The Canadian Province of Alberta has been likened to the American State of Texas. Energy and cattle, energy barons and cowboys. But with mountains. Yesterday a relatively liberal party, the New Democratic Party (NDP), won a surprise victory in the provincial election, ousting the 44 year long reign of the Progressive Conservatives. From an American point of view, this is all very confusing because the Canadian political system is very different. Alberta has a Premier, and the premier will step down because of this election. The NDP formerly never held very many seats in the legislature,…

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I'm auditing the EdEx course "Denial101x: Making Sense of Climate Science Denial." This is Week 2: Global Warming ins Happening. The course is covering indicators of warming, what is happening in the Cryosphere, and related matters. Here is an example lecture segment: A central theme of this week is the relationship between climate and weather, and how this relationship becomes fodder for the development of myths in service of denial about climate change. The climate is a cherry orchard. Weather is the cherries. Don't pick the cherries! There are many dimensions the climate system that…

I recently noted that there are reasons to think that the effects of human caused climate change are coming on faster than previously expected. Since I wrote that (in late January) even more evidence has come along, so I thought it was time for an update. First a bit of perspective. Scientists have known for a very long time that the proportion of greenhouse gasses in the Earth’s atmosphere controls (along with other factors) overall surface and upper ocean heat balance. In particular, is has been understood that the release of fossil Carbon (in coal and petroleum) as CO2 would likely warm…

Michael Halpern, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and climate scientist Michael Mann have written an editorial for Science, "Transparency and harassment." Open records laws hold Universities and other public institutions accountable, protecting against biasing influences such as we might see from funding sources. (See: Cry for me Willie Soon). Over the last couple of decades, interpersonal conversations among researchers have shifted from the milieu of vibrating air molecules in a room (or transformed into electrical signals and transferred over a phone) to electronic form. Today, a…

Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming by Michael Mann and Lee Kump is everyperson’s guide to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The IPCC issues a periodic set of reports on the state of global climate change, and has been doing so for almost two decades. It is a massive undertaking and few have the time or training to read though and absorb it, yet it is very important that every citizen understands the reports’ implications. Why? Because human caused climate change has emerged as the number one existential issue of the day, and individuals,…

You all heard that gangs in Baltimore had banded together to go after cops. But if you did hear that, you heard wrong. Gangs are universally vilified, and the term "gang" is also used by law enforcement and their other as a euphemism. (For people it is OK to shoot, apparently.) The reality of gangs is far more complex than usually understood. Anyway, I thought you might like to see this: Originally posted by WBALTV 11: Members of the Black Guerrilla Family, the Bloods and the Crips talk to 11 News, saying they did not make a truce to harm police officers.

I recently posted an overview of a new climate study, Comparing the model-simulated global warming signal to observations using empirical estimates of unforced noise, by Patrick T. Brown, Wenhong Li, Eugene C. Cordero & Steven A. Mauget. That study is potentially important because of what it says about how to interpret the available data on global warming caused by human generated greenhouse gas pollution. Also, the since publication the study has been rather abused by climate contrarians who chose to interpret it very inaccurately. This is addressed in this item by Media Matters. My…

A group of scientists attending a major conference get together in a bar. They talk, but they agree on nothing because they are critical academics. The server comes along to take the beer order and says, "I noticed you all are constantly arguing. What are you arguing about?" "Sensitivity," one of them says. "It is the number of degrees C the Earth's surface will warm with a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. Is it 2, 3, 4? ... We cant settle on a number" The server considers their plight for a moment. Suddenly, she rips several sheets out of her order book and hands one to each of the…

I have a few partly formed, preliminary thoughts about some people's reaction to Baltimore (originally posted on my friend Miles Kurland's page as a comment, then on my facebook page, edited.) What I'm mainly reacting to is the constant drone of people saying that rioting and anti-state violence in Baltimore is fully 100% wrong and will have 0% positive effect. That may or may not be true, but I have the impression that most of these reactions (mainly seen by me on Twitter, which does tend to lack nuance and detail) are of the knee-jerk sort and not well thought out. More importantly,…

From "Reactions" (from the American Chemical Society).. Without chemicals, super heroes would be impossible! See Also: The Physics of Superheroes–Jim Kaklios

That is a good question, and difficult to answer. If it turns out to be, it will be the warmest calendar year in the instrumental record, which goes back into the 19th century. Regardless of what El Nino (ENSO) does, 2015 will be a warm year. Why? Because everything is warm and getting warmer and even if 2015 is less warm than 2014, it will be warm. There is no other possibility. Even without the effects of El Nino, though, it is possible that 2015 will be warmer than 2014 because we see a lot of heat out there. If the present, relatively weak El Nino continues for a while, it will likely…

Just so you know. This is not something where you watch the first minute and get it and go "oh that's funny" or not and them move on. The plot is complex you must watch it until the very very end or don't bother. Just sayin' this because people seem to not do that a lot. Not a good way to go through life. Anyway, watch this. Be prepared to ROFLYAO.

Remember the last Olympics, during the parade, where instead of seeing the athletes march along grouped by country, we saw unidentifiable people who were all either taking selfies or grabbing videos of everything going on around them, but we couldn't tell who they were because their cell phones were totally covering their faces? These days every time a thing happens and we see a pic or video of it, it seems, everybody else has got a cell phone in their face. I suppose that is how we manage to have pics or videos of everything that ever happens. The above image is part of the plaque attached…

It is like finding a leak in your roof. I remember once up at the cabin, noticing that my waders were full of water and pointing this out to my wife. "You're supposed to hang the waders upside down. Keeps dead mice from falling in there." Well, I thought, if any mice fell in these waders and weren't dead, they'd drown for sure. Anyway, I traced the leak to a part of the ceiling in the closet. Eventually I was able to find the place in the attic where the water was probably going down into the closet, but by this time the torrential rain storms that had preceded the discovery of Lake…

This is Part I of a two part treatment of new research on climate change. Part II is here. There is a new paper out, Comparing the model-simulated global warming signal to observations using empirical estimates of unforced noise, by Patrick T. Brown,Wenhong Li, Eugene C. Cordero & Steven A. Mauget. It is potentially important for two reasons. One is because of what it says about how to interpret the available data on global warming caused by human generated greenhouse gas pollution. The other is because of the way in which the results are being interpreted, willfully or through…

I once knew a young woman who was in high school and shall remain nameless. One day I picked her up at school to drive her home, and asked how she was doing. "Depressed, actually," she said. "Why, did something go wrong at school?" "Kinda," she replied. "The social studies teacher was out today." "That's terrible, he must be a great teacher and stuff." "No, he's average. But whenever they can't find a substitute the always show the same movie, and we watched it again today." "That's depressing, watching the same movie over and over." "No it's not if it is a good move. The movie itself is…

I've written here about some of Bjorn Lomborg's work, generally critical of it. But the Abbot Government in Australia apparently likes what Lomborg is doing well enough to have earmarked $4 million (in some currency or another) to ensconce a version of his academically questionable enterprise right in the middle of Australian academics. I would like to write this up for you so you can learn all you need to learn about it, but Graham Readfearn has already done an excellent job reporting this. I strongly urge you to go and read: Australian taxpayers funding climate contrarian's methods with $4m…

Calbuco is a volcano in southern Chile. This one erupts fairly frequently averaging about every 20 years, sometimes quite impresively. The largest eruption during historic times in Chile occurred at Calbuco in 1894. It is erupting now. Evacuations have been ordered. Here is some amazing footage:

John Cook, of the University of Queensland, and his colleagues, have created a MOOC ... Massive Open Online Course ... called "Making Sense of Climate Science Denial." Why does this matter? How does it work? What can you do? All of these questions are answered here: University offering free online course to demolish climate denial. Fight sticky myths with even sticker sticklier facts. Do go check it out. See you in class! ___________________ Check out: The First Earth Day, an epoch journey into politics, explosions, folk music, and old boats floating on stinking rivers.…