Month: May 2019

New poll showing increased support for climate action, especially an increase among young Republicans.

It’s from Frank Luntz, famous for many a Fox News focus group, as well as the infamous “Luntz Memo”, which instructed GOP candidates on how to deal with global warming as an issue, but creating doubt, and calling it “climate change”. See video above for more on this.

Significantly, the poll shows support for a “Carbon Dividends Plan” – which is also known as a “Carbon fee and Dividend” – a carbon tax.

NATIONAL SURVEY RESULTS ON THE CLIMATE LEADERSHIP COUNCIL’S CARBON DIVIDENDS PLAN

Carbon Dividends Plan has majority support across party lines – including 4-1 supportoverall, 2-1 support from GOP voters and 75% support from Republicans under 40.

By a margin of more than 8 to 1, American voters are more worried about climate than they were just one year ago.

With concern about climate change increasing in both parties, 60% of voters want Congress to take a new approach.

4 out of 5 of voters want Congress to put politics aside and reach a bipartisan solution.

69% of GOP voters are worried that their party’s stance on climate change is hurting them with young voters.

60% of Democrats are open to trading existing regulations for a market-based solution.

Climate Progress:

A new survey finds Republicans under 40 support a carbon tax 7-to-1. And a remarkable 85% of Republican millennials are concerned that “the current Republican position on climate change is hurting the party with younger voters.”
But what makes this result so striking is that the survey was conducted by Frank Luntz, a top GOP strategist and pollster. Luntz wrote an infamous memo in 2002 detailing the exact words conservatives should use if they want to sound like they care about climate change without actually doing anything about it.
Luntz, for instance, is the one who urged Republicans to use the phrase “climate change,” arguing that it is “less frightening” than “global warming.”
Significantly, Luntz’s firm, which has been polling this issue for decades, reported this week that a Carbon Dividend Plan — which charges fossil fuel companies for their carbon emissions and rebates the money directly back to the public — is uniquely popular.

Continue reading “Top GOP Pollster: Climate Concerns Rising Among Republicans”

Or maybe not?
Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, stories like this give me hope.

Michael Bäcklund is 16 years old and the global outreach director of strike4future-Israel. If you wish to help the Israeli strikers, you can contact them on @strike4future_israel. You can also email strike4future.israel@gmail.com.

Climate Change News:

The Israeli school strike branch had a very successful strike on Tuesday, which was three times bigger than the last one in March.
It was the first sitting day of the new parliament. We had over 500 students marching and shouting slogans in front of the prestigious Knesset in Jerusalem.
We had Arab Palestinians and Jewish Israelis participating together. We have multiplied our following on social media and we have started to plan social media campaign with celebrities. We have also been asked to do a bunch of television and newspaper interviews.

We formed our movement in December and it has been now going on for almost half a year. But despite our growth we have struggled to convince the Israeli people, who are focused on our domestic political problems.
In our national group, the Israelis and Palestinians are not allowed to mention the political situation. We feel that in order to defeat something much bigger than us, we must put the unfortunate hatred aside and focus on what actually matters the most: saving the world from an ongoing climate breakdown.

In Israel, society prioritizes political conflicts over action against climate change. Because of this, our school system teaches us practically nothing about the threat the climate poses. An overwhelming majority of teens don’t even know that by their thirties they are going to face a point of no return.
So even though we had three times more people gathered this week, even though we have countries announcing climate emergencies for the first time in history and even though one Knesset member Miki Haimovitz supported us in her first speech to parliament, we cannot rest nor celebrate.
We have 300,000 more teens to reach in Israel, and more than 190 countries that need to declare the emergency as well. We’ve got 119 more Knesset members to convince, 119 members to show that our future is precious, 119 to show that we matter. Because apparently in the prestigious building they do not think that we matter enough.
Our message that we have been trying to channel now for months is if the government truly prioritises security over social services, education and anti-poverty policies, it simply cannot turn its back to climate breakdown.

Continue reading “For Young Israelis: Climate More Important than Conflict”

Denial is a helluva drug.

My friend Marc Morano spends, I am sure, more time attempting to fog the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, than any other issue.

That’s because he knows that when people find out how overwhelming that consensus is, they become much more concerned about climate change.
I’m sure Marc has never actually talked to the scientists who did that work, as I have.

And, Mr Morano might not realize that even 40 years ago, researchers at Exxon knew very well that such a consensus existed, even then.

Continue reading “97 Percent Consensus Still Driving Deniers Crazy”

I wouldn’t bet on it.

Cool idea, but better to stop emitting.

Musically, this tribute to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson holds up.
It came to me as an ear worm in the middle of the night, so I pulled it up on the phone.
By the time is was over, I was in tears. True story.
Must be losing it.

Marvin, he was a friend of mine
And he could sing a song, his heart in every line
Marvin sang of the joy and pain
He opened up our minds, and I still can hear him say
“Aw talk to me, so you can see, what’s going on”
Say you will sing your songs forevermore

[Refrain]
Gonna be some sweet sounds, coming down on the nightshift
I bet you’re singing proud, I bet you’ll pull a crowd
Gonna be a long night, it’s gonna be all right, on the nightshift
You found another home, I know you’re not alone, on the nightshift
You found another home, I know you’re not alone, on the nightshift

Climate geeks will find this elementary – but not everybody is a climate geek.

Deke Arndt on Twitter:

The pretty graphic upthread is the annual global temperature anomaly (or departure) from the 20th century average. Each red dot is an individual year. Dots above the black line were warmer than the 20th century average; dots below were cooler than the 20th century average.
Pink bars are decadal average anomalies, very simply the average of the ten red dots in a decade. The most recent decade is in a different shade because it’s the current one, and partly it only has 9 member years. It’s getting warmer, but that’s not why we’re here right now. 3/n
We’re here to look at base periods, and how they [DON’T] affect things. Here’s the very same data, but with pretty red circles plotted as less pretty blue and red bars. Same logic applies. You can click this here very graph in CAG:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/global/time-series/globe/land_ocean/ytd/12/1880-2019

The trend since 1880? 1.26 degrees Fahrenheit per century (0.70 deg Celsius). 5/n
Sometimes, this data is plotted versus the 1981-2010 average (often called “normal” – a problematic but historically entrenched term). The red circles are lower; because they’re being compared to the warmer 1981-2010 period. But the trend is identical: 1.26 deg F / century. 6/n

Continue reading “Temperature Graphs: Why Baselines Matter”

Worth spending a little time with.

Blow this up to full screen and take it in. Visualizations have been a huge boon to scientists, and have opened up scientific concepts to a wider audience, allowing us to perceive things in a visual, rather than solely mathematical language.

Robert Rohde, the creator of the above, is, of course, a genius.

I know it’s fashionable to get your alternative facts from Facebook and internet rumors, but I still prefer the old fashioned way – asking people who know stuff.

I asked a number of local officials in communities with wind farms, and one Audobon Society expert, if there are any negatives for wildlife from having a wind farm nearby.