global warming
grrlscientist | December 14, 2006 Apparently, facts are getting in the way of BushCo. But does everything need to be cleared by the faith-based intitiatives office?
The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the latest agency subjected to controls on research that might go against official policy.
New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The…
grrlscientist | December 14, 2006"...Michael Crichton, not content with making up science to debunk global warming, is now taking literary swipes at journalists who write stuff about him that he doesn't like. In his new book, Next, he introduces a character called "Mick Crowley" -- a Washington political columnist who rapes a two-year old boy. Funnily enough, Crichton was the target of a highly critical New Republic cover story earlier this year....by Washington political writer Michael Crowley, who often goes by "Mike." Which sounds an awful lot like "Mick."
A quote from the book;
Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most…
tlambert | December 14, 2006Cynthia Burack, guest bloggging at Thus Spake Zuska reports on a Christian Right conference:
You may not be surprised to learn that, in the Right world, global warming does not exist. Nay-sayers have been making this claim since scientists first began sounding the alarm about climate change, and no amount of scientific evidence produced in the interim has had any effect on this conclusion. Some may be a little surprised, however, to learn just what it is that the Christian Right says its global warming adversaries are up to and why Americans should reject their claims. A member of Congress,…
nisbetmc | December 13, 2006
The recent retreat of Arctic sea ice is likely to accelerate so rapidly that the Arctic Ocean could become nearly devoid of ice during summertime as early as 2040, according to new research published in the December 12 issue of Geophysical Research Letters. The study, by a team of scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the University of Washington, and McGill University, analyzes the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the Arctic. Scenarios run on supercomputers show that the extent of sea ice each September could be reduced so abruptly that, within about 20…
tlambert | December 13, 2006Eli Rabett on the Oregon Petition
where we find John Humphreys in the graveyard resurrecting this unkillable climate denialist zombie. Tim Lambert, thermometer in hand tries to bludgeon the poor beast into eternal peace (and quiet). For those of you fortunate enough not to know what the hell Eli is babbling about, go, leave, get hence from this post, lest the spirit of love and kindness curdle in our season of good will and you try to stiff your loved ones (Ms. Rabett has informed Eli that any such attempt would be a health contraindication).
There's more on the whole sordid tale.
tlambert | December 11, 2006The Sunday Telegraph has published an inaccurate story about the forthcoming IPCC fourth assessment report:
In a final draft of its fourth assessment report, to be published in February, the panel reports that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has accelerated in the past five years. It also predicts that temperatures will rise by up to 4.5 C during the next 100 years, bringing more frequent heat waves and storms.
The Telegraph report is obviously wrong. The IPCC report just summarizes the scientific literature. There has not been any paper published that would justify reducing…
tlambert | December 10, 2006We last encountered anti-Kyoto activist John Humphreys in this post when I tried to get him to correct a post that incorrectly claimed that satellites showed a cooling temperature trend and he responded by repeatedly accusing me of lying. Now he's back with three more zombie arguments:
Peiser proved Oreskes wrong. (Actually, it was Peiser who was wrong).
Bray's survey shows that there is significant dissent for the consensus amongst climate scientists. (But the URL and password were posted to a global warming skeptic mailing list so it included some unknown number of skeptics as well as…
tlambert | December 8, 2006Gavin Schmidt reviews Inhofe's last Senate hearing on climate change, which starred Bob "global warming ended in 1998" Carter.
Kevin Grandia also says good bye.
And while I'm posting links: Nexus 6 catches NSW politician Jon Jenkins peddling Peiser's discredited criticism of Oreskes and Eli Rabett goes the extra mile on Khilyuk and Chilingar, not just showing how wrong they are, but also explaining where all the outgassed CO2 went.
tlambert | December 6, 2006The latest paper being touted by the global warming skeptic crew is by a couple of petroleum engineers named Khilyuk and Chilingar and concludes
The current global warming is most likely a combined effect of increased solar and tectonic activities and cannot be attributed to the increased anthropogenic impact on the atmosphere. Humans may be responsible for less than 0.01°C (of approximately 0.56°C (1°F) total average atmospheric heating during the last century)
But what is the basis for this conclusion? Well, they work out total man-made CO2 emissions and ...
Recalculating this amount…
mikethemadbiologist | December 5, 2006I don't have an answer, but the picture asks the question quite nicely:
(from here)
purepedantry | December 5, 2006The Stern Report -- a report by Sir Nicholas Stern, head of Britain's economic advisory panel -- that came out last month urged action on climate change in terms of future economic loss. I reported on people like Richard Tol who took issue with Stern's numbers in terms of the costs and benefits of climate change abatement.
The Economist has a summary of Stern's critics culminating in the issue of how to value grandchildren. The issue has to do with how you discount money that you would recieve in the future. Money now is worth more than money in the future because you can do something with…
tlambert | December 2, 2006Tim Blair tells us:
Think on this awhile: if a vengeful Gaia were to smite both Canada AND Australia out of existence, that would reduce by only 3.4 per cent of these warming gases some believe are killing the planet.
We're talking about a combined total of 53 million people, millions of houses, millions of cars, millions of factories and dams and computers and televisions and everything else that makes for modern, affluent, civilised nations.
Completely removing them would make next to no difference at all, global-warming wise.
Well yes, if just Canada and Australia made reductions it…
grrlscientist | November 30, 2006Billions of people could be wiped out over the next century because of climate change, according to James Lovelock, a leading expert who pioneered the idea of the Earth as a living organism. Lovelock warned that as the climate warms, the global population which is currently around 6.5 billion, may sink as low as 500 million.
Given the dire situation we face, Lovelock urged people to drop the phrase "global warming," which has cosy connotations, and instead start to think of it as "global heating." He also claims that any attempts to tackle climate change will not be able to solve the…
purepedantry | November 30, 2006Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Massachusetts et al. v. EPA. In the case, several state governments are suing the EPA for failing to regulate CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
There are many levels of legal conflict on which the justices could rule, summarized in the NYTimes coverage:
On one level, the argument was about the meaning of the Clean Air Act, which the Environmental Protection Agency maintains does not treat carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases as air pollutants and thus does not give the agency the authority to regulate them.
On another level, the argument was…
cmooney | November 29, 2006This is just too much...so I'm taking time out from working on the book to bring you more. I've now seen the Supreme Court transcript and can provide actual passages of what Scalia said. It's even worse than the previous post made it seem. To wit:
JUSTICE SCALIA: Mr. Milkey, I had -- my problem is precisely on the impermissible grounds. To be sure, carbon dioxide is a pollutant, and it can be an air pollutant. If we fill this room with carbon dioxide, it could be an air pollutant that endangers health. But I always thought an air pollutant was something different from a stratospheric…
cmooney | November 29, 2006From my friend Eli Kintisch, reporting on today's Supreme Court global warming hearing:
"We are not asking the court to pass judgment on the science of climate change," said Massachusetts Assistant Attorney General James Milkey in his opening arguments. That may be fortunate for some justices, including Antonin Scalia, who asserted erroneously that global warming occurs in the stratosphere before Milkey corrected him by noting that it was a tropospheric phenomenon. Scalia then confessed his scientific limitations:
"I told you I'm not a scientist. That's why I don't want to deal with global…
tlambert | November 28, 2006Laurie David, one of the producers of An Inconvenient Truth writes about what happened when she tried to donate copies of the movie to schools:
So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.
The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.
In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other "special interests" might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they didn't want to offer "political" endorsement of the…
nisbetmc | November 27, 2006
Readers of FRAMING SCIENCE who work in downtown DC or on Capitol Hill may want to take an extended lunch break tomorrow to check out this American Meteorological Society briefing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Rm. 106, featuring one of your favorite bloggers. ;-)
The Divide between Values and Behavior: Exploring American Perceptions of Global Warming and the Environment
Many in society still largely adhere to the notion that 'If we just tell people the facts, they'll reach the right conclusion.' Is this notion supported by research on risk perception, decision-making, and…
tlambert | November 18, 2006The CBC's Fifth Estate has produced a documentary on the global warming denial industry:
The documentary shows how fossil fuel corporations have kept the global warming debate alive long after most scientists believed that global warming was real and had potentially catastrophic consequences. It shows that companies such as Exxon Mobil are working with top public relations firms and using many of the same tactics and personnel as those employed by Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds to dispute the cigarette-cancer link in the 1990s. Exxon Mobil sought out those willing to question the science…
retrospectacle | November 16, 2006
The forests of Siberia are full of insomniac bears, scaring the locals, as the weather has been staying too warm for them to go into hibernation. Usually Siberian bears sleep six months, beginning in October or November, but the Kemerovo region where they live has currently gotten no snow.
Hunters, out in the woods stalking birds and hares now that the hunting season is open, need protection from restless bears the most, she added.
"We have observers who ensure there are no attacks on hunters."
Bears den in dry places usually covered by snow, and wet weather makes finding a suitable "bedroom…