Arguments
2015 SkS Weekly Digest #33
Posted on 18 August 2015 by John Hartz
SkS Highlights, Toon of the Week, Quote of the Week, He Said What?, SkS Spotlights, Poster of the Week, Coming Soon on SkS, and 97 Hours of Consensus
SkS Highlights
There’s long been a troubling disconnect in climate science communication where we discuss the temperature charts we see from all the surface station data sets and the importance of keeping global mean surface temperature below 2C. This creates a challenge for anyone who wants to understand where we currently are relative to a 2C rise in temperature over preindustrial times.
For the average person, who might just now becoming interested in the climate change issue, how are they to comprehend this? How can we make the communication of this critical data point more clear and concise? How do we make it more relevant to the issue of climate change?
Rob Honeycutt, The 1C Milestone
El Niño Watch
El Niño Could Rank Among Strongest on Record by Andrea Thompson, Climate Central, Aug 13, 2015
Toon of the Week
Hat tip to I Heart Climate Scientists
Quote of the Week
“In Canada I can’t tell where the oil industry ends and the government begins and in Australia the same is true when it comes to coal,” she (Naomi Klein) told Guardian Australia.
“The Abbott government is repeating the talking points of the coal industry, the same stuff I heard at the Heartland Institute, that ‘coal is good for humanity’ and ‘God bless coal’.
“We have elections in Canada in October and I hope we have a different government. If that happens, Australia will be isolated as a climate villain. At the moment we are giving you a run for your money.”
Tony Abbott is a climate change 'villain', says Canadian author Naomi Klein by Oliver Milman, The Guardian, Aug 16, 2015
He Said What?
“I (Matt Ridley) took a lot of personal attacks. People attacked my motives. And it’s true that I have got personal investments in coal mining near my home; in fact, my family has been in it one way or another for a couple of hundred years.”
“So, maybe I have a vested interest in carbon dioxide emissions. But I’ve always declared that. I’ve always made that very explicit.”
Matt 'King Coal' Ridley Admits Fossil Fuel Investments May Cloud Views on Climate Change by Brendan Montague, DeSmog UK, Aug 10, 2015
SkS in the News
In her New York Times Op-ed, Why Misleading Americans About Climate Change Is Dangerous, Anna North states:
In fact the overwhelming majority of research supports the reality of climate change — a 2013 review of nearly 12,000 scientific articles published between 1991 and 2011 found that of those that took a position on the issue, 97.1 percent endorsed the idea that climate change was real and human-caused. The study concluded that papers disputing climate change were “a vanishingly small proportion of the published research.”
The link embedded in the above is to: Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, Cook et al, Environmental Research Letters (ERL), 15 May 2013
SkS Spotlights
Skeptical Science is designated as one of the top five in a Living Roots article on green iPhone apps
Coming Soon on SkS
- Fox News' inner struggle with climate misinformation (Dana)
- Corrected sunspot history suggests climate change not due to natural solar trends (Astronomy Now)
- New paper shows that Renewable Energy can be used to supply 100% of all energy used in the World (all energy, not all electricity) (Michael Sweet)
- World Bank rejects energy industry notion that coal can cure poverty (Suzanne Goldenberg)
- 2015 Weekly News Roundup #34 (John Hartz)
- 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #34 (John Hartz)
Poster of the Week
SkS Week in Review
- Fox News' inner struggle with climate misinformation by Dana Nuccitelli, (Climate Consensus-the 97%, The Guardian)
- 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #33 by John Hartz
- The Rap Guide to Climate Chaos by Barbara Brinlkman, YouTube
- A Powerful El Niño in 2015 Threatens a Massive Coral Reef Die-off by Rob Painting
- Earth Overshoot Day Press Release by Global Footprint Network
- 2015 global temperatures are right in line with climate model predictions by John Abraham (Climate Consensus-the 97%, The Guardian)
- Geoengineering is ‘no substitute’ for cutting emissions, new studies show by Robert McSweeney (The Carbon Brief)
- The 1C Milestone by Rob Honeycutt
- 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #32 by John Hartz
97 Hours of Consensus: James Hansen
Quote derived with author's permission from:
"We have known since the 1800s that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere. The right amount keeps the climate conducive to human life. But add too much, as we are doing now, and temperatures will inevitably rise too high. This is not the result of natural variability, as some argue. The earth is currently in the part of its long-term orbit cycle where temperatures would normally be cooling. But they are rising — and it’s because we are forcing them higher with fossil fuel emissions."
Coming Soon section was not updated. Looking forward to another great week of stuff! Thanks and keep up the good work.
[JH] We are working to correct this section.
"El Niño Could Rank Among Strongest on Record"
Soon to be heard.. "Warming stopped in 2015" Sigh.