I grabbed the graphic because it's an arresting lead-in to the global warming interview on Democracy Now! yesterday with Dr. Paul Epstein of Harvard University's Center for Health and the Global Environment, titled "From Snowstorms to Heat Waves, How Global Warming Causes Extreme Weather and Climate Instability." The idea that global warming contributes to snowstorms seems counter-intuitive, if you only think of global warming in terms of surface temperaturers--especially land surface temperatures. But when you realize--as the above chart shows--that the vast majority of warming goes into the oceans, which thus adds a great deal of energy to the world's weather system, then it's not that counter-intuitive at all. There's more energy for stronger snowstorms as well as hurricanes, tornadoes, whatever. But that's only the beginning of how Epstein paints a very different picture than that possessed by most lay people--even those who accept the science. Above all, the potential health impacts are broad, diverse, and potentially staggering. Details on the flip.
I have more than a few Tea Party adherents in my family who, prior to this summer, used to make a habit of sending me every little headline about how cold and snowy it was and how those "facts" proved that global warming was a fallacy being undone with each snowflake drifting down to earth. Oddly enough, they never sent me a single headline this summer about how unbelievably hot it was in the Northeast. I guess while I was bobbing around the bayous Louisiana they were reading the World Meteorological Organization's Press Release No. 904 which came to the following conclusion: "The year 2010 is almost certain to rank in the top 3 warmest years since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850" and its byline: "2010 in the top three warmest years, 2001-2010, warmest 10-year period." Well now, as if by magic, the spate of cold weather and overly abundant snowfall gripping the Northern Hemisphere has set off a new round of debate, doubt and denial as it relates to the changing climate.
Global Warming is not a hot button issue with me and I believe that the related science is still in the process of being validated. That along with the fact that some of the findings have been manipulated for political purposes makes for a situation where the jury is still out with the final verdict still in the process of being formulated. Likewise the same holds true for most of the counterarguments. However, none of the aforementioned takes away from the fact that there are discernable changes in the climate that cannot be denied. There is little reason to doubt that there have been major changes in the climate in the last 50+ years. To deny that is to make an argument contrary to historical fact. At 57 I can remember winters that were much different than they are now, at least around the Northeast where I grew up. One of the great misconceptions surrounding the global warming debate hinges around snowfall and temperatures. There is nothing inconsistent with the general theory of global warming where some regions will grow colder with increased amounts of snow fall while others see their climate grow warmer. It hinges in part on the changes in the ocean current, the jet stream and the Central Asian snow pack. Moreover what the opponents of global warming fail to realize in pointing out the increase in snowfall this year and last is that the debate about climate is about trends, not a snapshot of a series of weather events within a given winter or within several winters. Focusing on short term events instead of long term trends serves to undermine an opponent's counter argument as it fails to account for the larger, longer term picture. It fails because climate is a long-term trend whereas weather is the short term manifestation of climate and to focus on a handful of weather events while ignoring the longer term trends is to invite a flaw into one's analysis. That flaw ultimately leads to misconstrued and faulty conclusions.
Judah Cohen of Atmospheric and Environmental Research has recently published findings that effectively debunk the idea that the increased snowfall in the Northern Hemisphere is inconsistent with the idea that the overall climate is warming. Quoting Dr. Cohen:" The not-so-obvious short answer is that the overall warming of the atmosphere is actually creating cold-weather extremes... Annual cycles like El Niño/Southern Oscillation, solar variability and global ocean currents cannot account for recent winter cooling. And though it is well documented that the earth's frozen areas are in retreat, evidence of thinning Arctic sea ice does not explain why the world's major cities are having colder winters... As global temperatures have warmed and as Arctic sea ice has melted over the past two and a half decades, more moisture has become available to fall as snow over the continents. So the snow cover across Siberia in the fall has steadily increased. The sun's energy reflects off the bright white snow and escapes back out to space. As a result, the temperature cools. When snow cover is more abundant in Siberia, it creates an unusually large dome of cold air next to the mountains, and this amplifies the standing waves in the atmosphere...That is why the Eastern United States, Northern Europe and East Asia have experienced extraordinarily snowy and cold winters since the turn of this century." A further scientific elaboration on Dr. Cohen's model and an assessment of its accuracy can be found in a National Science Foundation Special Report entitled "Predicting Seasonal Weather, A Special Report."
Yet in contrast to the scientific findings that have been put forth from reputable organizations such as the National Science Foundation and Atmospheric and Environmental Research, a large element of the opposition's argument seems to hinge upon conspiracy theories, an anti-intellectual bias or the preaching's of that ever present claque of political entertainers who make their living on cable television masquerading as political analysts. Needless to say, it's definitely a hot button issue among the Tea Party crowd to deny the climate changes that have taken place. John M. Broder in an article entitled "Climate Change Doubt Is Tea Party Article of Faith" detailed the extent to which members of the Tea Party Movement are willing to accept anything but science in their efforts to dispute the scientific data contained in those reports that postulate that the world's climate is changing due to global warming. Quoting Broder: "Skepticism and outright denial of global warming are among the articles of faith of the Tea Party Movement... For some, it is a matter of religious conviction; for others, it is driven by distrust of those they call the elites. And for others still, efforts to address climate change are seen as a conspiracy to impose world government and a sweeping redistribution of wealth." Citing a New York Times / CBS poll conducted in October, Broder showed the degree to which members of the Tea Party Movement differ from the general public on the issue of global warming. Tea Party Movement supporters are considerably more skeptical when it comes to the existence and effects of global warming than the American public generally. The survey found that only 14 percent of Tea Party supporters said that the problem of global warming was here and now versus 49 percent of the public at large. More than half of Tea Party supporters said that "global warming would have no serious effect at any time in the future, while only 15 percent of other Americans share that view" and, "8 percent of Tea Party adherents volunteered that they did not believe global warming exists at all, while only 1 percent of other respondents agreed."
Broder links the sentiments of the Tea Party Movement's opposition to global warming theories with other groups that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. He points out that the fossil fuel industries have spent $500 million dollars since 2009 on lobbying against climate change legislation, that they have funded "lavishly financed institutes to produce anti-global-warming studies" and "waged a concerted campaign to raise doubts about the science of global warming", as well as "paid for Web sites to question the science." At the same time the anti global warming rhetoric has been a staple on the talks shows of America's preeminent political entertainers: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and of course, Sarah Palin. Promoting anti-global warming skepticism has been a core tenet of right wing groups like Americans for Prosperity, and the Tea Party cash cow, Freedom Works.
All this begs a number of questions: If there is such a compelling body of scientific knowledge that disproves the theory of global warming, then why not just stick with the science and forgo the political theatrics? Why spend millions of dollars on lobbying and public relations to discredit the theory of global warming by raising doubts when you could just produce objective hard science results that point to the contrary? Surely the advocates of global warming theory were set back last summer when it was found that several scientists in England had fiddled with scientific findings for political reasons. That having happened, wouldn't those who oppose global warming theory been better served by a counterargument based on facts at a time when their opponent's integrity was in question? Or, conversely is their counterargument better served by the image of doubters poking around among snowdrifts with their yardsticks in some unscientific attempt to dispute actual scientific findings? Why do the doubters engage in deflection by saying that the argument surrounding global warming is really Marxist wealth redistribution disguised as science when the scientific reports don't include any mention of politics and policy? Perhaps someone should clue these opponents in to the fact that we live in an age dominated by science and technology and that any disputing of hard science is not likely to come about via conspiracy theories, unsupported skepticism or Biblical quotes that address man's relationship with the natural world within which he exists.
CHART OF THE DAY: Here's How To Cut The Trade Deficit In Half Right Now
Joe Weisenthal | Dec. 10, 2010, 9:51 AM
It's simple. All you have to do is eliminate oil imports from the trade deficit.
As this chart from Calculated Risk shows, based on today's data, eliminating our net petroleum imports would reduce the trade deficit from around $40 billion to closer to $20 billion.
Crudely annualizing this difference to $240 billion would represent a 1.7% boost to GDP of around $14 trillion.
This is what the fossil fuel oligopoly costs America in terms of trade deficit. It has plenty of other costs as well, including, of course, the imminent collapse of civilization due to global warming, and the immediate health and environmental costs, $51 billion a year just for premature deaths in Appalachia, for example.
But the trade deficit is a particularly "hard" measure of economic cost incured by this energy sector oligopoly. If oil weren't an oligopoly, if it were a part of a government-owned energy sector that therefore had no economic (or should we anti-economic) bias toward its existing holdings and investments as opposed to the optimal well-being of society as a whole, then the economic impediments to a swift transition to a more rational, cost-effective alternative would be far, far smaller. And that political impediments would be even smaller still.
This is but one example of how socialism--state ownership of the basic means of production--would significantly outperform our existing economic system, which calls itself "capitalism", but is arguably much better described as oligopoly capitalism. Freed from the competitive pressures of the "free market", whose ideology is used to justify it, any oligopoly will tend to soak up far more than it's fair share of income and profits--and with them the power to grab even larger and larger shares. But some oligopolies are much more powerful and dangerous than others, and the fossil fuel oligopoly is among the very worst there is.
As I noted back in mid-September ("Sharia law a dire threat to America. Global warming, not so much"), GOP candidates who believe in global warming are as rare as hen's teeth. All 37 Senate candidates are deniers. It's a dramatic disconnect from reality that our broken media system is utterly incapable of dealing with, as their positions are not only clearly false, but deeply consequential.
In late July, NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) released the 2009 State of the Climate report, under the headline,
Based on comprehensive data from multiple sources, the report defines 10 measurable planet-wide features used to gauge global temperature changes. The relative movement of each of these indicators proves consistent with a warming world. Seven indicators are rising: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, air temperature over oceans, sea level, ocean heat, humidity and tropospheric temperature in the "active-weather" layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth's surface. Three indicators are declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern hemisphere.
The report itself can be downloaded here. And you can plot the indicators' time series from here. For example, here's the sea-surface temperatures from 1850 to today:
At this point, there's little doubt that a crucial impetus for serious climate change action will be the bottom-up impacts of local actions taken in response to locally-perceived threats and opportunities. "Local" here is a scalable concept. Compared to the US as a whole, California is a local jurisdiction which has passed a landmark global warming law that outside Texas oil companies are trying to take out. That's a local conflict compared to the US or the whole globe. And battles at that level will prove crucial. But of course, one can get a whole lot more local than that, since California is pretty big state. And a new report does just that.
"California's National Parks in Peril: The Threats of Climate Disruption" is joint report from the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Counsel. It includes new local climate projections for ten national parks in California: Death Valley National Park, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Joshua Tree National Park, Kings Canyon National Park, Mojave National Preserve, Muir Woods National Monument, Point Reyes National Seashore, Redwood National Park, Sequoia National Park, and Yosemite National Park.
As the report explains:
If future emissions of heat-trapping pollutants are what the California Climate Change Center calls "medium-high," the average of the projections from the six climate models is for Yosemite National Park to get 7.5°F hotter by 2070-2099 than it was in 1961-1990. To put that in perspective, that would be enough to make Yosemite 0.3° hotter than Sacramento historically has been. Similarly, Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks would become hotter than the Sonoma County coast. Point Reyes would become as hot as Santa Barbara has been.
These temperature comparisons may not be that meaningful for folks outside of California. On the flip is a brief overview of significant--even dramatic--effects that don't require any such local knowledge:
As an editor and reporter for Random Lengths News in San Pedro, I've been covering port issues since 2002. When I began, there were just a handful of activists who'd been carrying on the struggle for clean air in San Pedro--some for decades, some for several years--and there were some fledgling developments in nearby communities. Five years later, there was an national conference held in nearby Carson, with hundreds of activists from across the country from port communities and communities impacted by the goods movement that flows inland from the ports--primarily along rail lines. Yesterday and today there's another conference, this time with activists from Russia, China, Malaysia, Panama and Australia as well.
This is all the work of The Trade, Health & Environment Impact Project (THE Impact Project) which describes itself as "a collaboration of community and university partners focused on reducing the impacts of trade, ports and goods movement activities on health and community life." More on the conference to come, but I'm pretty busy right now. I just wanted to share this video, which is the product of "New Voices Are Rising", a program in the Bay Area for training high school students in affected communities to become the next generation of environmental justice leaders. Goods movement is closely tied into global warming, and there's an initiative on the ballot here in California that would undo our global warming law. Students from one of the high schools involved created this video:
Alaska's election could, plausibly, be a determining factor on the nation's (and the globe's) path forward toward (or away from) a clean-energy future.
REAL climate scientists don't lie in their published scientific papers. So-called "skeptics" do. An example inadvertantly provided by metamars is highlighted Last week, I wrote a diary, "Troll jumps shark. Shark returns favor", in which I critiqued a quick hit by metamars that was based on a fallacious appeal to authority, which itself was justified in part by the thoroughly refuted "climategate" accusations of fraud. When I pointed this out in comments, metamars sniffed, "by whom?" And so, in my diary, I quoted a Columbia Journalism Review article that listed the various investigations.
But, of course, they were all in on it, too! The fraud was immense. "A conspiracy so vast..." yadda, yadda, yadda.
The only problem was that with all the sturm und drang, metamars was unable to put his finger on one single example of fraud, though there were sweeping accusations galore. At one point in the discussion, he even wrote:
Proving groupthink and even fraud is difficult. I think one would more likely argue the case, than "prove" it. It's not like I can subpoena documents.
But the "Climategate" emails were supposed to prove the allegations of fraud. No further evidence needed. (Not even subpoenaed documents). And. They. Didn't. That was the whole point.
However, it's not really true that it's difficult to prove fraud. Sometimes it is, of course. But with the so-called "skeptics" it can be like shooting fish in a barrel. Take Robert C. Balling Jr. In 2000, he wrote what was one of the first 20 papers in a list metamars himself provided, touted (fraudulently, as I'll show in a future fidary) as a list of "Over 450 Peer-Reviewed Scientific Papers Challenging Man-Made Global Warming". From the paper's abstract:
[M]any of the most fundamental global warming issues remain in a state of considerable debate in the scientific community. For example, in the most recent half decade, the atmospheric concentration of many greenhouse gases has slowed or even stabilized.
This is blatantly false. There was no such slowing or stabilization from 1995 to 2000. Here are the top 3 greenhouse gases and their concentrations graphed over the relevant time period and more, via the EPA:
That's CO2, by far the most important of the greenhouse gases for the extended greenhouse gas effect. NH4 and N2O on the flip--plus CO2 at Mona Loa, and a special treat:
"Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries. But question it we must."
"the only thing that has actually remotely slowed down the relentless rise of carbon emissions over the last two to three decades is recession."
-- Tim Jackson
British Economist Tim Jackson studies the links between lifestyle, societal values and the environment to question the primacy of economic growth.
He currently serves as the economics commissioner on the UK government's Sustainable Development Commission and is director of RESOLVE - a Research group on Lifestyles, Values and Environment. After five years as Senior Researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute, Jackson became Professor of Sustainable Development at University of Surrey, and was the first person to hold that title at a UK university.
He founded RESOLVE in May 2006 as an inter-disciplinary collaboration across four areas - CES, psychology, sociology and economics - aiming to develop an understanding of the links between lifestyle, societal values and the environment.
I want you to imagine a world, in 2050, of around nine billion people, all aspiring to Western incomes, Western lifestyles. And I want to ask the question -- and we'll give them that two percent hike in income, in salary each years as well, because we believe in growth. And I want to ask the question: how far and how fast would be have to move? How clever would we have to be? How much technology would we need in this world to deliver our carbon targets? And here in my chart. On the left-hand side is where we are now. This is the carbon intensity of economic growth in the economy at the moment. It's around about 770 grams of carbon. In the world I describe to you, we have to be right over here at the right-hand side at six grams of carbon. It's a 130-fold improvement, and that is 10 times further and faster than anything we've ever achieved in industrial history. Maybe we can do it, maybe it's possible -- who knows? Maybe we can even go further and get an economy that pulls carbon out of the atmosphere, which is what we're going to need to be doing by the end of the century. But shouldn't we just check first that the economic system that we have is remotely capable of delivering this kind of improvement?
Republished from Nov.29, 2009. Since metamars, a physicist with no background in climatology, has been touting global warming denialism of late, and pretending to sweeping knowledge of the history, sociology & social psychology of science as opposed to the rest of us poor ignoramuses, I thought it was a perfect time to resurrect this piece, which reports and comments on a peer-reviewed article about the role of leading physicists in global warming denialism.
IMHO, the way to read this paper is as an illumination of the mindset that metamars both comes out of and buys into. It provides insight into factors that primarily matters of ideology and status for the actors focused on, though of course there's a considerable amount of money involved in the background--trillions and trillions of dollars when you consider the entire nuclear establishment.
Last weekend, I wrote a multifaceted diary about global warming. This weekend, with the Copenhagen Climate Summit rapidly approaching, I want to return to the topic of denialism with a little more detail, since the recent wave of denialist attacks reminds us once again that denialism is the big gun in thwarting responsible action.
First and foremost, there's the hack into climate scientists' private emails, peddled to the media and the conservative base as an "exposé". Of course, as noted last weekend, there was nothing exposed. But if we don't know by now that facts don't matter, we've learned nothing. George Marshall--founder and director of projects at the Climate Outreach and Information Network- explained in the Guardian, responding with factual arguments in the media is act of foolishness:
It's like responding to someone calling you a bastard by showing them your birth certificate.
Because the so-called "skeptics" understand this is war, they are much more clear-headed about things. Truth means nothing-the BRAND of truth is quite another matter. And striking at just the right moment is most important of all.
As noted (also in the Guardian) by Bob Ward-- Policy and Communications Director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science- something of this sort was to be expected:
It is inevitable as we approach the crucial meeting in conference in Copenhagen in December that the sceptics would try some stunt to try to undermine a global agreement on climate change.
Marshall's piece is primarily focused on the ineptitude of the response. But in order to explain just why it was so inept, he first explains deep background the lay of the land:
The lay public, when presented with confusing data and competing arguments about climate change, deploy the mental shortcut of believing the people they most trust. Trust in the communicator is therefore crucial.
Unfortunately the three main climate change communicators: politicians, journalists and environmental campaigners, are among the least trusted people in society - fighting it out for bottom place in the ranking with lawyers and car salesmen. No one would pay any attention to them at all if they were not drawing on the aquifer of public trust in scientists.
But climate scientists have always misunderstood the dynamic of public belief and trust. They assume that belief will be built on their data and that public trust is merited by their authority. With the exception of a few outstanding communicators, they often make no attempt to speak to deeper values or make an emotional connection with the public - indeed they see that as contrary to their professional independence.
Climate change deniers have always understood this. They use language that is designed to appeal to deeper values (such as freedom, independence, progress). The narrative they tell of being determined (and even persecuted) free-thinkers, standing against the tide of oppressive and self-interested conformity is designed to create an aura of integrity and trustworthiness.
Of course, the social function and position of science has always been a good deal more complicated than advertised. When "objective" science fits with the dominant elite interests, the "objective" scientists somehow readily get presented to the public as quasi-religious authorities giving their blessings to society's latest crusade, whatever that may be. The nuclear establishment clearly showed us as much during the Cold War, not least via counter-example in the way that non-conformists such as Einstein, Oppenheimer, and Slizard were excluded from such Olympian status. Indeed, the Cold War nuclear physics establishment turns out to be directly implicated in global warming denialism, as is discussed by Brazillian anthropologist Myanna Lahsen in her research paper, "Experiences of modernity in the greenhouse: A cultural analysis of a physicist 'trio' supporting the backlash against global warming"(pdf), in which she writes:
Facts be damned, ain't democracy grand? That's Ross Douthat's response to recent commentary on the fact that the GOP is virtually alone among the world's major political parties in opposing the science of global warming.
Here's the sequence of events. In the National Journal, Ronald Brownstein wrote last Saturday "GOP Gives Climate Science A Cold Shoulder", about the GOP's unique situation. He lead off by noting the position of the British Conservative Party Foreign Secretary:
When British Foreign Secretary William Hague visited the U.S. last week, he placed combating climate change near the very top of the world's To Do list.
"Climate change is perhaps the 21st century's biggest foreign-policy challenge," Hague declared in a New York City speech.
and went on to note:
His strong words make it easier to recognize that Republicans in this country are coalescing around a uniquely dismissive position on climate change. The GOP is stampeding toward an absolutist rejection of climate science that appears unmatched among major political parties around the globe, even conservative ones....
Of the 20 serious GOP Senate challengers who have taken a position, 19 have declared that the science of climate change is inconclusive or flat-out incorrect. (Kirk is the only exception.) With sentiments among rank-and-file Republicans also trending that way, it's no coincidence that two Republicans who affirmed the science -- Rep. Michael Castle in Delaware and Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska -- were defeated in Senate primaries this year....
Indeed, it is difficult to identify another major political party in any democracy as thoroughly dismissive of climate science as is the GOP here. Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, says that although other parties may contain pockets of climate skepticism, there is "no party-wide view like this anywhere in the world that I am aware of."
Douthat led off by citing Brownstein's piece, then wrote:
What's interesting, though, is that if you look at public opinion on climate change, the U.S. isn't actually that much of an outlier among the wealthier Western nations. In a 2007-2008 Gallup survey on global views of climate change, for instance, just 49 percent of American told pollsters that human beings are responsible for global warming. But the same figure for Britain (where Rush Limbaugh has relatively few listeners, I believe) was 48 percent, and belief in human-caused climate change was only slightly higher across northern Europe....
There's a reasonably large Western European constituency, in other words, for some sort of climate change skepticism.... But the politicians haven't been responding. Instead, Europe's political class, left and right alike, has worked to marginalize a position that it considers intellectually disreputable, even as the American G.O.P. has exploited that same position to win votes.
The debate over climate change isn't unusual in this regard. On issues ranging from the death penalty to (at least until recently) immigration, America's major political parties generally tend to be more responsive to public opinion, and less constrained by elite sentiment, than their counterparts in Europe. Overall, I much prefer the American approach, populist excesses and all. (It helps in this case, of course, that I'm deeply skeptical about the efficacy of climate change legislation anyway.) But there's no denying that its left the G.O.P. on the wrong side - and increasingly so - of a pretty sturdy scientific consensus.
As usual with Douthat, there are problems galore with his reasoning.
I'm not sure exactly when metamars jumped the shark, or even when he slipped over into troll territory many moons before that. I only know where he is now, involved with shark acrobatics, as in a recent quick hit:
Emeritus Professor of Physics, American Physical Society fellow, quits APS over "global warming scam" (metamars)
Link Another prominent physicist who is a skeptic of (human caused?) global warming is Nobel laureate Freeman Dyson. I personally don't think they are right, but I've also no doubt that the great amount of money involved is causing tremendous groupthink, and yes, fraud. It's possible to have groupthink and fraud, and still be essentially correct...
Where to begin? with that Obama-like last line? It's quite tempting given how much MM despises Obama. Professional jealousy much? That line does make me wonder. Well, first by explaining that the Quick Hit title & link do not refer to Freeman Dysaon, but to retiref physicist Harold Lewis, who, like Dyson, knows nothing in particular professionally about climate science.
Second, by explaining that citing "authorities" outside their fields of expertise is a long-recognized fallacy:
Fallacy: Appeal to Authority
Also Known as: Fallacious Appeal to Authority, Misuse of Authority, Irrelevant Authority, Questionable Authority, Inappropriate Authority, Ad Verecundiam
Description of Appeal to Authority
An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:
Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
Person A makes claim C about subject S.
Therefore, C is true.
This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.
This sort of reasoning is fallacious when the person in question is not an expert. In such cases the reasoning is flawed because the fact that an unqualified person makes a claim does not provide any justification for the claim. The claim could be true, but the fact that an unqualified person made the claim does not provide any rational reason to accept the claim as true.
Third, by explaining that even if someone is an authority in a field, if they say something in public that they can't back up in the peer-reviewed literature, that's really no more valid than an Appeal to Authority.
Fourth, by explaining that (quoting from the link) Lewis is just blowing hot air. For example:
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford's book organizes the facts very well.) I don't believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
"[T]rillions of dollars" driving the "global warming scam"? From where? There most certainly were trillions of dollars driving the Cold War nuclear weapons scam that drove the careers of the most vociferous physicist deniers. But so far there's far more money on the fossil fuel "let's keep causing global warming" side than there is on the green jobs "let's stop global warming" side. Just check Opensecrets.org in case you have any doubt at all.
But this is where our troll has chosen to double down. In comments, I wrote:
In reality-land, ALL accusations of fraud re "climategate" have been dismissed.
First Photo of the Day: Solar Panels in New Zealand
This is it, folks. A chance for pure, unadulterated direction action, no intermediaries. Still time to find an activity near you.
From 350.org founder Bill McKibben via email:
Dear friends,
It's happening--and it's even bigger than we thought it would be.
From what we can tell from reports streaming in from East Asia and Australia and New Zealand, 10/10/10 is going to be the biggest day of climate action ever--from one end of the planet to the other, people are already hard at work.
If you haven't already figured out which event to join, visit the map on our website to find a work party in your community--and be sure to check out the front page of 350.org, which has transformed into an amazing showcase of today's events.
And a last minute request: Make sure that you document whatever you're doing today. WE NEED PICTURES, and we need them right away so we can post them on our homepage, send them to the media, and deliver them to political leaders.
It's seriously easy to upload pictures to 350.org--just read the instructions in the box on the right side of this email.
This year has been a hard one: political leaders have failed to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis, and we've seen one climate-related disaster after another. But today represents a crucial shift--and we're gaining momentum for the road ahead.
After today, we can move forward with a new sense of optimism and confidence--not just because President Obama decided to put solar on the White House or because the Mayor of Mexico City announced that his city will cut carbon emissions by 10% this year.
We can be confident because the climate movement is bigger and more beautiful than ever before--and it's not going away. Visit 350.org today and you'll see that millions of people, from 188 countries, are united with a common purpose. They may speak differently or look differently or pray differently, but they all care about the same future.
It won't be easy to get on the path to 350, but we can all keep pushing for the big actions that matter--pushing with the confidence that comes with having a movement standing together.
Thanks for all you've done--and all you'll do in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
- Add your photos as attachments, ensuring photo size is less than 3MB.
- Submit only one photo per email.
- Use your city and country as the subject.
- The body of your email will be the caption for your photos.
- Include any photographer credits in the e-mail body/caption.
- Send your email to photos@350.org.
I'm glad that Barack Obama has reversed himself on putting solar panels on the White House. But with all due respect, here's what real presidential leadership looks like as President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives personally installs solar panels donated by Sungevity.
Ths is one of many pictures already streaming into 350.org in advance of it's "Global Work Pary" this Sunday. Wouldn't it be great for Obama to follow this lead, and personally take part in the solar panel installation at the White House? Wouldn't that make for nice pro-active progressive news cycle?
In advance of 350.org's "Global Work Party" this Sunday, founder Bill McKibben sent out the following email this morning:
Dear Friends,
When we first announced the Global Work Party scheduled for this weekend, I had three worries:
1) Since so many of you had done such a good job last year--5200 events in 181 countries, what CNN called "the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history"--I was concerned that it was going to be hard to top.
2) Because the Global Work Party called for real, tangible Work, I thought fewer people would be willing to rise to the challenge.
3) It had been a discouraging year, with the failures in Copenhagen and in the US Congress, and the unwillingness of governments all over the world to take any sort of meaningful climate action. People told me the movement was deflated, and that no one had any energy left.
As it turned out, I didn't need to worry.
Thanks to you, this weekend will be remembered as the day when a single message blanketed more of the planet than ever before. This won't just be the most widespread day of carbon-cutting action in the planet's history--it will be the most widespread day of just about anything the earth has ever seen.
In the same year when global temperatures have set one scary new record after another, you are rewriting the record books for civic engagement. We don't have the final numbers yet because registrations are still streaming in, but it's clear that we're on track to shoot past 7000 events in 188 countries. That leaves four countries unaccounted for: North Korea, Andorra, Equatorial Guinea, and San Marino. Barring those, the entire planet is engaged. Which makes sense, since this is the first issue that involves the entire planet.
We look at the map of events around the world and some days it seems crazy, that this many people would volunteer to do this much work in this many places. But mostly it just seems beautiful.
And now we need to make sure that everyone sees just how beautiful. Your photos will be how we show politicians and the media that people around the world aren't just ready for climate solutions--we're getting to work building them.
So remember to email your top photo to 'photos@350.org'--and put your City and Country in the subject line, and put a short description of your event in the body. Try to get a "350" in your photo somehow--it's our universal message knitting this whole thing together. And if you can get a photo that shows how people are getting to work on climate solutions, even better.
Things are happening fast here, and I've got to get back on the phone with reporters to try to explain to them about everything happening around the world. We are so grateful for all that you're doing, and committed to making it count.
Here's another photo included in the email, a girl in Cochabamaba, Bolivia, where the global south held it's alternative climate summit earlier this year.
In the same way that quick, intense action was able to get Obama to reject the sleazy foreclosure bill, there really are opportunities for bottom-up activism to bring top-down action into play from this White House. So it's not a pipe-dream to imagine that we might yet get Obama to do something dramatic and symbolic like this. And once he's done that, then there's momentum for pushing further to put flesh on symbolic bones.
So, again, there's just a couple of days left to join up for the Global Work Party on 10/10/10. There's over 6,700 carbon-cutting events in 188 nations. Go to www.350.org/workparty.
With the death of the Senate energy bill, efforts to combat global climate change have reached a standstill. It does not appear that a cap-and-trade scheme is anywhere in the near future.
A number of factors killed the energy bill. Democrats from states dependent upon traditional energy, such as West Virginia, did not support the bill. Neither did previous cooperative Republicans, such as Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Perhaps most importantly - and least mentioned - was the economic recession, which shifted the public's concern from the environment to the pocketbook.
There was also another factor, a factor which should not have - but did - increase skepticism.
STATE BLOGS
