Climate Change
Category archives for Climate Change
Understanding Storms and Global Warming: A Quaint Parable
Posted by Greg Laden on May 21, 2013 
A quaint New England rocky creek Imagine standing next to Parable Creek, an imaginary rocky brook in New England. The water is rushing past you from left to right, around the rocks that emerge tall above the surface of the stream, mounding over the top of those that are lower down. The deepest parts of…
Are there more tornadoes because of global warming?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 21, 2013 
There are good reasons to believe that global warming leads to more storminess, but the exact nature of that transition is unclear and hard to measure. Part of the reason for this difficulty is that a given type of storm may become more likely under certain conditions caused by climate change, while a different kind…
Why Global Warming’s Effects Will Be Worse Than You Were Thinking
Posted by Greg Laden on May 20, 2013 
The story of climate change has always been more of worst-case, or at least, worser-case scenarios developing and less about good news showing up out of nowhere and making us unexpectedly happy. A few decades ago, it became clear that the release of fossil Carbon into the atmosphere primarily as CO2 was going to cause…
The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania
Posted by Greg Laden on May 20, 2013 
There is a book called “The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania” produced by the Heartland Institute. The Heartland Institute is famous for doing all that work to prove that smoking is not bad for you, and more recently, that climate change is not real or is not important or…
Correcting BBC’s Lousy Journalism
Posted by Greg Laden on May 18, 2013 Again and again. Do you have to take a stupid pill every day to be a reporter? Or are reporters like this one speaking down to their audience. Either way, it’s shocking.
Investing in fossil fuel free portfolios
Posted by Greg Laden on May 17, 2013 Apparently that is a thing: NEW YORK and COLORADO SPRINGS, May 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Over half of sustainable, responsible, impact (SRI) investment industry professionals say that retail investors (65 percent) and institutional investors (53 percent) are currently expressing interest in fossil fuel-free portfolios in the face of growing signs of climate change, according to…
Will God Allow Us To Ruin Our Planet?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 16, 2013 It is being debated in the US Senate! (Unofficially.) Here’s Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on the issue: See also: Sen. Whitehouse destroys colleague who said God won’t allow climate change And this: Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Global Warming Consensus: We can haz it!
Posted by Greg Laden on May 16, 2013 
An important study has just been published1 examining the level of consensus among scientists about climate change. The issue at hand is this: What is the level of agreement in the scientific community about the reality of climate change and about the human role in climate change? The new paper, Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic…
Dark Snow Project on The Weather Channel
Posted by Greg Laden on May 16, 2013 The melting of the Greenland ice sheet is a problem, and it seems to be happening faster than scientists had originally thought it might. This is probably because of soot darkening the snow, which collects solar heat and melts the ice. Some, perhaps much, of this soot may come from the extensive fires we are…
Blockading A Coal Plant in Massachusetts (Breaking news)
Posted by Greg Laden on May 15, 2013 
Environmental activists have just taken up a position off shore of the Brayton Point coal plant, near Fall River Massachusetts, in an effort to block access by a ship attempting to deliver coal there. THIS is their web site, where there is a live Ustream. One of the activists, Jay O’Hara, is tweeting from here:…
Crowdfunding the Dark Snow Project
Posted by Greg Laden on May 14, 2013 New research indicates that the reflectivity of the surface of the Greenland Glacier is decreasing due to the deposition of dark particles from fires on the surface of the ice. This phenomenon is contributing to unprecedented melting of the ice sheet. This is a huge concern. One of the most significant outcomes of global warming…
Climate Scientist Mann on 400 ppm CO2
Posted by Greg Laden on May 13, 2013 Climate Scientists Michael Mann, author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, interviewed on Democracy Now:
Dear [Elected Official] Please Note the 400 ppm benchmark!
Posted by Greg Laden on May 11, 2013 Here’s a template for a letter I hope you will consider sending/emailing to all of your elected representatives at the municipal, state, and federal levels, if you are in the US. Thanks Dear [elected official] I am writing to ask you to join the very small but hopefully growing number of elected representatives and executives…
Fancy Greenhouse Gas Demonstration
Posted by Greg Laden on May 9, 2013 Experiment showing the absoption of infrared radiation by carbon dioxide. From the BBC 2 program “Earth: The Climate Wars”
Greenhouse Gas Demonstration
Posted by Greg Laden on May 8, 2013 Simulate the ruination of the planet using common household ingredients!
Bill O’Reilly, you are ON NOTICE
Posted by Greg Laden on May 8, 2013 Stop lying to your fans. They are beginning to figure it out. Watch: Here is some background.
Genie Scott: Denialism of Climate Change and Evolution
Posted by Greg Laden on May 7, 2013 
Here is a presentation by Genie Scott of the National Center for Science Education. Far more people are climate change deniers than evolution deniers, but both camps use similar strategies to promote their views. Genie Scott explores the connections, the similarities, and the divergent ideologies. Where: New York. When: 10/23/2011. Hosted by the New York…
Putting the 400 ppm CO2 thing in perspective
Posted by Greg Laden on April 30, 2013 Before the release of vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere mainly through the burning of fossil fuels, the atmospheric concentration of this gas was about 300 ppm or a bit more. Soon, that number will be 400 ppm. How soon? Let’s see … it is now Tuesday at about 7pm. Maybe mid morning tomorrow?…
The National Center for Science Education and Climate Change
Posted by Greg Laden on April 30, 2013 
Published on Apr 30, 2013 Science education is under assault again. Not just evolution education, but climate change education. NCSE policy director Dr. Minda Berbeco traces the history of science denial, the links between evolution- and climate change deniers, recent legislation targeting both, the role of the Next Generation Science Standards, and more. Where: East…
UFO’s, Climate Change, Child Abuse
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2013 
What do UFO’s, the belief that magnetism causes climate change but atmospheric gasses are not related, child molestation, and academic sock puppeting have in common with sea level rise? To find out, set aside some time to carefully read this: UFOs, Sea Level Rise And The Magnetism Of Climate Science Denial and then click on…
Bangladesh and Sea Level Rise
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2013 
You’ve all heard about the horrible tragedy in Bangladesh, still unfolding. Not to distract from that event, or diminish its importance, I thought it would be interesting to have a look at that low lying country in relation to long term sea level rise caused by climate change. I am making no claim here about…
James Hansen’s Legacy
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2013 
James Hansen, author of “Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About The Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity“, recently announced his retirement from his position as director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. My friend John Abraham write’s about Hansen’s retirement in his inaugural* post in the new blog “Climate…
The Truth About Global Warming’s Famous Slowdown
Posted by Greg Laden on April 24, 2013 Dana Nuccitelli writes: The rate of heat building up on Earth over the past decade is equivalent to detonating about 4 Hiroshima atomic bombs per second. Take a moment to visualize 4 atomic bomb detonations happening every single second. That’s the global warming that we’re frequently told isn’t happening. That’s Dana’s opening paragraph in the…
Does last Saturday’s record low at MSP signal the end of global warming?
Posted by Greg Laden on April 23, 2013 No, it does not We’ve had a winter-like spring here in Minnesota, and it was darn chilly on Saturday. In fact, we had a record low of 21F. Paul Douglas, of Weather Nation did some digging: He tells us that while that was the first record low since 2004, there have been 42 record highs…
Arctic Sea Ice Loss Due to Global Warming
Posted by Greg Laden on April 23, 2013 Andy Lee Robinson’s latest visualo-info-graphico-depiction of the loss of Arctic Sea Ice:
“Denialism on a Large Scale”
Posted by Greg Laden on April 16, 2013 “Denialism on a Large Scale” Greg Laden on Atheists Talk #214, April 14, 2013 I was interviewed on Minnesota Atheists Talk Radio about climate change and climate change denialism last Sunday AM. Since you were in church, I’m sure you missed it! But you can catch the podcast HERE.
Why is winter not ending?
Posted by Greg Laden on April 15, 2013 
Why is it snowing so much in the Northern US States this Spring? Two words: Global Warming. Let me ‘splain. Weather is all about air and moisture. The distribution of air is uneven, with some places having more air in big piles, other places having less air, into which the extra air from the big…
The Link Between Climate Change Denialism and Fundamental Christianity
Posted by Greg Laden on April 12, 2013 I think the primary political framework for climate change denialism is Libertarianism, with a lot of overlap with Tea Partiers, who are essentially Libertarians Without Brains. Libertarians can’t live with the fact that their philosophy guarantees the misery and horrors of climate change so most of them (but not all) exist in full denial. At…
Climate Scientist James Hansen’s Retirement
Posted by Greg Laden on April 12, 2013 The famous climate scientist James Hansen, author of Storms of my Grandchildren, has just retired from his senior position at NASA. I’ll be the climate science denialists are breathing a sigh of relief to have Hansen, who has been instrumental in developing our current understanding of climate change and who has been repeatedly attacked by…
What is climate sensitivity, why does it matter, and who’s got what wrong and why?
Posted by Greg Laden on April 11, 2013 
Climate sensitivity is the number of degrees C that the earth’s average temperature (of the atmosphere air and water on top of the “earth” per se) will increase with a doubling of “pre-industrial CO2″ in the environment. This is an important number … and it is a number, and to save you the suspense, the…
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