Month: February 2015

We’ve heard a lot about the so called “pause” in global temperatures over the recent decade – a misnomer, since temperatures have continued to rise, just not as rapidly as during, say, 1991 to 2006, to cherry pick an era of faster-than-projected rise.

Scientists were pretty sure that those rapid rises were part of natural variability, and would not be sustained, and that’s what’s happened. So not a big revelation in what we are seeing today.

Stefan Rahmstorf at Real Climate:

And a reminder:  The warming trend of the 15-year period up to 2006 was almost twice as fast as expected (0.3°C per decade, see Fig. 4 here), and (rightly) nobody cared. We published a paper in Science in 2007 where we noted this large trend, and as the first explanation for it we named “intrinsic variability within the climate system”. Which it turned out to be.

The notion that climate science is “based on computer models” is a false one, but comes up a lot, recently on the Senate floor in a rant by denialist Senator Jeff Sessions.  No experienced scientist is surprised when the planet doesn’t conform exactly to what a particular model run shows – and moreover, many indicators of planetary change are moving well ahead of projections made not too long ago – notably arctic sea ice loss, melting ice sheets, and subsequent sea level rise.
Above, in a recent interview, Atmospheric scientist Ken Caldeira, talks about key areas where climate models have been very much spot-on – and helped confirm the “fingerprints” of human caused global change.(this interview ties in with John Cook’s MOOC – Massive Online Open Course, “Making Sense of Climate Denial”)
At the bottom, I’ve also embedded my interview with Mike MacCracken, and clips from his 1982 talk at Sandia Labs, where he outlined the changes that scientists, using models, expected to see decades ago, all of which are now part of our emerging reality.

Now a new study of the Pliocene, a period of the not too distant geological past that many scientists compare to our own, shows that climate sensitivity, the response of the planet to carbon dioxide levels during that era, was very much like what our current best estimates tell us.

Phys.org:

New evidence showing the level of atmospheric CO2 millions of years ago supports recent climate change predications from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

A multinational research team, led by scientists at the University of Southampton, has analysed new records showing the CO2 content of the Earth’s atmosphere between 2.3 to 3.3 million years ago, over the Pliocene.

During the Pliocene, the Earth was around 2ºC warmer than it is today and atmospheric CO2 levels were around 350-400 parts per million (ppm), similar to the levels reached in recent years.

By studying the relationship between CO2 levels and climate change during a warmer period in Earth’s history, the scientists have been able to estimate how the climate will respond to increasing levels of carbon dioxide, a parameter known as ‘climate sensitivity’.

The findings, which have been published in Nature, also show how climate sensitivity can vary over the long term.

“Today the Earth is still adjusting to the recent rapid rise of CO2 caused by human activities, whereas the longer-term Pliocene records document the full response of CO2-related warming,” says Southampton’s Dr Gavin Foster, co-author of the study.

“Our estimates of climate sensitivity lie well within the range of 1.5 to 4.5ºC increase per CO2 doubling summarised in the latest IPCC report. This suggests that the research community has a sound understanding of what the climate will be like as we move toward a Pliocene-like warmer future caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.”

Continue reading “What the Climate Models have Taught Us”

Video by Miami based Dan Kipnis, a charter captain who has followed the steady rise of sea level and its effects in his home town.

Description:

Sea Level Rise will inundate Miami Beach by 2075. The effects are here right now. Look at what Miami Beach and every coastal city in the world faces. The land is not sinking, the oceans are rising due to Global Warming. There is no way back from this!!

Joe Romm floats a suggestion: prepare your bucket list of places to visit before they are lost forever beneath rising waves.

ClimateProgress:

Have you assembled a list of places you would like to take your family before climate change and sea level rise destroys them or at least eviscerates their very essence?

I started to think about that after interviewing Nicole Hernandez Hammer, the Latina climate scientist who was invited to watch the State of the Union address in the first lady’s box.

Hammer, who has mapped the lowest-lying areas in Southeast Florida, takes political leaders, scientists, and the media to visit some of the most at-risk areas during high tide, which flood even on clear days. She and her colleagues have bucket lists. As she wrote in December:

On these tours, I drive by the beaches where I hung out as teenager, my family’s favorite Cuban restaurant, the church where I was married and the building where I was sworn in as a citizen and promised my allegiance to this country. They matter to me because they are a part of who I am and I am saddened and angry that they will be lost.

Continue reading “As Seas Rise, Prepare your Climate Bucket List”

Sue-prahz, sue-prahz, sue-prahz.

Turns out a shadowy right wing group of physicians is not only behind a whole lot of medical conspiracy theories, but is itself a link between crazy climate denial, and anti-vax conspiracy mania.

Above, one of the group’s most famous public disinformation jobs, the famous Oregon “scientists petition” against climate science.

NYTimes:

WASHINGTON — Back in 2009, when Rand Paul was pursuing his long-shot bid to win Kentucky’s Republican Senate primary, he spoke to a small physicians’ association that has publicized discredited medical theories, including possible links between vaccines and autism and between abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer.

At the time, Mr. Paul, an ophthalmologist, was no stranger to the group, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. He boasted at its annual meeting that he had been a member for more than two decades and that he relied on its research, statistics and views about the role of government in medicine.

“I am not a newcomer to AAPS,” Mr. Paul said, referring to the group.

On Monday, Mr. Paul helped set off an uproar when he said amid a national measles outbreak that parents should be allowed to decide whether their children needed to be vaccinated, and that he had heard from parents whose children had suffered “profound mental disorders” after being vaccinated.

In doing so, he was echoing the views of the head of the association, which has also lobbied in recent years for state laws permitting parents to opt out of mandatory inoculation programs based on their beliefs.

Steven Dutch, Universith of Wisconsin-Green Bay:

Back in 1998, I got a mailing that included a very professional looking paper casting doubt on the link between human activities and global warming. Two things about the paper caught my eye. First was its source: it was mailed from the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine in Cave Junction, Oregon. Now it so happens I know where Cave Junction is. It’s a wide spot in the road, so called because there’s a turnoff for Oregon Caves National Monument. Cave Junction is not a major population center, much less the site of a university or major research labs. (Caveman Campers, which obviously take their name from the caves, are located not in Cave Junction but in nearby Grants Pass.)

The paper was called Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide by Arthur B. Robinson, Sallie E. Baliunas, Willie Soon and Zachary W. Robinson. It had a lot of interesting graphs of carbon dioxide and temperature trends, and looked for all the world like a reprint from a journal. Same type fonts, similar paper stock, the works. The problem came when I looked for a citation, because if I were going to use any of this information, I would certainly need to provide a citation. And all scientific reprints have one, either at the beginning, the end, or on the top or bottom margin of each page. This one didn’t. Now if you want to disseminate information, you can simply photocopy your paper and send it out. Even some high-class journals do this. But this one was professionally printed, folded, and stapled on the spine. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make this look like a published scientific paper. And that bothered me. I filed the paper away.

2007

So in October, 2007, I got a mailing that was deja vu all over again. This one was from the Petition Project. It had a cover letter by Frederic Seitz, President Emeritus of Rockefeller University and past President of the National Academy of Sciences, asking me to sign a petition urging Congress to reject the Kyoto Accords. There was a petition card, and there was a reprint, this one on glossy paper, in color, and again bearing the address Cave Junction, Oregon. This article, also titled Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, was by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson and Willie Soon. This one did bear a citation, from Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (2007), vol. 12, pp. 79-90.

Continue reading “Anti-Vax Nutjobs Linked to Climate Denial Nutjobs”

The reason I’ve gone off-topic with posts about the current vaccine kerfuffle, is because it speaks so directly to the way that truthy lies of bogus science can continue to exert influence, even decades after being discredited. Particularly when financially motivated parties don’t want to let go of lies that suit their ideology.

NYTimes:

In the churning over the refusal of some parents to immunize their children against certain diseases, a venerable Latin phrase may prove useful: Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. It means, “After this, therefore because of this.” In plainer language: Event B follows Event A, so B must be the direct result of A. It is a classic fallacy in logic.

It is also a trap into which many Americans have fallen. That is the consensus among health professionals trying to contain recent spurts of infectious diseases that they had believed were forever in the country’s rearview mirror. They worry that too many people are not getting their children vaccinated, out of a conviction that inoculations are risky.

Some parents feel certain that vaccines can lead to autism, if only because there have been instances when a child got a shot and then became autistic. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Making that connection between the two events, most health experts say, is as fallacious in the world of medicine as it is in the field of logic.

Vox:

In 1998, an esteemed medical journal published a paper with a startling conclusion: that the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine — administered to millions of children across the globe each year — could cause autism.

This study, led by the discredited physician-researcher Andrew Wakefield, is where the current vaccine-autism debate started. It has since been thoroughly eviscerated: The Lancet retracted the paper, investigators have described the research as an “elaborate fraud,” and Wakefield has lost his medical license.

But public-health experts say that Wakefield’s false data and erroneous conclusions, while resoundingly rejected in the academic world, still drive some parents’ current worries about the MMR shot.

NYTimes again:

Typically, the M.M.R. shot is given to infants at about 12 months and again at age 5 or 6. This doctor, Andrew Wakefield, wrote that his study of 12 children showed that the three vaccines taken together could alter immune systems, causing intestinal woes that then reach, and damage, the brain. In fairly short order, his findings were widely rejected as — not to put too fine a point on it — bunk. Dozens of epidemiological studies found no merit to his work, which was based on a tiny sample. The British Medical Journal went so far as to call his research “fraudulent.” The British journal Lancet, which originally published Dr. Wakefield’s paper, retracted it. The British medical authorities stripped him of his license.

Nonetheless, despite his being held in disgrace, the vaccine-autism link has continued to be accepted on faith by some. Among the more prominently outspoken is Jenny McCarthy, a former television host and Playboy Playmate, who has linked her son’s autism to his vaccination: He got the shot, and then he was not O.K. Post hoc, etc.

So bad information stays in circulation a long time. And there is no better example of bad information based on bogus science, than what we continue to see from climate deniers like Senator James Inhofe. Continue reading “The Long Tail of Bad Science”

I shit you not.

It’s come to this.

Raw Story:

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) argued this week that restaurants should be able to “opt out” of health department regulations that require employees to wash their hands after using the bathroom.

On Monday, the freshman senator ended his talk at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) with a story to illustrate his philosophy on government regulations.

“I was having this discussion with someone, and we were at a Starbucks in my district, and we were talking about certain regulations where I felt like maybe you should allow businesses to opt out,” Tillis recalled. “Let an industry or business opt out as long as they indicate through proper disclosure, through advertising, through employment, literature, whatever else. There’s this level of regulations that maybe they’re on the books, but maybe you can make a market-based decision as to whether or not they should apply to you.”

Tillis said that at about that time, a Starbucks employee came out of one of the restrooms.

“Don’t you believe that this regulation that requires this gentlemen to wash his hands before he serves your food is important?” Tillis was asked by the person at his table.

“I think it’s one I can illustrate the point,” Tillis told the women. “I said, I don’t have any problem with Starbucks if they choose to opt out of this policy as long as the post a sign that says ‘We don’t require our employees to wash their hands after leaving the restrooms.’ The market will take care of that.”

So this guy would drop the regulation about having to wash one’s hands before serving food, BUT his regulation would be they post a sign indicating handwashing was not enforced.
These are the people the Koch’s are spending a billion dollars to keep in power forever.

I posted the other day about Electric Utilitie’s Kodak Moment – the growing realization that we are in a technological paradigm shift that will destroy the business model electric generators have relied on for the last 100 years – and bring down any companies that don’t change fast enough.

All over the country, utility customers are finding ways to use less energy – not only generating their own, but using unglamorous but effective and ever-increasing pathways to greater energy efficiency.  I’ve pointed out for several years now, that even in an era of multiplying gadgets, power use continues to flatten or drop. (see graph above)

Building a new power plant these days in most states, because the cost is so steep, requires utilities to put those construction projects in the rate base, even before they begin producing power. As much as 5 years or more before. (10 or 15 in the case of nuclear)
That means, they necessarily send a price signal that consumers are much more sensitive to, and empowered to respond to, than ever before. That means, by the time the new power plant is online, the demand for it has dried up. This is the death spiral, and it’s coming to utilities everywhere that do not wake up to the new reality.

The Wall Street Journal underlines the problem today.

Rebecca Smith in the Wall Street Journal:

The long-term future of the nation’s electric grid is under threat from an unlikely source—energy-conserving Americans.

That is the fear of some utility experts who say that as Americans use less power, electric companies won’t have the revenue needed to maintain sprawling networks of high-voltage lines and generating plants.

And if the companies raise rates too high to make up for declining sales volumes, customers will embrace even more energy-saving gizmos and solar panels, pushing down demand for grid power. The Edison Electric Institute, the trade group for investor-owned utilities, has warned that they could face a “death spiral.”

“Utilities seem to have concrete shoes on,” says Elisabeth Graffy, co-director of Arizona State University’s Energy Policy, Law and Governance Center.

Since 2004, average residential electricity prices have jumped 39%, to 12.5 cents a kilowatt-hour and prices for all users have jumped 36% to 10.42 cents, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Retail sales to homes and businesses still are less than they were in 2007, before the recession.

Continue reading “Death Spiral: Energy Efficiency Blowing Up Utility Business Model”

Climate denial has hit the fan in political strategy firms.
There may have to be another red meat issue developed for the coming GOP primary campaign.  Climate denial is losing its luster. Homophobia and the drug war are playing out. Racism still works, but you hate to have just one tool in your box.

Above, Coral Davenport, now of the New York Times, discusses new polling data with MSNBC’s Luke Russert. (find part 2 below)  Not impressed with Russert, who seems as much of a beltway shill as his Dad, finding it necessary to repeat red herring slander about renewable energy with no basis in fact.

Nevertheless, the discussion is worthwhile. New polling data released last week shows nearly half of republicans consider climate change a threat, along with overwhelming majorities of independents and democrats. This presents a problem for mainstream GOP presidential aspirants, in that, to be nominated, they have to run the gauntlet of primaries in dittohead strongholds like Iowa and South Carolina, where among base voters,  climate scientists are considered agents of the gummint, scamming real ‘merkans’s hard earned money.

Part 2 of the MSNBC piece here, exploring the politics of big conservative donors.

This didn’t come out of nowhere.
Worth reviewing Coral Davenport’s reporting in the National Journal two years ago, on the approaching GOP schism on climate science.

Coral Davenport in the National Journal, May 9, 2013:

The problem is, as polling data and the changing demographics of the American electorate show, it’s likely that the position that can win voters in a primary will lose voters in a general election. Some day, though, the facts—both scientific and demographic—will force GOP candidates to confront climate change whether they want to or not. And that day will come sooner than they think.

Already, the numbers tell the story. Polls show that a majority of Americans, and a plurality of Republicans, believe global warming is a problem. Concern about the issue is higher among younger voters and independents, who Republicans will need to attract if they want to win elections.

 

How did we get here? and how far down this rabbit hole do we go?

In the background I’m listening to the idiot banter on Fox News actually debating the merits of vaccinating children. Incredibly, because the President urged parents to get kids their shots, science denial crowd has gone off their meds.

UPDATE-Think Progress:

The unfolding controversy threatens to turn vaccinations into an election issue. The Huffington Post quickly rounded up the rest of the potential GOP contenders’ positions on vaccines. And the New York Times reported that the debate is posing a challenge for Republican candidates, “who find themselves in the familiar but uncomfortable position of reconciling modern science with the skepticism of their core conservative voters,” similarly to issues related to climate change.

But making measles into election fodder comes with some risks. Medical experts are wary about the recent vaccine controversy stemming from potential presidential contenders. They say that approaching vaccine safety as if there are two equal sides to the debate gives anti-science conspiracies too much credibility.

“When you see educated people or elected officials giving credence to things that have been completely debunked, an idea that’s been shown to be responsible for multiple measles and pertussis outbreaks in recent years, it’s very concerning,” Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician at the University of Pittsburgh, told the Washington Post.

When the anti science movement started in this country, with industries deliberately introducing bad faith disinformation into public debates, I’m sure they weren’t thinking beyond their immediate economic advantage,  measured in months, or a few years, and limited to their own particular area of interest. But the technique has spread, from lead, to tobacco, to acid rain,  to climate change. Decades of misinformation and slander against legitimate science, and continued attacks on science education,  have left us vulnerable to increasingly destructive decay of the fundamental compacts of civilization and enlightenment.

Continue reading “Science Deniers Open new Front as Anti-Vaxxers Push Agenda”

We got a range of answers from some of the best known minds in the
world, as well as a number of ‘not the usual suspects”.
I’ve pulled together two of these so far, and have posted Katharine
Hayhoe’s first, here.
More to come…
open to suggestions about frequency.

An actuary is a business professional who analyzes the financial consequences of risk. Actuaries use mathematics, statistics, and financial theory to study uncertain future events, especially those of concern to insurance and pension programs.

Insurance companies make money by hiring the smartest bean counters on the planet to slice and dice statistical measures of risk. The American Academy of Actuaries has now produced a statement on the risks of Climate Change.

American Academy of Actuaries:

• Global mean surface temperatures have increased by three-quarters of a degree Celsius over the last 100 years.

• Seven of the 10 warmest years on record for America’s contiguous 48 states have occurred since 1990.

•The fraction of global land area experiencing extremely hot summertime temperatures has increased ten-fold over the past 50 years.Over the past three decades, the number of weather-related loss events in North America grew by a factor of five, according to a 2012 report
by Munich Re.This compares with a four-fold increase in Asia, 2.5 in Africa, 2 in Europe, and 1.5 in South America. North America faces every type of hazardous weather risk – hurricanes, tornadoes, drought, flood, wildfire, and storms, according to the report. One reason is that no east-west mountain range exists in North America to prevent southern warm air from colliding with cold Canadian weather fronts.As weather-related damages increase, these costs fall on insurers, businesses, and consumers. The world’s five largest natural catastrophes ranked by insured losses in 2012 all occurred in the United States, including Hurricane Sandy, drought in the West, and various storms and tornadoes, according to Munich Re. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recorded 80 U.S. weather/climate events that each had losses exceeding $1 billion between 2004 and 2013, compared with only 46 events in the previous decade.

Here is NOAA’s breakdown of weather-related events: Continue reading “Insurance Companies Coming to Terms with Climate Risks”