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AndrewDoddsUk at 18:00 PM on 2 October 2012The Economic Damage of Climate Denial
Hi, I have some minor problems with this.. First, a direct comparison of Solar or Wind power with Coal is not appropriate, as far as I can see. Neither solar or wind power are dispatchable (Solar thermal possibly, if not in the UK where I live). This means that once a certain grid penetration is achieved, grid balancing becomes an issue. And however that balancing is performed, it imposed additional costs, especially under the paradigm of matching generation to demand. As far as developing countries go.. I would argue that a grid is appropriate and overall much, much cheaper than a decentralized model, if we are comparing like with like. And that the insistence that every stage of a project return a profit is something of an artificial stumbling block. The problem for much of the developing world may be as much one of governance - building a grid requires a certain amount of political stability. Decentralized telecoms infrastructure is one thing. Running refrigeration, cooking and A/C quite another. And (and this is a particular concern as a UK resident), building gas plants instead of coal may sound better.. but ultimately, that gas plant has an expected life of 40 to 60 years. Building that plant pretty much locks in a big chunk of CO2 emissions over future decades. It is probably worth undertaking the exercise of determining what amount of emissions is already 'locked in' in this manner (i.e. expected annual emissions per fossil plant, multiplied by expected lifetime of that plant, for all existing plants) before we even think about building more. Finally (sorry about the rant).. the elephant in the room is nuclear power, which can replace coal on pretty much a 1 to 1 basis, with vastly lower CO2 emissions. If you are serious about minimizing emissions, then disregarding this does not make a great deal of sense.. -
From Peru at 17:50 PM on 2 October 2012The Economic Damage of Climate Denial
erratum: ρt = ρ(Ct) = δ + α(Ct)[dCt/dt]/Ct (8) • Ct is the consumption at time t • ρ(Ct ) is the consumption rate of interest -
From Peru at 17:44 PM on 2 October 2012The Economic Damage of Climate Denial
Discount rates. It took me almost a year to understand how they work, and I still have a lot of questions. I found this paper: Intergenerational Equity, Social Discount Rates and Global Warming A key quote : "are consumption rates of interest inevitably positive? (...) standard models are inadequate for obtaining insights into social discount rates when production and consumption activities involve externalities that filter into the distant future through the accumulation of some "public bad". Since global warming is a prime example of such externalities, we will use it as a backdrop for our discussion. (…)Assume that the economy is otherwise laissez faire. If global warming is expected to lead to declines in (weighted) global consumption over some extended period in the distant future, then from expression (8): ρt = ρ(Ct) = δ + α(Ct)[dCt/dt]/Ct (8) • Ct 0 is the elasticity of marginal utility we would conclude that, over this same extended period, consumption rates of interest could well be negative. For example, if : • δ = .01 per year • global consumption would be expected to decline at 2 percent a year for a period beginning 30 years from now if emissions of greenhouse gases were to continue at their laissez faire rates. • α (Ct) = 2.5 in expression The consumption rate of interest would be -0.04 (minus 4%) per year from year 30 until the end of the period in question”. I googled the keywords “discount rate” and “Ramsey rule”(the equation above). I found this book: Pricing the future: The economics of discounting and sustainable development (Christian Gollier, Toulouse School of Economics) Avaivable here That derives a similar expression to the equation 8) above and make a long discussion on the relationship between discount rate and economic growth. The conclusion is that if there is economic decline (as surely will happen if we get a monster warming of more than 3ºC) the discount rate can hit zero and even go negative. What do you think?Moderator Response: [d_b] Link fixed per request. -
The Economic Damage of Climate Denial
adelady - Excellent point. We've seen that already in regards to communication systems - 3rd world phone systems are only really taking off with cell phones, which don't require the infrastructure that wired telephony does. But with the decentralized model (widely separated towers, solar chargers for phones), huge penetration has been seen for a decentralized, minimal investment model. Small investments with an incremental payoff are much easier to do than those requiring a large up-front investment before any profit can be seen. I think that is a worthwhile lesson for implementing non-carbon energy production - anyone involved with renewable energy implementation should take note. -
Stevo at 13:41 PM on 2 October 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
I suspect that fear of being seen as politically partizan on the subject of AGW may be a big factor. An article in today's Sydney Morning Herald spoke of 50.7 percent of coral on the Great Barrier Reef being lost over the past 27 years, according to a study by the Australian Institute of Marine Science. The article mentioned the causes being fertilizer and pesticde runoff as well as the crown of thorns starfish. No mention is made of climate change. Out of curiosity I went to the AIMS website and read what they had to say. According to AIMS there were three causes and not just two. As well as agricultural runoff and crown of thorns starfish was coral bleaching. The article cites AGW as the primary cause of the bleaching due to rising water temperature. It would seem that even when reporting directly from scientific sources some media will simply omit any mention of AGW. -
Doug Bostrom at 13:12 PM on 2 October 2012The Economic Damage of Climate Denial
Good point from adelady on moving from a standing start w/decentralized systems. A lot of habits in developed countries w/regard to energy are hangovers from a time when our options were more limited. As well, not leaning on a grid helps to promote more intelligent consumption. Analogy is deployment of cellular telephone systems, which in many developing nations have made the emergence of anachronistic dense copper or other hard networks superfluous, unlikely ever to be capitalized. -
william5331 at 11:47 AM on 2 October 201293% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading
Fox what did you say. Oh!!! News. No kidding. When did they start dispensing news. -
adelady at 11:09 AM on 2 October 2012The Economic Damage of Climate Denial
"cheap" fossil fuel energy is key to the development of poorer nations. How is using a system of centralising physical generation of power and requiring extensive grid infrastructure in poor nations a "key" to their development? I'd suggest that one of the reasons why many countries haven't developed along this path is exactly this, rather than the fuel costs of a centralised power station. Surely one of the greatest advantages of non-hydro renewables is that they can start small at the local level and gradually scale up through regional arrangements long, long before a centralised system could possibly distribute power to remoter regions. And do it for much smaller cost. One reason to not extend a grid all the way to remoter towns and villages is that the infrastructure costs can't be recouped because poorer communities can't afford to pay enough to make it economic. -
Philippe Chantreau at 09:25 AM on 2 October 201293% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading
Rpauli at 10. As our friend Smith would say, they are very good at staying "on message" which seemed to be a virtue in his value system... -
Bob Loblaw at 09:01 AM on 2 October 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #39
If you want to actually run a one-dimensional (vertical) radiative transfer model to see how it behaves, MODTRAN is available on-line. -
Doug Bostrom at 09:00 AM on 2 October 201293% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading
I haven't seen any real change since James took over from Rupert. That would be for the reason that Murdoch the Younger hasn't taken over from Murdoch the Elder. As of just now young Murdoch is a "minister without portfolio" in the Murdoch Empire, is wandering in the desert, has been since his memory became significantly impaired while attempting to recollect his involvement in the NoW/NI organized crime coverup. -
r.pauli at 05:18 AM on 2 October 201293% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading
93% wrong doesn't even rise to the level of an inept propaganda machine. Since every opinion manipulator knows, one must first establish trust by offering a certain amount of truth. When that audience is drawn in, only then does the skilled propagandist brandish their swill. Fox doesn't even rise to that level - maybe we should be thankful that they are so bad at it. -
2012 SkS Weekly Digest #39
heijdensejan - I would suggest looking at the How do we know more CO2 is causing warming thread for a discussion on this. The best reference I could give you would be to Myhre 1998: he ran the radiative code for air columns at several different locations (Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, tropical), based on the HITRAN spectral data, and came up with: dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co) W/m^2 as the fit to the relationship between CO2 increase and forcings. That kind of radiative estimation is essentially a numeric integration of the spectral response from surface to space of the specified atmosphere - lots of number crunching, but fairly straightforward if you have good spectra. From the 3.7 W/m^2 that produces for a doubling of CO2, and the Stefan-Boltzmann relationship, given an observed Earth emissivity to space of 0.612 in the infrared (which matches current temperatures and incoming energy), the surface of the Earth must warm by 1.1°C to radiate an extra 3.7 W/m^2 in balance. The actual effect is that the IR emissivity to space decreases, rather than input energy increasing, but for a first-pass estimate there's no significant difference in the numbers. -
Tom Dayton at 04:56 AM on 2 October 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #3
In addition to RealClimate's links to data and models, see Tamino's Climate Data Linksat Open Mind. -
heijdensejan at 04:25 AM on 2 October 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #39
What I would like to see explained is the following (or a link to a good blog post) How did anybody calculate that a doubling of CO2 results in a forcing of 3.7 W/m2 and a 1.1C temperature increase without any feedbacks. Maybe there is a SkS post somewhere but somehow I have never found it.... -
2012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #3
DSL - A data link page might be nice here. In the meantime, you can look at the RealClimate Data Sources page, which links to a great many data sources - raw, homogenized, paleo, code for climate models, data analysis, and links to other collections of climate data. -
DSL at 03:08 AM on 2 October 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #3
A passing idea, and I didn't know where to post: it might be nice to have an article on raw data. There are several complaints/myths that target raw data -- can't get it, it was lost, adjustments/smoothing is a sign of fraud, etc. The post could include a link library for obtaining raw data and code -- temp data, solar, ice, etc. -- and a link library pointing to the various SkS and external posts addressing the issues. -
gws at 02:09 AM on 2 October 2012Climate time lag
Falkenherz Well, that comment lacks all logic, as I expected ... "Dr.Paul" uses no physical argument whatsoever but only logical fallacies, particularly the "argument from authority" ("I said it is so, why don't you want to learn!"). Avoid addressing his ad hominems, just ask questions about science. Some facts to consider / questions to ask: - If warming drove CO2 out of the ocean, why does ocean pH keep dropping? Ask him if he understands and could explain the ocean water CO2 equilibrium (read the "OA not OK" paper on SkS). - ask him to explain why water vapour cools (the atmosphere) seeing that latent heat of evaporation is taking from the surface during evapotranspiratin, and redeposited into the atmosphere during condensation (this is found in most geography textbooks and ALL meteorology textbooks; are meteorologists all dumb?) - ask him if he recognizes the temperature-CO2 correlation during the glaciations and during recent times, if he understands that CO2 is not the only driver of climate, and if he understands the terms forcing and feedback (sorry, do not know the German terms, but you can probably check on Rahmsdorf's blog) - ask if he understands the difference between correlation and causation You see, these are all very trivial things. I am sorry but I will not go there myself, as I do not want to waste my time with somebody who is so obviously delusional. EIKE is far from what you called "serious" before, and I hope you recognize that too. The name is a typical PR strategy used to impress ... good sounding, but empty. - -
TomPainInTheAsk at 00:26 AM on 2 October 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #3
Appearing in Yahoo News / Green today: * Amsterdam goes green with electric scooter taxis (Reuters) * UK plan to merge Antarctic, ocean research stirs science (Reuters) * Can the World Save Lives and Combat Climate Change? (Scientific American) * Candidates Mum on Climate Change (Scientific American) This is at least a doubling of “Green” articles usually posted on Yahoo News. -
Michael.M at 22:42 PM on 1 October 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #3
And here is the graphic: -
Michael.M at 22:38 PM on 1 October 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #3
Stefan Rahmstorf in his blog Klima Lounge dissects Watts' „world climate widget“ as the skeptics most popular-trick-graphic, and a reader programmed a scalable graph showing temperature, CO2 and Solar cycles. I thinks thats a grand idea, only the graphic could be a bit more flashy (of course it is the underlying science that matters, but I think many uniformed will go by looks rather than content). Any chance for teaming up and creating a nice infographic?Moderator Response: Fixed link to the good climate widget. -
Andrew Mclaren at 22:17 PM on 1 October 201293% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading
I read a Rolling Stone article about FOX News CEO Roger Aimes last year, and it would seem that he is the one most aggressively pushing the anti-science bias re: climate change there. Aimes is of course a long-standing fixture in the far right politics of the US, first emerging as Richard Nixon's campaign manager in 1968. The RS article suggested that James Murdoch has basically persuaded his old man of the soundness of prevailing science, the elder Murdoch was even quoted as saying "Roger [Aimes] is nuts" on that score. Despite which climate science and sensible policies informed by it are a continuing casualty of what looks like an ongoing power struggle at News Corp. -
Dikran Marsupial at 21:55 PM on 1 October 2012Climate time lag
Falkenherz, I wasn't just mirroring the question back to you, it is the key question. If some one suggests some climate phenoemenon, such as a lag, ask them for a physically plausible mechanism that can explain the strength of effect as well as the correlation. If they refuse to do so, it is an indication that they are trolling. Be a skeptic, if there isn't a plausible physical explanation, don't pay much attention to the hypothesis. -
John Brookes at 18:39 PM on 1 October 201293% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading
The Murdoch empire's Australian mouthpiece, The Australian, has been a welcome home for climate "skeptics" articles. The Australian pushes so many barrows, that I've stopped reading it. And they typically only run one side of an argument, which is deeply unsatisfying. Still, maybe they are just trying to be controversial, because it sells newspapers. The recent restructure of News is supposedly designed to stop the cross subsidisation of newspapers that has been around for ages. The Australian has supposedly never made a profit. It will be interesting to see what effect the restructure has. -
Falkenherz at 18:18 PM on 1 October 2012Climate time lag
Damn, IanC, Riccardo... I made you google-translate-read the wrong article... here is the latest mindtwisting argumentaire from EIKE about water vapour.: http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/climategate-anzeige/anthropogener-treibhauseffekt-zu-schwach-fuer-klimakatastrophe/#comment_192 In short: No positive forcing from watervapour. Higher surface temp leads to higher vapourising circulation because of a higher "vapourpressure" (?) and more possible vapour in the atmosphere. This leads to a increased negative forcing of ~6,3W/m2 and that cancels out the positive forcing of Co2 after it caused a raise of 1 Degree. I asked over there already, what about higher GHG effect of water vapour after a raise of 1 Degree because of CO2, but I did not get an answer. So lets leave it at that. I came to this article here asking about possible long term physical processes (lag) in the atmosphere because of a long term increase of TSI since the 18th century. Dikran Marsupial mirrored the question back to me. The latest suspect, brought fourth by an alleged Professor on that infamous website: Albedo variations. Are there any links here about this? -
Falkenherz at 17:36 PM on 1 October 2012Climate time lag
IanC, Riccardo and I said, don't read it... ;) Problem about EIKE is, that the call themselves an "european institute", and this classification does not seem to be legally protected. That's why I think posting there, pointing out logical fallacies in those articles which actually try to show some scientific arguments, is important. Most of that work, they already do by themselves, as there are at least four lines of sceptics who collode with each other. :D It is also a challenge for me as a non-scientist, to unveil pseudoscientific blabla with simple logic. And when I fail, I come here. :) gws, thanks for the link to the presentation, very clear, very helpful! And some subtle support at EIKE would not harm. You should be able to recognize my other nick there (hopefully). -
TomPainInTheAsk at 16:30 PM on 1 October 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #3
This just in from Yahoo News: If there's one thing the Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates seem to agree on, it's this: avoid the subject of climate change. Mitt Romney would rather joke about President Obama's grandiose promise to heal the planet back in 2008. And Barack Obama would rather talk about jobs saved or created in Ohio, Florida and other swing states. Never mind that this summer saw a record-breaking meltdown of Arctic sea ice, presaging rising sea levels and more extremely weird weather. Or that the U.S. is locked in a historic drought during what will most likely be the warmest year on record for this nation. Or that concentrations of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere continue to tick up inexorably. We are basically guaranteeing an even warmer future and much more acidic oceans. We thank the two presidential candidates for presenting their views on climate change in response to Scientific American's survey this year. However, neither laid out any kind of policy plan for how to deal with global warming. Let's break the code of silence. Maybe it's time for a moderator or audience member to directly ask a climate policy question during the October debates? Maybe? —David Biello -
TomPainInTheAsk at 16:07 PM on 1 October 201293% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading
YubeDude: Concur. I haven't seen any real change since James took over from Rupert. "Stupid is as stupid does." Forrest Gump. The proof is in the pudding. -
YubeDude at 13:24 PM on 1 October 201293% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading
I think that for James Murdoch it his fiduciary responsibility to adhere to the denialist party line. The News Corp viewer/reader demographics skew toward climate denial and maintaining viewership which in turn generates the highest amount of ad revenue; that is his main priority. Reality and corporate citizenry pale in comparison to next quarters dividends. Legally he is required to manage in such a way that best ensures profit for the shareholder. -
Sea Level Isn't Level: Ocean Siphoning, Levered Continents and the Holocene Sea Level Highstand
tonydunc - There is a Nils-Axel Mörner thread where his ideas are discussed. Essentially, he's completely, absolutely, wrong, contradicted by all of the data. He might be a better source of information on dowsing, another topic near and dear to him. -
actually thoughtful at 13:01 PM on 1 October 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #39
Solutions. -
bill4344 at 12:45 PM on 1 October 201293% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading
It might be nice to hope that James Murdoch might make some difference, but, well, if he's going to, where's the evidence? He can hardly say he doesn't have a platform; why isn't he using it? Frankly, NewsCorp is so ridden with ideologues that it's very hard to imagine it ever changing without a root-and-branch, intentional - and highly-unlikely - clean sweep. Once centrist, The Australian, for instance, is now not much more than a far-right-wing thinktank that happens to publish the national daily. Just as Rupert created it. It is a veritable crypt of Zombie notions, and not just regarding climate... -
Estiben at 12:35 PM on 1 October 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #39
Could you post more replies to the "it's too hard/too expensive" lines? I keep getting hit with comments about windfarms chopping up birds, or that solar can never supply all our energy needs, or that going off coal will wreck the economy. But don't stop what you've been doing, you're the best in the business. -
TomPainInTheAsk at 12:11 PM on 1 October 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #39
I also agree with YubeDude's second request: Please, more articles that examine the techniquest behind the skepticism (& denialism) arguments manufactured by people who are real pros at it. (-snip-). The new Spin Doctors are light-years beyond that now.Moderator Response: [DB] Inflammatory snipped. -
TomPainInTheAsk at 12:07 PM on 1 October 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #39
I second YubeDude's request! Issues concerning policy and amelioration become political very quickly. Perhaps that is inevitable; financial resources are involved. IPCC Work Groups provide a separation of the science from more political aspects. It's a good idea. -
TomPainInTheAsk at 11:55 AM on 1 October 201293% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading
Arguments in the SkS Top 20 marked by “-” were not seen very much in play among the thousands of Yahoo News comments. Perhaps they are in decline, or they are not currently promoted by News Corporation's Fox News and WSJ editorials. It is easy to identify what lies Fox News currently broadcasts without watching Fox programs, just by the frequency of remarks in Yahoo News. 1 Climate's changed before 4.6% 2 It's the sun 4.5% 3 It's not bad 4.3% 4 There is no consensus 3.4% -5 It's cooling 3.4% 6 Models are unreliable 3.1% 7 Temp record is unreliable 2.6% 8 Animals and plants can adapt 2.4% -9 It hasn't warmed since 1998 2.1% 10 Antarctica is gaining ice 2.0% -11 CO2 lags temperature 2.0% 12 Ice age predicted in the 70s 1.9% 13 Climate sensitivity is low 1.9% -14 We're heading into an ice age 1.8% -15 Ocean acidification isn't serious 1.8% 16 Hockey stick is broken 1.8% 17 Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy 1.7% 18 Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming 1.7% -19 Glaciers are growing 1.6% 20 Al Gore got it wrong 1.6% Below are frequent arguments I encountered that are not in SkS's current Top 20. 24 Sea level rise is exaggerated 27 Mars is warming 1.2% (followed by Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto!) 28 Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle 29 Increasing CO2 has little to no effect 1.1% 32 IPCC is alarmist 1.0% 39 CO2 is not a pollutant 0.8% 54 It's a natural cycle 0.5% 60 Scientists can't even predict weather 0.5% 85 Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun 0.3% 86 CO2 is not the only driver of climate 0.2% 102 Arctic sea ice loss is matched by Antarctic sea ice gain 0.2% 106 Solar cycles cause global warming 0.2% 111 The IPCC consensus is phoney 0.1% 126 Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer 0.1% 133 The sun is getting hotter 0.1% 136 Skeptics were kept out of the IPCC? 0.0% -
tonydunc at 11:38 AM on 1 October 2012Sea Level Isn't Level: Ocean Siphoning, Levered Continents and the Holocene Sea Level Highstand
Does this in any way relate to Nils Axel Morner's arguments about lack of sea level rise. Did he "examine" tropical islands where this "3 meter beach" existed and therefore deterime that sea levels are dropping from that, or is that oo simplistic an explanation of his views? -
YubeDude at 11:25 AM on 1 October 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #39
I would like to see two distinct threads. One on the science exclusively and the other on policy and amelioration. When the later starts to challenge the former we lose objectivity when assessing the science. No doctor would make a diagnosis based on treatment protocols or cost; the diagnosis is based completely on the metrics at hand. Along those line I would like to see more articles that address the sophistry of skepticism which is dependent on conflating objective data streams with subjective policy. On the pure scientific front, I would like to hear from an atmospheric chemist on whether CO2 that carries the combined 18-O (combustion) and 12-C (old carbon) signatures are regarded as the Anthro-CO2 smoking gun. What papers I have found and read suggest but still leave vast wiggle room. In particular I have not found any research that looks directly at the combined signatures in CO2. -
TomPainInTheAsk at 11:11 AM on 1 October 201293% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading
I "lived" this news story when it was published on Yahoo News a few days ago. In fact, for nearly two days I didn't do anything else but reply to Yahoo News Comments, argue with Deniers and inform Skeptics. I directed as many as possible to the Skeptical Science website. It was an intense period of exchange - eat, sleep, and type away like a madman on my laptalk. John Cook may note a late September increase in hits to the SkS website. There were literally thousands of comments to this Yahoo News article. Its popularity was probably due to a number of factors: 1. The U.S. is approaching the "make or break" period in a presidential campaign that was already in full gear last year. Ultra-conservatives in the Republican Party has forced Governor Romney to retreat from his previous acceptance of ACC. It's getting crazy here, folks! 2. This story "93% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading" followed immediately on the heels of the news story from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) that Arctic sea ice had hit "record" lows. 3. Many are upset that no questions involving climate change were planned for any of the three upcoming presidential debates. That may change. 4. Many are complete exasperated with News Corporation. As the article notes, it is not just Fox News, but also Wall Street Journal editorials. Some Yahoo commentors have also noticed a decline in the quality of WSJ news articles since Murdoch took over. Anyone wishing to discuss this further with me directly, feel free to contact me at TomPainInTheAsk@yahoo.com (-snip-). --Gary Walker (aka TomPainInTheAsk)Moderator Response: [DB] Please refrain from the use of all-caps (converted to lower case above). Personal information snipped. -
jockm at 10:29 AM on 1 October 2012Antarctica is gaining ice
Not sure if this is helpful, but argument by analogy might be worth trying with those of a non-scientific background. The problem of arguing against global warming by using the record ice extent of the Antarctic is the basic one that there is no logical framework that says that a record Antarctic ice extent in winter cannot mean a record Arctic ice low in summer, or that this makes global warming impossible, or that this means that the planet is not going to suffer any consequences. It is simple falacious reaoning. No science is actually required to demolish this non-sequitur. Consider: I am a GP (and I am). A patient, a climate change contrarian, shows up in my surgery. He has a painful left leg. After some necessary investigations, he returns for the results. "I have some bad news", I say, "your investigations show a nasty malignant sarcoma of your left tibia. You will need an amputation to save your life" "Nonsense" says the contrarian, "I don't believe you, there's nothing wrong with me, look, my right leg is fine, in fact it's better than it's ever been" as he jumps up and down on his one good leg to demonstrate the unimpeachability of his logic. The issue is that both the Arctic and the Antarctic belong to the same natural entity, indeed if you subscribe to James Lovelock's thesis, the same organism. A healthy planet depends on the healthy functioning of all its parts. That the Antarctic ocean has so far escaped obvious global warming effects (though the Antarctic Peninsula is warming quickly) then this is neither suprising, nor does it prove anything else. -
newairly at 10:18 AM on 1 October 201293% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading
You were right, the anti-science comments were the first! -
Doug Bostrom at 10:07 AM on 1 October 201293% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading
There's been some outrage expressed by investors in the News Corp. global octopus concerning James Murdoch's ascent to the throne. That said, would promotion of the younger Murdoch improve matters w/regard to accurate coverage of climate change? There's reason to believe that might happen. An article in Grist covered this last year:James [Murdoch] gets the scale of the climate crisis: “This is crunch time right now. All of the climate prediction models suggest we’re on the worst-case trajectory, and some cases worse than the worst case,” he told The Observer in 2009. That same year, he talked up the benefits of “a gradually declining cap on carbon pollution” in a Washington Post op-ed entitled “Clean energy is a conservative cause.” His wife, Kathryn Hufschmid Murdoch, is a climate hawk too. She has worked and served as an advisory board member at the Clinton Climate Initiative, and she’s on the board of the Environmental Defense Fund. “Climate change is the most urgent global issue facing humankind,” she wrote in 2007. James “holds dinners that bring together environmental advocates, academics and executives,” according to The New York Times, including one in 2008 that included EDF head Fred Krupp, London Mayor Boris Johnson, and then-BP CEO Tony Hayward.
Does James Murdoch hate climate skepticism as much as phone-hacking?
-
Stephen Leahy at 10:05 AM on 1 October 2012Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
Great article. It is too rare to hear the first hand experiences of those most impacted by climate change. There is a series on traditional knowledge and climate published at National Geographic: Indigenous Peoples Can Show the Path to Low-Carbon Living -
Riccardo at 02:38 AM on 1 October 2012Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
Carbon500 "to immediately link such changes to atmospheric CO2 is simplistic." As already noted in my previous comment, attribution can not be done with data from a tiny region of the globe. We agree, if it was that the only knowledge we have. Indeed, do you know anyone who did this simplistic link? In Caitlyn piece CO2 is not even mentioned, she just describes her changing environment. If instead you were willing to discuss the problem of attribution in general, I'd suggest to move it to the It's not us thread or any other more appropiate thread of your choice. -
Carbon500 at 01:58 AM on 1 October 2012Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
Riccardo: As a matter of fact, I cut the original extract I was going to post so as to get to the point. It seems I didn't cut out enough. I don't see how you can accuse me of 'cherry picking' when I gave a reference for my source. I'm hardly going to reproduce the entire paper to make a point about one aspect - I'm not arguing about global warming, nor am I arguing about the Inuit experience. Here's the sentence from my post which is the directly relevant one: "Attributing these changes to 'global warming' or 'anthropogenic forcing' does not address the specific meteorological changes resulting in these trends." I'd now like to add this from the paper: "The climatology of Labrador, then, is forced from a variety of factors, and consequently,is not easily categorized. The identification of changes, and isolation of the causes of those changes, is even more problematic." In other words, to immediately link such changes to atmospheric CO2 is simplistic. -
Pete Dunkelberg at 00:58 AM on 1 October 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
Learning is a slow process if you have to keep re-discovering the same things over and over. Let's recall Robert Park's 2000 book Voodoo Science on the subject of outrageous "scientific" claims and the people who make them and the people who believe them. In Chapter 6 (Perpetuum Mobile) Park takes several pages on one free energy scheme because he went to a promotional event, and thanks to long hot delays spent several hours with the believers. "It was classic flimflam." (p 129) But finally on page 132: "It is easy to dismiss the people who packed that stuffy makeshift auditorium in Hackensack for almost five hours as foolish, and even to feel that they deserve to be fleeced. But I came away with the impression that these people were somewhat more knowledgeable about technology than the average citizen, and mistrust of authority is not at all unreasonable; all sorts of outrageous claims are made in the name of science. Extending mistrust of scientific claims to include mistrust of the underlying laws of physics, however, is a reckless gamble. And yet, as we will see in the next section, people who have technical backgrounds and hold highly responsible positions fall into the same trap." I think the lesson is simply that it is easier for those with a little more knowledge than average to convince themselves that they know more than the real experts. Thus they may be slightly more inclined to believe flimflam and to reject either the basic laws of thermodynamics or their extended application on a planetary scale. [also posted just now at Eli's, where another comment reminded me of this thread.] -
chriskoz at 18:47 PM on 30 September 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #3
jake @4, Thanks for brining this news. Dr Russell McKenzie from SE Louisiana University, as the one who is "honored to have someone of his [Monckton] stature", should go on the black list of shameless deniers of the worst kind. -
jyushchyshyn at 17:06 PM on 30 September 2012Alberta’s bitumen sands: “negligible” climate effects, or the “biggest carbon bomb on the planet”?
Global warming is caused not by people producing oil but by people using oil. If people stopped using gasoline to power huge SUVs, developing the bitumen sands would not be profitable and would stop. And rather than blaming Canada or Alberta for the geographic location of the bitumen sands, we should be thankful that the oil sands are in a province where a politician who questions global warming could lose an election. -
jake7351 at 15:21 PM on 30 September 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #3
Monckton still manages to get university gigs. Used to think universities were better than thisModerator Response: [Sph] Link fixed. -
chriskoz at 15:17 PM on 30 September 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #3
The very first "pollution" news claims reducing pollution " coal-fired power plants, gas fracking, diesel trucks and biomass burning" would cool us down by 0.5K. But how about the reduced aerosols associated with pollution reduction. That would mean signifficant warming. I think the current positive forcings of "methane, black carbon or soot and smog" are smaller than the negative forcing of aerosols and cloud seeding, all from pollution. The exact forcings of tha latter is uncertain, but I would disagree that the overall net effect of pollutant removal would be cooling. That does not make sense accoring to radiative forcing summary in AR4 Figure 2 here. Of course things like fracking are leaking CH4 so contribute to positive forsings only but I cannot say the same about all sources of pollution.
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