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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Recent Comments

Comments 23701 to 23750:

nigelj at 09:05 AM on 11 July 2016

2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28

Trakar @ 3

This web sites comments policy says basically "no politics", as this is presumably to avoid technical issues descending into rants about ideology or politics, and this is good policy. However we have to use a bit of commonsense. I take the approach that if the article is political in nature, (like the attacks on science article) then obviously at that point it's ok to post political responses, provided they are measured comments and not a rant or inflammatory. We are not living in a vacuum.

The reason for articles on republican and democrat attitudes to climate change is probably because ultimately only legislation can really deal with the climate problem. Regional and individual initiative is also important, but unlikely to be sufficient. It's pretty obvious this website supports mitigation through some sort of legislative action, and they are entitled to that view. I have read one or two articles on regional and individual initiatives, so I think the website is reasonably balanced. Of course more articles like that would be interesting and useful.

And lets face facts, republicans and democrats are poles apart on climate change. The republicans are pretty much in denial about climate change as a whole. This appears to be widespread within their party and almost an article of faith.

The democrats accept theres a problem, and I do agree they are not particularly strong on solutions or have some internal divisions. However the parties are fundamentally pretty different, and there is little nuance or grey area between the parties as a whole, so articles do tend to reflect this.

Tom Curtis at 08:15 AM on 11 July 2016

2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28

Trakar, of the articles listed above, I only find one that directly addresses US policies. That article applauds Hilary Clinton for adopting a more ambitious policy than Barak Obama (something that is not obvious to me), but strongly criticizes her for not pursuing a price on carbon. The ony positive point made for Clinton's policy in that regard is that it avoids the need for congressional approval.

With regard to that, an early June vote by the House of Representatives to condemn carbon taxes shows the nature of the barrier. The vote was 237-163 against carbon taxes, with just six Democrats voting with the majority, and no Republicans voting with the minority. Given that currently Republicans hold 246 to the Democrats 188 seats, even if all Democrats had voted against the resolution, they could not have voted down the 231 Repubiclans who voted for it. From that we can determine that of the 188 Democrats, 86.7% voted against the resolution, 10.1% abstained (or were absent), and only 3.2% voted against the measure. Of the 246 Republicans, 93.9% voted against the measure, while 6.1% abstained (or were absent). Those numbers refute categorically your claim that "the largest obstacle for climatehawk Democratic law-makers and activists come from the centrist (right-leaning) fiscally conservative, socially liberal subsection of the party focussed in the NE and DC metropolitan corridors, not the party on the other side of the aisle".

Trakar at 05:24 AM on 11 July 2016

2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28

My "thumbs up" was for your response, not my post.

I am just concerned that with many of the largely approving tone to some of the Democratic candidate articles being posted, where the candidates are proposing half-step, drag your feet proposals that won't even majorly slow national anthropogenic emissions, much less global emissions. We run the risk of fooling those whose understanding and interest in climate change, that SKS supports the idea that one Political Party is composed of "All-in Climate Hawks" while the other party is made up of evil "Deniers." Truthfully, there is much more nuance and mixture within both parties. In fact, the largest obstacle for climatehawk Democratic law-makers and activists come from the centrist (right-leaning) fiscally conservative, socially liberal subsection of the party focussed in the NE and DC metropolitan corridors, not the party on the other side of the aisle. More to the point, replacing centerist (left-leaning) fiscally moderate, socially conservative Republican law makers, with more of the fiscally conservative socially liberal Democratic law makers is a net-zero gain for addressing climate change issues.

We need to be more about building and featuring articles about local and regional climate activists/movements and public climate policy leaders regardless of party, and less time promoting articles about the differences between national party and political figures who are unlikely to be able, or willing, to act significantly and substantively to address climate change issues.

Democratic leaders deserve no less coverage regarding their half-stepping and foot-dragging than Republican leaders regardless of their lip service toward or against climate science and the issues that face our planet's inhabitants.

Moderator Response:

[JH] SkS, founded by an Australian, is international in scope and following. Each day, I sift and winnow through a variety of sources for informative articles from throughout the world for posting links to on the SkS Facebook page. I post the links at three hour intervals 24/7. That's the best I can do given the amount of time that I am able to devote to SkS matters.

[PS]

[PS] The comments policy prohibition on politics is largely there to prevent threads descending into political/ideological arguments with little or no science. There are plenty of other sites where robust political discussion (preferably with people from the same country) are welcome.

However, one point is well-made. It is my belief, (and I am a moderator, not owner of the site) that no endorsement of any party in any country is intended. Calling out politicians of any persuasion for promoting climate myths is however very much fair game. Dont be surprised however if commentators who rate climate action highly prefer parties whose platform position is to mitigate climate change over other parties who deny there is a problem to solve.

Sks is also not really a climate activist site so much as a resource for debunking climate myths. Other sites do activism better.

Trakar at 04:28 AM on 11 July 2016

New research: climate may be more sensitive and situation more dire

The issues in this article, along with equilibrium observed over a compressed time cycle may be responsible for much of the difference between paleoclimate approximations of sensitivity and modern estimations. I've always tended toward the post-diction estimates of paleoclimate research for this issue and assumed that the differences between the values they indicate and modern assessments to be primarily the result of things we either haven't yet understood (properly or entirely - to include aerosols/clouds and various other known and unknown feedback systems).

Trakar at 03:12 AM on 11 July 2016

2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28

If we aren't allowed to discuss politics, shouldn't the articles about the lies and half-step climate shuffles politicians of all parties are telling to voters be eliminated, or at the least exposed for the inadequacies they represent? Currently this only seems to being done on a partisan basis which leads to the impression that only one party is inadequate in addressing the issue of climate change seriously. We here, know that this is at best, a half truth implied disingenuously.

Moderator Response:

[JH] Given the myriad of topics addressed in this weekly listeing of 50 plus articles, the comment threads for Weekly News Roundups are considered to be "open threads." If you wish to discuss politics related to climate change on this thread, you are welcome to do so — as long as your comments comport to the SkS Comments Policy.

ubrew12 at 02:33 AM on 11 July 2016

Aerosol emissions key to the surface warming ‘slowdown’, study says

Michael Mann estimates that cessation of coal burning would cause sulphate aerosols to rain out within a few years, and global temperature to increase by about 0.5 C. If these aerosols were speaking Chinese and 'goosed' the PDO into a negative phase for 15 years, its possible the increase would be 0.1 C or so higher than that.

Ian Forrester at 01:02 AM on 11 July 2016

Aerosol emissions key to the surface warming ‘slowdown’, study says

BBHY, the year 1998 was chosen because that is the cherry picked starting point for the deniers to claim "no warming for xxxx months". This paper shows that there has been warmng since that date, all be it at a lower rate due to increased arerosols.

Tom Curtis at 09:10 AM on 10 July 2016

2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28

Here is one from today at the ABC:

"'Shocking images' reveal death of 10,000 hectares of mangroves across Northern Australia
By the National Reporting Team's Kate Wild

Close to 10,000 hectares of mangroves have died across a stretch of coastline reaching from Queensland to the Northern Territory.
Key points:
A mangrove expert says it is the most extreme "dieback" he has ever seen
The mangrove death occurred across a 700km stretch of NT and QLD
An expert believes it is linked to climate change
International mangroves expert Dr Norm Duke said he had no doubt the "dieback" was related to climate change.
"It's a world-first in terms of the scale of mangrove that have died," he told the ABC.
..."

The link to climate change is a probable cause in either a short wet season and/or very high sea surface temperatures which are related to the recent El Nino, but which have been significantly enhanced in strength due to global warming. Sufficiently so that the SSTs are unprecedented, as is the dieback.

No doubt this will result in the usual argument as to how do you attribute events to climate change. One method takes the total AGW warming todate as a percentage of the SST anomaly - a method that will attribute less than 50% of the event to AGW. That method misses the point, however, that the probability of such a warm SST absent AGW is very slight. Without doing the maths I cannot say how slight. The attribution, however, would then be based in the difference between the probability of such an event absent AGW, and the probability with AGW. In the case of unprecedented events such as this, that is by far the more informative method (although both methods are valid, but measure different things).

william5331 at 08:06 AM on 10 July 2016

Aerosol emissions key to the surface warming ‘slowdown’, study says

It is inevitable that as the Chinese population becomes more wealthy and more influential in the politics of China that they will insist on a clean up. The Technology already exists to remove particulates and sulphur compounds from Coal fired stacks and this could happen very rapidly. America had to do it and it took very little time once the political decision had been made. In addition, China is the world leader in the uptake of renewable energy. We will, very soon, witness the result of this experiment of drastically cutting the concentration of aerosols in the atmosphere.

BBHY at 19:08 PM on 9 July 2016

Aerosol emissions key to the surface warming ‘slowdown’, study says

"In its latest report, the IPCC calculated (pdf) that global surface temperatures between 1998 and 2012..."

You lost me right there. Using 1998 as a starting point is the ulrimate in cherry picking. Did they get the same result using 1997 or 1999 as the starting poiint? No? Then the whole thing is completely useless, IMHO.

scaddenp at 18:40 PM on 9 July 2016

Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

mr_alanng - I think it would by a lot simpler to just get off using fossil fuels rather than trying to sequester CO2. Also, while methane is an issue, it is less than 30% of total forcing from CO2 because the emissions are far smaller.

" Some researchs said that cow milk is not for human."

I dont think any food is "for human" except breast milk but evolution has equipped us to use it. The gene for lactase persistance is highly selected for since the paleolithic particularly in european populations. Ie once you had settled agricultural, humans with lactase persistance survived and bred better than those without.

ubrew12 at 05:43 AM on 9 July 2016

Climate scientists are under attack from frivolous lawsuits

Mother: "What did you learn in school today, Exxon?" "Today we learned all about the First Amendment!" "And what about the First Amendment did you learn?" "We learned that exercising our Free Speech means paying others to sift through decades of emails of Climate Scientists, cherry-picking discriminating information, and releasing it to a soundbite-conditioned public to take out of context, thereby clouding that Science by ruining the public reputations of its practitioners, and warning young Scientists to pick another subject ... or else!"

Rolf Jander at 02:42 AM on 9 July 2016

Aerosol emissions key to the surface warming ‘slowdown’, study says

So during the period between 1940 and 1970, poloution was enough to temporarily cancell out the warming effect of our co2 output. If this research is acurate. now even the massive poloution put out by China and the fires in Indonesia could only slow it down.

mr_alanng at 18:58 PM on 8 July 2016

Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

Everyone on the world needs to glow at least 10 tree in his/her life. Assume only half of population can grow the trees for some reasons. The current population is 7.4 billions. Then we have 3.7 billions of people grow the trees, eventually, we have more 37 billions of tree. Each big trees can absorb 1 ton of carbon dioxide a year. Each year, 370 billions of carbon dioxide will be absorbed by trees. And we have schedule to control the tree, say to cut away the old trees, to collect the wood (solid carbon oxide) as recycle, reusable materials. The next thing we need to do is to get rid the dairy farm. As we know, the green effect of the methane is 12 times of CO2. A dairy cow can produce 110kg CH4 a year. Some researchs said that cow milk is not for human. Some countries not rely on the cow milk. I think these two method can improve the green house effect.

Tom Curtis at 06:20 AM on 8 July 2016

It's methane

MA Rodger @26, thankyou for the correction.

Redoing the calculation using CH4 concentrations expressed in part per billion (ppb) rather than ppm, ie, the typical unit used to express CH4 concentrations, I obtain a forcing of 0.576 W/m^2, with the remainder of the difference being due to my leaving of the NO2 correction. Clearly the units used is critical in this equation.

Dipper at 02:29 AM on 8 July 2016

It's methane

Sincere thanks to HK, Tom Curtis and MA Rodger for responding so quickly and thoroughly. Lots of stuff for me to go and read up on. My simple calculations clearly not what is needed. Much appreciated!

MA Rodger at 00:36 AM on 8 July 2016

It's methane

Tom Curtis @25,

That CH4 forcing cannot be right.

Rather than test my own arthmetical skills, there is a year-by-year table 1979-to-date for the various GHG forcings is given by ESRL on that very page you link to. For 2015, CO2=1.939 Wm^-2 & CH4=0.504 Wm^-2.

Mind, the global temperature increase since pre-industrial times (I assume this is Dipper's "excess heating we experience this year") results from the whole bucket of GHGs. If the analysis includes them all, CO2 & CH4 are only 82%. And if we are to consider that forcings of past emissions continue to operate, different GHGs have quite different concentrations histories.

So, Dipper @23.

How sophisticated do you want to get?

Tom Curtis at 23:43 PM on 7 July 2016

It's methane

Dipper @23, the Global Warming Potential is defined by the IPCC as follows:

"Global Warming Potential (GWP) An index, based on radiative
properties of greenhouse gases, measuring the radiative forcing following
a pulse emission of a unit mass of a given greenhouse gas in the presentday
atmosphere integrated over a chosen time horizon, relative to that of
carbon dioxide. The GWP represents the combined effect of the differing
times these gases remain in the atmosphere and their relative effectiveness
in causing radiative forcing. The Kyoto Protocol is based on GWPs
from pulse emissions over a 100-year time frame."

You will notice that, first, the GWP is a function of mass, not volume (as pointed out by HK @24); and, second, that it is a function of emitted mass, not atmospheric concentration.

If you want to calculate the relative effect from atmospheric concentrations, you just use the formula for radiative forcing.

Thus, for CO2, the formula is 5.35 x ln(C/C_o), which for the values you give is 1.82 W/m^2.

For Methane, the formula is ΔF = 0.036(M^½ - M_o^½) - [f(M,N_o) - f(M_o,N_o)]

where f(M,N) = 0.47ln[1 + 2.01x10^-5 (MN)^0.75 + 5.31x10^-15M(MN)^1.52] and M stands for a Methane concentration, and N stands for a Nitrogen Oxide concentration.

Ignoring the Nitrous Oxide adjustment, and using your figures, this yields Methane forcing of 0.02 W/m^2, or 1/91st of the forcing due to CO2. There is a further, small adjustment due to the relative effectiveness of different forcings but it does not bridge the gulf in the relative impacts between the two. The result is that, per unit concentration, methane is approximately 12% more effective at warming than CO2 at near current cocentrations, but the significantly larger increase in CO2 concentration means that CO2 is the primary warmer.

HK at 22:53 PM on 7 July 2016

It's methane

@23 Dipper:
Your math seems to be correct!

I think the problem is that the warming potential for CO₂ vs. methane compares units of mass while your calculation compares units of volume.
CO₂ is 2.75 times heavier per molecule (or ppm) than methane, so the numbers for methane have to be divided by that if you are comparing the climate impact from each on a ppm basis.

Doing that, you get these results for methane vs. CO₂:
100 years: 28 / 2.75= 10.2
20 years: 84 / 2.75 = 30.5
Instantly: 110 / 2.75 = 40

And from pre-industrial to 2011:
CO2: 113
Methane: 121 / 2.75 = 44

This figure shows the annual growth of forcings from the well-mixed greenhouse gases after 1950. Since the late 1990s the contribution from non-CO₂ has only been about 20-25 %, but that fraction was up to 50 % until the early 1990s. Note that the methane forcing nearly stabilized in the early 2000s, but has started to increase again.

Forcing growth rates

Dipper at 20:06 PM on 7 July 2016

It's methane

I've done some calculations and got to the following point and would like someone please to tell me where I've gone wrong.

My question is "what are the relative contributions of greenhouse gases to the excess heating we experience this year?"

Firstly, for excess we need to take the difference from pre-industrial levels, so CO2 is (2011 levels) 391 - 278 = 113 ppm and for methane is 1.803 - 0.7 = 1.103 ppm.

Second is the rel warmoing potential which for CO2 is 1 and for methane over a 100 year period is 28. But that 28 is because methane progressively breaks down in to CO2 so for the last 50 years or so most of the methane has disappeared. To calculate the warming potential of methane right now I took the 100 year number, the 20 year number of 84, took logs and extrapolated back to 0 to get a native number of 110.

contribution from CO2 = 113 x 1 = 113

contribution from CH4 = 1.103 x 110 = 121

Hence the extra warming generated this year comes slightly more from methane than from CO2.

I've tried to work out what is wrong with this but have failed. Can anyone help?

thanks

José M. Sousa at 02:59 AM on 7 July 2016

The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change

As I said above, the EU is not that better - if at all - than UK concerning climate change:

Commission and Big Energy keep cooking the climate, despite Paris Agreement

http://corporateeurope.org/climate-and-energy/2016/06/commission-and-big-energy-keep-cooking-climate-despite-paris-agreement

Moderator Response:

[PS] Fixed link.

denisaf at 21:44 PM on 6 July 2016

The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change

Climate change is an irreversible natural process brought on by the emisssion of greenhouse gases by technical systems. It is the unintended conseqence of lack of understanding of natural processes b those making the decisions. Most people do not understand that fundamental physical reality. This discussion only deals with how peole have responded to two issues that are only related in the views of people. it leads to misunderstanding about what should be done to cope with the irreversible climate change. The most that can be done is to reduce the rate of greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as is physically possible. That requires the powerful in society acquiring understanding they have yet to exhibit.

bozzza at 18:27 PM on 6 July 2016

After 6 years of working on climate at Harvard, I implore it to show the courage to divest

We all have the power to implore...

chriskoz at 16:36 PM on 6 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

Tom@13,

Your video without comment does not adhere to the comment policy (no link only posts) although it's self explanatory, with almost 100% of it very much on topic here.

It's worth noticing that in it, John Oliver provides extensive critique of a distorted image of science not just by media but also by politicians. Remarkable is John's assertion at 8:00-8:20:

No shit ... This is science and not the US senate.

chriskoz at 16:22 PM on 6 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

"If you care about attacks on climate science and the rise of authoritarianism [you should read that book]"

This, parallel to the war on science issue, is only mentioned but disapointingly, not explained by John in this article. What is it about? Perhaps related to the "Trump phenomenon" as we discussed in another thread? Anyone knows more about the book to reveal its take on "authoritarianism"?

scaddenp at 09:24 AM on 6 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

I also very much like that video!

"Post modernism is possibly an outgrowth of extreme liberalism". Or is liberalism in your sense of the word an outgrowth of post-modernism? Post-modernism is a many-faceted cultural phenomenum with extremely complex origins and development. Distinquishing cause from effect is difficult and probably not productive.

However, it is the cultural reality we find ourselves in, and one in which we still have to find a way to make scientific communication effective. The Oliver video shows how broken some of that is but also I think accurately identifies the cause - most of us are lazy media browsers and we get the media we deserve.

nigelj at 09:00 AM on 6 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

Scaddenp @ 12

I can definitely go along with all that. I broadly trust the science community, and it mystifies me how people become so distrustful. I'm not naive. I realise science is a work in progress and sometimes gets it wrong, but its vastly preferable to anything else, and far more rigorous.

I even sometimes get annoyed when science does not give results I was expecting, or threatens my own belief system, but I tend to mainly adjust my belief system, I dont end up with a deep misstrust of scientists.

Post modernism is possibly an outgrowth of extreme liberalism that seeks to legitimise individualism and tolerance of widely divergent viewpoints. Maybe it has gone too far at times.

Looking at the video in the Tom Curtis link, the media have often drawn the wrong conclusions about research and over simplified things or exaggerated things, presumably to grab peoples attention. This is very unfortunate and irresponsible. Real scientific conclusions are often nuanced, and that is what the media should be honest about. They can still portray science in a colourful way, without so blatantly distorting the findings. The mass media have confused issues, and thus hurt the reputation of science. The video was spot on and very amusing.

Tom Curtis at 13:20 PM on 5 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

scaddenp at 11:46 AM on 5 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

I dont think it is a case of "hate science". For the myriad of reasons you mention, they perceive that science gets the "wrong answer", therefore they mistrust science and/or scientists. When there is a perception that acceptance of science results is undermining their values, then the antagonism goes deeper than mistrust. Time to shoot the messenger by defunding or whatever. I would say some of this is definitely a deep misunderstanding of science and scientists work (some classic examples of projection out there in denierland), but it is also a fact of post-modernism where there is no one way to apprehend to truth. Whatever route someone used to get the "right answer" is seen as just as valid as science. Like it or not, post-modernism permeates our cultural understanding.

nigelj at 11:30 AM on 5 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

Scaddenp @10

You seem to be saying some people just hate science, all science. Maybe you are right, but there has to be a reason.

It could be because of specific ideological reasons like religion (Im not suggesting here all religious people hate science), or that they have massive vested interests in something like fossil fuels that takes over their entire attitude to science.

It could be related to conservative beliefs. There is some polling / research that suggests conservatives are not hugely comfortable with science. This suggests a deep cause.

Or is it because some people just aren't very good at science? So they are just dismissive of science, unless it happens to generate something they like.

Personally I think there are probably millions of different reasons for the war on science, reflecting the millions of individuals who are so engaged in this war. I doubt there is one root cause.

Mike Hillis at 11:21 AM on 5 July 2016

Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect

Glenn @202

From your charts there is still plenty of water vapor above Mauna Kea, which doesn't surprise me because of the tropical latitude. The

Tokunaga charts

don't resemble the polar charts much in the water vapor Q-band (15-23 um), but they also don't resemble sea level tropical transmittiance charts. From Mauna Kea the Q band transmittance stays around 50% up to 28 um.

scaddenp at 07:54 AM on 5 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

OPOF - what you are describing fits my definition of War on Science. You say "They love science that will benefit them" - but they dont. They love the results. It could be created by witchcraft or religious incantations for all they care. That is very different from an attitude to the discipline itself.

APT at 06:00 AM on 5 July 2016

The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change

Leave voters can put forward all the excuses they want, but whatever their age and whatever their reasons (and even the best arguments I've seen for leaving the EU suggest a tendency towards isolationism rather than working together to solve problems), they voted for a campaign based on anti-intellectualism, and on racist and xenophobic lies. This is the important point, and it's inexcusable in my view. It has done untold damage whether the UK leaves the EU or not.

braintic at 23:29 PM on 4 July 2016

It hasn't warmed since 1998

There has certainly not been a pause in US temperatures.

Considering 1995-99 as the base (zero) period:

The period 2000 to 2009 was 0.16 degrees C above zero.

The period 2010 to May 2015 is 0.33 degrees C above zero.

See this video showing how the changes from the 1990s to the 2000s were distributed across the US:

US Temperature Comparison 2000s vs 1990s

BBHY at 21:10 PM on 4 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

What bothers me the most is that they try to paint science as the same thing as religion and a large number of people, and most of the media, never question that.

Science is basically the opposite of religion. Religion is based on faith, and requires no objective evidence. Science eschews faith and is based enitrely on objective evidence.

The fact that this is not obvious to most people is a huge failure of our educational system. Kids from grade 5 or 6 on should fully understand this difference, let alone adults.

Paul D at 16:39 PM on 4 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

The issue is whether a science subject is profitable or not.

Genetic Modification is seen as profitable and it is all about control of the environment, hence it gets the thumbs up. Climate change is seen as disruptive and largely as costly to us all, so it gets the thumbs down.

Remember that ideology drives what science is acceptable. Why would a political ideologist and activist accept a science that would mean they would have to change their ideology or activity?

One Planet Only Forever at 14:26 PM on 4 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

scaddenp@6

Many people may be responding in the way you describe but they are motivated into that way of thinking by influential messages from people who abuse their understanding of how to influence such easily impressed people to get what they want (the pros change their messaging based on data evaluation of the response they get - science of marketing).

And the people who respond to such appeals are a symptom of the real problem. The real problem is the people who deliberately abuse better understanding to gain unjustifiable personal advantage rather than trying to advance humanity to a better future. They love science that will benefit them.

Political Science and Business Science (particularly marketing) that promote the understandably damaging economic status-quo are conspicuously free from having a war on science waged against them.

nigelj at 11:36 AM on 4 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

OPOF @ 4.

Agree with your reasons why science is being attacked, but it has unfortunately spilled over into a more general attack.

The war on science is mostly coming from people with vested interests. They have some financial interest (and as you say may partly know this is not an entirely ethical interest) and the science threatens their interests. The science may also threaten their world view, or prejudices, etc. As a result they may extend their response to a sweeping attack on all science, to strengthen their case.

The attack is indeed on the idea that "you use data to change your mind" but the attack is only happening because of pre existing vested interests. It is not an attack on scientific method just for the sake of it.

Science has challenged ideas about creationism, and homosexuality (by suggesting its largely genetic), and has suggested we are degrading the environment. That challenges a lot of vested interersts or cherished beliefs.

Science, or "evidence based thinking" also challenges dubious politics, or foreign affairs exploits, and whether very liberal gun ownership is a good thing. In fact evidence based thinking challenges both sides of the gun debate!

With so many things recently science in general has thus come under attack.

scaddenp at 10:10 AM on 4 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

OPF - I am inclined to disagree. The fight is actually against the very idea of science - that you use data to change your mind. Obviously no one objects to data that doesnt conflicts with wishes/ideology/values. However, we are increasing seeing an attacks on science when there is a conflict, especially when it generates value conflicts since scientists themselves have values too. There is no acceptence of hypothesis evaluation by data in these and so in fact a rejection of scientific method.

One Planet Only Forever at 09:06 AM on 4 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

It is important to clarify that the fighting is not against any and all Science.

Science can be described as the development of better understanding of what is going on through observation and experimentation (and as such must exclude Spirituality which is a relevant area of thought that cannot be observed or experimented upon).

What is going on is some people are fighting against raised public awareness and understanding of certain types or areas of developing better understanding.

The fight against certain areas of better understanding is done by people who get away with becoming wealthy or powerful through actions they come to understand, or always knew, are not justifiable sustainable improvements of global humanity. They then need to fight against the deserved end of their developed method of acquiring wealth and power.

However, to be fair, many of those people love to abuse a development of specific better understanding that would allow them to temporarily personally gather more wealth and power such as a new drug that can make lots of money before its negative consequences are understood.

So it is not fair to say they are fighting against all science. In fact, the science of marketing and the ability to create popular support through careful marketing message creation and delivery is a favorite of those people.

So it is no a "War on Science". It is a fight by people who have developed undeserved perceptions of prosperity, wealth and power against any increased awareness and understanding that is contrary to their interests.

A good example of this distinction is the recent Conservative government of Canada. They did not dislike all science. They redirected government funding to areas of research and reporting (message development and dissemination) that they believed would be beneficial for the interests of the likes of them. They also deliberately reduced funding for areas of research that could be contrary to their interests or tried to carefully control the reporting of the results of such research (refer to "The War on Science: Muzzled Scientists and Wilful Blindness in Stephen Harper’s Canada" by Chris Turner).

scot at 03:58 AM on 4 July 2016

Development banks threaten to unleash an infrastructure tsunami on the environment

'... as natur bats last!'

In fact, 'Nature' has done very well since nearly 4 billion years, as it has not just survived, but thrived despite extremely hazardous conditions. It will be just fine without our protection.

More important is how we will do in the long run with the changes to the environment that are happening as natural consequences of the changes we make to the environment.

Plenty food and drink is available in the supermarket, fresh air comes through the window, clean water comes out of the faucet, electricity out of the wall, and for all other things we simply go to strip mall. How may this change as a natural consequence of how we treat our natural environment?

Looks like we are all in for finding out the hard way. Though, it seems that quite a few who are smarter than that and can, already are heading and securing for themselves the high ground instead of at least tying to help fighting the fire, while lucky others still remain in deep sleep.

chriskoz at 19:55 PM on 3 July 2016

The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change

Haze@36,

"Britons never never never shall be slaves" resonate with many Britons even of today, particularly the elderly.

While this and all your analysis may be reasonable, it's also accurate to say that the world has moved on long way since those centuries ago when britain was an imperium and rest of the world their "slaves". In today's highly globalised economy, national diversity domestically, and big global companies internationally, play more and more important role. National snobism as you describe, will be not just jingoistic annoyance but simply a thing of the past on few years. Just as slavery became thing of the past over a century ago.

If some brits voted leave because they support this anachronic attitude (likely other factors e.g. disappointment with current govs were more at play IMO), they already came to realise their mistake, hence we've got Bregret now.

I have few brit friends here in Australia. All of them, expats like you, but do not share your view. They are actually shocked by the silly outcome of that referendum and saying that britain stepped into a big mess that they despise. They supported and voted Bremain. And these are people aged 40-50+, therefore not "young" as defined by Brexit demographics, but their view closely resembling their "young" domestic counterparts. Admitedly, my friends are not a representative population sample but still a good sample of brit expats in OZ.

braintic at 02:44 AM on 3 July 2016

1934 - hottest year on record

This video shows how temperatures of the 2010s compare to those of the 1930s in the US. The hot area of the 1930s is clearly limited to a small band, with most of the US being warmer now. It also applies mainly to daily maximum temperatures, with daily minimums being higher now in the vast majority of the US:

ubrew12 at 02:12 AM on 3 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

Article: "Over the... next forty years... science is poised to create more knowledge than... in all of recorded history... democracy is facing an existential challenge" Indeed, if, as seems possible, China heads up many of these scientific advances and leads in Climate remediation, she could triumphantly claim 'who needs Democracy?', and others around the World might listen.

John Hartz at 23:56 PM on 2 July 2016

The War on Science will change how you see the world

Climate Science Glossary

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