global warming
nisbetmc | March 5, 2009I'm blogging from Chicago's O'Hare airport, on my way to Portland to participate in a unique summit bringing together philosophers, scientists, social scientists, poets, filmmakers, and artists to consider new strategies for shifting the popular zeitgeist on sustainability and climate change. The workshop is sponsored by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State. I hope to have more to report later, but for now, participants are asked to consider the following questions.
For readers, how would you answer these questions?
MAIN QUESTION: Let's jump ahead to 2020 and imagine that, in just a…
nisbetmc | March 5, 2009At ClimateWire, one of the new innovative models for science journalism, Christa Marshall has a great feature on how language will shape the pending political battle over cap and trade legislation.
The syndicated story is picked up by NY Times.com and features insights from George Lakoff, Stanford's Jon Krosnick, various pollsters, and yours truly. Here's what I have to offer, emphasizing similar themes that I have written about at Framing Science and in various articles:
According to Matthew Nisbet, an assistant professor of communication at American University, the slew of phrases poses…
cmooney | March 4, 2009Mike Dunford has the details, based on Congressional Quarterly's reporting. There are apparently multiple senators blocking two of Obama's key science appointees from taking their posts. This is outrageous--a totally new kind of "war on science"--and we need a full court press. Details here.
cmooney | March 3, 2009We can if we're Fox News. Or Matt Drudge.
These people use any snowstorm as reason to cast doubt on global warming. It's as predictable as...well, no, it's a lot more predictable than the weather.
I really regret that important global warming protests and actions always seem to be timed so that they coincide with winter weather. Mostly, the activists can't help it; it's just rotten luck. But I'll say it again: Having the U.N. Copenhagen meeting in Denmark in December is just asking for this kind of stuff.
That doesn't, of course, excuse the dishonesty from right-wingers who continually try to…
cmooney | March 3, 2009The Washington Post (the news part) reports that the man who is now one of my senators, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, has placed a hold on the nominations of John Holdren and Jane Lubchencho, and won't allow them to be voted on. Reportedly, "Menendez is using the holds as leverage to get Senate leaders' attention for a matter related to Cuba rather than questioning the nominees' credentials."
What a complete outrage. These nominees need to work on climate change, science advising, and much else; they have no role in Cuba policy. Obama named them back in December--they should be in their…
cmooney | March 2, 2009At a time when there is big controversy going on concerning George Will's February 15 column, why on earth did this scientific institute--centrally involved in the issue--not leave their refutation of Will concerning sea ice up on their website?
You can see it in the Google cache here. But it is not available live, and I can't find it on the website.
True, the refutation has been quoted a ton, and so it has entered the public record. But why isn't the Arctic Climate Research Center proud to be taking a stand for the knowledge it produces? Do the people there just want to keep their heads down…
cmooney | March 2, 2009I just sent Fred Hiatt a roughly 900 word oped, with references, that I believe soundly refutes George Will's three central climate science claims from his February 15 column. I also make a larger, more resonant point. I hope the Post will publish the column--but you folks will see it in some form no matter what, this I promise. Stand by, and thanks for your support.
nisbetmc | March 2, 2009
Over the past decade, best-selling books such as Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point have told compelling stories of how marketers and political consultants use "influentials," "mavens," "connectors," and "navigators" to sell products and win elections. In similar fashion, following the 2008 election, news articles proclaimed Barack Obama the first "online networking president" and speculated as to how Obama might be able to translate his millions of online campaign activists into a powerful governing force.
On climate change, with the 2006 release of An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore…
denialism | March 1, 2009Is he being purposefully obtuse? Once again the ombudsman decides to defend George Will, but only on a single point.
A key paragraph, aimed at those who believe in man-made global warming, asserted: "According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979."
Bizarrely, he acknowledges Will was wrong:
It said that while global sea ice areas are "near or slightly lower than those observed in late 1979," sea ice area in the Northern Hemisphere is "almost one million sq. km below" the levels of late 1979. That's roughly the size…
tlambert | February 28, 2009In Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander's column on George Will he notes that he received thousands of emails demanding corrections to Will's column, and eventually concedes that Will's sea ice claim was false and should have caught by the fact checkers,
The editors who checked the Arctic Research Climate Center Web site believe it did not, on balance, run counter to Will's assertion that global sea ice levels "now equal those of 1979." I reviewed the same Web citation and reached a different conclusion.
It said that while global sea ice areas are "near or slightly lower than those…
illconsidered | February 27, 2009Things Break does a thorough take-down of George Will's continued dishonesty in the Washington Post. For the background, if somehow you have missed this kerfuffle, check his earlier post.
The story in a nutshell is not remarkable: mainstream columnist prints op-ed full of outright falsehoods, complaints are rejected, paper stands by its right to fill the information age with disinformation. ie Facts don't matter.
The only remarkable thing really is the attention it is receiving and who knows, perhaps there will be some real consequences... like maybe people will remember this for a change.…
cmooney | February 27, 2009In the wake of the latest developments in the George Will scandal, I sent him this:
Dear Mr. Hiatt,
[Introductory Comments]...I believe what I've called the "Republican War on Science" continues, and the George Will saga represents a stunning example. In my opinion, the Post editorial/oped
page makes a terrible mistake by not correcting his manifest errors; but leave that aside--you've said people should instead "debate him." Would you publish an oped by me exposing Will's egregious errors, misrepresentations, and distortions of the science of global warming,
and thus further debate?
What do…
tlambert | February 27, 2009Carl Zimmer tells the whole story of how the Washington Post declared that George Will was entitled to his own facts. The latest development since my previous post is that instead of a correction, Will has produced a new column with more misrepresentations of the science. Joe Romm has already critiqued it, but I want to pick out one particular egregious bit of dishonesty.
Will writes
Citing data from the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, as interpreted on Jan. 1 by Daily Tech, a technology and science news blog, the column said that since September "the increase in sea…
cmooney | February 27, 2009George Will wrote another deceptive global warming column. It's full of utter nonsense, retracts nothing, and pathetically tries to defend his previous errors:
The column contained many factual assertions but only one has been challenged. The challenge is mistaken.
This I can only call a lie. A blatant one.
Many of the column's incorrect factual assertions were challenged, and as Will is revisiting the column due to the response it has garnered, it's inconceivable that he doesn't know that. For God's sake, Will claimed that "according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, there has…
cmooney | February 26, 2009It pains me to blog this. I think Andrew Revkin is one of our best science journalists, and I don't criticize him easily.
That might also explain why my taking a stand here is a bit tardy.
Nevertheless, I, like many others, think Revkin really blew it with this article, which begins with the following sentence--"In the effort to shape the public's views on global climate change, hyperbole is an ever-present temptation on all sides of the debate"--and then proceeds to draw a false equivalence between a minor, arguable slip-up by Al Gore and George Will's blatant, unrepentant strewing of…
illconsidered | February 26, 2009Today's DemocracyNow! has a segment with Chris Field, a leading member of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other guest discussing worsening outlooks of future warming and increased lobbying efforts from the fossil fuel industry.
We speak to Chris Field, a leading member of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, about his warning that the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is rising more rapidly than expected in recent years. Field says the current trajectory of climate change is now much worse than the IPCC had…
cmooney | February 26, 2009This is big stuff--and thank goodness the Washington Post still handles global warming well in the news pages, if not on the editorial/op-ed page.
The Obama administration has made an ingenious move: Its soon to be revealed budget relies, for revenue, upon the idea that Congress will pass cap and trade legislation, and this will be bringing big money into the government by 2012. Moreover, the budget commits that money to achieving core administration policy objectives. Or as the Post puts it: "Sources familiar with the document said it would direct $15 billion of that revenue to clean-energy…
illconsidered | February 25, 2009Contrary to the popular talking point, climate models do take into account H2O as a greenhouse gas. In fact, it is the largest single feedback factor in the climate system. And also contrary to another popular talking point, models are being validated in many ways.
Go have a read at Gristmill for a post by Andrew Dessler on a recent paper he co-authored[PDF] that seeks to assess the state of current climate science literature on the topic of water vapor feedback in models and the climate system. He describes papers raw material as a "mountain of evidence" supporting a strongly positive…
cmooney | February 25, 2009Obama really laid it down last night, no? He clearly said that even with the economy crushed, he wants a cap and trade bill to cut greenhouse gases this year. I know it's a campaign promise and all, but I seriously wouldn't have been surprised to see some de-emphasizing of this priority in light of the current financial situation.
I've done a major article about the prospects for a cap and trade bill that's coming out soon, and don't want to tip my hand yet, but suffice it to say--this is going to be a hell of a battle. A lot of senators are going to be very worried about the economy, and…
cmooney | February 24, 2009I kinda suspected--but didn't bother to prove--that George Will was recycling parts of his anti-global warming balderdashery, particularly his strained paragraph about global cooling in the 1970s, replete with misleading references.
Well, Brad Johnson has done the work: It appears Will has a rotating (and very limited) set of global warming talking points that date back to 1992. Once in a while, he simply rejiggers the column. Wow.
The George Will scandal grows larger now. Not only is he not constrained by, or answerable to, facts; but for a national columnist, such recycling is pretty…