Month: February 2016

John Christy, the Ned Flanders of climate denial, appeared once again before a welcoming crowd at Rep. Lamar Smith’s House Science committee, in a show-hearing designed to whip up more impotent right wing rage against pointy headed intellectuals, their wacky left-wing climate science, and a suspiciously French global climate agreement.

Especially entertaining for me – Dr. Christy spent a good part of his time responding to stinging and long overdue critiques of his science, and his much ballyhooed satellite measures of global temperature, delivered by several of the world’s most respected atmospheric experts in my recent video.

Dr. Christy is one of those fortune-favored individuals who consistently make a name for themselves by “failing up”.  It’s a time-honored path to success, celebrated in films like Forrest Gump, and Being There – and George W. Bush proved it will take you all the way to the Presidency.  Christy has done it in the science world.

In a series of egregious errors in the 1990s and 2000s,  Dr. Christy and his partner Roy Spencer, actually managed to read their satellite data as showing the planet cooling, a 180 wrongway boneheaded analysis, let’s call it “Freedom Science” – that they defended stubbornly for more than a decade, until the overwhelming weight of evidence forced them to admit they were wrong.

For ordinary people, blowing it that bad could be a career killer – but if you are telling climate deniers and wealthy barons of the world’s most profitable industry what they want to hear, it makes you the toast of Washington.
Certainly, if not for a rich history of bungling, error, and accompanying arrogance, no one would ever have heard of Dr. Christy.  But in these confusing times, for a science-challenged and ideologically blindered audience, Dr. Christy is science denial’s enthusiastic go-to guy, and a hero to intellectual titans like Ted Cruz, Rush Limbaugh, and Lamar Smith.

Below, if you have not seen, the satellite video that’s gotten under Dr. Christy’s skin. Continue reading “Satellite Scientist Upset at “Well Funded Video””

In 2012 I accompanied Dr. Mauri Pelto, his daughter Jill, and son Ben, to the North Cascade range in Washington, and Easton Glacier, on his annual ice survey, the North Cascades Glacier Climate Project, which has been ongoing for 30 years.
Jill, when she wasn’t taking careful measurements, charging up and down insane ice inclines, and leaping over crevasses, would sit, look, and take out her paints.

Grist:

Climate data is usually seen in pixels, spreadsheets, and maps. But watercolor paintings? Not so much.That’s what makes a growing series of paintings by Maine-based artist Jill Pelto so striking. They combine haunting imagery from the natural world with hard data showing the impact climate change is having.

The message can be subtle, with the global average temperature graph tucked in a painting that shows wildfires raging. But the point is clear. Data — and the way humans are influencing that data by emitting greenhouse gases — is an essential part of the landscape and the changes that are happening.

And by embedding that message within paintings, the works become a Trojan horse for science to reach a public that doesn’t necessarily think about data points and models.

“Most of the population doesn’t pay attention to the scientific community and research,” Pelto said. “That’s the group I want to target.”

Continue reading “Painting Climate Change”

Is Oil the new coal?

Probably not, yet. But more evidence of the roller coaster that fossil fuels will probably be on as the world moves away from them, and for Exxon, maybe a preview of what markets may do as the public understands what Exxon knew, and when they knew it, about climate change.

Bloomberg:

Exxon Mobil Corp., one of three U.S. companies with Standard & Poor’s highest rating, is facing its first downgrade in 86 years as the worst crude-market collapse in a generation strangles oil producers of cash.

For Exxon, that would be a historic event: the global explorer that traces its roots to the 19th century and John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust has been rated AAA by S&P since 1930. The oil giant was placed on credit watch with negative implications because its credit measures probably will remain weak through 2018, S&P said Tuesday.

“We get value from our AAA credit rating in our business,” Exxon’s Vice President of Investor Relations Jeffrey Woodbury said during a conference call with analysts before the credit review was announced. “Whether it be access to financial markets or access to resources, there is a benefit that we get from it, and we see it as being important.”

The world’s five largest oil explorers had their credit ratings cut or threatened with downgrade as the market crash undermines their ability to pay debts, dividends and rig leases. For most of the oil industry, slashing drilling budgets and other cost-cutting “are insufficient to stem the meaningful deterioration expected in credit measures over the next few years,” S&P said.

 

Exxon, one of just three U.S. corporations with S&P’s highest rating of AAA, was placed on credit watch with negative implications – #oil

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) February 2, 2016

Bloomberg:

Oil bulls distressed that last week’s rally fizzled can find some comfort in forecasts for a bigger and longer rebound by the end of the year.

Continue reading “Exxon: First Downgrade Since Depression?”

Found video.
Political/economic commentator discussing an issue I (and the NYTimes) brought up in 2014.

When fracking wells are abandoned, many of them can be slowly leaking toxins, or methane, into the surrounding land, water, and atmosphere.  Fracking companies, in a classic “privatize the wealth, socialize the costs” maneuver, simply declare bankruptcy and walk away from wells they’ve sucked dry.

In today’s oil crash, is this practice accelerating? Who will pay?

Reposting from 2 years ago, update at bottom.

NYTimes:

The companies that once operated the wells have all but vanished into the prairie, many seeking bankruptcy protection and unable to pay the cost of reclaiming the land they leased. Recent estimates have put the number of abandoned drilling operations in Wyoming at more than 1,200, and state officials said several thousand more might soon be orphaned by their operators.

Wyoming officials are now trying to address the problem amid concerns from landowners that the wells could contaminate groundwater and are a blight on the land.

This month, Gov. Matt Mead proposed allocating $3 million to pay for plugging the wells and reclaiming the land around them. And the issue is expected to be debated during next year’s legislative session as lawmakers seek to hold drilling companies more accountable.

“The downturn in natural gas prices has forced small operators out of business, and the problem has really accelerated over the last couple of years,” said the governor’s policy director, Shawn Reese. “Landowners would like their land to be brought back to a productive status and have orphaned wells cleaned up.”

Drilling companies in Wyoming typically lease land from the state, private owners or the federal Bureau of Land Management, depending on who owns the mineral rights.

The state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission already budgets $1 million a year to plug abandoned wells. And under the governor’s proposal, the commission would appropriate another $3 million over the next four years in an effort to restore property value and reduce the risk of contamination.

The money would come from a conservation tax that oil and gas companies pay.

Continue reading “Repost: Who Will Pay for Abandoned Frack Wells?”

Yeah, I know zika virus doesn’t make women infertile, the premise of the movie “Children of Men”.  Zika just does terrible things to the infant when women do get pregnant.

It may be exacerbated by climate change, and it is now a global epidemic.

Washington Post:

The World Health Organization designated the Zika virus and its suspected complications in newborns as a public health emergency of international concern Monday. The action, which the international body has taken only three times before, paves the way for the mobilization of more funding and manpower to fight the mosquito-born pathogen spreading “explosively” through the Americas.

Zika, first identified more than 50 years ago, has alarmed public health officials in recent months because of its possible association with thousands of suspected cases of brain damage in babies. The WHO has estimated that the virus will reach most of the hemisphere and infect up to 4 million people by year’s end.

According to the latest figures on the epicenter of the outbreak, Brazil has 4,000 suspected cases of microcephaly, with 270 confirmed with evidence of an infection.

The WHO declaration represents its highest level of alert and is only invoked in response to the most dire threats. The first time was in 2009 during the H1N1 influenza epidemic that is believed to have infected up to 200 million worldwide; the second in May 2014 when a paralyzing form of polio re-emerged in Pakistan and Syria; and the third in August 2014 with Ebola in West Africa.

Business Insider:

The first case of the untreatable Zika virus being transmitted sexually has just been confirmed, NBC reports.

This is the first time the Zika virus has been transmitted in the US. The Zika virus has been detected in at least 31 travelers returning to the US in 11 states and Washington, DC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week on a conference call with reporters, adding that it expected those numbers to rise.

The case happened Dallas County, Texas after the patient had sexual contact with a person with Zika that had just returned from a country where the virus is being locally transmitted. 

There is no vaccine or treatment for the virus, though the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases expects early trials of a potential Zika vaccine to start by the end of this year. The virus is mainly transmitted through mosquitoes, though it’s been documented as a potentially sexually transmitted disease as well.

Climate Central:

The rapid rise of the Zika virus is turning into a full-on public health crisis. The virus, transferred via specific types of mosquitoes, “is now spreading explosively” across Latin America, according to Margaret Chan, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO).

There could be up to 4 million cases right now, just eight months after the first case was reported in Brazil. There are 23 countries where the virus is active. Continue reading “Children of Men: Zika is Now an Ebola-Level Global Emergency”

Are low oil prices good or bad news for climate change?

Mixed bag.  Low gas prices could depress demand for electric cars.
But the same low prices make extraction in the frontier areas, tar sands, shale, deep ocean and arctic, unprofitable.

Like the last flares of a dying star, the fossil fuel industry will be on a vicious rollercoaster in coming years.

New York Times:

The newest measure of the oil industry’s falling fortunes came on Tuesday in the form of a $3.3 billion fourth-quarter loss reported by BP.

For all of 2015, BP said it lost $6.48 billion, compared with a profit of $3.78 billion in 2014 — before plummeting oil prices began taking their full toll.

Exxon Mobil, the industry’s largest player, reported a 58 percent decline in its quarterly profit, hurt also by the fall in oil prices. The results beat analyst estimates but Exxon’s profit of $2.78 billion was down from $6.57 billion the year before. Its exploration and production business lost $538 million in the United States, though its total global upstream earnings for the quarter were $857 million.

Minnesota Public Radio:

After years of growing revenue, North Dakota state agencies need to trim their budgets in response to a revenue shortfall.

Weakness in the oil and agriculture sectors dropped state revenue more than $1 billion below expectations, prompting Gov. Jack Dalrymple to tell state agencies they need to cut their budgets by $245 million.

“After 15 years of receiving almost entirely good news about the growth of revenues in North Dakota it seems strange to hear that things have gone in the other direction,” Dalrymple said, adding the cut of just over 4 percent “was the maximum reduction we could make without causing unacceptable negative impacts on sensitive areas such as medical services and prison security.”

The state will add those cuts to $498 million from a budget stabilization fund and a projected $332 million budget surplus to balance the budget.

That means the state will be left with no surplus at the end of the current two-year budget cycle which ends in 2017.

State agencies have about two weeks to decide where to make those cuts.

Business Insider:

The plunge in oil prices is already having far-reaching effects on countries whose economies are dependent on oil exports.

But in Iraq, the stakes of cheap oil are even higher than in Saudi Arabia, which is instituting unprecedented taxation and austerity, or in Nigeria, which is now asking for an $11 billion World Bank loan.

What little remains of Iraq’s government and social order might collapse if oil remains in its current price trough — with dire consequences.

According to a Monday AFP report, Iraq is now selling oil at half of the country’s apparent fiscal break-even price. Right now, Iraq is selling its oil at around $22 a barrel, half of what it would need to fetch for the country to be able to fund the upcoming year of government budgetary obligations, the report said.

Continue reading “Fossil Fuel Rollercoaster to Nowhere Clatters On”

Seems like a rash of attacks on the teaching of biology, in tandem with atmospheric science.
No way the fossil fuel industry has anything to do with this.

It’s cyclical, that’s all. A natural process.

Idahoednews:

A pending rule covering new science and humanities standards is in limbo, after the House Education Committee complained about the public input process surrounding the creation of the standards.

Committee Chairman Reed DeMordaunt, R-Eagle, led Tuesday morning’s effort to reject the rule.

The rule addresses numerous academic standards, including science standards pertaining to the age of the Earth, the creation of the universe and global warming.

The State Board of Education approved the rule containing the standards on Aug. 13. Written comments were accepted through Oct. 28, according to state documents.

DeMordaunt told fellow committee members that more public input was needed on the front end of the rulemaking process. He stopped short of saying that existing laws and rules were violated, and said it appears legal notice for public comment was provided.

Will Idaho block adoption of new science standards because of climate change denial? https://t.co/eZNGEYewSp

— National Center for Science Education (@NCSE) February 2, 2016

“As I look at this rule and drill down with the parties involved, I feel we can do a better job than what we’ve done in terms of getting feedback from our citizens with regard to this,” he said during the meeting.

After the meeting, DeMordaunt told Idaho Education News that he and other committee members simply preferred a more robust comment process.

“It is my belief that this wasn’t done in the best way possible,” DeMordaunt said. “It doesn’t mean they weren’t good standards. But before we ever talk about content, we’ve got to be assured the process is open, transparent and invites the public participation.”

Neither DeMordaunt nor other committee members complained about the public input process regarding a suite of unrelated rules they addressed Tuesday.

And committee members barely mentioned the content of the standards. However, Rep. Lance Clow, R-Twin Falls, said language that said human activities have “significantly” altered the biosphere was “troublesome to some people.”

“Significantly?” Clow said. “Compared to what? … I think you could write standards without using some of that terminology and still have appropriate science standards.”

Below, Eugenie Scott, former director of the National Center for Science Education talks about the parallels between climate deniers and evolution cranks.  “It’s really not about the science.” Video from the new “Scientists on Climate Change” video playlist. Continue reading “Creationists Now Attacking Climate Science in Idaho”

Above, I show how climate deniers like Harrison “Jack” Schmitt welcome evolution denial into our education system, in an alliance with far right wing fundamentalists, in order to further the fossil fuel industry’s narrative.

I interviewed Schmidt at the Heartland Climate denial conference in Chicago, 2012, and have included part of his lecture touting the virtues of education “reforms” that teach kids the earth is 5000 years old.

Boing Boing:

Every year, like clockwork, longstanding Oklahoma legislators in the state’s house and senate introduce bills that try to find a way around the prohibition on teaching Biblical Creationism in American public schools.

These bills have been subjected to evolutionary pressure over the years, cross-breeding, mutating and speciating as their tactics are predated upon by courts and fellow legislators, and as such, watching each fresh crop of bills emerge is a bit like discovering a few more Galapagos finches and working out the unique environmental pressures that gave rise to them.

For five years in a row, State Senator Josh Brecheen has introduced Creatonism education bills, declaring that he wanted “every publically funded Oklahoma school to teach the debate of creation vs. evolution.” The latest one, SB1322, climbs down from any explicit mention of Creationism, limiting itself to immunizing teachers who discuss the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories.

Meanwhile, Republican rep Sally Kern’s HB3045, characterizes many branches of science — biology, chemistry, meteorology, bioethics, and physics — as “controversial” and allows science educators to teach any “facts” about these disciplines that they believe to be true, without regard to any kind of scientific consensus about objective reality. Although the three predecessors of this bill explicitly mentioned religion of their motivating factor, this version of the bill explicitly declaims any religious intent, and insists that it has no common ancestors with those exinct species that failed to pass evolution’s tests.

The Legislature further finds that the teaching of some scientific concepts including but not limited to premises in the areas of biology, chemistry, meteorology, bioethics, and physics can cause controversy, and that some teachers may be unsure of the expectations concerning how they should present information on some subjects such as, but not limited to, biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.

The bill responds to that uncertainty by ensuring educators can just teach whatever they want as long as they think it’s science, and nobody can discipline them. Students, meanwhile, cannot be penalized if they “subscribe to a particular position on scientific theories.” And the author makes sure to point out that none of this has anything to do with religion, just in case a casual reader ended up confused by its similarity to earlier bills with overtly religious motivations.

Continue reading “In Oklahoma, and at Heartland, Climate Deniers Hate Evolution, too”

Above, the most popular video in the playlist of scientist interviews I have now organized.
As custodian of what is becoming a historically significant archive of plain-talk science perspectives on the most important issue of the millennium, I’ve felt compelled to get as many clips from my scientist interviews off my hard drive and into the public domain.

Most of these clips reside in a kind of utility Youtube account I started a few years ago to hold stuff that was raw material for longer vids, some which didn’t quite make the “Climate Denial Crock of the Week”, or “This is Not Cool” series cut, or some that made it to blog posts, but not longer vids.

But up until this week, I had not made them as easily accessible and searchable as they are now.  So far, 80+ interviews in the series, everything from Michael Mann on “hide the decline”, to John Cook on the 97 percent.

I’m still going through the trove, but it’s slow – there are more than 800 total vids in this stash.
I’m posting a few more gems here. Continue reading “New Resource: Scientist Interviews Playlist”

In last week’s debate, Fox News asked a climate question. Somewhere in Hell, baby demons are freezing to death.

Dana Nuccitelli in The Guardian:

In the 2016 Republican presidential candidate debates, climate change has rarely been discussed. In last Thursday’s debate, the last before tonight’s Iowa caucus votes, on Fox News of all networks, there was one brief climate question directed at Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL). Unfortunately it was framed as a ‘gotcha, flip-flop’ question, with Rubio asked about his apparent support 8 years ago for a carbon cap and trade system in Florida, versus his current opposition to the concept. Rubio responded:

I have never supported cap and trade and I never thought it was a good idea. And I was clear about that at the time.

And I do not believe it’s a good idea now. I do not believe that we have to destroy our economy in order to protect our environment. And especially what these programs are asking us to pass that will do nothing to help the environment, but will be devastating for our economy.

When I am president of the United States of America, there will never be any cap-and-trade in the United States.

In another debate 4 months ago on CNN, Rubio made similar comments, adding:

America’s a lot of things, the greatest country in the world, but America is not a planet. And we are not even the largest carbon producer anymore, China is, and they are drilling a hole anywhere in the world that they can get ahold of.

Fact checking Marco Rubio

Politifact ruled it “mostly true” that Rubio never supported cap and trade. However, the rest of his comments are mostly false.

First, “blame China” is no longer a viable option. Despite having much lower cumulative historical carbon emissions than the USA, China has agreed to take serious action to curb its coal consumption and carbon pollution, and has announced that it will launch the world’s largest carbon cap and trade system. Using China to oppose an American carbon cap and trade system simply doesn’t make sense.

Continue reading “Cold Day in Hell Proves – There is No Climate Change.”