“The Web's most influential climate-change blogger” — Time Magazine A Project of Center for American Progress Action Fund

Scientists: The Marine Stewardship Council “is failing to protect the environment and needs radical reform”

Are MSC-certified 'sustainable fisheries' in fact unsustainable?

September 2, 2010

Small fisheries that use highly selective, low-impact techniques, such as hook-and-line fishing or hand picking, are often sustainable, but make up only a tiny fraction of MSC-certified fisheries.

As part of ClimateProgress’s effort to focus attention on the grave threat to ocean life, today’s guest blogger is marine-biologist-turned-filmmaker, Randy Olson.

Fisheries economist Jennifer Jacquet and a team of A-list marine biologists today took the Marine Stewardship Council out behind the woodshed and left it limping away with a sore posterior. It came in the form of an Opinion piece in Nature appropriately titled, “Seafood Stewardship in Crisis.”

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Politico on CA Senate debate: “Fiorina’s major stumble came on the issue of Proposition 23.”

September 2, 2010

No to Proposition 23!Poor Carly Fiorina.  To make conservative ideologues happy, she has to abandon science and her previous positions on the key issues of global warming and clean energy (see “The dumbing down of Carly Fiorina” and links below).

But to win election statewide, she has to appeal to the majority of California voters, who understand that clean energy is the key to the state’s long-term economic and job growth — and that unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gases will devastate California more than most states.

And so in her first debate with climate and clean energy champion Barbara Boxer, she simply couldn’t give a straightforward answer to the simple question of whether she supported the Big-Oil-funded Prop 23 effort to gut California’s landmark climate and clean energy laws.

Let’s go to the videotape (watch to the end):

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Media Matters: Right-wing media shamefully try to pin Discovery Channel bomber’s actions on Gore

CEI's Chris Horner joins the group shark jump

September 2, 2010

This bizarre tragedy has exposed the shockingly extreme views of some of the anti-science ideologues, as I discussed yesterday.

Media Matters has a must-read post on the latest example of Gore Derangement Syndrome.  Right-wingers from Fox News to Drudge to WattsUpWithThat have tried to pin this crazy guy’s actions on the Nobel Prize-winning former vice president.

Typical is Chris Horner of the Big-Oil-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute, who makes that absurd argument … where else but on the website of Andrew Breitbart (who famously mashed up a video of Shirley Sherrod to make her appear racist, when she was in fact explaining how she was “getting beyond the issue of race“).  His post’s self-defaming headline is “An Inconvenient Truth:  Enviros’ Doomsday Rhetoric Breeds Eco-Terror.”

Now you know those conservatives are pushing an uber-extreme position when the voice of reason on their side comes from Michelle Malkin (!) and Glenn Beck (!!), but MM ends their post with those two explaining why the argument utterly fails:

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One day before its Gulf oil rig exploded, Mariner Energy said Obama “is trying to break us” with moratorium

Mile-long oil sheen is spreading from burning oil platform, Coast Guard says

September 2, 2010

UPDATE:  Oops, the rig explosion did cause a spill after all, MSNBC reports.

No, it’s not even close to BP redux, but the story is noteworthy — and not just for its irony, as TP makes clear:

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Energy and Global Warming News for September 2nd: Banks Grow Wary of Environmental Risks; Japan endures hottest summer on record; Doing more while using less energy

September 2, 2010

Banks Grow Wary of Environmental Risks

Blasting off mountaintops to reach coal in Appalachia or churning out millions of tons of carbon dioxide to extract oil from sand in Alberta are among environmentalists’ biggest industrial irritants. But they are also legal and lucrative.

For a growing number of banks, however, that does not seem to matter.

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Koch-funded organizations launch new “Rally For Jobs” campaign to protect big oil profits

September 2, 2010

CAP’s Joshua Dorner exposes the latest Big Oil effort to dupe the public in this TP cross-post.

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Purported eco-terrorist shot and killed by police

September 1, 2010

UPDATE:  Shockingly, Anthony Watts stands behind his offensive post and comments.

Today, a demented, violent individual held people hostage with a gun and bombs strapped to his body at the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, MD.   He was ultimately shot and killed by police.  Thankfully, the hostages were safe.

For Anthony Watts, this bizarre tragedy is an opportunity to launch his most offensive headline to date at WattsUpWithThat:

WattsWarmista

And the first line of Watts’ post is “Well, you filthy readers, see what happens when we don’t acquiesce?“  Remember, Watts is a guy who just a few weeks ago demanded others “dial back the rhetoric.” Seriously.

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Arctic sea ice area and volume drop near record lows

WattsUpWithThat breaks its own record for fastest overturning of a prediction by reality

September 1, 2010

Sea ice area 8-10

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA, click to enlarge) has a widely used plot of sea ice area.

The notion that the Arctic sea ice was somehow on a long-term recovery trend based on a short-term two-dimensional analysis (i.e. sea ice area or extent just over the last 2 years) — had no basis in fact.  That goes double (triple?) when you look at three dimensions (i.e. volume) over a multi-year period, as I’ll discuss below.

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More on the Lomborg Deception

September 1, 2010

If one follows Bjorn Lomborg closely — not for the feint of heart — one can argue that his position has not changed drastically, as some commenters noted (see “Lomborg flip-flop: “Climate change is undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today”).

But that assumes you ascribe a level of nuance to Lomborg that sometimes exists in his writing, but not in how the anti-science ideologues have used him throughout the years.  Below is an excerpt from Media Matters piece, “How will right-wing media react to former climate skeptic Lomborg?” that drives this point home.   Then I’ll repost a piece by Howard Friel, author of The Lomborg Deception, who explains why “Lomborg is not a responsible climate commentator.”

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Ohio Tea Party survey to candidates: “The regulation of Carbon Dioxide in our atmosphere should be left to God and not government and I oppose all measures of Cap and Trade as well as the teaching of global warming theory in our schools.”

September 1, 2010

At first, I wasn’t going to blog on this because I thought it must be a hoax.  Who could possibly ask such a question of candidates?  Then again, the Tea Party have outsourced their thinking on climate to The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, which is as ridiculous as it gets.

Yesterday, the UK Guardian’s Leo Hickman reported the story, “with a side order of jaw drop”:

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Energy and Global Warming News for September 1: DOE says 2 million smart meters installed nationwide; Nuclear giant Exelon switching to wind; L.A. mayor, Latinos take on oil companies over Prop 23

September 1, 2010

Energy Dept. says nationwide ‘smart meter’ army hits 2 million

The Energy Department said Tuesday more than 2 million “smart” electric meters have been installed nationwide, sped along by funding in the big 2009 stimulus law.

The devices help consumers and businesses track and control power consumption and, hence, costs.

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Breaking: Murkowski concedes Alaska primary defeat

But no, 'dirty air' Lisa is not a "climate change victim" even though her opponent is an anti-science ideologue

September 1, 2010

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska conceded late Tuesday in her Republican primary race against Joe Miller, a lawyer from Fairbanks who was backed by Tea Party activists, Sarah Palin and other conservatives.

Mr. Miller shocked the political establishment here and in Washington last week when he emerged with a narrow lead, 1,668 votes, after the primary vote, on Aug. 24. His victory makes him the presumed favorite to win the Senate seat from this heavily Republican state.

That means the GOP candidate for Senate from the state that’s Ground Zero for climate change is a hardcore science denier who recently said “We haven’t heard there’s man-made global warming.”

Last week, Jeffrey Birnbaum of the conservative newsletter EnergyGuardian (subs. req’d) leapt to the beyond-dubious conclusion, “Murkowski is a climate change victim”:

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Geological Society: Acidifying oceans spell marine biological meltdown “by end of century”

Co-author: "Unless we curb carbon emissions we risk mass extinctions, degrading coastal waters and encouraging outbreaks of toxic jellyfish and algae."

August 31, 2010

A unique ‘natural laboratory’ in the Mediterranean Sea is revealing the effects of rising carbon dioxide levels on life in the oceans. The results show a bleak future for marine life as ocean acidity rises, and suggest that similar lowering of ocean pH levels may have been responsible for massive extinctions in the past.

That’s the opening (and headline) of a news release from the Geological Society of London.  The new study is “Modern seawater acidification: the response of foraminifera to high-CO2 conditions in the Mediterranean Sea” (subs. reqd.) in the latest Journal of the Geological Society.

For background on ocean acidification, see Nature Geoscience: Oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred.

The study identified a tipping point at “mean pH 7.8″:

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Lomborg flip-flop: “Climate change is undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today.”

The one-time "Skeptical Environmentalist" now says, "man-made global warming exists" and "we have long moved on from any mainstream disagreements about the science of climate change."

August 31, 2010

Climate ’sceptic’ Bjørn Lomborg now believes global warming is one of world’s greatest threats

One of the world’s most prominent climate change sceptics has called for a $100bn fund to fight the effects of global warning, after rethinking his views on the severity of the threat.

That’s the UK Telegraph’s headline.

Bjørn Lomborg: the dissenting climate change voice who changed his tune

With his new book, Danish scientist Bjørn Lomborg has become an unlikely advocate for huge investment in fighting global warming….

That’s from the Guardian’s headline.

The key phrase is “With his new book.”  Lomborg is shilling a new book, and he knows he can’t keep running the same tired old story that fears about global warming are overblown.  The contrarian needed to go reverse contrarian.

As the Guardian put it, “Lomborg is most vulnerable to allegations of a volte-face on the need to take action on climate change and the value of doing so.”  Instead of titling the book Smart Solutions to Climate Change, the Danish chameleon should have called it The Bjorn Identity.

Of course, Lomborg doesn’t really know anything about the solutions and most of the people he got to write essays for his book don’t either — and there’s no way of telling if in a few years Lomborg won’t just stick his finger in the wind and flip flop again if that seems like the way to get attention.  So I can’t imagine why someone would want to buy this book.

Lomborg is, after all, one of the most debunked writers on climate in the world — see “Lomborg’s main argument has collapsed” and buy The Lomborg Deception.

In the final paragraph of the book, Lomborg provides a seemingly strong call to action:

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Creating jobs and savings with energy efficiency

Upgrading just 40% of buildings would generate 625,000 jobs and cut U.S. energy bills up to $64 billion a year

August 31, 2010

Energy efficiency is THE core climate solution: The biggest low-carbon resource by far.  “Efficiency Works,” a major new report by Bracken Hendricks, Bill Campbell, Pen Goodale, finds that a straightforward set of policies aimed at upgrading just 40% of the residential and commercial building stock in the United States would:

  • Create 625,000 sustained full-time jobs over a decade
  • Spark $500 billion in new investments to upgrade 50 million homes and office buildings
  • Generate as much as $64 billion a year in cost savings for U.S. ratepayers, freeing consumers to spend their money in more productive ways

What follows is a cross-post of the report summary.

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Energy and Global Warming News for August 31st: Natural gas is beating up on coal, TVA to idle nine coal plants; Details about road-embedded solar cells

August 31, 2010

Natural gas is beating up on coal

Coal has always been cheap and dirty. And the dirty part was justifiable because it was so cheap. Now, gas prices are dropping, threatening coal’s dominance in the North American energy market. Which means gas could take over before coal gets a chance to clean up its act.

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New poll: Americans want EPA action on climate

August 31, 2010

Our guest blogger is CAP’s Daniel J. Weiss.

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) wants to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from undertaking any efforts to reduce global warming pollution from stationary sources or additional reductions from vehicles for two years.   This would actually be a four year delay in pollution reductions because it takes two years for EPA to propose and finalize reduction standards.  This misguided bill puts public health in jeopardy, a risk we simply can’t afford.

Senator Rockefeller’s Stationary Source Regulations Delay Act, S. 3072, or “dirty air bill,” is solidly opposed by the public, according to a brand new poll for the NRDC Action Fund by the Benenson Strategy Group.  It polled 1,401 likely 2010 voters from August 10-15 and found:

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USGS report: Asian glacier retreat, driven by climate change, “increases the likelihood of outburst floods that threaten life and property in nearby areas”

Rapid melting threatens water supplies to millions

August 31, 2010

Many of Asia’s glaciers are retreating as a result of climate change.

This retreat impacts water supplies to millions of people, increases the likelihood of outburst floods that threaten life and property in nearby areas, and contributes to sea-level rise.

Talk about your well-timed studies — see “One-fifth of Pakistan is under water.”

The U.S. Geological Survey collaborated with 39 international scientists — “the most knowledgeable glaciologists for each geographic region covered” — on “The Glaciers of Asia,” which reports on “the status of glaciers throughout all of Asia, including Russia, China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan.”

Here’s more of their release:

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More conclusive proof of global warming

February 17, 2010

In honor of the Vancouver Olympics, I am reposting this humorous video from 2008:

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An illustrated guide to the latest climate science

February 17, 2010

Decadal

Here is an update of my review of the best papers on climate science in the past year.  If you want a broader overview of the literature in the past few years, focusing specifically on how unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gas emissions are projected to impact the United States, try “An introduction to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water.”

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Foreign Policy’s “Guide to Climate Skeptics” includes Roger Pielke, Jr.

February 28, 2010

Warning:  Please put your head in a vise before reading further.

Andy Revkin has just written the most illogical climate post on Earth.  Or maybe he’s written the most logical climate post on the Bizarro World Htrae.

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Debate the controversy!

March 8, 2010

The serial misinformers and misrepresenters demand equal time for their misinformation and misrepresentations.  What should climate science defenders and the media do?

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The complete guide to modern day climate change

All the data you need to show that the world is warming

April 14, 2010

According to the IPCC 4th Assessment Report (2007):
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U.S. National Academy of Sciences labels as “settled facts” that “the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities”

New report confirms failure to act poses "significant risks"

May 19, 2010

A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems….

Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities.

The National Academy released three reports today on “America’s Climate Choices.”

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Exclusive interview: NCAR’s Trenberth on the link between global warming and extreme deluges

New England, Tennessee, Oklahoma.... Who's next?

June 14, 2010

I find it systematically tends to get underplayed and it often gets underplayed by my fellow scientists. Because one of the opening statements, which I’m sure you’ve probably heard is “Well you can’t attribute a single event to climate change.” But there is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago. It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms and it’s unfortunate that the public is not associating these with the fact that this is one manifestation of climate change. And the prospects are that these kinds of things will only get bigger and worse in the future.

That’s Dr. Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, on the warming-deluge connection.  I interviewed him a couple weeks ago about Tennessee’s 1000-year deluge aka Nashville’s ‘Katrina’.

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Time magazine names Climate Progress one of the 25 “Best Blogs of 2010″

And one of the "top five blogs Time writers read daily"

June 28, 2010

For any first time visitors here, you might start with “An Introduction to Climate Progress.”

From the savvy to the satirical, the eye-opening to the jaw-dropping, TIME makes its annual picks of the blogs we can’t live without

Here’s the full list along with what Time said about Climate Progress [plus a nice video]:

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What if the public had perfect climate information?

June 30, 2010

Revkin asks me via Dot Earth, “What if The Public had Perfect Climate Information?”  Ahh, the hypothetical question that launches us into an alternative history.  Reminds me of that Saturday Night Live routine, “What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub?”

I’d love your answer.  Here’s mine.

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Bill McKibben reviews “Straight Up,” challenges me to offer 350.org advice. I accept!

July 12, 2010

Cover image of Joe Romm's book, Straight Up: America's Fiercest Climate Blogger Takes on the Status Quo Media, Politicians, and Clean Energy SolutionsBill McKibben — some-time guest blogger and the author most recently of the must-read book Eaarth — has a challenging review of my book Straight Up in the Washington Monthly.

He literally challenges me to talk more about political movements on this blog, such has the one he cofounded, 350.org.  I accept.

Indeed, I issue a challenge of my own to 350.org to change its focus and get more political! I’d love to hear your thoughts — and I’m quite sure that McKibben would, too.

So I’ll mostly dispense with the parts in which he explains why you should buy the book if you’re interested in climate or the Web — “this book—a collection of some of his thousands of blog posts—is a good way to think not only about climate but about the uses of the Web” — and cut to his challenge:

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UK Guardian slams Morano for cyber-bullying and for urging violence against climate scientists

July 15, 2010

I have previously written about The rise of anti-science cyber bullying and the role played by Swift Boat smearer Marc Morano — who believes climate scientists should be publicly beaten.

The UK Guardian has posted an outstanding piece slamming Morano’s “warped world vision” and the ‘award’ he just won:

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The failed presidency of Barack Obama, Part 1

Rolling Stone: "Instead of taking the fight to big polluters, President Obama has put global warming on the back burner"

July 22, 2010

Climate Fail

UPDATE:  Sens. Reid and Kerry made it official today – the mostly dead climate bill is now extinct.  It has passed on!   It is is no more!  It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the perch ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-CLIMATE BILL!!

… the disaster in the Gulf should have been a critical turning point for global warming. Handled correctly, the BP spill should have been to climate legislation what September 11th was to the Patriot Act, or the financial collapse was to the bank bailout. Disasters drive sweeping legislation, and precedent was on the side of a great leap forward in environmental progress. In 1969, an oil spill in Santa Barbara, California – of only 100,000 barrels, less than the two-day output of the BP gusher – prompted Richard Nixon to create the EPA and sign the Clean Air Act.

But the Obama administration let the opportunity slip away….

That’s from a must-read Rolling Stone obit “Climate Bill, R.I.P.” excerpted below.

As I’ve said many times, Obama’s legacy — and indeed the legacy of all 21st century presidents, starting with George W. Bush — will be determined primarily by whether we avert catastrophic climate change (see “Will eco-disasters destroy Obama’s legacy?“). If not, then Obama — and all of us — will be seen as a failure, and rightfully so.

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Hockey Stick fight at the RC Corral

Schmidt to Curry: "In future I will simply assume you are a conduit for untrue statements rather than their originator."

July 25, 2010

UPDATE:  Judith Curry comments below — including this new puzzler.  I reply.  Feel free to do the same.

As a general rule for scientists, one shouldn’t hitch one’s wagon to long-debunked purveyors of disinformation.  Because then you might end up circling the wagons with the wrong … tribe (see “The curious incident of Judith Curry with the fringe“).

I’m on a plane today, so I commend to you an outstanding Real Climate post, “The Montford Delusion,” by Tamino — and the stunning comments section.  NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt and Tamino are in the role of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and company.  Judith Curry (and Peter Webster) have apparently thrown in with the Clantons.  Like all analogies, this one isn’t perfect, but I’m afraid the outcome is pretty much the same.

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What are the prospects for comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation in the coming years …

... in the real world, in the world where people believe the BS analysis in the Washington Post, and in an alternative universe where the GOP isn't anti-science and pro-pollution

July 27, 2010

The chances for either an economy-wide shrinking cap on greenhouse gas emissions or a major push on clean energy investment over the next several years are not large — on this Earth.  The chances would be higher on planet Eaarth, where (in descending order of importance):

  1. Senate Republicans aren’t in the thrall of the anti-science, pro-pollution ideologues and special interests.
  2. The media coverage of climate science, solutions, and economics isn’t so abysmal.
  3. The President gives a full-throated push on such legislation.

On planet Earth, the majorities in both houses that favor any serious action will dwindle in 2011.  If 2010 is the third straight wave election and the GOP takes the House, then there is no prospect for any action whatsoever as long as they control the House (that goes double for GOP control of the Senate, which is less likely because of too many Tea-Party-driven GOP candidates).

On Earth, the best one could plausibly hope for in the next Congress, assuming only modest Republican gains, is some sort of weak cap on utility emissions, possibly with some weak oil saving measures, though that would still require Obama to do what he refused to do under more favorable political circumstances — push hard for a bill.

But we also have planet DC, where media outlets like the Washington Post drive a factually dubious but potentially self-fulfilling conventional wisdom, as in their front page story today, “Among House Democrats in Rust Belt, a sense of abandonment over energy bill,” which opens:

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Nature Stunner: “Global warming blamed for 40% decline in the ocean’s phytoplankton”

"Microscopic life crucial to the marine food chain is dying out. The consequences could be catastrophic."

July 29, 2010

Scientists may have found the most devastating impact yet of human-caused global warming — a 40% decline in phytoplankton since 1950 linked to the rise in ocean sea surface temperatures.  If confirmed, it may represent the single most important finding of the year in climate science.

The headlines above are from an appropriately blunt article in The Independent about the new study in Nature, “Global phytoplankton decline over the past century” (subs. req’d).  Even the Wall Street Journal warned, “Vital Marine Plants in Steep Decline.”  Seth Borenstein of the AP explains, “plant plankton found in the world’s oceans  are crucial to much of life on Earth. They are the foundation of the bountiful marine food web, produce half the world’s oxygen and suck up harmful carbon dioxide.”

We’ve known for a while that we are poisoning the oceans and that human emissions of carbon dioxide, left unchecked, would likely have devastating consequences — see “2010 Nature Geoscience study: Oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred.”  And we’ve known those impacts might last a long, long time — see  2009 Nature Geoscience study concludes ocean dead zones “devoid of fish and seafood” are poised to expand and “remain for thousands of years.”

But until now, conventional wisdom has been that big ocean impacts might not be seen until the second half of the century.  This new research in Nature suggests we may have much less time to act than we thought if we want to save marine life — and ourselves.  The study concludes:

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How the status quo media failed on climate change

July 29, 2010

The Washington Post has one of the best, short analyses of the climate bill’s death that I’ve seen in the status quo media.  In the print edition, it’s titled “How Washington failed on climate change.”

The author, Stephen Stromberg, gets two thirds of the main blame about right.  First, he notes, “With few exceptions, Republicans have behaved shamefully on climate issues in this Congress, opposing policies that their party embraced in the 1990s (think cap-and-trade). Yet none of them will pay a price in November, and many GOP challengers will benefit.”  Second, he makes a good case that “The president had the political capital and the numbers in Congress to pass something big. He chose health care” over climate.

The irony is that Stomborg is “Deputy opinions editor of washingtonpost.com,” and he is strangely silent on the role of the media, which I think deserves much more blame than Obama (but less than the GOP).  The dreadful media coverage simply creates little space for rational public discourse.  The media has for a long time downplayed the importance of the issue, miscovered key aspects of the debate, given equal time to pro-pollution disinformers, and generally failed to inform the public.  And the Washington Post itself is worse than most, which is why it won the 2009 “Citizen Kane” award for non-excellence in climate journalism.

Even Eric Pooley, author of the must-read political history of how we got into this mess, The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth, leaves out the media in his listing of Murderer’s Row for the climate bill’s homicide at Yale e360:

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Video: Everything you wanted to know about climate science in under 10 minutes

July 30, 2010

James Powell, Executive Director, National Physical Science Consortium, has produced an excellent YouTube video summarizing the evidence for anthropogenic global warming

Powell is a former college and museum president.  “President Reagan and later, President George H. W. Bush, both appointed Powell to the National Science Board, where he served for 12 years.”

Great for sending to any septics you may know:

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Atlantic shocker: Senior editor Clive Crook fabricates another quote to smear Michael Mann

August 4, 2010

The Atlantic’s Clive Crook has written the most embarrassing and libelous piece published by the media, “More on Climategate.”

The fact that the Atlantic continues to allow him to make up stuff and print it (without fact-checking) for the sole purpose of smearing Michael Mann — after the editors were informed of the libelous errors in the first piece — calls into question the editorial judgment of the entire magazine.

Both of Crook’s pieces should be taken down from the web, and he should issue a huge, public apology to Mann.  Indeed, I think he owes Mann the courtesy of a phone call apology, too, since he has now written two falsehood-filled smear jobs on Mann without even bothering to try to talk to him.

Two weeks ago I wrote, “The Atlantic’s Clive Crook needs to retract his libelous misinformation and apologize to Michael Mann.” I pointed out a bunch of untrue assertions he made about Mann.   Crook now acknowledges some of them, sort of — but he doesn’t even go back and correct the original post!

At the time I thought he had fabricated a quote when he wrote, falsely:

Three of four allegations are dismissed out of hand at the outset: the inquiry announces that, for “lack of credible evidence“, it will not even investigate them.

Of course, the allegations weren’t “dismissed out of hand.”  Mann had been exonerated of them in the first investigation, as I noted.

I can’t find the phrase “lack of credible evidence” anywhere in the second inquiry (or first, for that matter, the one Crook seems to suggest he was aware of even though his entire first post suggests otherwise).  Crook fails to identify where in the inquiry it came from, so I assume he can’t.  I challenge him to do so, especially since in his new post he makes a major fabrication whose sole purpose is to smear Michael Mann.  Two fabrications would make a pattern.

As we will see, this latest fabrication is so extreme it goes beyond what even extremists like Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli have done in their effort to defame Mann.  Here is what Crook writes:

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10 indicators of a human fingerprint on climate change

August 10, 2010

10 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change

This post by physicist John Cook was first published in Skeptical Science.

The NOAA State of the Climate 2009 report is an excellent summary of the many lines of evidence that global warming is happening. Acknowledging the fact that the planet is warming leads to the all important question:  What’s causing global warming? To answer this, here is a summary of the empirical evidence that answer this question. Many different observations find a distinct human fingerprint on climate change:

To get a closer look, click on the pic above to get a high-rez 1024×768 version (you’re all welcome to use this graphic in your Powerpoint presentations). Or to dig even deeper, here’s more info on each indicator (including links to the original data or peer-reviewed research):
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Cook: “When someone mentions to you that CO2 lags temperature, remind them they’re actually invoking evidence for a positive feedback that further increases global warming by an extra 15 to 78%.”

August 17, 2010

Physicist John Cook of Skeptical Science has a good piece on “The significance of the CO2 lag” that I’m reposting here, followed by a discussion of the best-studied feedbacks and their likely impact (with links to the literature).

When we examine past climate change using ice cores, we observe that CO2 lags temperature. In other words, a change in temperature causes changes in atmospheric CO2. This is due to various processes such as warmer temperatures causing the oceans to release CO2. This has lead some to argue that the CO2 lag disproves the warming effect of CO2. However, this line of thinking doesn’t take in the full body of evidence. We have many lines of empirical evidence that CO2 traps heat. Decades of lab experiments reveal how CO2 absorbs and scatters infrared radiation. Satellite measurements find CO2 trapping heat and surface measurements confirm more radiation at CO2 wavelengths returning to the Earth’s surface. So the full body of evidence gives us these two facts: warming causes more CO2 and more CO2 causes warming. The significance should by now be obvious. The CO2 lag is evidence of a climate positive feedback.

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One of many ways climate disinformers mislead

August 23, 2010

This post by physicist John Cook was first published in Skeptical Science.

In science, the only thing better than measurements made in the real world are multiple sets of measurements – all pointing to the same answer. That’s what we find with climate change. The case for human caused global warming is based on many independent lines of evidence. Our understanding of climate comes from considering all this evidence. In contrast, global warming skepticism focuses on narrow pieces of the puzzle while neglecting the full picture.

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A looming oxygen crisis and its impact on our oceans

August 15, 2010

We’ve known for a while that we are poisoning the oceans and that human emissions of carbon dioxide, left unchecked, would likely have devastating consequences.  A 2010 study found that oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred.

And we’ve known those impacts might last a long, long time —a 2009 study concluded ocean dead zones “devoid of fish and seafood” are poised to expand and “remain for thousands of years.” Worse, a Nature study just found that global warming is already the likely cause of a 40% decline in the ocean’s phytoplankton:  “Microscopic life crucial to the marine food chain is dying out. The consequences could be catastrophic.”

Carl Zimmer, a noted science writer and winner of the 2007 NAS Communication Award, reveals some more chilling facts about the path our oceans may be on in this repost from Yale’s Environment 360 online magazine.

As warming intensifies, scientists warn, the oxygen content of oceans across the planet could be more and more diminished, with serious consequences for the future of fish and other sea life.

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Rebutting climate science disinformer talking points in a single line

August 9, 2010

Please offer suggestions for improving the one liners below.

Progressives should know the most commonly used arguments by the disinformers and doubters — and how to answer them.  You should know as much of the science behind those rebuttals as possible, and a great place to start is SkepticalScience.com.

BUT most of the time your best response is to give the pithiest response possible, and then refer people to a  specific website  that has a more detailed scientific explanation with links to the original science.   That’s because usually those you are talking to are rarely in a position to adjudicate scientific arguments.  Indeed, they would probably tune out.  Also,  unless you know the science cold,  you are as likely as not to make a  misstatement.

Physicist John Cook has done us a great service by posting good one-line responses, which I repost with links below.  For instance,  if somebody  raises the standard talking point that the climate has changed before, you can say, “Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time, which now is dominated by humans.”  That  it is actually quite similar to my standard response, “The climate changes  when it is forced to change,  and now humans are forcing it to change far more rapidly than in the past” (see “Humans boosting CO2 14,000 times faster than nature, overwhelming slow negative feedbacks” and “Yes, the atmospheric CO2 fraction has risen at a dangerously fast rate in the past 160 years, reaching levels not seen in millions of years“).  Working in the “now is dominated by humans” part is a good idea.

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Global boiling fuels disasters in nuclear nations

Masters: "The Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010 continues.... Thousands of deaths, severe fires, and the threat of radioactive contamination"

August 7, 2010

Prior to this year, the hottest temperature in Moscow’s history was 37.2°C (99°F), set in August 1920. The Moscow Observatory has now matched or exceeded this 1920 all-time record five times in the past eleven days, including today….

soil moisture in some portions of European Russia has dropped to levels one would expect only once every 500 years.

That’s meteorologist Jeff Masters writing about “One of the most remarkable weather events of my lifetime.”  The impact of the decline in soil moisture, along with the epic heat and fires, has been devastating, causing Russia to ban wheat exports.  Coupled with extreme weather around the globe, it has helped nearly double wheat prices since June.

Sharp and long-lasting declines in soil moisture over much of the planet’s habited landmass are a major prediction of climate science, something I’ve called “DUST-BOWL-IFICATION” (since readers pointed out to me that many deserts really aren’t so bad).  Here’s what the recent scientific literature says we face in the second half of the century if we stay anywhere near our current emissions path:

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Russian Meteorological Center: “There was nothing similar to this on the territory of Russia during the last one thousand years in regard to the heat.”

Masters: Over 15,000 likely dead in Russia, 17 nations comprising 19% of Earth's total land area set extreme heat records this year, July was "sixth straight record warm month in the tropical Atlantic"

August 9, 2010

Caption:  “A comparison of August temperatures, the peak of the great European heat wave of 2003 (left) with July temperatures from the Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010 (right) reveals that this year’s heat wave is more intense and covers a wider area of Europe. Image credit: NOAA/ESRL” — Jeff Masters.

Ria Novisti reports:

Russia has recently seen the longest unprecedented heat wave for at least one thousand years, the head of the Russian Meteorological Center said on Monday….

“We have an ‘archive’ of abnormal weather situations stretching over a thousand years. It is possible to say there was nothing similar to this on the territory of Russia during the last one thousand years in regard to the heat,” Alexander Frolov said.

He said scientists received information on ancient weather conditions by exploring lake deposits.

Frolov also said Russia’s grain crop may decrease by at least 30% compared to last year.

Once-in-a-thousand-year weather events ain’t what they used to be (see “Stunning NOAA map of Tennessee’s 1000-year deluge“).  And we’ve only warmed about 1.5°F in the past century.  We’re  projected to warm some 6 times that (!)  on our current emissions path.  So we ain’t seen nothing yet!

The BBC reports, “Moscow’s health chief has confirmed the mortality rate has doubled as a heatwave and wildfire smog continue to grip the Russian capital.”  The BBC repeats the “worst in 1,000 years of recorded Russian history” line, and quotes Frolov also saying, “It’s an absolutely unique phenomenon – nothing like it can be seen in the archives.”  But the BBC  is mum on global warming or climate change or greenhouse gas emissions.

At least  Russian leaders are starting to get (see Medvedev: “What is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past”).

Meteorologist Jeff Masters has the full story on just what Russia and the rest of the planet is going through:

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Stanford poll: The vast majority of Americans know global warming is real

Florida, Maine, and Massachusetts residents agree: Global warming is here and we're causing it.

August 11, 2010

By Kalen Pruss of CAP’s executive team.

Large majorities of Florida, Maine, and Massachusetts residents believe that global warming is real—and that humans are causing it.

So says the latest poll from Jon Krosnick, senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.  Krosnick found that large majorities of Florida, Maine, and Massachusetts residents believe that:

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Media wakes up to Hell and High Water: Moscow’s 1000-year heat wave and “Pakistan’s Katrina”

BBC, Reuters, USA Today, Time link warming and extreme weather; Trenberth, Stott, and Masters explain the science

August 12, 2010

How hot is it?  So hot that even the status quo media is waking up to the fact that human emissions of greenhouse gases are changing the climate and causing  record-smashing extreme weather events, just  as scientist predicted decades ago.

It happened to CNN meteorologist Chad Myers, and  I have a roundup from other  major media outlets — please add links to ones I missed.

At the end is a discussion of the science of Hell and High Water in pieces by NCAR’s Kevin Trenberth, The Met Office’s Peter Stott, and Jeff Masters — along with links for those who want to donate to help out in the “massive humanitarian crisis in Pakistan.”  For more background, see “Intro to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water.”

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Real adaptation is as politically tough as real mitigation, but much more expensive and not as effective in reducing future misery

Rhetorical adaptation, however, is a political winner. Too bad it means preventable suffering for billions.

August 27, 2010

We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation and suffering. We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be.

That’s the pithiest expression I’ve seen on the subject of adaptation, via John Holdren, now science advisor.  Sometimes he uses “misery,” rather than “suffering.”

I’m going to start a multipart series on adaptation — in honor of the fifth anniversary of Katrina.  That disaster provides many lessons we continue to ignore, such as Global warming “adaptation” is a cruel euphemism — and prevention is far, far cheaper.

I draw a distinction between real adaptation, where one seriously proposes trying to prepare for what’s to come if we don’t do real mitigation (i.e. an 800 to 1000+ ppm world aka Hell and High Water) and rhetorical adaptation, which is a messaging strategy used by those who really don’t take global warming seriously — those who oppose serious mitigation and who don’t want to do bloody much of anything, but who don’t want to seem indifferent to the plight of humanity (aka poor people in other countries, who they think will be the only victims at some distant point in the future).

In practice, rhetorical adaptation really means “buck up, fend for yourself, walk it off.”  Let’s call the folks who push that “maladapters.”  Typically, people don’t spell out specifically where they stand on the scale from real to rhetorical.

I do understand that because mitigation is so politically difficult, people are naturally looking at other “strategies.”  But most of the discussion of adaptation in the media and blogosphere misses the key points:

  1. Real adaptation is substantially more expensive than mitigation (see Scientists find “net present value of climate change impacts” of $1240 TRILLION on current emissions path, making mitigation to under 450 ppm a must, reprinted below).
  2. Real adaptation without very substantial mitigation is just a cruel euphemism (see An introduction to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water).
  3. Real adaptation requires much bigger and far more intrusive government than mitigation.  Indeed, if the anti-science ideologues get their way and stop serious mitigation, then the government will inevitably get into the business of telling people where they can and can’t live (can’t let people keep rebuilding in the ever-spreading flood plains or the ever-enlarging areas threatened by sea level rise and DustBowlification) and how they can live (sharp water curtailment in the SW DustBowl, for instance) and possibly what they can eat.  Conservative action against climate action now will force big government in coming decades to triage our major coastal cities — Key West and Galveston and probably New Orleans would be unsavable, but what about Miami and Houston?  I’ll do a separate post on this and would love suggestions for what kinds of things government would have to decide and spend money on if we listen to the maladapters and stay anywhere near our current emissions path.
  4. Real adaptation is so expensive (and endless) that it is essentially impossible to imagine how a real adaptation bill could pass Congress — unless of course you paid for it with a high and rising price for CO2.  Hmm.  Why didn’t somebody think of that?
  5. The only people who will pursue real adaptation are those who understand the latest science and are prepared to take serious political  action based on that understanding. Unfortunately, that doesn’t  include any of the people people who helped kill the climate bill.  There isn’t really much point in spending tens of billions of dollars to plan for, say,  a sea level rise of one foot if that isn’t what’s coming.  The point is,  you can’t even imagine doing the planning and bill-writing and then actually investing in  real adaptation — unless  you accept the science  and do serious worst-case planning.  But if  you accepted the science, you’d  obviously pursue mitigation as your primary strategy, while using  some of the proceeds from the climate bill to support adaptation.

So real adaptation is not more politically viability than  real mitigation — and what really is the point of pursuing something that is not more politically viable than mitigation when it  won’t actually prevent misery and suffering for billions of people?  Sure, we must pursue adaptation for Americans — and we are ethically bound to help developing countries adapt to the climate change that we helped create — but real mitigation is the sine qua non.

Real mitigation is an effort to keep emissions as far below 450 ppm as is possible — and if we go above 450 ppm, to get back to 350 as fast as possible (see How the world can stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm: The full global warming solution).

Let me expand on #1 and #2 below.

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The Curious Case of the Hockey Stick that Didn’t Disappear. Part 1: The Police Lineup

But who killed the Medieval Warm Period?

August 16, 2010

Before we begin the investigation into the usual suspects, some background for people who those who don’t follow climate science closely, which certainly includes most of the disinformers and  apparently at least two statisticians.

  1. There is a high probability that the recent warming is unprecedented for 1000 years and probably much longer (see “Sorry disinformers, hockey stick gets longer, stronger: Earth hotter now than in past 2,000 years“ and here and here).
  2. This conclusion is based on an analysis of multiple proxies for temperature, which individually engender much uncertainty and collectively still engender a fair amount.  It is a canard of Curry-esque proportions to assert that scientists have not clearly explained the nature and extent of these uncertainties. They have bent over backwards to do so.
  3. The temperature trend in the past millennium prior to about 1850 is well explained in the scientific literature as primarily due to changes in the solar forcing along with the effect of volcanoes, whereas the recent rise in temperature has been driven primarily — if not almost entirely — by human activity (see Scientist: “Our conclusions were misinterpreted” by Inhofe, CO2 — but not the sun — “is significantly correlated” with temperature since 1850 and Part 3 [to come]).
  4. Absent human emissions, we’d probably be in a slow long-term cooling trend due primarily by changes in the Earth’s orbit — see Human-caused Arctic warming overtakes 2,000 years of natural cooling, “seminal” study finds.
  5. Thus, the rate of human-driven warming in the last century has exceeded the rate of the underlying natural trend by more than a factor of 10, possibly much more.  And warming this century  on our current path of unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions is projected to cause a rate of warming that is another factor of 5 or more greater than that of the last century.  We are punching the climate beast — and she ain’t happy about it!

Back to the investigation of attempted murder — and the ‘innocent victim’ who may have been killed in the attempt.  The folks who don’t follow climate science closely have been trumpeting a new paper “A Statistical Analysis of Multiple Temperature Proxies: Are Reconstructions of Surface Temperatures Over the Last 1000 Years Reliable?” by McShane and Wyner about to be published in Annals of Applied Statistics.   Supposedly it is fatal to the Hockey Stick.

Here is the police lineup.  Take a look at three independent reconstructions of the past one to two  millennia and the new one by the statisticians — and see if you can pick out which one allegedly killed the others (with apologies to Deltoid):

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Are ethical arguments for climate action weaker than self-interest-based arguments?

August 17, 2010

Guest blogger Donald A. Brown is Associate Professor for Environmental Ethics, Science, and Law at Penn State University.  This cross-post is from his ClimateEthics blog.

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Science shocker: Drought drives decade-long decline in plant growth

This could drive an amplifying feedback, undermine biofuels strategy

August 19, 2010

Earth has done an ecological about-face: Global plant productivity that once flourished under warming temperatures and a lengthened growing season is now on the decline, struck by the stress of drought.

NASA-funded researchers Maosheng Zhao and Steven Running, of the University of Montana in Missoula, discovered the global shift during an analysis of NASA satellite data. Compared with a six-percent increase spanning two earlier decades, the recent ten-year decline is slight — just one percent. The shift, however, could impact food security, biofuels, and the global carbon cycle.

“We see this as a bit of a surprise, and potentially significant on a policy level because previous interpretations suggested that global warming might actually help plant growth around the world,” Running said.

“These results are extraordinarily significant because they show that the global net effect of climatic warming on the productivity of terrestrial vegetation need not be positive — as was documented for the 1980’s and 1990’s,” said Diane Wickland, of NASA Headquarters and manager of NASA’s Terrestrial Ecology research program.

That’s from a remarkable NASA news release today, “Drought Drives Decade-Long Decline in Plant Growth” (see narrated video below).

On Friday, the journal Science publishes the study itself, ” Drought-Induced Reduction in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 2000 Through 2009” (subs. req’d), which found:

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Stopping Proposition 23: Five things you can do to fight global warming and advance clean energy

August 22, 2010

No to Proposition 23!People are always asking me what they can do right now on behalf of the climate and clean energy.

Perhaps the top near-term priority is to defeat the fossil fuel-funded Prop 23 effort to repeal California’s clean energy climate laws this November.

Here are five things you can do to win this fight:

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New Yorker exposes Koch brothers along with their greenwashing and whitewashing Smithsonian exhibit

August 24, 2010

Yesterday, the New Yorker published a devastating investigative piece by Jane Mayer that exposes the Koch family’s efforts to put together the Tea Party movement and much of the modern right-wing infrastructure.  It builds off the original reporting conducted by ThinkProgress, some of which I’ve reposted here (see “From promoting acid rain to climate denial — over 20 years of David Koch’s polluter front groups“).

It also builds off a joint effort by TP and Climate Progress to investigate David Koch’s funding of a dreadful Smithsonian Institute exhibit (see “Must-see video: Polluter-funded Smithsonian exhibit whitewashes danger of human-caused climate change:    Koch money and dubious displays put credibility of entire museum and science staff on the line”).

Mayer interview me and the fact checker followed up.  Indeed, this piece is doubly devastating because the New Yorker remains one of the few major magazines that still fact checks line by line.  The whole piece is worth reading.  The end focuses on the Smithsonian story: Read the rest of this post »

Stop Prop 23: The ‘fact sheet’ vs. the facts

August 25, 2010

No to Proposition 23!The economic benefits of climate and clean energy policies, such as California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, or AB 32, are clear.  The Center for American Progress and this blog have reported on the opportunities for growth and job creation from AB 32 several times (see “A California Campaign With Global Consequences” and Economists agree, don’t block AB 32!).  The Stop the Dirty Energy Proposition coalition provides additional background here.

Despite this, the oil-funded campaign to pass Proposition 23 that would repeal AB 32 is continuing to spill misinformation with a new “Fact Sheet: Green Jobs Utopia Is A Myth.”  Aside from the fact that their arguments are nonsense, the “fact sheet” does not include any facts.  There is not a single source or citation on the page.

CAP’s Rebecca Lefton and Sean Pool have the real facts.

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Hansen on why he became an activist: “Our planet is close to climate tipping points” and it is “clear that needed actions will happen only if the public, somehow, becomes forcefully involved.”

Top climatologist launches new website with graphs and analysis

August 26, 2010

60-month and 132-month running means of global surface temperature anomaly with a base period 1951-1980.

The nation’s leading — and most scientifically prescient — climatologist has a new website, Updating the Climate Science: What Path is the Real World Following? It “will present updated graphs and discussion of key quantities that help provide understanding of how climate change is developing and how effective or ineffective global actions are in affecting climate forcings and future climate change.”

He also has a new essay, “Activist”, for “J. Henry Fair’s upcoming book.”  As an aside I simply can’t imagine why Fair titled his book, “The Day After Tomorrow,” the dreadful, scientifically inaccurate 2004 climate movie that many folks, like director James Cameron, actually say set back the cause of informing the public about climate science and the dangers of unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions.

I’ll excerpt the essay and repost some of the graphs below:

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KPMG review finds IPCC chief Pachauri innocent of financial misdealings or conflict of interest, UK Telegraph apologizes for smearing him

Monbiot: "A scrupulously honest man has been much maligned"

August 26, 2010

No evidence was found that indicated personal fiduciary benefits accruing to Pachauri from his various advisory roles that would have led to a conflict of interest.

That’s the finding of a detailed report by KPMG on the finances of Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

A great many U.S. reporters and bloggers owe an apology to Pachauri (see “N.Y. Times and Elisabeth Rosenthal Face Credibility Siege over Unbalanced Climate Coverage“).

Let’s see if they own up to it as the UK’s Telegraph finally did:

On 20 December 2009 we published an article about Dr Pachauri and his business interests. It was not intended to suggest that Dr Pachauri was corrupt or abusing his position as head of the IPCC and we accept KPMG found Dr Pachauri had not made “millions of dollars” in recent years. We apologise to Dr Pachauri for any embarrassment caused.

In fact, suggesting Pachauri was corrupt or abusing his position was the whole point of the story, which has been removed from their website but which you can easily find on right-wing websites by googling the title:  “Questions over business deals of UN climate change guru Dr Rajendra Pachauri” by Christopher Booker and Richard North.

This whole smear against Pachauri was so outrageous, but so eagerly parroted by U.S. disinformers and so willingly lapped up by the U.S. media that I’m going to reprint below in its entirety, George Monbiot’s piece for the UK Guardian.  I hope others will echo this far and wide:

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The Coming Food Crisis: Global food security is stretched to the breaking point, and Russia’s fires and Pakistan’s floods are making a bad situation worse.

Podesta, Caldwell: "Lasting gains in agricultural productivity will require ... action to confront climate change."

August 27, 2010

Prices of basic foodstuffs like buckwheat and flour have soared in Russia over the past month as the effects of its worst ever drought hit supplies, statistics showed Wednesday….

Most alarmingly, the price of Russian staple buckwheat — enjoyed by generations for breakfast or as an accompaniment to meat — rose a very sharp 8.6 percent in the space of the week.

So Seed Daily reported Wednesday.  Last year, Lester Brown and Scientific American asked “Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?”

CAP’s John D. Podesta and Jake Caldwell have a new piece in Foreign Policy,”The Coming Food Crisis,” which I excerpt below:

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What’s the difference between climate science and climate journalism?

The former is self-correcting, the latter has become self-destructive

August 29, 2010

UPDATE:  Revkin replies below with a tweet that pretty much makes my case.

UPDATE 2:  Dr. Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University, whom the NYT itself quoted last year as “an expert on environmental communications,” writes me that Revkin “fundamentally misrepresents the actual history of climate science.” His full comments are below.

So New York Times blogger Andy Revkin has written perhaps his worst post yet. The blogosphere and my inbox are filled with the most amazing rebukes I’ve seen from scientists and others, which I’m reposting here, including Steve Easterbrook’s, “When did ignorance become a badge of honour for journalists?”

Revkin’s guilt-by-(distant)-association piece, “On Harvard Misconduct, Climate Research and Trust,” betrays a remarkable lack of understanding of the scientific process. And what is most ironic is that if you replace the word “research” with “reporting” — and “science” with “journalism” — throughout his piece, you get a much more plausible indictment of modern climate journalism.

As one of the country’s leading climatologists emails me (paraphrasing Revkin’s final graf):

Can we trust Andy Revkin to cover the science of climate change in an honest way without misquoting scientists, drawing false equivalencies, and interpreting all new findings through the myopic lens of a contrarian narrative? I wouldn’t be a scientist if I answered “yes”.

Science blogger Eli Rabett of Rabett Run fame writes (here):

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Climate Progress at four years: Why I blog

August 29, 2010

From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books….

I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts….

– George Orwell, “Why I write”

I joined the new media because the old media have failed us. They have utterly failed to force us to face unpleasant facts (see here).

What I have learned most from the success of my blog, from the rapid growth in subscribers and visitors and comments, along with the increasing number of websites that link to or reprint my posts, is that there is in fact a great hunger out there for the bluntest possible talk. It is a hunger to learn the truth about the dire nature of our energy and climate situation, about the grave threat to our children and future generations, about the vast but still achievable scale of the solutions, about the forces in politics and media that impede action—a hunger to face unpleasant facts head on.

Unlike Orwell, I knew from a very early age, certainly by the age of five or six, that I would be a physicist, like my uncle, and I announced that proudly to all who asked.

I knew I did not want to be a professional writer since I saw how hopeless it was to make a living that way.  My father was the editor of a small newspaper (circulation under 10,000) that he turned into a medium-sized newspaper (70,000) but was paid dirt, even though he managed the equivalent of a large manufacturing enterprise — while simultaneously writing three editorials a day — that in any other industry would pay five times as much.  My mother pursued freelance writing for many years, an even more difficult way to earn a living (see also “This could not possibly be more off topic“).

Why share this?  Orwell, who shares far, far more in his many brilliant essays, argues in “Why I write“:

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WashPost on Climategate, Cuccinelli witch hunt, IPCC review: “The overblown critique of climate science that emerged early this year continues to underwhelm.”

August 31, 2010

The new review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s by the InterAcademy Council offers some useful suggestions for improving the IPCC process and its reports.  Most of these are not new suggestions, see “The IPCC lowballs likely impacts with its instantly out-of-date reports and is clearly clueless on messaging — should it be booted or just rebooted?

In any case, as I wrote three years ago, I don’t think that continuing the IPCC process will have any meaningful impact on American climate policy.  The IPCC is simply not set up to provide intelligent messaging in the face of rapid climate change or in the face of the rapid disinformation effort.

I agreed with Dutch assessment of the IPCC: “Overall the summary conclusions are considered well founded and none were found to contain any significant errors.”  They foresee much higher sea-level-rise risk than IPCC — and urge IPCC to “to pay attention to ‘worst-case scenarios’. “  To have any serious value going forward, the IPCC must do a better job of spelling out both what we face if we stay anywhere near our current emissions path and the worst-case scenario.

The IAC Chair, economist Harold Shapiro of Princeton University, made the key point that:

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New climate disinformer fad: Ocean acidification denial

August 30, 2010

http://cmore.soest.hawaii.edu/images/aloha_curve_dave267a.gif

As oceanic CO2 rises, pH falls.

The burning of billions of tons of fossil fuels every year is altering our planet — not only by making our atmosphere trap more heat, but also by changing the chemistry of the ocean.  For background, see 2010 Nature Geoscience study: Oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred.

Since ocean acidification is one of the most dangerous and best-documented impacts we face on our current path of unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions, the anti-science disinformers naturally have trained their Tobacco-industry tactics on it, as Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson explains in this cross-post.

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