Month: September 2014

As always, Science Denier and High School graduate Anthony Watts has a nose for nefarious conspiracies, and he thinks he’s found one at Skeptical Science.

He’s actually giving some great free pre-publicity to a fun new SkepSci initiative – one that I’ll be able to talk more about tomorrow. This is a bit of a speshy-allity for Watts.
Thanks again Anthony!

I won’t link to Watt’s blog, but  HotWhopper has the rundown.

Update – see below– Anthony’s had second thoughts and has now decided to hedge his bets. Then he had a third thought. Wonder of wonders – so many thoughts in his little head all at the same time, competing for his attention. (An observed trait of conspiracy theorists is that they can hold conflicting ideas simultaneously.)

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Oh my. Anthony Watts is letting his paranoia (and narcissism) show (archived here). He’s noticed something in the sidebar at SkepticalScience.com and has decided that it signals nefarious intent.

Here’s the link to the home page at SkepticalScience.com. What Anthony wrote about is in the sidebar on the right. It’s time bound, so if you are reading this at a later time it will probably look different. To capture how it looks now, here is a screen grab with my arrow pointing to the SkepticalScience teaser:

If you click on the link on the SkS image, you get to another page.

What can it be? Anthony Watts hasn’t a clue (a normal state of affairs), but in true conspiracy theory style, has pretty well decided whatever it can be is “no good”. He wrote a headline:

The ‘Skeptical Science’ kidz are up to no good again

In the WUWT article underneath Anthony let his paranoia run rampant, writing:

…All of the silhouettes are greyed out now, but one can rest assured they be filled in with cartoonish caricatures once the countdown clock on the lower right reaches zero.

My guess? John Cook has likely put his failed cartooning talents back to work again. Given the juvenile fascination former cartoonist turned amateur psychologist and numbers bookie for the 97% John Cook has with smearing climate skeptics, this will reveal itself as some sort of interactive “name and shame” application for the top 100 climate skeptics worldwide.

I hope it does, because if so, and if it turns out to be as libelous as I think it will be, it will give a whole bunch of people a reason to sue the pants off that whole team of creepy playtime Nazi cross dressers. Bring it.

Continue reading “Anthony Watts Hot on the Conspiracy Trail. Serprise, Serprise, Serprise!!”

Things you find on the way to finding other things.

Admiral Gary Roughead (USN Ret.), the Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1973. In September 2007, Admiral Roughead became the twenty-ninth chief of naval operations after holding six operational commands and is one of only two officers in the navy’s history to have commanded both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets.

The talk above was given in June 2013.

Funfact:

Numbers of icebreakers by country:

Russia   43

Sweden   9

Finland   9

Canada   13

US   1

Yahoo News:

Moscow (AFP) – Russia on Saturday sent six ships carrying personnel and equipment to a Soviet-era military base in the Arctic that it is reopening to bolster its presence in the region, Russian news agencies reported.

Continue reading “The Weekend Wonk: Admiral Roughhead on the Opening of the Arctic”

Jason Box tweeted this today – there’s lots more, some of which I am using in an upcoming (next week) Yale video.

The conventional wisdom tells us that unlimited quantities of natural gas and oil are available in formerly untappable deposits, using new fracking technology.  Like the CW on coal use,  the grand vision runs afoul of pesky biological organisms and their petulant demands for “drinking water” and “food”.

It’s possible that innovations will overcome some of the barriers, but, as always, one can assume there will be a cost – and that, as well, must be included in predictions of unlimited fossil fuel extraction.

LA Times:

Ten gas deposits “sit atop aquifers that are being withdrawn at rates that far exceed their natural recharge rate,” the report found. They include California’s Monterey formation, which covers the southwest coastal region around Los Angeles and inland near Bakersfield, and others in the Rockies and Texas.

Limited water in areas of the U.S. with promising gas deposits poses considerable challenges and risk to companies operating there, including increased regulation and costs and the possible loss of reputation, the study found.

Right now, the U.S. and Canada are the only countries fracking for shale gas, though many others are exploring the idea, said Paul Reig, an environmental scientist and the report’s lead author. China has the largest reserves of any country, but each of its six major shale deposits comes with challenges to water access from such factors as seasonal variability, population density and drought.

The report’s authors recommended that government officials and industry assess the risks fracking could pose to local water resources and that companies work to reduce their use of fresh water.

Continue reading “Oops: Plenty of Gas But no Freaking Fracking Water”

Wow. I did not know that.

More proof. If you read this blog you are a step ahead.

I reported the other day on how greens in Colorado had started cleverly tying anti-science climate denial with other social issues where some conservative candidates are out of step with majority opinion, – and posted the new television ads by Tom Steyer’s Nextgen campaign.

Now its a meme.

National Journal:

At first glance, the digital billboards raised in Colorado’s Grand Junction ahead of a debate this week appear to be a generic attack from the left aimed at Republican Senate candidate Rep. Cory Gardner. “Opposes marriage equality? There’s no debate,” one of the ads reads, directing viewers to KeepCoryOut.com.

But the fine print contains a surprise. The ads were paid for by NextGen Climate, the super PAC bankrolled by billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, who vowed to make climate change a wedge issue in the midterms.

Talking Points Memo:

Continue reading “Emergent Tactic for Greens – Tying Climate Denial to Social Issues”

Above, more from my Skype interview with Brewster MacCracken of Austin’s Pecan Street Project – today, surprising findings about EV owners – what they really like about their electric vehicles, and what car companies have to learn.  Brewster is so knowledgable and such an engaging communicator, that this material will certainly be part of an upcoming video on climate solutions.

More here from auto journalist Jim Motovalli – note – this is from a “sponsored post” at Business Insider, but I think the discussion is worthwhile and credible:

..now that EVs are becoming popular, it’s fair to wonder: What’s it like to own one? We asked veteran automotive journalist and author Jim Motavalli how EVs are similar to, and different from, gas-powered vehicles. Motavalli has been writing about alternative vehicles since the mid-1980s, and in his assessment, EVs are “not only just as good as gas-powered cars — in many cases, they’re better.”

3. What’s it like to drive an EV?

Unlike other cars, EVs don’t ramp up to full power. As soon as you turn them on, they have 100% of their torque. “They take off with great speed and alacrity,” Motavalli says. “That’s why they’re so good in drag racing. They just take off, with a feeling of effortless power.” That means when you’re merging onto the highway, an EV seems to glide into full speed. They’re also great for hills, because they don’t have that slight lurch as they shift into gear.

4. How easy are EVs to maintain?

EV maintenance costs are lower. “You don’t have to worry about timing belt replacements, transmission maintenance, fuel injectors, gasket replacements, oil leaks, exhaust systems, and so on,” Motavalli says. And because most of the braking in an EV is done magnetically — to capture the energy of the moving car and recharge the battery — the wear-and-tear on the braking system is less.

Over time, EVs are cheaper to maintain, at about $600 to $700 per year (whereas gas-powered cars come in well over $2,000 and scale up from there). Purchasing an electric vehicle also qualifies you for a $7,500 federal tax credit. And since time is money, we’ll point out that in some states EVs can drive in the HOV lane and avoid traffic jams.

5. What’s the future for electric cars?

If Motavalli is right, someday we’ll be seeing electric cars everywhere. “EVs are going to dominate the roads,” he claims, “and most of the heads of the auto companies agree with me on this. It’ll take time — decades even — but sooner or later, EVs are going to take over the highways.” It doesn’t hurt that EVs are better for the environment than gas-powered cars, even when their electricity comes from coal-fired power plants.

6. When will everyone be driving an electric car?

According to Motavalli, the electric-vehicle future is going to ramp up slowly “but it’s going happen.” Some experts go even farther than Motavalli, on this: they argue that the real argument for electric cars is not the environmental one. It’s just that they’re better designed, more reliable, and more efficient than gas-powered cars.

Wall Street Journal:

On a recent Formula E test day here, the pit lane had to be equipped with a piercing siren to let mechanics know (electric formula one race) cars were coming. Though the cars can reach speeds of up to 140 miles an hour, what little noise they make sounds somewhere between a kitchen appliance and a sci-fi movie special effect. Whatever it is, it doesn’t scream like any race car you’ve ever heard. And it is definitely not loud. Continue reading “EV Early Adopter and Formula One Racers Agree: EVs are Fast and Quiet”

Right on time, the David Rose of the Daily Mail has published his annual “Arctic Ice is Growing” article – which we can expect to see every year that the Arctic sea ice does not set a new record low.  2012, of course, was a stunning record low following 30+ years of steady decline in both area and volume of arctic sea ice, and sea ice globally. 2013, and 2014, it appears, will not set new low records – a pattern much like the dead cat bounce we saw after 2007’s crushing record low year.

Last year’s bogus ice post made the rounds of the usual suspects before humiliating errors and omissions were highlighted by the science community. Being caught out in error and misinformation, is, of course, of no consequence to the denialist cadre – once their bogus memes go viral, they’ve done their job, since few of their target audience has the wit or inclination to double check the claims.

Fortunately, Carbon Brief has some remedial information:

The Mail on Sunday reports that Arctic summer ice is on the increase, disproving the “myth of Arctic meltdown”.

But the article, by journalist David Rose, acknowledges a declining trend in summer Arctic sea-ice. And scientists tell us the increase in ice is natural year-to-year variation.

Climate change is warming the Arctic, and scientists think it will make the region ice-free in summer at some point this century – points that despite the hyperbolic headline, the Mail on Sunday notes.

Continue reading “Silly Season Here: Ice Loss Denial, Right on Time”

Deniers can no longer claim Climate science is a subject restricted to east and west coastal elites. It has become today’s news in the Heartland.

A new study is one of several that have received wide attention, questioning the effect climate change has on the circulation patterns that we expect to create our “normal” weather. According to this paper, lower ice cover in certain regions of the Arctic  “preferentially induces a negative phase of Arctic Oscillation at the surface, resulting in low temperatures in mid-latitudes.”

Above, Dr. Ricky Rood, formerly of NASA, now at the University of Michigan, addressed this “Arctic Oscillation” for me earlier in the year.

What many of us in North America have noticed this summer, is that last winter’s atmospheric configuration, cool east, – hot, dry west, has recurred and persisted thru recent months. Weather wonks, weigh in.

Weather.com, August 1 2014:

On the heels of one July polar invasion, yet another major cooldown is here to wrap up July.

A large southward dip in the jet stream, also known as a trough, pumped in cool air from Canada into much of the central and eastern U.S. High temperatures were more than 20 degrees below average for this time of year in some areas, and most of the region saw at least one or two days with temperatures 5 to 10 degrees below average — a noticeable difference at a time of year when many of us spend the most time outdoors.

What was notable about this cooldown is not just the fact that it took place in mid-summer, but that it resulted from a pattern that seemed to be frequently repeating.

The same jet stream pattern this week showed up not only in mid-July, but during much of the January-June time frame as well. As a result, much of the country east of the Rockies was much cooler than average for the first half of 2014, while the West was unusually warm.

KCCI Des Moines:

Chinese leadership is aware that they have a climate problem. Even more immediately, they have a problem in bringing their cities up to livability standards that the rest of the world can except – a must if they expect to continue developing as a world power – and indeed, if they wish to maintain social order.  Pollution is now the number one cause of social instability in China.

NYTimes:

China plans to introduce its national market for carbon permit trading in 2016, a government official said on Sunday, adding that Beijing is close to completing rules for what will be the world’s biggest emissions trading program.

The nation accounts for nearly 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and it plans to use the carbon market to slow its rapid growth in climate-changing emissions.

China has pledged to reduce the amount of carbon it emits per unit of its gross domestic product to 40 to 45 percent below its 2005 levels by 2020.

It has already introduced seven regional pilot markets in a bid to gain experience ahead of a nationwide program.

“We will send over the national market regulations to the State Council for approval by the end of the year,” Sun Cuihua, a senior climate official with the National Development and Reform Commission, told a conference in Beijing on Sunday.

The national market will start in 2016, although some provinces would be allowed to start later if they lacked the technical infrastructure to participate from the outset, she said.

The Chinese market, when fully functional, would dwarf the European emissions trading system, which is now the world’s biggest.

Reuters:

It would be the main carbon trading hub in Asia and the Pacific, where Kazakhstan and New Zealand already operate similar markets. South Korea will launch a national scheme on Jan. 1, 2015, while Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam are drawing up plans for markets of their own.

The Chinese market will cap carbon dioxide emissions from sources such as electricity generators and manufacturers. Those that emit above their cap must buy permits in the market. Continue reading “China Will Open Carbon Markets”