marks.
“Well … I sort of don’t think climate change is something to be believed in,” I said haltingly. “I mean, it kind of … is.” I hesitated, wondering, should I go further?
This letter was surprisingly difficult to write, perhaps because I couldn’t go with any of the regular formulae that have now become pretty much second nature. Sent 12/12/12:
While it may not be possible to screen your dates for “acceptance of climate change,” as Megan Kimble imagines in her entertaining article on the problems of dating climate-change deniers, there are many reasons to suggest that those who reject scientific evidence are poor relationship material.
Those who deny the ominously accelerating greenhouse effect are choosing to live in their own more convenient version of reality. Uncomfortable facts are excluded, straightforward facts and figures rationalized and massaged, data cherry-picked to demonstrate opposite meanings — these characteristic denialist behaviors are also key ingredients in dysfunctional and abusive relationships. By mocking the overwhelming climatological consensus, Ms. Kimble’s hunky date showed he’s the kind of guy who thinks words and facts mean exclusively what he wants them to mean — no more, no less. It goes without saying he’s hardly relationship material.
Similarly, America’s political and media systems need to end their romance with the well-funded climate denial industry. Both our policies and the public discussion of them must be founded in reality, not rooted in fantasy — and this is nowhere more important than on the issue of climate change, a threat larger than any our species has faced in recorded history.
Warren Senders
UPDATE: This didn’t get into the High Country News, but the article was reprinted on January 12 in the Salt Lake Tribune, so I’ve sent them this letter unaltered.
environment Politics: assholes Barack Obama denialists idiots Republican obstructionism scientific consensus
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 17: Bring Out Your Dead!
The South Bend Tribune reprints the MacCracken/McCarthy article from a few days ago — two climate scientists respond to the President’s purported invitation to a dialogue — and it’s still excellent stuff:
Having seen the devastating impacts of Sandy, at least a few leaders in Washington seem poised to acknowledge what scientific analyses have clearly shown: Human activities are causing climate disruption. Whether encouraged and forced by regulations, product standards, a cap-and-trade policy, or a carbon tax, we need a national policy to initiate the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Investing in energy efficiency and switching from use of coal, petroleum and natural gas to primary reliance on renewable wind and solar energy is a change that we can make. Switching away from petroleum would also build independence from OPEC and fossil fuel cartels.
According to Bloomberg Finance, the best wind farms in the world already produce power as economically as coal, gas and nuclear generators, and solar energy is proving a good investment in many states. Iowa now generates nearly 20 percent of its electricity from wind energy and Colorado and Oregon more than 10 percent.
We saw inspiring political leadership when Sandy struck. Now we need equally bold and visionary action that taps into the best in ingenuity and technology that our country has to offer. Encouraging both economic development and environmental well-being requires creation of a modern, clean energy system that protects both our nation and our environment.
The scientific community is eager to engage in the conversation the president seeks, but we all must recognize that the conversation must turn quickly from talk to action. This story can have an ending we can live with. It is up to us.
There’s an elephant in the room, though. Sent December 11:
It would be a great thing if President Obama got together with some genuine climate scientists, as Michael MacCracken and James McCarthy suggest. If there’s anything in short supply in Washington nowadays, it’s unvarnished facts and figures. Compared with the genuine emergency posed by the looming climate crisis, the brinksmanship around the impending “fiscal cliff” is absurd and irresponsible play-acting.
But it’s not only the President who needs to show scientists some respect. An entire political party has decided that measurable reality is less important than pouting and posturing. The G.O.P.’s reinvention as a vehemently anti-science party means that America is seriously hamstrung when it comes to dealing with any problem that can’t be solved with a photo-op.
Our country, and the world, deserve better. America cannot be a beacon of hope to the world if half of our government has chosen to live in the Dark Ages.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: arctic methane assholes denialists idiots media irresponsibility Republican obstructionism
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 9: Like A Lizard On The Windowpane
The Columbus Dispatch reprints Eugene Robinson’s recent op-ed from the WaPo:
You might not have noticed that another round of U.N. climate talks is under way, this time in Doha, Qatar. You also might not have noticed that we’re barreling toward a “world … of unprecedented heat waves, severe drought and major floods in many regions.” Here in Washington, we’re too busy to pay attention to such trifles.
We’re too busy arguing about who gets credit or blame for teeny-weeny changes in the tax code. Meanwhile, evidence mounts that the legacy we pass along to future generations will be a parboiled planet.
That quote about heat, drought and flooding comes from a new World Bank report warning of the consequences of warming. The study, titled “Turn Down the Heat,” tries to assess what will happen if temperatures are allowed to rise by 4 degrees Celsius — about 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit — above pre-industrial levels, before humans began spewing massive amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The picture is beyond bleak.
This is some serious shit, people. December 3:
While Washington obsesses about the political brinkmanship around the misleadingly named “fiscal cliff,” the world races towards a far more dangerous line of demarcation. And just as conservatives reject any economic evidence contrary to their ideology, they deny the scientific evidence confirming the very real threat posed by an accelerating greenhouse effect.
While the “climate cliff” — the point when runaway global heating becomes unstoppable — may already be past, this doesn’t excuse political and media figures who deliberately exclude the facts of climate change from legislative deliberation and national discussion. Even more disturbing is the realization that the worst-case scenarios discussed in the recent World Bank report don’t include melting arctic methane, which raises the threat level from dangerous to outright catastrophic. In a planetary crisis of this magnitude, the willful ignorance of the American chattering classes is nothing less than a betrayal of our species’ future.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes corporate irresponsibility denialists Doha climate conference idiots Republican obstructionism
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 7: If You Are Not A Reality, Whose Myth Are You?
The Washington Post reports on one of the first-ever climate protests in Qatar:
DOHA, Qatar — A few hundred people marched in a peaceful demonstration Saturday for “climate justice” in Doha, where negotiators from nearly 200 countries are debating about how to slow global warming and help protect the most vulnerable countries from rising seas and other impacts of climate change.
Waving banners saying “Stop climate change” and “Arabs reduce emissions,” the well-behaved crowd marched along the Qatari capital’s Corniche, a waterfront walkway lined by gleaming skyscrapers.
Khalid al-Mohannadi, one of the organizers, noted that “it’s not a protest, it’s a march for peace.”
The march was billed as the first environmental rally ever in the wealthy emirate, which is hosting the two-week U.N. talks aimed at forging a global deal to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.
This is a quick and dirty revision of yesterday’s letter, but I think it came out damn well, considering. December 1:
Hard on the heels of the World Meteorological Organization’s declaration that 2012 has seen record-breaking weather extremes everywhere on Earth, Christiana Figueres, the United Nations’ climate chief, tells us she doesn’t perceive much public pressure “for governments to take on more ambitious and more courageous decisions.” Indeed, it really seems that just as our global environment is heading to catastrophic imbalance, our political systems are essentially paralyzed.
There’s certainly no shortage of pressure, as this week’s demonstrations by environmentalists at the Doha conference show. For decades, millions of people have clamored for responsible climate policies, signing petitions, making phone calls, writing letters and marching. But the sad fact is that the innumerable voices of individual citizens are still too easily drowned out by the grotesquely amplified “speech” of the fossil fuel industry and its lobbyists. The public pressure’s there, all right — but millions of dollars speak louder than millions of people.
Warren Senders