environment Politics: assholes denialists IPCC Republican obstructionism sunspots
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 21: Hush Now, Don’t Explain
The Independent (UK) confirms that denialists just never stop.
An attempt by climate sceptics to hijack the latest UN report on global warming by selectively leaking claims that it is caused by sunspots rather than man-made emissions of carbon dioxide has backfired.
Sceptics described the forthcoming report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a “game changer” because of its apparent support for the controversial theory that solar activity, interacting with cosmic rays from deep space, can explain global warming.
Alec Rawls, a Republican blogger in the United States who signed himself up as an expert IPCC reviewer, decided to leak the panel’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) on the grounds that it is a taxpayer-funded document.
Mr Rawls claimed the report suggests that the IPCC has finally come round to the idea that solar activity – sunspots – is partly responsible for the observed global temperatures rise seen over the past half century.
“The admission of strong evidence for enhanced solar forcings changes everything. The climate alarmists can’t continue to claim that warming was almost entirely due to human activity over a period when solar warming effects, now acknowledged to be important, were at a maximum,” Mr Rawls said.
“The final draft of [the IPCC report] is not scheduled to be released for another year, but the public needs to know now how the main premise and conclusions of the IPCC story line have been undercut by the IPCC itself,” he said.
However, climate scientists pointed out that Mr Rawls has selectively quoted from the draft report and has ignored other parts of the document stating that solar activity and cosmic rays cannot explain the increase in global temperatures seen over the past half century, as sceptics have repeatedly claimed.
There are lies, damn lies, and climate denialist lies. Fuckers. Sent December 15:
Let’s not dignify climate-change denialists like Alec Rawls with the monicker, “skeptics.” Leaking cherry-picked sections of the forthcoming IPCC report is not representative of skepticism, a term which properly describes a profound level of intellectual honesty. Mr. Rawls and others of similar stripe are selectively misinterpreting data and analysis in order to support their ideology. We’re going to see a lot of this sort of behavior in the coming decades, as the evidence for planetary climate change grows from being incontrovertible to being overwhelming.
A good test of self-described “climate skeptics” is to ask them what sort of evidence could change their minds. A genuine skeptic like Dr. Richard Muller put his hypotheses to the test — and promptly changed his tune on the greenhouse effect’s causes and dangers. By contrast, it seems likely that (absent instructions from his petroleum paymasters) Alec Rawls’ mind will stay permanently shut.
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: 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: reality-based community Republican obstructionism scientific consensus
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 12: You Provide The Prose Poems; I’ll Provide The War
The Kansas City Star runs a McClatchy article by two climatologists, Michael MacCracken and James McCarthy. It’s called, “Obama wants to understand climate change? Listen to us and Sandy, too.”
Following two of the most destructive years for climate catastrophes, President Obama is now calling for a “wide-ranging” conversation with scientists. Let’s talk.
As climate scientists who’ve together spent decades studying how and why our climate is changing, we welcome that opportunity. “Frankenstorm” Sandy brought a message for you and all of us: climate change impacts are here now, right now.
Climate change clearly contributed to Hurricane Sandy, one of the most destructive superstorms in U.S. history. On the stretch of the Atlantic Coast where we call home, sea level is rising four times faster than the global average. Global warming is heating the Atlantic Ocean and increasing atmospheric water vapor loading, both of which contributed to Sandy’s power and deluge.
Were Sandy just a single disaster, the story might end there. Unfortunately it is not. The insurance giant Munich Re reports annual weather-related loss events have quintupled in the United States, costing Americans more than a trillion dollars.
This year we have suffered through a string of record-breaking extreme weather events, all worsened by climate change. These included “Summer in March,” the hottest month in U.S. history (July 2012), the worst drought since the 1950s and a wildfire season that is rivaling the worst ever, a record set only six year ago. In 2011, the United States broke its record for the most billion-dollar weather disasters in a year: 14 totaling $47 billion. And this year’s number of disasters puts it on track to be No. 2.
It’s bad news that this is good news. December 7:
It’s good news that President Obama wants to have a discussion with climate scientists on the subject of global warming and its likely impact on the future of our nation and the world. On the other hand, in a reality-based government, idea that scientific expertise is integral to the formation of environmental policies would not be controversial, and the fact that the President is seeking expert advice on climate change wouldn’t merit a single column inch of space.
But let’s not kid ourselves: our government is at least partially based in a fantasy world where the planetary greenhouse effect is (along with evolution, cosmology, and the big bang) a liberal hoax. Mr. Obama’s openness to reality is only good news when contrasted with the the Republican Luddites who will admit neither that climate change is real or that science is relevant to policy. Our nation, and our planet, deserve better.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama corporate irresponsibility economics fossil fuels Republican obstructionism
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 11: Nobody Here But Us Chickens
The St. Louis American reprints Eugene Robinson’s astute and blistering column from earlier this week, this time titled, “Obama Should Lead On Climate Change.” Good stuff:
The United States has never agreed to abide by the Kyoto Protocol, the binding 1997 treaty through which some countries agreed to limit emissions. Still, U.S. emissions have risen only slightly since then. The big increase has been in China and India, which are exempt from cuts under Kyoto.
Officials in Beijing and New Delhi understand that unchecked growth in emissions is not sustainable. But they also know that the United States and Europe are still responsible for far more carbon emissions per capita. And if a factory in, say, Guangzhou province produces iPhones for American consumers, who should be held responsible for those emissions?
Will these questions be answered in the Doha talks now under way? Not a chance. Not until the United States is fully involved.
And this is why President Obama should devote his next State of the Union address to climate change. He understands the science and knows the threat is real. Convincing the American people of this truth would be a great accomplishment – and perhaps the most important legacy of his second term.
Lots of luck with that. Sent December 6:
Environmentalists are justifiably disappointed in the Obama administration’s tepid participation in the Doha climate conference, and in our nation’s lackluster response to what is clearly the defining crisis of our times. And indeed there is plenty of cause for frustration, what with the steady drumbeat of bad climate news seemingly getting worse by the minute, while our diplomats dither and the United States routinely abdicates its position of leadership in the world community.
However, Mr. Obama’s timidity is not the real problem. If addressing an ongoing catastrophe responsibly means a reduced quarterly profit margin for Big Oil and Big Coal, it’s not going to happen. Our political paralysis in the face of a collapsing planetary ecosystem is caused by the all-pervasive influence of fossil fuels in our economy and fossil funds in our government. Presidential pusillanimity is a diagnostic indicator of how far, and how deeply, the disease has spread.
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: Barack Obama economics media irresponsibility Republican obstructionism
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 8: You Never Give Me Your Money…
USA Today has an op-ed from Dan Becker & James Gerstenzang, titled: “Column: Obama’s chance to change (political) climate.” Not bad, actually:
9:00AM EST December 2. 2012 – Hurricane Sandy and the 2012 drought drove home the need for President Obama to lead the fight against global warming. Freed from the political constraints of the re-election campaign, he holds three tools. Wielding them successfully, he will make bold action against the world’s most pressing environmental problem a legacy of his second term.
The president can sharply curtail power plants’ emissions of carbon dioxide, the largest global warming pollutant, by using existing law to require that utilities start converting from coal to cleanly extracted natural gas and introduce more renewable energy. To cut demand for electricity, he can set standards that increase the efficiency of power-gobbling appliances.
But scientists warn that far more will be necessary. The deadly hurricane, devastating drought and 332 consecutive months of above-average global temperatures are just the sort of conditions they say will accompany global warming.
So, taking a page from the nation’s first environmental president, Theodore Roosevelt, Obama can use his third tool — the bully pulpit — to change the political climate on climate. He must mobilize public pressure on Congress to adopt far-reaching measures that he cannot enact on his own, including steps that begin to end our addiction to oil.
Meanwhile, the country’s talking heads are talking about something totally different. Details at 11. Sent December 2:
While our news media have gone all out to cover the looming showdown over the “fiscal cliff,” the fact is that we’re facing another deadline with far more serious implications. The “climate cliff,” unlike its economic namesake, is based on hard scientific data and analysis, not political expediency and partisan gamesmanship. The consequences of a failure in climate policy reach far beyond the next election cycle or two and into the next millennium. Unless we can get the rapidly metastasizing greenhouse effect under control, questions about a marginally higher tax rate on the wealthiest two percent of Americans will be quaintly irrelevant in the face of catastrophic weather extremes, devastated agriculture, and the geopolitical instabilities triggered by famine, drought, and rising sea levels.
President Obama needs to make climate change a central issue for all Americans. If there’s any issue that transcends the transient boundaries of ideology, this is it.
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
environment Politics: Doha climate conference media irresponsibility Republican obstructionism scientific consensus
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 4: Don’t Just Do Something — Stand There!
The LA Times, on the Doha Climate Conference:
More than 17,000 people have converged on the Qatari capital for the latest U.N. climate talks, but the most influential presence may be Sandy.
The superstorm that ravaged the U.S. Northeast a month ago seared into the American consciousness an apocalyptic vision of what climate change could look like. On the heels of devastating wildfires, droughts and floods this year, Sandy’s destructive power snapped Americans to the reality that rising temperatures are a risk to their own well-being, not just a concern for distant lowlands.
Sandy’s fresh reminder of the potential consequences of global warming has been a dominant theme in the first days of the two-week meeting in Doha of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, delegates report.
Still, politicians and environmentalists at the gathering, which began Monday, maintain low expectations for the massive confab to spur swift or dramatic action to combat rising global temperatures. They predict that, at best, the unwieldy forum drawing together 195 countries and nongovernmental parties will bring agreement to formalize plans to negotiate new climate objectives that follow the aims of the 15-year-old Kyoto Protocol, ostensibly to be achieved by 2020. The next pact doesn’t need to be completed until 2015, so the international body is operating without the pressure of a looming deadline, participants said.
No urgency to this. Not at all. Sent November 28:
Superstorm Sandy’s pre-election visit did more than just allow a Republican governor and a Democratic president to work together. It also brought catastrophic climate change back to the national agenda, just in time for the Doha climate conference. While we can be grateful that this grave existential threat is once again on our radar, the fact that it takes a devastating storm to do so is an indictment of our perpetually distracted media and our all-too-distractable politicians.
The conclusions of climatology are as unambiguous as the law of gravity: climate change is real, it’s dangerous — and human industrial civilization is a root cause. What is needed is a sustained global effort to simultaneously reduce our carbon emissions drastically, develop solutions for excess atmospheric CO2, and prepare for the changes we cannot prevent. Will the Doha conference help make this happen? Not while science-denying conservatives remain powerful in our politics.
Warren Senders