climate change
hrynyshyn | March 3, 2011Four years after Al Gore unleashed his army of slide show presenters on the planet in an attempt to spread the word that climate is something we should be worried about, the polls show public opinion has budged hardly at all. If anything, opposition to climate-change mitigation strategies has only hardened. Why?
Some, like Chris Mooney, have turned their attention to the idea that there's a link between political ideology and psychology. There could be something to that, although it's unclear what's the cause and what's the effect. But University of British Columbia geographer Simon Donner…
hrynyshyn | March 2, 2011One of the things that keeps me from throwing in the blogging towel in an era when climate change denial seems to be a prerequisite for membership in the party of Abraham Lincoln is the quality of the comments I get. The praise is nice, the thoughtful exploration of the ideas I introduce is better, but what I really enjoy are the snarky swipes at my character by those who can't come up with anything more cogent to post than a dismissive reference to Star Trek. See here for a typical example,
The first thing that occurred to me when such comments began to appear -- almost immediately after I…
illconsidered | February 28, 2011 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Instability News Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck YearsFebruary 27, 2011 Chuckles, COP17+, G20, Vulnerability, Cablegate, Sock Puppets, Pakistan Subsidies, E&E Threat, Cook, Post CRU Melting Arctic, Methane Feedback, Geopolitics Food Crisis, Agro Corps, Food Prices, Food Riots, Food vs. Biofuel, IP Issues, GMOs, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs,…
sastyk | February 28, 2011I had been mulling over precisely how to frame this piece for a while, when I read Erik Lindberg's "This Is a Peak Oil Story." which admirably gets at the essential point that I've been wanting to make - that our collective crisis comes to all of us at different times and different ways than we imagined, and that exemptions are only rarely granted. Lindberg writes eloquently of his own experience of trying to undertake change - and failing in large part because of the precise circumstances he is trying to address:
I had imagined the rooftop farm thriving far into the future. Here, my…
illconsidered | February 26, 2011Thingsbreak has a great overview of recent research on ice loss in the Antarctic (east and west) and Greenland.
For anyone who has had enough of the freedom vs responsibility of the press discussion (mandas?), perhaps there are some interesting bits in Thingsbreak's post to mull over.
I have posted on sea ice dynamics before (here), the two topics are not unrelated as stable ice shelves act as resistors to out flowing glaciers. Lost sea ice leads to faster glacial outflow which leads to thining ice sheets.
[Update: I have just observed out my window that it is snowing, I imagine this can…
hrynyshyn | February 23, 2011Ray Kurzweil might be right. It could very well be that Moore's law can be applied to all forms of technology, and within a couple of decades clean, renewable forms of power production will be so cheap they will have replaced all fossil fuels. Hey, it could happen. Maybe even it's not just possible, but probable. Kurweil calls it the law of accelerating returns:
Today, solar is still more expensive than fossil fuels, and in most situations it still needs subsidies or special circumstances, but the costs are coming down rapidly -- we are only a few years away from parity. And then it's going…
hrynyshyn | February 21, 2011We all know we need to get off fossil fuels and replace them with carbon-neutral alternatives. The question is not IF we should choose this path, but how best to get where we need to go. There are those who, fairly enough, worry that those clean renewables aren't up to the job. This is a critical question, because if renewables can't fill the void, then we are left with no option but to build more nuclear reactors, with all the myriad problems that accompany them, most notably price, which is forever rising. So much money is at stake that we need to sort out this question, soon.
It all boils…
illconsidered | February 21, 2011 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Instability News Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is notWisdomFebruary 20, 2011 Chuckles, COP17+, G20, Min & Pall, Schaefer, Epstein, Dirty Trick, Sri Lanka & Pakistan Bottom Line, Subsidies, Cook, Cablegate Melting Arctic, Megafauna, Methane, Geopolitics Food Crisis, Food Prices, Food Riot?, Food vs. Biofuel, GMOs, Food Production Hurricanes…
hrynyshyn | February 17, 2011Media outlets both main and sidestream are abuzz (atwitter?) with the story that scientists are finally daring to link specific weather events with anthropogenic climate change. A pair of papers in Nature are to blame. One, Human contribution to more-intense precipitation extremes, concludes that the titular events "have contributed to the observed intensification of heavy precipitation events found over approximately two-thirds of data-covered parts of Northern Hemisphere land areas." The other manages to summarize the whole thing in its tile: "Anthropogenic greenhouse gas contribution to…
hrynyshyn | February 16, 2011As a father of a four-year-old, I'm a big fan of Bob the Builder. The basic plot of each episode of the charming stop-motion children's series revolves around one or more pieces of heavy machinery learning self-discipline, which, as a new PNAS study shows, is a key skill associated with success and happiness later in life. I also like the optimism embedded in the catch-phrase that Bob's machine team invariably declares: "Can we build it? Yes we can!"
If only that can-do spirit were as evident in the public debate over how to respond to the threat of climate change. Recently a spate of reports…
illconsidered | February 14, 2011 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News Information Overloadis Pattern RecognitionFebruary 13, 2011 Note Chuckles, COP17+, WikiLeaks, Sri Lanka, Pakistan Bottom Line, Subsidies, World Bank, Thermodynamics, Cook Melting Arctic, Megafauna, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Agro-corps, Food Prices, Food Riots?, Food vs. Biofuel, Land Grabs, GMOs, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs,…
illconsidered | February 11, 2011The Egyptian dictator, Hosni Mubarak, has resigned, finally relenting to weeks of massive protests. Is he the latest casualty of climate change?
This is a provacative question, but I believe one worth discussing. Obviously, there are always many factors in a people's uprising, the precise balance of which will always be subjective and varied from protestor to protestor. But that doesn't mean said factors can not be isolated and examined each on their own.
Like any extreme hot weather event, it is not possible to attribute this directly to a change in global climate, but like said weather…
illconsidered | February 7, 2011 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News Sipping from the Internet Firehose...February 6, 2011 Chuckles, COP17+, IYF, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Oysters Bottom Line, Subsidies, EHM, Thermodynamics, Cook Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Fish, Misreporting, Prices, Riots?, Land Grabs, GMOs, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures,…
illconsidered | February 1, 2011By far my favorite climate crank is the Non-Lord Cristopher Monckton. He is prolific and pseudo-scientific and the darling of the denialosphere, but he is also a certifiable crackpot and a very colourful loon. He is great material to make fun of and I highly endorse his self-promotion as the spokesman-in-chief for the climate sceptic community.
Unfortunately, after the laughing stops, his nonsense continues to resonate in the anti-science echo-chambers. The arguments, gibberish dressed up in sciencey language and mathematical equations, need to be undressed and shown for what they are.…
illconsidered | January 31, 2011 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck YearsJanuary 30, 2011 Chuckles, COP17, G20, Cablegate, WSF-WEF, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Australia, Pakistan Bottom Line, Subsidies, Thermodynamics, UEF, Cook, Post CRU Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Agro Corps, Food Prices, Foresight, Food vs. Biofuel, IP Issues, GMOs, Food…
hrynyshyn | January 28, 2011Fast Friday feature (from Utah!):
Climate Science in a Nutshell #9: How Bad Could it Get? from Planet Nutshell on Vimeo.
My only comment is to draw your attention to the video's assumption that the 350 ppm CO2 target is widely accepted as the maximum necessary to avert catastrophic change. It's certainly spreading, but I suspect there are still many who would argue that the science behind it is less than conclusive, as opposed to 450, say.
sastyk | January 25, 2011A number of readers asked me to comment on the recent Argentine report that predicts disaster for world food supplies based on Climate Change in the near term. I hadn't done so because I was honestly puzzled by the report, which got a lot of attention, and raised awareness of climate food issues, but seemed to be predicting a much greater degree of near-term warning than is likely, barring extreme climate forcings. I was a little surprised to see such a comparatively obscure report get so much attention, when in fact, more reputable analyses have been largely ignored.
I'm grateful then that…
illconsidered | January 25, 2011 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Instability News Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is notWisdomJanuary 23, 2011 Chuckles, COP16, WFES, Why?, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Australia Bottom Line, UEF, Thermodynamics, Cook, Post CRU, Late Comments Melting Arctic, Megafauna, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Agro-chem Corps, Food Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs,…
hrynyshyn | January 24, 2011Last week it was the abuse of a 140-character context-free nano-report on an hour-long discussion on the challenges of communicating science. This week it's the credulous coverage of a 50-page report on climate change. Seems that no matter the length of the material at hand, there are plenty of people eager to jump to conclusions without having the decency to stop and think first.
At least there was no slander this time. But damage has been done to the credibility of climatology, thanks to that old adage, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Now claims of unwarranted alarms have that much…
illconsidered | January 20, 2011 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News Information Overload is Pattern RecognitionJanuary 16, 2011 Chuckles, Cancun, Gillett, Winter, Australia, Brazil, Sri Lanka Bottom Line, Ratcliffe - Kennedy, Earth Networks, Open Everything, Cook, Post CRU, Birds Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics Food Crisis, Food prices, Food vs. Biofuel, GMOs, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs,…