hrynyshyn | October 30, 2012Did Climate Change Supersize Hurricane Sandy? asks Chris Mooney in Mother Jones.
Look. We know there's more moisture in the atmosphere because when you warm a gas it holds more vapor. So that means there's more precipitation when a storm blows in. And we know the sea level is rising because when you heat water, it expands. More importantly, melting ice from Greenland is pouring incredible volumes of water into the northern Atlantic. This is all elementary physics. So for anyone to argue that Sandy isn't at least in part a product of climate change is just plain silly.
hrynyshyn | March 28, 2012Now on CNN:
Imagine you are sitting in your office simply doing your job and a nasty e-mail pops into your inbox accusing you of being a fraud. You go online and find that some bloggers have written virulent posts about you. That night, you're at home with your family watching the news and a talking head is lambasting you by name. Later, a powerful politician demands all your e-mails from your former employer.
It sounds surreal. But it all happened to ...
Michael Mann.
hrynyshyn | March 8, 2012Michael Mann, co-author of the "hockey stick" visualization of the last millennium of global warming, has written a book about the trials of sticking to the science in an era when half the country is hostile to reality. Here's the 10-minute synopsis, in the form of an interview:
hrynyshyn | February 21, 2012Another day, another distraction from the real issue at hand. Yes, a hitherto respectable member of the climate science community, MacArthur fellow, and all-round good guy has admitted appropriating someone's identity to obtain private records of a climate-denial think tank. Was this wrong? Yes, although no more so than was the ostensible betrayal of trust on the part of a long list of whistleblowers. Daniel Ellsberg comes to mind. And he is now remembered as "an icon of truth-telling."
As much as I hate to admit it, the most cogent commentary on the matter so far arrived in the form of a…
hrynyshyn | February 15, 2012Someone has leaked a treasure trove of insider documents from the Heartland Institute, which until now has been a major source of climate change obfuscation in the U.S. There's plenty of illuminating information to chew on, including detailed budgets and an IRS 990 form. Shades of "climategate" reversed?
Much is being made of one line from a strategy document, a line that could easily be the result of sloppy editing, or at perhaps a Freudian slip. Or maybe not. Here's the entire paragraph, with the offending phrase in bold:
Development of our "Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Classrooms"…
hrynyshyn | February 6, 2012For reasons that can only reflect poorly on the paper, the Wall Street Journal recently decided it was a good idea to publish an op-ed that recycled some the of the most soundly discredited notions associated with the climate change denial movement. The piece was signed by 16 ostensible "scientists," though only four have any experience with climatology, and even they work on the extreme fringes of respectable research.
The same editors refused to publish a letter from a longer list of actual climatologists, a letter that does reflect the science of the day and one that the journal Science…
hrynyshyn | February 4, 2012Two examples of why blogs are better than mainstream news coverage, when it comes to confronting reality and doing something about it, one from the climate wars, one from the front lines of women's health.
First, Andy Revkin, a former New York Times journalist who still blogs there. He calls out a coal-industry-backed attempt to silence one of the world's leading climatologists as the "Shameful Attack on Free Speech" that it is. By launching a Facebook campaign to convince Pennsylvania State University to cancel a scheduled talk by Michael Mann, the coal interests have indeed shamed…
hrynyshyn | February 4, 2012As if you needed another reason to lament the state of American politics:
Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities. (New York Times, Feb 3, 2012)
The story ends on what would be a humorous note:
"The Tea Party people say they want nonpolluted air and clean water and everything…
hrynyshyn | January 26, 2012George Monbiot usually pays more attention to the climate than weather, but his recent interest in the latter should provide many hours of merriment, and not just in the UK;
This month, I questioned the credentials of the alternative weather forecasters used by the Daily Mail, the Express, the Telegraph and the Sun. I suggested that their qualifications were inadequate, their methods inscrutable and their results unreliable. I highlighted the work of these two companies: Exacta Weather and Positive Weather Solutions (PWS).
Now the story has become more interesting: do the people from Positive…
hrynyshyn | January 24, 2012From the US Energy Information Adminstration's latest thinking:
Total U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions remain below their 2005 level through 2035: Energy-related CO2 emissions grow by 3 percent from 2010 to 2035, reaching 5,806 million metric tons in 2035. They are more than 7 percent below their 2005 level in 2020 and do not return to the 2005 level of 5,996 million metric tons by the end of the projection period. Emissions per capita fall by an average of 1 percent per year from 2005 to 2035, as growth in demand for transportation fuels is moderated by higher energy prices…
hrynyshyn | January 17, 2012From 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 science. This is an asinine idea. Climate change is real. You don't get to smart policy by agreeing to disagree on critical scientific facts pertaining to the future of human civilization. Here's the truth; aggressive emissions cuts are the true no-regrets strategy. Uncertainty in climate change…
hrynyshyn | January 6, 2012Barring 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 among the party's leadership who break with this new orthodoxy and spliced their heresies together in this video.
One can also dredge up a few brave souls who are trying to make difference at the GOP's grassroots, groups like Republicans for Environmental Responsibility. This particular collection of…
hrynyshyn | December 20, 2011Andy 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 attempt at a joke begun by Richard Branson at a public discussion hosted by California Gov. Jerry Brown. Following up on Branson's joke about offering climate deniers one-way tickets to leave the planet, Pachauri said:
.. those who are becoming obstacles in implementing what is rational should be made…
hrynyshyn | December 14, 2011Maybe 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 Economist publishes an impassioned lament. This from a magazine that for so long seemed althogether disinterested in the subject:
A HUNDRED years from now, looking back, the only question that will appear important about the historical moment in which we now live is the question of whether or not we…
hrynyshyn | December 13, 2011The 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 for further negotiations. The basic idea is the world will talk for another four years, with the ultimate goal of some kind of undefined "legal" agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions beginning in 2020. Given how far apart are the developing and developing worlds on who is responsible for…
hrynyshyn | December 9, 2011Compare 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 record, the target of two degrees Celsius is actually a prescription for long-term disaster." [Source]
and
I think that we look at two degrees as an important and serious goal which ought to guide what we do ... it ought to inform our sense of what needs to be done. It might well cause us or anybody…
hrynyshyn | December 2, 2011This 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 how out of touch the authors is, I don't know what will.
hrynyshyn | November 28, 2011I 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 characterized by "it's worse than expected" findings for pretty much its entire history.
"Climate Sensitivity Estimated From Temperature Reconstructions of the Last Glacial Maximum" appeared last week on American Thanksgiving, thus managing to avoid much in way of media coverage. Science has put it behind a…
hrynyshyn | November 28, 2011Word 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 reported Sunday evening.
Given the Canada was never on track to come anywhere close to achieving its Kyoto target of a 6% reduction in greenhouse gases relative to 1990 levels, the only consequence of the decision will be political rather than climatological. It's worth noting that it looks like the…
hrynyshyn | November 22, 2011If 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 snippets without even a clue as to the subject matter that prompted the excerpts, doesn't ever rise to the level of lame.
Of course, that won't stop the denial punks from engaging in a display of juvenile histrionics. But still, after the embarrassment of the BEST study conclusions, it is beginning to…