Global Warming, shmobal warming?

Myths

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:30:36 +0200

The New Scientist works hard to debunk climate change myths.

1998 may have been the hottest year on record but solely relying on surface temperature data from the last ten year does little to prove that the Earth is cooling. This comprehensive New Scientist article agrees that surface temperatures could continue to fall in the short-term, but that ocean heat content must be taken into consideration, and that fluctuations due to El Nino and volcanic eruption will only slightly distrupt a trend for global warming and climate change.

“The Earth is cooling” idea is one of the most frequently cited statistics by climate change deniers, so it’s worth being aware of the issues (and the science) before conceding the importance of Earth’s surface-area cooling in the last decade.

Climate Change is not simple, that’s why these figures are cited—they make a complicated problem simple—and that’s why they must be constantly rebuked: using minimal evidence with the narrow time-range and drawing conclusions that will not stand up to review by trusted scientists and respected institutions is not smart.

Read the whole article over at New Scientist.

Greenland speaks climate, global wierding.

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:53:45 +0200

It’s not just Greenland’s ice sheet where the effects of climate change are being felt. But it in that local culture language is having to keep up the rate of change; some statements are uttered again and again.

It’s easy to learn. There are only three phrases. The first is: “Just a few years ago …” Just a few years ago you could dogsled in winter from Greenland, across a 40-mile ice bank, to Disko Island. But for the past few years, the rising winter temperatures in Greenland have melted that link. Now Disko is cut off. Put away the dogsled.

The second phrase is: “I’ve never seen that before…” It rained in December and January in Ilulissat. This is well above the Arctic Circle! It’s not supposed to rain here in winter. Said Steffen: “Twenty years ago, if I had told the people of Ilulissat that it would rain at Christmas 2007, they would have just laughed at me. Today it is a reality.”

Writing in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman is not just making a witty observation about people feeling the effect of ‘Global Wierding,’ he’s trying to make a point about how climate change will, is, effecting everyone’s lives.

Most people assume that the effects of climate change are going to be felt through another big disaster, “Most people will actually feel climate change delivered to them by the postman.”

It will come in the form of higher water bills, because of increased droughts in some areas; higher energy bills, because the use of fossil fuels becomes prohibitive; and higher insurance and mortgage rates, because of much more violently unpredictable weather.

Read the full article over at The New York Times.

On the journalistic handling of Global Warming Skeptics.

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 19:13:07 +0200

When does dissent become Untruth and lose the rights and respect due to “legitimate dissent”?

Slate discuss how one must carefully tread the line between marginalising dissenters, avoiding ‘techno-optimism’, and speaking the truth.

If we know the truth, why allow dissent from it into journalism? But who decides when we’ve reached that point of certainty?

One must agree that scientists, a vast majority of scientists, a vast majority of scientists representing the national academies with overwhelming consensus represents—for me— that point of certainty.

The author of the Slate article claims “There’s a danger in narrowing the permissible borders of dissent.” Indeed, this applies to most topics: topics where we can trust a responsible media to not cause ‘journalistic whiplash’. In discussing climate change studies, the media is too prone to over-emphasise the importance of any study that sounds like it doubts climate change.

Dissent, in this situation certainly confuses the topic at a time when the experts have spokens. The skeptics will continue to make the news; there is no question of them being silenced like heretics: dissent will continue to make the news.

Credible journalists must not give them time just because they are skeptics: they must only reports news. If a skeptics stumbles on something significant, gains substantial backing from the scientific community: that is news, that is credible. Until then we must accelerate past the point of certainty

Climate Change Skeptics

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:51:00 +0200

The few climate-change “skeptics” with any sort of scientific credentials continue to receive attention in the media out of all proportion to their numbers, their qualifications, or the merit of their argument.

Three stages of skepticism are identified, the irrationality of their amateur understanding is put into context, compared with the experts’ opinions.

The leaderships of the national academies of sciences of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Russia, China, and India, among others, are on record saying that global climate change is real, caused mainly by humans, and reason for early, concerted action.

The whole opinion column is available over at The Boston Globe.

Factual-Documentaries don't have to be factual

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:44:24 +0200

The Great Global Warming Swindle, a Channel 4 programme questioning the link between human activity and global warming drew complaints, criticism and a great deal of controversy. But Ofcom, Britain’s communication’s regulator, refused to sanction broadcasters despite the program being misleading, claiming that only news programmes must be presented with due accuracy, not documentaries.

But when one deals with a reputable news channel and is presented with blantant error, made-up graphs, non-experts and logically fallacies it seems there is no-one to correct the mistakes being made.

The New Scientist article provides further reading on the catalogue of errors.

Journalistic Whiplash

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:49:36 +0200

The public is a little too exposed to the intellectual tussle of the climate change debate, fostering an atmosphere of denial in reaction to a confusing change to the status quo. The ‘journalistic whiplash’, makes the public less aware of the facts, and more prone to extreme and minority views, rather than understand the basic facts.

Scientists see persistent disputes as the normal stuttering journey toward improved understanding of how the world works. But many fear that the herky-jerky trajectory is distracting the public from the undisputed basics and blocking change. “

Reports from experts filtering down to our television screens struggle to maintain their integrity. More clarity and responsibility is required at all levels: the public must ultimately commit, and scientists must not leave “the so what’s” to the news industry.

Read the whole article at the New York Times.

Climate Engineering

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0200

A massive increase in funding for technology intended to reduce our dependency on oil is being demanded. Investment in clean-air energy is frequently cited as being the most profitable method, rather than taxing carbon. But the development of new technology is not all centered around making solar power cost effective. NASA would prefer ‘Instant climatic gratification’ something more likely to be put in the hands of the military, not the scientists. Though the military and scientists do agree on one approach: shooting million of tons of sulfate aerosols in the stratosphere above the arctic. These US scientists seems very impatients, perhaps a little trigger happy.

There was little talk among the two dozen scientists and other specialists about carbon taxes, alternative energy sources, or the other usual remedies. Many of the scientists were impatient with such schemes. Some were simply contemptuous of calls for international cooperation and the policies and lifestyle changes needed to curb greenhouse-gas emissions; others had concluded that the world’s politicians and bureaucrats are not up to the job of agreeing on such reforms or that global warming will come more rapidly, and with more catastrophic consequences, than many models predict. Now, they believe, it is time to consider radical measures: a technological quick fix for global warming.

Read the article over at The Wilson Quarterly

Assisted Colonization [Wired]

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:43:34 +0200

The more glamorous side of climate change? Shipping polar bears to the Antartic could certainly make the headlines, but a report highlighted by Wired emphasises how wide ranging our reaction to climate change will have to be—conversationists and ecologists need to begin thinking more about the challenges that climate change will present to migration and extinction.

Other possibilities: moving African big game to the American Great Plains, or airlifting endangered species from one mountaintop to another as climate zones shrink.

Ecologist Jessica Hellmann discusses the expected exponential rate of species extinction, and that we cannot wait for better data: we must put into place strategies that aid conservation, and it must be done now.

Read the article, and get the PDF over at Wired.

Interview with author of The Stern Review

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Almost two years after the publication of The Stern Review on the economic implications of climate change, and the widely-cited declaration that 1% of GDP would have to be spent to avoid the worse implications of climate change, a recent interview with Lord Stern revisits the review. He addresses his critics, claims that technology alone will not save us, and explain how the plans will be put into action in 2009.

Most interesting is the overall picture of a very difficult balance he is trying to strike between economists, politicians, scientists, impoverished people and US presidential candidates. Stern presents a simple argument without seeking legitmacy from alarmist calls to action, but discussing realistic threats and attainable targets.

Read the article over at Prospect Magazine.

Scrap Kyoto: [Democracy, A Journal of Ideas]

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:13:14 +0200

Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus discuss how out of touch the Kyoto Protocol is, and that government policy must be directed towards investments in clean energy, not dedicated to pollution control.

With the U.S. government obstructions, the lack of binding targets for China and Indian, and European expected to reach 2012 targets, but really just buying carbon credits from developing countries, fundamental changes must be made to address energy supply.

Al Gore’s claim that ‘we have the technology’ under-represents the reality and the huge investment required. This investment is somewhere that the G8 and five leading developing nations can lead the world, inticing developing nations through investments, not just purchasing credits for the carbon they don’t use.

The authors emphasise how this approach would aid energy security and with Billions of dollars investment especially in Pacific nations, investment rather than just the reduction of pollution is what we need to be doing right now.

[read the whole article]

US give global warming 3 days of its time

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:52:00 +0200

US give global warming 3 days of its time:

The US government gave a comprehensive bill intended to address climate change only three days on its time:

“On the one hand, the majority says climate change is the most important issue facing the planet. Yet they’ve rushed the debate on that topic and brought the bill to a premature end. They brought it down before we could vote on gas prices, on clean-energy technology, or on protecting American jobs.”

"NASA’s inspector general says that NASA’s own press office “marginalized, or..."

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:04:00 +0200

“NASA’s inspector general says that NASA’s own press office “marginalized, or mischaracterized” its global warming studies between 2004 and 2006”

- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91087076&ft=1&f=1001

"Misreporting of science is now so routine that we hardly notice it."

Fri, 30 May 2008 18:40:00 +0200

““Misreporting of science is now so routine that we hardly notice it.””

- Global warming is happening, misreportage and media exaggeration of promises of salvation isn’t helping.

"Mr. Jagdeo and his mission to get the world’s rich nations to help save Guyana’s huge rain forest..."

Sun, 25 May 2008 19:37:36 +0200

“Mr. Jagdeo and his mission to get the world’s rich nations to help save Guyana’s huge rain forest from chainsaws and prevent the release of billions of tons of carbon dioxide, the main global-warming gas.”

- Editorial Observer - 40 Million Acres of Rain Forest for the Greenest Bidder - Editorial - NYTimes.com

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Fast flying fish glides by ferry

Tue, 20 May 2008 16:59:39 +0200

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Fast flying fish glides by ferry

"Experts say it will be 40 years or more before hydrogen has any meaningful impact on gasoline..."

Tue, 13 May 2008 12:23:00 +0200

“Experts say it will be 40 years or more before hydrogen has any meaningful impact on gasoline consumption or global warming, and we can’t afford to wait that long. In the meantime, fuel cells are diverting resources from more immediate solutions.”

- Hydrogen cars won’t make a difference for decades

"The top climate scientists at the UK’s Hadley Center for Climate Prediction get no respect. No..."

Mon, 12 May 2008 01:32:00 +0200

“The top climate scientists at the UK’s Hadley Center for Climate Prediction get no respect. No matter how many times they try to explain that their data clearly shows the world is warming.”

- Met Office report codemns deniers

Sat, 10 May 2008 14:08:00 +0200

Dutch farmers tip-toe through the tulips

Thu, 08 May 2008 01:10:36 +0200

Dutch farmers tip-toe through the tulips

Intro. & here = no noise + strong signal.

Tue, 06 May 2008 01:12:00 +0200

I’m going to link to some awesome things I find on the web. This will probably end up being focussed on journalism, and articles. Most likely with an environmental twist.