hrynyshyn
Posts by this author
January 17, 2012
From the Idiot Tracker comes this pearl of wisdom:
One of my least favorite lukewarmer fallacies is the concept of "no regrets" policies -- that we should push ahead with policies that can be sold to the right wing as energy independence or job creation or whatever appeals to those in denial of the…
January 6, 2012
Barring a miraculous revival of the fortunes of Jon Huntsman, Republicans this year will, for the first time, elect a presidential nominee who does not believe that humans are responsible for global warming. How did things get this bad?
The Climate Desk team found a few of the last Republicans…
December 20, 2011
Andy Revkin thinks so. In a recent Dot Earth post, he writes that the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should either stop straying from a "just the facts" communications strategy or step down.
The offense, in Revkin's mind, is Pachauri's participation in a not-all-that-funny…
December 14, 2011
Maybe it's just me, desperately searching for optimistic signals in the noise that dominates the mainstream coverage of climate change, but could there be something happening out there, something attesting to a new, more mature interpretation of the challenge facing society at large?
Item 1: The…
December 13, 2011
The thing about the "Durban Platform for Enhanced Action," is that it simultaneously manages to both exceed expectations and demolish any remaining hope for real action. In effect, it tells us everything we need to know about geopolitics of climate change.
As the name implies, this is an agreement…
December 9, 2011
Compare and contrast:
The team's new examination of the paleo-climate record now shows that "a global warming of a couple degrees Celsius would basically create a different planet," Hansen warned. It's different than the one that humanity, that civilization knows about. If we look at the paleo…
December 2, 2011
This sort of thing is what gives economics a bad name.
As soon as have settled down and have some time I will post a more reasoned response.
UPDATE: I can't find the time to rebut so many ignorant statement. Brad Johnson has done some of the heavy lifting. But really, if this doesn't make it clear…
November 28, 2011
I would be remiss if I didn't direct your attention to a new paper in Science that concludes, however tentatively, that the global climate may not be as sensitive to rising atmosheric CO2 levels as everyone has assumed. It is, after all, a rare dose of optimism in a field that has been…
November 28, 2011
Word is Canada will give the world a lump of coal tar for Christmas:
Canada will announce next month that it will formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, CTV News has learned.
The Harper government has tentatively planned an announcement for a few days before Christmas, CTV's Roger Smith…
November 22, 2011
If this is the best they've got, it's kind of sad, really.
Looks like the link to the zip file of what was left over from the 2009 release has been removed, just a few hours after the world became aware that the FOIA gang is at it again. But most of what found its way onto the web so far, tiny…
November 22, 2011
In its latest Greenhouse Gas report, the World Meteorological Organization reminds us again that what really sets Homo sapiens apart from the other animals is an unparalleled talent for procrastination. Brad Johnson of Think Progress summarizes:
... since the global convention in Rio de Janeiro in…
November 17, 2011
"Major storms could submerge New York City in next decade" cries a randomly selected mainstream media outlet over a story about a new report warning residents that climate change could make life difficult in the not-too-distant future. The report, from the New York State Energy Research and…
November 14, 2011
This video was just shown to Congressional briefing in Washington, D.C. It is the end result of the BEST review of global temperature records.
November 14, 2011
Kevin Trenberth's latest paper, which appears in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, is uncharacteristically and refreshingly blunt right from the first few words of the introduction:
Humans are changing our climate. There is no doubt whatsoever. There are arguments about how much…
November 11, 2011
Barry Bickmore's 40-minute explanation of why he stopped denying climate science is worth the time. As a a geochemistry professor, it should come as no surprise that he eventually came around, only that it took as long. But better late than never. He teaches at Brigham Young University in Utah, is…
November 10, 2011
David Roberts is, as usual, bang on in his latest Grist column, lamenting the pointlessness of the debate between those who insist we need more research and development before tackling climate change, and those who say we shouldn't wait. (Roberts is among the best commenters around when it comes to…
November 9, 2011
... you must first invent the universe. -- Carl Sagan, born this day in 1934 and the primary inspiration for this blog.
November 8, 2011
Australia's Senate has approved a controversial law on pollution, after years of bitter political wrangling. The Clean Energy Act will force the country's 500 worst-polluting companies to pay a tax on their carbon emissions from 1 July next year.
-- BBC
November 4, 2011
Among the very best of the science-oriented blogs I try to read regularly is Tom Levenson's Inverse Square Blog. Tom, who teaches science journalism at MIT, isn't a climatologist, but whenever he writes about climate science or politics, it's usually worth a look.
Apparently, the folks at…
October 27, 2011
Don't get me wrong. I love NPR. I listen to it for at least four hours a day. But lately I've found the network's embrace of "he said, she said" journalism a little too difficult to swallow. This morning's report on censorship of a scientific report commissioned by the Texas Commission on…
October 26, 2011
Everyone talks about global warming, but it's not easy to get one's mind around just how much heat we're talking about. Even more difficult is putting that heat energy in terms that the average layperson can grasp. Fortunately, some scientists are making an effort to do just that.
In a recent paper…
October 25, 2011
My review of Shawn Otto's new book, Fool Me Twice
Fighting the Assault on Science in America, is up over at the relatively new sustainability-oriented blog/resource site, Planet 3.0. Here's how I start:
Shawn Otto is a big name in the campaign to restore science to its rightful place as a major…
October 20, 2011
There's this notion among the climate denial community that somehow the entire professional climatology community has overlooked an obvious flaw in the science behind anthropogenic global warming. Their hypothesis is that too many of the thermometers used to record temperatures over the last 200…
October 11, 2011
How old do you have to be before it's acceptable for your high-school teacher to expose you to propaganda?
Last week I had the honor of taking part in a video chat with a class of eighth graders at a private school in Atlanta. I got involved through a personal connection and then took a strong…
October 7, 2011
It's hard to argue against funding scientific research. But let me try.
This past week 18 experts assembled as the Task Force on Climate Remediation Research released the product of its collective wisdom. A creation of the Bipartisan Policy Center, which the New York Times' Cornelia Dean describes…
October 5, 2011
The good folks at the National Snow and Ice Data Center summarize the season in the Arctic Ocean. Turns out that the weather conditions that helped make 2007 a record for low sea-ice extent didn't recur. And yet, 2011 came within a relative hair's breadth of setting a new record. That means longer-…
October 4, 2011
Climatologist Michael Mann is fed up. Actually, he's been fed up a long time, given that he's been the subject of mean-spirited investigations and slander for years now. We probably need more of this kind of rebuttal:
These are just lies, regurgitation of dishonest smears that have been…
October 3, 2011
Kate at Climate Sight remind us this week of just how challenging it can be for a mainstream media outlet to accurately report on climatology. Even when the reporter gets it right, a headline-writing editor can inject just enough obsfucation to leave readers puzzled or misinformed.
This particular…