This is both my personal learning project and my contribution in the struggle to confront the ongoing Republican/ libertarian assault on rational science and constructive learning, as manifested in their malicious strategic Attacks on Science ~ A collection of articles, scientific resources, plus my own essays and indepth critique of various presentations from unidirectional-skeptics ~ Hopefully a resource for the busy, yet discerning, student who's concerned about the health of our Earth
Now that I finished my previous post, I figure it's time to bring it back to the bottom-line. A warming planet energizes weather systems, feeding them with more moisture and heat, inevitably producing wilder, more destructive extreme weather events of a wide variety. Although Earth has always experienced periods of dramatic climate fluctuations, those transitions have always been destructive to the systems that developed under the older climate regime. Meaning just because the Earth will adjust to whatever humans toss at it, those adjustments will take centuries to millennia and do little for the world we have come to know and love. We are playing for keeps. In the following article {which I Repost thanks to SkepticalScience.com's generous sharing policy}Dana Nuccitelli's gives an update of the latest scientific findings:
Posted on 10 December 2013 by dana1981 New research by Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo of the National Center for Atmospheric Research investigates how the warming of the Earth's climate has behaved over the past 15 years compared with the previous…
During my 'conversations' in the comments section of the YouTube video "Denier land: How deniers view global warming" a character who fancies himself a beacon of truth challenged me with the following:
"no scientist has ever proven CO2 effects Earth's atmosphere." Meanwhile, human-caused climate change is an observed fact. Oh, really?
1. The Antarctic sea ice extent has increased by a record extent this year. 2. The Arctic has rebounded in recent years since the low point in 2007. 3. Polar bears are thriving. 4. Sea level is not showing acceleration and is actually dropping. 5. Cholera and Malaria are failing to follow global warming predictions. 6. Mount Kilimanjaro melt fears are being made a mockery by gains in snow cover. 7. Global temperatures have been holding steady for a decade or more. 8. Deaths due to extreme weather are radically declining. 9. Global tropical cyclone activity is near historic low 10. The frequency of major U.S. hurricanes has declined. 11. The oceans are missing their predicted heat content. 12. Big tornados have dramatically declined since the 1970s. 13. Droughts are not historically unusual.
Soooo, what human-caused climate change are you referring to, exactly?"
It's a typical selection of denialists claims, and in fact, Google Searches come up with pages worth of cloned articles on each of these sound-bites - the trail points towards Anthony Watts and Marc Morano and pals being the original authors, and now, with their followers they sure have figured out how to wallpaper the internet.
In the following I share links to evidence disputing everyone of these misleading claims.
I'm going to go off topic for this post, though come to think of it, it isn't that far off topic since learning about this incredible planet I was born into, has been my passion from earliest memories. This in turn, is why I've been paying attention to the developing scientific global warming story since I was fourteen. And four decades of that has, in turn, lead to this website. But, for now I want to focus on the much more enjoyable topic of our fantastic planet's geologic evolution, which after all, is what made this frightening Anthropocene epoch possible in the first place. I also want to plead the case for someone investing the support to develop the most astounding geologic maps yet, into a stunning, eye opening, high quality animation of landscapes in motion, or to be more direct the birth of our continent. (The reference to Telluride, CO is because the Four Corners Free Press get's circulated up there. A call from Sundance would do just fine too. ;-} )
Back, in 1979, through a series of serendipitous cross-country hitch-hiking adventures I found myself driving down into Silverton, Colorado (elevation 9,318') and it was love at first sight, the setting, the town, the people, the community. Before I went to sleep that evening I knew it was going to be home for a long time. Indeed, I lived there for six years going strong, when a woman's love proved stronger and down to the "banana-belt" I scampered.
But, it's the mountains and geology I want to write about in this essay. Today I smile thinking back on that young buck looking down his nose at the jumbled mess of rocks that was the Rocky Mountains. Layers going this way and that way, hard layers on top of soft layers, cliff faces that seemed trustworthy, then crumbled and killed. I was unimpressed.
I've added a new feature to this website, and though it upsets Anthony Watts and other climate science denialists to no end, it should be pointed out that comparing the energy release of the Hiroshima bomb has been used countless times when trying to put energy release of various events into a more tangible perspective. In other words, Anthony's whining is yet another phony dodge to waste time and avoid learning. As for respecting the Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims of the Bomb - I would turn that around and ask what about respecting the future and the lives of our children and their children ? !
I've been looking at 13 claims made by someone who fancies himself a 'man of truth' at the discussion section of the video "Denier land: How deniers view global warming." It certainly is a good representation of what climate science deniers believe - and the mental gymnastics they must resort to in order to hang on to their faith.
While looking at sources to respond to his 13 claims I came across this interesting overview at the NOAA Paleoclimatology website that seemed like an appropriate introduction to the posts that will be following this one. It's a historic overview of climate changes and highlights of the past century.
A new study adds some more substance to what many know: a very few, very rich men have been playing puppet masters and driving the "climate-change counter movement's" publicity campaign which is solely dedicated to stonewalling all substantive efforts to understand and mitigate what we are doing to our atmosphere.
The real tragedy is that these groups use blatantly phony tactics, repeatedly misrepresent science. They spend most their effort manufacturing scandals, witch-hunts, and character assassination - in ways that an informed public ought to be able to see through. But, Americans seem to have become so Hollywood-ized that they don't care to differentiate between a con job and honest professionalism anymore: "Just tell us what we want to hear."
Why? Is it because we have come to expect that every material desire is our birth-right and damn anything or anyone who dares suggest otherwise?
{edited 8:30 am - 12/16/2013} I was working on my compilation of comments at the "Denier Land: How deniers view global warming" YouTube's site - but made the mistake of peeking at new comments, thus I got side-tracked by this series of questions that was too precious not to do something with. My "antagonist's" words are in Courier font.
V_2009 asks, CC -
Are you denying that the Sun is our planet's main source of energy?
"Dear Anonymous,
I do have a comments policy.
I will not post rantings.
If you have something to say, or a video to link to, present it seriously and if you (or your video link) make claims, those claims must be supported with authoritative sources."
Then, I looked at the YouTube video again and made a comment, which has led to quite an interesting back and forth. The dialogue has packed in many denier myths and tactics and I hope to compile a collection in my next post - but first I want to review the video itself:
I've been carrying on a conversation over at a weird little YouTube video named "Denier land: How deniers view global warming." The thing is a textbook example of what's called an "Argument from Incredulity." Meaning that the person is flailing at information that he obviously doesn't understand, like a petulant school boy angry at a teacher who's just flunked him. Rather than trying to learn something from that information he hides behind ridicule while ignoring all he doesn't understand. I know many people behave like that, but it's definitely no way to learn anything. In any event, I've been commenting over there and some folks keep challenging me with different, not new, twists on the climate science skeptics handbook of excuses for ignoring what a world wide community of tens of thousands of professionals and experts agree on. For example, take the following claim:
""More than 2,000 scientists from 154 countries typically participate in the IPCC process"
That is not only dishonest but unimpressive too. Over 30,000 scientists in the USA alone signed a petition disagreeing. Prominent scientists around the world with far more credibility than the anonymous 2000 so-called scientists agree with those 30,000.
You could dispute these figures, as many are not in relevant fields and many do not have higher degree or research backgrounds. However if you did so you admit to your dishonesty, as most of the 2000+ you claim are not researchers, most are not experts in their fields and many do not have PhDs, unlike over 9000 of those in those 30,000."
That, along with other pitches for the "OISM Petition," has inspired me to compose this compilation of information regarding the Oregon Petition, finishing with a REPOST of a DeSmogBlog story examining Arthur Robinson and his one-man operation, the so-called "Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine"
{edited 9:30am - 12/8/2013} There's a new report hot off the National Academies Press. What can I say, it paints a troubling picture of where our society's failure of stewardship for our one and only planet's biosphere is leading us. As a spectator who remembers his young adulthood of adventure and discovery in the world of the 70s, I'm heartbroken at the degradation caused by the contempt so many display for our natural "environment" and the prevailing disregard for any "stewardship responsibility" towards our planet. We humans have become a lazy bunch and adapt to change too easily and too many seem oblivious to all the natural wonders and wide open stretches of life-supporting biosphere that have disappeared over the past decades, to say nothing of the past couple centuries. Back in the 70s a lot of global warming science details were educated speculation. Backed by serious science for sure, and the bottom-line was solid if simple: increasing our atmosphere's insulating ability would lead to warming our planet. and that such a warming will have significant impacts upon our climate, aka. global heat distribution engine, the thing that sustains our lives and life styles. Here we are after decades of hollow assurances and PR crazy-making from the likes of the Wattzers and McIntyres fueled by certain politically motivated "think tanks" such as Heartland Institute with their fancy word games and emotional manipulation and demonizing of everyone who doesn't parrot their message (which is devoid of any interest in learning) - well folks, the speculation has become reality before our eyes and the future promises hard times like none of us have ever known. Yet the climate science denialists just keep getting shriller and more vicious toward decent people, while the public allows them to get away with it, probably because they have too many worries and other priorities already. Well the beat goes on folks, here's but the latest report... with many more to come. But, what good are all these reports and repeated warnings so long as we collectively refuse to face the issue and learn about it in a serious rational manner, and then start taking substantive action?
Committee on Understanding and Monitoring Abrupt Climate Change and Its Impacts;
Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate;
Division on Earth and Life Studies; National Research Council
Description
Climate is changing, forced out of the range of the past million years by levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases not seen in the Earth's atmosphere for a very, very long time. Lacking action by the world's nations, it is clear that the planet will be warmer, sea level will rise, and patterns of rainfall will change. But the future is also partly uncertain -- there is considerable uncertainty about how we will arrive at that different climate. Will the changes be gradual, allowing natural systems and societal infrastructure to adjust in a timely fashion? Or will some of the changes be more abrupt, crossing some threshold or "tipping point" to change so fast that the time between when a problem is recognized and when action is required shrinks to the point where orderly adaptation is not possible?
Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change is an updated look at the issue of abrupt climate change and its potential impacts. This study differs from previous treatments of abrupt changes by focusing on abrupt climate changes and also abrupt climate impacts that have the potential to severely affect the physical climate system, natural systems, or human systems, often affecting multiple interconnected areas of concern. The primary timescale of concern is years to decades. A key characteristic of these changes is that they can come faster than expected, planned, or budgeted for, forcing more reactive, rather than proactive, modes of behavior.
Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change summarizes the state of our knowledge about potential abrupt changes and abrupt climate impacts and categorizes changes that are already occurring, have a high probability of occurrence, or are unlikely to occur. Because of the substantial risks to society and nature posed by abrupt changes, this report recommends the development of an Abrupt Change Early Warning System that would allow for the prediction and possible mitigation of such changes before their societal impacts are severe. Identifying key vulnerabilities can help guide efforts to increase resiliency and avoid large damages from abrupt change in the climate system, or in abrupt impacts of gradual changes in the climate system, and facilitate more informed decisions on the proper balance between mitigation and adaptation. Although there is still much to learn about abrupt climate change and abrupt climate impacts, to willfully ignore the threat of abrupt change could lead to more costs, loss of life, suffering, and environmental degradation.Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change makes the case that the time is here to be serious about the threat of tipping points so as to better anticipate and prepare ourselves for the inevitable surprises.
A walk down memory lane. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
This morning I awoke to an interesting article over at HotWhopper.com, it's a reproduction of a 1884 newspaper article in the Australian newspaper "Border Watch" titled "Cold And Heat Near The Poles." In it the author discusses the discovery of fossil traces of tropical flora in the Arctic and the implications that Earth's climate was variable.
It then went on to discuss Earth's early atmosphere, it's interaction with the lithosphere, and the ability of certain gases to retain heat trying to escape into the cold vacuum of space. The article ends with:
"... Many ingenious hypotheses have been proposed to account for the warmer climate of earlier times, but are at best unsatisfactory; and it appears to me that the true solution of the problem may be found in the constitution of the early atmosphere, when considered in the light of Dr. Tyndall's beautiful researches on radiant heat.
This website will be changing its character over the next couple months. Up to now I've seen it as a kind of Information Kiosk, but I believe it's time to get a bit more personal and expand on the 'virtual dialogue' I've been pursuing through various venues.
You see, considering the steady stream of venomous personal attacks I've experienced while traversing the internet - and realizing that this is exactly what every person, who has ever talks about the 'State of Climate Science' (and the dangers manmade global warming is creating for the wellbeing of the future), has been put through - I figure it's time to stop ignoring the behavior.
There needs to be more done to expose this tactic of hysterical personalizing and demonizing for the cynical act of misdirection that it is. We need to learn about and discuss the substance of the problem and the science, not get distracted by contrived scandal and hurtful personal attacks.
I'm thinking of fighting back by getting down'n personal myself, but I intend to be more constructive about it, since learning and teaching, not bullying, is my ultimate goal. Besides, I've led an interesting multi-faceted life and may as well share some of it before it's over. Towards that end, I will try to approach this blog as a journal project of sorts. Won't happen immediately, lots of other things going on, besides I've never been able to keep a journal so it's something I'm going to have to work into. But, I did want to mention it.
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Finally, to the feature of this post, which I'll admit is a direct reaction to some of the relentless vile, misrepresentations and hate mongering of a certain debating-mate over at SkepticForum.
The character keeps getting spookier in it's attacks on SkepticalScience.com for being who they are - that is - an information resource that provides peer-reviewed published science papers in a learning atmosphere geared to the lay-public. Articles that are well researched and linked back to original sources, followed by one of the healthiest comments/discussion boards on the internet.
I'm still trying to comprehend how the SkepticalScience's style of open exchange of valid information can be rejected by rational people.
Lately I've been extra busy working so haven't had much chance to keep up on the climate change blogosphere dialogue, which seems more mud fight than constructive conversation, but hope and striving for improvement we must. Now that I'm getting caught up, I've been revisiting the SkepticForum.com climate change board to look in on the haps, read some opinions, share some thoughts, take some abuse, and do some people watching.
In any event, the denialist* arguments of a few - (*oops, they want to be called "skeptics" even though their skepticism runs in only one direction) - are like listening to a broken record repeating vacuous soundbites as though never absorbing one piece of scientific information. Like there's nothing to learn, only a mantra to repeat with eyes, ears and minds firmly closed.
Though trying to discuss the actual Climate Science with them always seems to turn down dead-ends where muggers lurk, the beatings do inspire me to react with constructive exercises that sometimes turn into blog posts and an occasional article.
This time, I decided to transcribe some highlights of a talk given by Stephen Schneider PhD not too long before his tragic untimely death in 2010. In this talk Dr. Schneider does a masterful job of describing the dysfunctional public dialogue. He reviews the scientific process and systems science, and speaks to the issues of educating the public, risk assessment and value judgements.
I'm posting it because Dr. Stephen Schneider's words are a beautifully concise distillation of over four decades worth of world class scientific experience and all around learning. If you are engaged in the struggle to communicate science and dialogue with faith-based denialist types, you're sure to find these personal reflections beneficial for your own process.
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Science & Distortion The Truth About Global Warming
0:15 "How did we know, in the 1970s, pretty much what would happen? It was theory then. And since then nature's been cooperating with theory, but we kinda knew what would happen, you couldn't add 4 watts of energy over every square meter and have nothing happen."
0:35 (a clip of Dr. Schneider in 1979) "The scientific consensus that CO2 will build up and will be a potential problem is pretty large. But, a scientific consensus on exactly how influential it will be in ten years, twenty years, what areas will get better what areas would get worse, this is where the controversy comes in."
0:50 "We also knew that we needed to stop using the atmosphere as a unpriced sewer to dump your smoke stack and tailpipe waste and land use changes interactions, all that was known. It was known not just in the club of a hundred left brained people. ..."
1:35 So why didn't we succeed? What happened?
1:40 "science is never settled"
"Climate Science is a system science. It's like trying to understand your body or trying to figure out something with cancer, ..., everyone of these complex systems problems has multiple components. And when you break them down what you find out is, rarely do we know everything and rarely do we know nothing.
"So we have to break systems science into the well established components, which are settled... into competing explanations where our work has been able to get us to winnow it down to two or three possibilities.
"Here's where the disconnect comes along. Special interests will grab what's convenient for their ideology or their position. So what you end up with, is you end up with a cacophony typically of people selecting stuff out of context. And then you end up with, the end of world versus good for you."
3:30 "I'll confess my preference, the end of the world and good for you are the two lowest probability outcomes. What we are looking at is a multiple range of potential outcomes. ..." What systems scientist do is they try to winnow out the relative likelihood of these other multiple outcomes.
So if you try to cover it as a Yes or No and you go out there and take a 200 scientist report like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change it goes through three years of writing, two rounds of reviews, thousands of comments on each chapter and two petroleum geologists come along who are special interests in finding oil, paid by you know which oil company, because they have PhDs they are given equal status in a story or on television, you see we get a little mad about that.
4:15 "We call that utter distortion. And they say, oh no that's balance. It is not balance, it is utter distortion because they are not reporting the relative credibility of the multiple positions. And it means you are leaving it up to the public and the political world to figure that out for themselves. They're capable of it, but they rarely do it."
5:00 "Supposing you got a spot on your lung for a chest X-ray that you did for a different purpose than for looking for cancer. Well it could be cancer and it could be a lesion... What should be done? ... biopsy ... risk assessment ... there is a price for false positive ... what if you wait ... but if you wait and it's metastatic and it's too late to do anything? ... Or you could have had it taken out and lowered your likelihood of being dead now..."
6:00 Risk assessment... value judgement
"There is no right answer, that's your value judgement..."
6:15 Home owners and fire insurance to protect against a 1 to 2% risk
6:30 "We do not need 95% certainty."
People frame this problem by looking of exceptions to the conventional wisdom and claim until the exceptions are resolved, it isn't proven and it's premature to act. Yet we're acting on a one percent risk and paying (fire) insurance and here we're talking about 50% risk to the planetary life-support system, and they're telling us that's not certain enough."
7:15 "... special-interest blather..."
8:00 Pro-smoking ad campaign, cigarettes and risk assessment
"... and they correctly said and still to this day we do not know biophysically the precise link between smoking and cancer. So they give you a therefore, when there's no therefore there. Therefore it's premature to act, that's a value judgement about risk management and of course they want you to protect market share.
"Whereas the data are so overwhelming epidemiologically, you know the statistics, that you'd have to be crazy not to control this, even though you don't understand every detail of the mechanism.
So this is again where we have to do risk management. Which is how do you want to deal with a preponderance of evidence, not an absolute certainty in every detail.
9:00 "Lets talk about tipping points... "
What about Greenland? Could Greenland be a tipping point?"
Giving some details of the glacial dynamic going on in Greenland.
9:30 "... what we don't know is does it need one more degree before that happens, 2 or 3? All I can say with high degree of confidence is the more we keep adding unprecedented levels of warming to the system the more the number of tipping points that are going to be crossed.
We know for sure they are there, we don't know for sure where they are."
9:45 "This is not just an academic exercise, this is something we've got to have people deeply engaged in, because we're talking about the sustainability of their children and grand-children and the rest of nature.
"What's the worst thing about tipping points like Greenland, we will probably never know when we've crossed it for fifty years. So our behavior in the next generation could (will) precondition a sustainability issue for a millennium or ten based upon the convenience of one species for one generation. I find that a very morally daunting prospect.
10:35 (a clip of Dr. Schneider in 1979) "What we're really doing is we're insulting our global environment at a faster rate than we are understanding it. And the best we can do in all honestly is say: "Look out, there's a chance, a potentially irreversible change on a global scale based upon the benefits of the use of energy and it's very tough for us to know if those benefits today are worth the potential rises of environmental change over our children."
11:10 "How are we going to deal with this problem, or others like it, if it requires public understandings so they can send the right value signals to our representatives when they're completely knocked off their pins by this cacophonous fraudulent debate where all parties are given equal credibility when they don't deserve it?"
"We've got to take back the air waves and make certain that what's out there is more credible not just simply following some formulaic balance."
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The Truth About Global Warming - Science & Distortion - Stephen Schneider
Uploaded on Jan 2, 2012
Information:
Stephen Henry Schneider (February 11, 1945 -- July 19, 2010)
was Professor of Environmental Biology and Global Change at Stanford University,
a Co-Director at the Center for Environment Science and Policy of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and,
a Senior Fellow in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
Schneider served as a consultant to federal agencies and White House staff in the Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.
His research included modeling of the atmosphere, climate change, and "the relationship of biological systems to global climate change."
Schneider was the founder and editor of the journal Climatic Change and authored or co-authored over 450 scientific papers and other publications.
He was a Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group II IPCC TAR and was engaged as a co-anchor of the Key Vulnerabilities Cross-Cutting Theme for the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) at the time of his death. During the 1980s, Schneider emerged as a leading public advocate of sharp reductions of greenhouse gas emissions to combat global warming.
Here is an article I wrote for November's Four Corners Free Press concerning last month's flooding in Colorado. Should anyone find anything of value in it feel free to lift and use as you see fit. Memes for the sharing.{I have added many links that offer authoritative support for my claims along with basic educational sources}.
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Colorado experienced its most extreme weather event in memory between September 9th to the 15th. Golden, Boulder and Larimer counties received the worst of it with rain accumulations of sixteen/seventeen inches and more, some areas receiving nine inches on Thursday alone, resulting in massive flooding compounded by destructive run-off from mountainsides of burned-out forests that could no longer hold water.
Predictably folks are asking: Is this related to manmade Global Warming? It's an easy and tough question to answer.
Consider please, our climate system is a global heat distribution engine and our land, atmosphere, and the oceans have indisputably warmed, not only that, our atmosphere's moisture content has been measurably increasing. Given such geophysical realities, it is self-evident that all extreme weather events contain elements of this newly energized climate system. And that much more of the same must be expected.
Here is an article written by Sou from HotWhopper.com - idea's worth sharing. Food for thought.
What can be said of people who believe they actually understand God's mind? It's one thing to personally believe and hold such meta-physical faith within one's heart - but expecting the rest of the world to fall in-line and to reject rational knowledge and observation based learning and trusting qualified experts who have spent entire lives committed to understanding their specialities. No thanks.
Sad thing is, these sorts of faith-based dogmatists are one of the core reasons climate science, Earth observations and attempts at Earth stewardship have been so successfully rejected these past decades.
How does one learn or change when disbelieve in observation based science is an article of Faith?
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The Evangelical Science Denier and the Alarmist Fundamentalist Religious Cult: The Cornwall Alliance
We need to first consider the basics of our planet and global climate system's job of moving heat around.
Think about it in terms of a nearly closed system holding in more heat... energy - than it is radiating out into space. Will that system not become more energized and active?
The basic facts are:
We ARE adding heat to our life sustaining 'global heat distribution engine' - aka Climate System.
>>> means more energized and active
... means more wind and rain and storm surges interspersed with extending "doldrums" (heat and drought), thanks to Jet Stream disruption which is being driven by our Arctic Ice Cap's solar-reflector being transformed into a
solar heat collecting medium...
and water evaporator... and convection current driver... and higher altitude atmospheric mixing and warming... and so on and so forth.
Yet, that geophysics based appreciation seems so distant from the current public way of thinking. With many demanding abstract statistical certainty above geophysical common-sense.
I fear a big part of the blame can be laid at the feet of the very human, but still child-like "Faith" thing and believing we can understand God and reduce our planet to God's toy, created six thousand years ago for some heavenly entertainment and pretending that "my" mind and petty human ego can actually understand "The Will Of God" - OK that's a pretty harsh perspective of the whole thing, but so be it. Considering that at the root of the denialist attitude is a "Faith" that desire can be stronger than down to Earth physics.
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There is no rational disputing that over the past century:
Our atmosphere's moisture holding ability has increased by 3-5%, due to increased CO2...
Global warming is unpaused and stuck on fast forward, new research shows (via Skeptical Science)