Month: October 2020

One of the sad realizations we’ve had in the past 20 years, as scholars have taken a close look at the human ability to deny reality, is that, even when conspiracy theorists are confronted with empirical evidence that their ideation is objectively untrue, rather than relenting and rethinking, they double down.

Raw Story:

President Donald Trump is hospitalized after testing positive for coronavirus but his base still refuses to accept that the reality of the situation: coronavirus is real.

Many of Trump’s supporters are already circulating conspiracy theories to downplay the spread of the virus. Others are attempting to justify how the president may have contracted the virus insisting someone may have “planted it,” according to The Guardian.

Guardian:

Sean Patterson is not worried that Donald Trump has been hospitalized with coronavirus because he believes what the president tells him.

“It’s a hoax. There’s no pandemic. As Trump said, how many millions die of flu?” said the 56-year-old truck driver outside the early voting station in St Joseph, Missouri – a stronghold for the president.

But then Patterson pauses and contemplates the possibility that Trump really does have Covid-19.

“If he’s sick, then they planted it when they tested him. It’s what they did to me when I went to hospital for my heart beating too fast. Two weeks later I got a cold,” he said. “It’s political. I don’t trust the US government at all. Who are they to mandate personal safety? I listen to Trump.”

Jstor Daily:

Nyhan and Reifler devised four studies with college undergraduates as their subjects to look precisely at the power of factual corrections. Part of their study used actual quotes on the issue of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq in the prelude to the 2003 U.S. invasion, and subsequent corrections. (Iraqi WMD were used as the main pretexts for war by the administration of George W. Bush. None existed.)

Some of the students were given corrections to statements of American officials—fact checks, as we now know them. Nyhan and Reifler found that corrections “frequently fail to reduce misperceptions among the targeted ideological groups.” They also found that that the “backfire effect,” “in which corrections actually increase misperceptions,” was also seen. Some people double-down on their misconceptions after being shown proof that they’re wrong. They become more convinced of their opinion.

Continue reading “Backfire: Watching Madness in Real Time”

All but three of the Top 20 Largest #Wildfires have occurred since 2000, with 5 of these large & damaging wildfires occurring just this year. As we enter the fall season, which is known to have the largest wildfires, we want to remind everyone that now is the time to be prepared.

Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula is a full 9 hour drive from where I live in the central Lower Peninsula, almost as far away as New York City, but
it’s where my soul lives.

Because it’s so far away, and the winter roads so unpredictable, I’ve not been there in January until I was invited to speak at Michigan Tech University, in nearby Houghton, last January.

By a stroke of luck, I had an open day, and scored an invite to ride with a trail groomer to the top of Brockway Mountain, which overlooks Lake Superior between Eagle Harbor and Copper Harbor. (winter population 45, so I’m told)
After a cup of coffee at the only open cafe, I hopped in for a 3 hour ride, and the driver was friendly enough to stop at the top and allow me to fly a drone.
A recent storm had left the entire area with a coating of snow and hoarfrost. The blue schmear in the distance is Lake Superior.

Been meaning to pull this together for quite a while, obviously it’s been a distracting few months.

Global Construction Review:

The US could harvest 36TWh of clean energy a year, worth some $4bn in revenue, if states put solar panels on the highway interchange rights-of-way (ROW) they own, a study has concluded.

Most states have more than 200 miles (322km) of ROW at interchanges, around 127,500 acres in area, that is suitable for solar development, finds a new, nationwide mapping tool developed by solar transport innovation group, “The Ray”, and the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas, Austin.

Most states have more than 200 miles (322km) of ROW at interchanges, around 127,500 acres in area, that is suitable for solar development, finds a new nationwide mapping tool developed by solar transport innovation group “The Ray” and the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas, Austin.

For the first time, the tool offers states projections of how much solar power they could generate on their ROWs. As GCR first reported, the study began two years ago.

Putting solar arrays on these patches of unused land would boost America’s total solar power output, currently standing at 69TWh, by 56.5%.

It would also generate cash for states’ departments of transportation (DOTs), the researchers say.

“Interstate solar just makes sense,” said Harriet Langford, founder and president of The Ray, which was set up in honour of her father, Ray C. Anderson. He founded the carpet-tile company, Interface, and became a champion of corporate environmentalism in the 1990s.

“Like my daddy used to say, this is ‘so right, so smart’,” Langford added. “As our transportation systems become smarter and electrified, we will need more energy available, closer to the interstate and interstate exits, and more funding to support the infrastructure demands. By enabling renewable energy generation using the idle roadsides, our DOTs can help to fill this gap.”

Their analysis found that most states have ROW solar potential in the hundreds of GWh per year. Texas, Illinois, California and Florida lead the pack with their potential for more than 1,500 GWh/yr each.

This morning’s news brought this to mind.

Continue reading “Music Break: Emmylou Harris – Sin City”

As soon as I saw that Tucker Carlson had a rather suspect quotation from Daniel Swain, someone I’ve been following for a while, I knew there was something more to it. 

So I called Daniel, and some other friends as well.

The resulting vid has been retweeted by the Senior Editor of MIT Technology Review, you’ll see why in the vid.

https://twitter.com/jtemple/status/1311850405987377152?s=20

In interviewed Jonathan Overpeck, now Dean of the School of Environment at the University of Michigan, (I’m a Wolverine myself..) following the Australian fire disasters of last year, but his comments will make their way into the upcoming Yale video, on California fires, as well.
He made some good points as well about the impact of global heating on droughts, and mega-droughts.

CBS News meteorologist and climate specialist Jeff Berardelli says climate change is going to get worse and worse over the course of time: “We think this is the worse we’ve ever experienced. But this is maybe the best we will ever experience in the future" https://t.co/y6oImWDnmH pic.twitter.com/7gY2BRKBCb

— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 1, 2020

UPDDATE: Full clip below –

Continue reading “CBS: For Climate, 2020 Disasters are the Good Old Days”

Above, Fox & Friends getting nervous about climate change shows the issue is penetrating even very thick skulls.

New York Times:

In the homestretch of a 90-minute, insult-laden brawl that only occasionally veered into detailed policy specifics, Chris Wallace, the moderator of Tuesday night’s presidential debate, sprang a surprise: Nearly 10 minutes of pointed questions on a subject that has almost never been addressed in any general presidential debate.

Climate change wasn’t even on the menu. Mr. Wallace had not included it on the list of topics to be discussed.

That fact has long been seen as a reflection of the perception by political campaigns that climate change is a second-tier issue, a matter of concern to niche environmentalists but not to the general public or the crucial swing-state voters who decide presidential elections.

It would appear perceptions have changed.

“Climate change is usually an orphan issue,” said Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University. “The fact that it got raised at all last night is showing that it’s starting to get some of the national stature it deserves and is no longer just a niche Democratic left concern.”

The questions Mr. Wallace asked were pointed and specific, though the answers were less so. He pressed Mr. Trump to publicly state his specific view on whether humans contribute to climate change, to which he responded: “A lot of things do. To an extent, yes.”

Mr. Trump, as he has before, spoke about his desire for “crystal clean air and water,” while failing to reconcile those with his administration’s rollback of over 100 environmental rules, many aimed at protecting clean air and water.

Mr. Biden sought to portray himself as a champion of renewable energy, while at the same time also attempting to distance himself from the Green New Deal, even though that proposal has informed his sweeping plan to spend $2 trillion on green initiatives, an idea that is likely to gain little traction in Congress.

“While it was great that climate change was raised, it got contaminated by the insult-mania, with answers kind of ricocheting all over the place and the public not getting a clear view of how we are going to attack this crisis,” Dr. Brinkley said.