global warming

So: Whenever I have a new book out--or an old one out in paperback--I tend to do a lot of radio shows. And as a result, I've noticed a particular phenomenon that has started to get on my nerves a bit: Some hosts like to throw open the telephone lines, and whenever they do, you suddenly get a huge flood of callers who doubt human induced global warming and spout wild contrarian claims like the following (all of which I heard on the Jim Bohannon Show last night): 1. It's warming on other planets too, so isn't it something about the sun? 2. Sea level has been rising for 6,000/8,000 years. 3. Mt…
As part of its Climate Change Connections series, NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce contributes a fascinating feature on how the extreme weather of 1816 likely inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. That year, the volcano Mount Tambora erupted in Indonesia sending vast amounts of dust into the atmosphere, influencing climate across the globe. In Europe, it was called "The Year Without a Summer," or "eighteen hundred and froze to death." Technorati Profile
tags: global warming, climate change, streaming video According to this streaming video, global warming is apparently not a new phenomenon: It was predicted in the early 1950s [1:18].
In comments to my post on a review of Guy Pearse's High and Dry, JC pointed to a dispute between Andrew Norton and Pearse on whether the CIS had promoted denial and delay on greenhouse gasses. Pearse makes his case here (scroll to 25 July 2007), while Norton responds here. Now I think it is a bit much for Pearse to tag the CIS with Jennifer Marohasy's opinions on global warming when all they did was publish her article on another topic. But it is also a bit much for Norton to argue that the opinions of Roger Bate have nothing to do with the CIS when the CIS list him as one of their…
August 9, 2007, will go down in history as a great day for global warming denialism. On Wednesday, the 8th, well-known global warming denialist Steve McIntyre published a post on his blog about NASA finding a flaw in some of its temperature data that led to a minor reordering of the list of the hottest years on record. Not surprisingly, the conservative media and blogs went hog wild the next day. The mainstream media even got a bit carried away... despite the fact that we're talking about changes of hundredths of degrees here and that these numbers are only for North America (and don't…
Guy Pearse's book, High and Dry has been reviewed by Tim Flannery: The Prime Minister and several of his key ministers, Pearse asserts, have been captured by a group of industries and their lobbyists, known as the greenhouse mafia. They have infiltrated deep into the bureaucracy and they continue to make sure the Prime Minister and his ministers hear nothing by way of advice but what they want them to hear. There is consequently, Pearse says, no debate whatsoever in cabinet on climate change. The Prime Minister simply elucidates his policy and the party follows. Pearse describes the think…
Remember Dennis Bray's useless survey of climate scientists? The URL and password were posted to the climatesceptics mail list, so the results were biased and included responses from people who were not climate scientists. Bray refused to concede that this meant that the survey was hopelessly flawed. Now in a post on Nature's Climate Feedback blog: von Storch and Bray say that the survey has now been published. I was somewhat surprised by this. What journal would publish something so obviously flawed? But it seems to be just published as a GKSS technical report. Not that that will stop…
Matthew Warren claims in the Australian: The head of the world's leading climate change organisation has backed the Howard Government's decision to defer setting a long-term target for reducing greenhouse emissions until the full facts are known. Despite widespread criticism of the Government's decision last month to defer its decision on cutting emissions until next year, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said yesterday he agreed with the approach. ... The Coalition and Labor have committed to the introduction of emissions trading from about 2011, based on a long-…
So where have we gone wrong? Allow me to return to a theme that I think is central. We all have different realities shaped by our individual experiences and perspectives. I have been inundated with science so when I hear global warming, I envision the carbon cycle, statistical analysis, oceanic and atmospheric chemistry, and climactic shifts at rates frighteningly distinct from anything we have record of...not to mention the decreasing pH in oceans that scares the bejebus out of me. Now that even the Vatican and the Bush Administration have finally acknowledged we need to do something, I…
One of my very best friends doesn't believe in global warming. Wait, what?! Believe? When did this become a faith based debate? I'm getting ahead of myself though, allow me to rewind a bit... I'm back in Maine. Land of blueberries, lobster, moose, and yes, the majestic sea cucumber. Though I'll always be 'from away', the people and experiences of my graduate years have provided the foundation that makes traveling north feel like coming home. It's been a wonderful opportunity to catch up with old friends eager to hear stories of what I've seen and done and so on. After listening to my…
I've seen all kinda attacks on the theory of human-induced global warming. But it wasn't until I did my first storm tracking post over at The Daily Green that one commenter referred me to this paper, purporting to argue that the greenhouse effect itself--which has been well established in science for over 100 years--is fictitious and in fact contradicts thermodynamics: The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1861, and Arrhenius 1896, and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a…
Newsweek has a good story on the global warming denial industry: Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be…
The Sydney Morning Herald reports: Rises in sea levels caused by climate change are likely to be bigger than predicted and more dangerous, but scientists are reluctant to "stick their necks out" on the issue for fear of being labelled alarmist, a leading international expert is warning. Stefan Rahmstorf, a lead scientific author of the recent United Nations report on climate change, has just published a new way of projecting sea-level rises caused by global warming. His method suggests much higher rises than those published by the UN panel this year, adding to concerns that the panel was too…
The AP reports that organizers of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Austria next month are offering the faithful a foretaste: daily cell phone text messages with quotes from the pontiff. The Archdiocese of Vienna said the service, which began Sunday and will continue through the pope's Sept. 7-9 visit, will provide free excerpts of his sermons, blessings and writings. Currently on holiday, the Pope also framed an appeal on the environment in religious terms: We cannot simply do what we want with this Earth of ours, with what has been entrusted to us...We must respect the interior laws of creation…
Once again, Michigan congressman John Dingell has decided to side with Detroit automakers who continue to resist entering the 21st century. The House has scrapped legislation that would raise fuel efficiency standards...to those less than Europe and Japan: Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, decided not to allow a vote on an amendment requiring cars and light trucks sold in the United States to achieve a fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2019. The measure, similar to one the Senate passed in June, drew fierce opposition from automakers and dealers, the United Automobile…
Tamino has the scoop on the latest attempt to revive the old UHIs-mean-it's-not-getting-warmer argument. Eli Rabett has more.
In journalism, professional norms favor telling gripping stories about individuals and places. Applied to the debate over global warming, many journalists believe that if they can recast the complex issue in terms of familiar characters and local places, they can activate greater public concern and understanding. Yet it remains important that these individual stories are embedded within more thematic presentations that focus on broader climate trends and impacts. It's also important that individual stories about citizens who are taking action also provide context for how even greater…
Gore's Live Earth concert series was supposed to catalyze American public attention around the problem of global warming, but did it? Polling data is not yet available regarding the concert's impact on American audiences, but we do have data relative to the concert's influence on the U.S. news agenda. According to Pew's Media Index, during the week of the event, the Live Earth concert failed to generate much actual mainstream news attention, but it did make the agenda at the "talk media," which Pew defines as including seven prime time cable shows and five radio talk hosts. As Pew reports…
It isn't always the message, sometimes it's the medium. Or the media actually. Framing only goes so far. Often, getting your message out there comes down to schmoozing, intimidation, and hard work. This applies to politics and science. The Daily Howler rebuts neuroscientist Drew Westen's take on the Bush-Gore debates of 2000 in Westen's book, The Political Brain (italics mine): For example, he explains what he thinks Gore should have said at several points in the Bush-Gore debates. We've spent a lot of time on the incidents he discusses; we think his examples are highly salient. But we…
John Quiggin details how the ABC made lemonade from the lemon that is the Great Global Warming Swindle. You can see the video of Tony Jones' questioning of Martin Durkin here, or read the transcript here. Durkin was unable to offer any defence of his misrepresentation of the science. David Jones, Andrew Watkins, Karl Braganza and Michael Coughlan have a paper in the Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society on the Swindle: In summary the documentary is not scientifically sound and presents a flawed and very misleading interpretation of the science. While giving the…